Szechuan Gourmet is hot, hot, hot, says Frank Bruni, and he likes it that way — so much so that he gave the place two stars. “It’s fickle, tricky, fierce. It can light a match to your tongue, numb your lips, snap you to attention and do a job on your stomach that lasts a good long while.” [NYT]

Paul Adams gives one of his most enthusiastic reviews in a long time to Haute Barnyard newcomer Hundred Acres. Listen to this! “Hundred Acres is impressive, the kind of place where ‘seasonal’ isn't just a buzzword, but where you actually look forward to returning season after season to see what new ideas are blossoming.” [NYS]

Jay Cheshes, on the other hand, wasn't as impressed by the place. He's skeptical of the whole approach, and the food he found “pretty as a picture and mostly boring as heck.” [TONY]

Benoit misses the mark on one note after the other, but a few dishes pleased Frank Bruni enough for the place to earn a single star. Bruni suspects that Alain Ducasse's heart just isn't in the place, and he's not the only one. [NYT]
Related: Faux French [NYM]

Steve Cuozzo goes hog wild for the quirky, two-week-old Alloro, which served him five of the best pastas he's had all year. [NYP]

Sarah DiGregoiro paints the East Village's Persimmon as a cheaper, more accessible alternative to Ko. And who wouldn't want that? While admitting the place lacks Ko's “experimental edge,” her review of Persimmon's food verges on rapture. [VV]
Related: Kimchic [NYM]

Bad pasta, deafening noise … it's a two-star review for Bar Milano from Frank Bruni, the latest critic to forgive the place for what would ordinarily be fatal flaws in an Italian restaurant. Oh, and the desserts were weak too. But between the room, the entrées, and the drink program, the place somehow scratched out a second star. [NYT]

Lauren Collins is the latest (but probably not the last) critic to put the hurt on Ago, and hits all the points which we've become accustomed to hearing about – the bad food, the snotty service, the preposterous vibe. Can Ago really be that much worse than Bar Milano? Apparently so. [NYer]

Meanwhile, over at the Post, Steve Cuozzo hits Brasserie 44 at the Royalton hard, not for the food (which he really liked) but for the “losers lounge” that is the hotel lobby. Cuozzo seems to take the design deficiencies in the place almost personally: You would think that they had built over his childhood home. [NYP]

In giving both Gottino and Terroir single-star reviews, Frank Bruni probably just set the fuse to a gourmet-wine-bar explosion — which, based on this review, is a good thing indeed. We only wish it had occurred to us to call Paul Grieco “evangelistic” in his wine madness. [NYT]

Danyelle Freeman finds it hard to believe that Scarpetta used to be the Village Idiot, and also difficult to express how much she loved the food there. A whopping four-star review for Scarpetta. [NYDN]

And how about this? Robert Sietsema, who joys in decrying the failings of trendy restaurants, writes an unabashed love letter to Scarpetta as well, without ever even mentioning the spaghetti with tomato sauce, the place's crowning achievement. [VV]

Despite mostly hating the barbecue parts of the Bar Q menu, Frank Bruni found enough to like at Anita Lo's new restaurant to justify giving it two stars, thanks to dishes “eclipsing my frustrations and lifting Bar Q well above its unevenness.” [NYT]

Ryan Sutton lays a merciless beat-down on Scarpetta, even going as far as to call chef Scott Conant's famous spaghetti overcooked! In fact, Sutton did like a few things — a fish here, a pea soup there — but he's not buying into Scarpetta, and puts down his flag with the first vehemently negative review. [Bloomberg]

Steve Cuozzo drops the hammer on Benoit, and from what we're hearing, he won't be the last. “Boring,” “irredeemably dull,” “unseasoned enough for convalescents…” Welcome back to the critical shit list, Mr. Alain Ducasse! Your brief honeymoon with Adour is now officially over. [NYP]

Note to restaurateurs: It's generally a good policy, when Frank Bruni comes into your place, not to pour wine all over the table, make him wait an hour, stick his friend behind a column, and send him waiters who don't know what's on the menu. Because that's how Ago earned a zero-star review from him. [NYT]

Alan Richman is the first major critic to file on Scarpetta and has only the most glowing things to say about Scott Conant's “refined, clean-cut, extraordinarily poised, modern Italian-American cuisine.” A big win for Scarpetta, even though Richman does call out the restaurant for being noisy. [GQ]

Restaurant Girl hits Benoit and, after paying the requisite tribute to its provenance, gets around to saying that the food there is completely unexceptional in every way. Its two stars seem like a gift. [NYDN]

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]

It's hard to convey non-disappointment as the tonic note of a restaurant review, but Frank Bruni pulls it off in a strong, two-star endorsement of the Harrison. The only fault is Jimmy Bradley's retro soundtrack which is “neither classic, nor cool. Just odd.” But we liked that! [NYT]

Peter Meehan makes his way over to Artichoke Pizza, but you can tell he's not really impressed by the slice, which he describes as having “a bready, almost tough, crust, generously and greasily topped.” He likes the guys and all their unreliable shtick but won't say it's great pizza. [NYT]

Pomme de Terre, the tiny bistro on Newkirk Avenue in Ditmas Park, got its first major review and it was a bombshell: three stars from Restaurant Girl for perfectly executed French standards. [NYDN]

Frank Bruni finds Eighty One to be busy, a little vain, but on the whole very good — although he wishes they would ease up with the duos and trios already. Great Bruni line of the week: “[The] oversize red velvet booths that look as if they were carted in from a bordello on some planet where the prostitutes are 12 feet tall.” [NYT]

Amanda Freitag's move from Gusto to the Harrison is now officially a success, as her first major review is a five-star job from Jay Cheshes. Cheshes loves the room and makes a point of praising the “ought-to-be-legendary duck-fat fries with lemony mayo.” [TONY]
Related: Psilakis, Freitag Simultaneously Reinvent Vinegar-Flavored French Fries

Dinner was okay in the early going for Restaurant Girl at Ago, with the pizzas and appetizers doing their job. But then the pastas and proteins came, and with them a string of adjectives — “gamey,” “salty,” “sloppy,” “oily,” and “overcooked” — that reduced the place to a single star. [NYDN]

Momofuku Ko has hard stools, no atmosphere, no liquor, no service, and the food is not surefire on every course. But the food Frank Bruni did get, along with the $85 bill, was enough to get the place its inevitable three stars. [NYT]

“[Chef Daniel] Humm's foams, reductions and drizzles have huge payoffs.” Indeed they do! Restaurant Girl is flabbergasted by Eleven Madison Park's flashy, precise cooking and awards them her first five-star review. [NYDN]

Ryan Sutton also hits Ko and produces more or less the same review, minus the deathles