This week Frank Bruni at the Times bestows one star upon David Burke's Fishtail on the Upper East Side. He finds it both "exasperating" and "amusing...While several lines of type on the restaurant’s elaborately segmented, deeply fatiguing menu trumpet its commitment to sustainable seafood, there’s at least as high a premium on silliness, and exuberance is everything. With Mr. Burke, the trailblazing inventor of the cheesecake lollipop, that’s often the case... He’s as much showman as chef, though he’s a particular kind of showman, happy to act the clown, eager to play the prankster. You get the sense that if, at some pivotal juncture in his past, he had been handed a microphone instead of a spatula, he’d be doing stand-up now." more ›

Minetta Tavern: Every food blogger and his brother is ecstatic about this old restaurant reopening under new management. Why? Because they use trivial dining news as a way to silence all the hungry demons in their heads. Kidding, it's because the place has a lot of history, being 72 years old and located in the romanticized Greenwich Village; and also because the new management in question is unpretentious big shot restaurateur Keith McNally, the man behind such winners as Balthazar and Pastis. If these photo spreads are to be believed, McNally has painstakingly restored the old doll to an almost ethereal level of amber-hued comfort, with an oak bar, red banquettes, and walls lined with black and white photos completing the atavistic scene. The menu is French bistro with a splash of Spanish, and you'll pay for it; cocktails are $14 (just a buck less than at gold standard Milk & Honey), and a burger costs $26. Those with expendable incomes are welcome for brunch, dinner until midnight, and a smaller "supper" menu until 2 a.m. 113 MacDougal Street at Minetta Lane, (212-475-3850) more ›