THIS JUST IN, NEW YORK TIMES WEB FRONT PAGER: the bread at Le Bernardin could be better! As the new food critic reaffirms Le Bernardin's four stars, we must note that this is the first time that a complaint about the bread has been made. What a long trip it's been for the little fish shack on 51st street and its ever-present four stars. Let's look back!

Here is the 2007 four-star review; here is Ruth Reichl in 1995. Here is the 1989 revisiting. Here is the March, 1986 original review, when the restaurant was three months old. (Fun fact: Le Bernardin was mentioned in [...]

"Any moment there's something the guest doesn't particularly like, the first sentence is, 'This is not a four-star experience.' Immediately. It doesn't matter what it is, it's the first thing that comes out of anybody's mouth." —Jeff Katz, Del Posto's general manager, politely notes the truth that, in general, people who eat at expensive restaurants are huge, unnecessary bitches.

Hakkasan is at last coming to New York! The fabled and expensive restaurant, often called the best Chinese restaurant in the world, is opening a fourth outpost in Hell's Kitchen. (And also a fifth and a sixth: Mumbai and Dubai. Genius? A naked pursuit of money? Fun? Shark-jumping? All of the above?) In any event, oh, what wonders you will see! Let me tell you about the Hakkasan experience. First, you should bring headset telephones, so that you may communicate with your tablemates in a manner other than "gestural." Also you should bring an inflated sense of self-regard and a small flashlight. (Also, sure, "hunger.")

But yes, [...]