Frank Bruni, the New York Times chief reviewer, ate from coast to coast, scouring America’s newest restaurants (i.e, those opened between Jan 1 and December 31, 2007)

Bruni says:

My trip didn’t shake my conviction that New York is the finest restaurant city in the nation, with an unrivaled range and depth of options. But it was a fresh reminder of all the exciting dining experiences that aren’t duplicated here, and it was a challenge to the smug superiority New Yorkers sometimes feel.

If Bruni breezed in and out and only ate in restaurants open in 2007, how would he know about other city’s unrivaled range and depth of options? Hmm, someone’s displaying the “smug superiority of New Yorkers” we think….

Bruni also says:

New York doesn’t have anything as highfalutin as Guy Savoy, in Las Vegas, which presents the possibility of not only wine pairings but also bread pairings for each course. The breads, more than a dozen kinds, are on a trolley nearly as big as some subcompact cars.

That might be because Bruni downgraded Alain Ducasse at the Essex house from 4 stars to 3 a few years ago, and the place eventually closed down. Apparently Bruni’s loves bread pairings, just not a choice of pens to sign your check (a signature service touch of the Essex House).

Most importantly for Chicagoans, none of our new restaurants made the cut, though Bruni suggests Takashi was in the top 15. Though I’d say Aigre Doux and Sepia were much better 2007 openings than Takashi, none of them clearly met the needs of King Frank. I wonder is Michel Richard’s “bistro and brasserie fare” better than Roland Liccioni’s brasserie fare at Old Town Brasserie? It’s hard to believe one of our own didn’t make the cut. I don’t doubt Bruni took his job seriously, but how much did his subconscious work to supress the windy city, which is clearly the nation’s premier culinary insurgent.