
Stein's pick: For a restaurant to be truly transcendent, it should do something new. It should be passionate to the point of reckless, personal to the point of pain and brilliant to the edge of failure. Luksus, the strange Greenpoint lovechild of two bearded gentlemen—Daniel Burns, an ex-Noma and Momofuku company man, and Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø, a Danish gypsy brewer — is exactly that. Mr. Burns takes what seems prima facie a puddle of cliches —beards, Greenpoint, tasting menus — and remakes it completely. From his cipollini onion to his chicken oysters, every dish is a new invention, served completely without pretension. Luksus is haute cuisine minus the hauteur, and it totals $150 per person, including beer. Ozersky responds: There is no way I am submitting myself to both tweezer food and a beer nerd at these prices. I'm sorry. It can't happen. |
Ozersky's pick: I was absolutely knocked out by Piora. It's hard for me to think of a restaurant anywhere in the U.S. that does modern tweezer food so ably and is also able to serve the kind of massive, primitive double-rib steak I had for my main course. Piora can beat you high, and it can beat you low. It was only the steak that put it ahead of Aska, whose modernist comfort food impressed the shit out of me; Maysville, on the cutting edge of lardcore; and Costata, Michael White's smartest and most manageable restaurant. Stein responds: Piora, Chris Cippolone's triumphant rebound from Tenpenny, is a tremendous restaurant but a fairly safe one. I do not deny Ozersky his point, nor Piora its excellence, but it is a known thing, well done. It's nothing new and not the best. |