The Times is not done kicking around "neuro-gastronomy" restaurant Romera! First, former food critic Frank Bruni took to the paper of record's op-ed pages to say the Spanish doctor's joint suffers from "food psychosis," and now the paper's new critic, Pete Wells, has filed his own one-star dig at the spot. And? "To eat at Romera New York is to be told repeatedly that you are in the presence of greatness, while the evidence of your senses tells you that you are in the presence of, at best, okayness." more ›

While the rest of the city is occupied with, oh, you know, revolutionary stuff or whatever, the most important news of the century has just been announced: current New York Times dining editor Pete Wells will be the paper's new restaurant critic. Officially. more ›

This week the Times's Pete Wells (filling in before incoming chief dining critic Sam Sifton takes the reins) reviews Hotel Griffou, the trendy speakeasy-style restaurant from veterans of the Waverly Inn, Freemans and La Esquina. He finds the plating "scattershot" and the service "wildly inconsistent." But the place "does have its allures. Each dining room has a different motif, as if the restaurant were trying to ignite a collect-them-all frenzy. A friend described the Library as 'very man-cavey,' outfitted with wooden ducks, a manual typewriter, a fiddle, a saddle, shelves filled with law books, a football that looks as if it was in play when F. Scott Fitzgerald was at Princeton, and four fox pelts." The Times also has a roundup of the new street food vendors, just in time for the Vendys this weekend. more ›

This week the Times's interim chief dining critic Pete Wells takes a hammer to deservedly acclaimed chef Michael Psilakis, whose latest venture, Gus & Gabriel, is inspired by the culinary tastes of his son, TGI Friday's, and whiskey. Wells's review is disastrous, which means it's a fun read: "When three children under age 10 leave their milkshakes almost untouched, you know there’s trouble." The restaurant's "colossal misfires are almost impossible to believe and harder still to explain." Specifically: "Almost every chef in town is experimenting with techniques for building a better burger. Mr. Psilakis may be the only one to have perfected a new technology that magically strips out all the taste. The skin on what is advertised as 'crispy chicken' was as crisp as a balloon, and the biscuits on the plate were wet and doughy, as if the cook had decided halfway through that he would rather make dumplings." more ›