The room looks great and (some) of chef Akthar Nawab's food was great, says Frank Bruni in his one-star review of Elettaria. But both falter for Bruni, who has problems with the way the space flows, and who finds the dishes ranging wildly from brilliant to total letdowns. [NYT]
Related: Restaurant Tour: Elettaria

Restaurant Girl lays three stars on Bar Milano, despite the fact that the pastas are mostly lousy, and the noise is “unbearable.” Except for that, it's great! [NYDN]

Randall Lane didn't even order any pasta but still thought the place worthy of only three stars out of six, with pushy servers and underwhelming meat dishes. [TONY]

Randall Lane made it in to Momofuku Ko and gives the place five stars, gushing, “dish after dish dazzles with class, innovation and balance.” The behind-the-counter action, with David Chang berating a girl cook for the way she wrings a dishrag, maybe isn't “great theater” though. [TONY]

Bar Q “thrilled” Steve Cuozzo “on all visits but one,” when chef Anita Lo wasn't around, which is too bad, since his dishes on the off night mar what might have been a rave review. [NYP]

Robert Sietsema, on the other hand, hits bar Q hard: Lo's BBQ sauce “tastes like it's been dumped out of a white carton from the local Chinese carry-out,” and her “pork wings” “remain flightless because they're heavily coated with cloying Korean ketchup.” Ouch! [VV]

Alain Ducasse's war to win New York seems to be working: Frank Bruni gives Adour three stars, calling it a “qualified victory. It’s not through-and-through rapturous, but it’s first-rate.” [NYT]
Related: L'Obsession [NYM]

Maze by Gordon Ramsay comes in for a thoroughgoing appreciation by Bloomberg's Richard Vines, a Brit who knows Ramsay's restaurants the way New Yorkers know Mario Batali's. [Bloomberg]

Jay Cheshes sees in Elettaria a checklist of downtown tropes — mustachioed bartenders, swank design, of-the-moment ingredients — but it's lacking somewhat in the way the food is conceived and executed, in a three- (of six) star review. [TONY]

The view at Chop Suey is worth a star in itself to Frank Bruni, which is a good thing, because the food is “an uneven mash of inspiration and clumsiness.” [NYT]

Restaurant Girl is happy to have Eighty One on the Upper West Side; if only they did a better job with seafood, she would have been able to give it more than two stars. [NYDN]

Randall Lane is done messing around. This week, South Gate feels his wrath for “mediocre” food such as “gravy sporting the kind of congealed film I associate with bad TV dinners.” Two stars (out of six)! [TONY]