Three Stars for Marea

Congrats to Michael White and Chris Cannon on their three star review today in the NYT. While I was hoping that critic Sam Sifton might drop a big fat juicy four star on White and Cannon's high-class charmer, three stars is perhaps the more appropriate rating. Sifton sort of redeemed himself in my mind with the Marea review -- it contains some elegant prose, it's informative and fun, with lots of sharp twists and turns of the pen. He's brought his A-game, and didn't even make any awkward references to hip-hop lingo, as did in his two star of DBGB's last week. There was one passage, however, that truly belongs on his burgeoning greatest hits list...[bxA]

On describing a delicious appetizer:

The very first item on the menu at Marea is ricci, a piece of warm toast slathered with sea urchin roe, blanketed in a thin sheet of lardo, and dotted with sea salt. It offers exactly the sensation as kissing an extremely attractive person for the first time — a bolt of surprise and pleasure combined. The salt and fat give way to primal sweetness and combine in deeply agreeable ways. The feeling lingers on the tongue and vibrates through the body. Not bad at $14 a throw — and there are two on each plate.

Sexy Sifty, what have you done?