Last month New York magazine’s fine, long-time restaurant critic, Adam Platt, announced—with only a “tiny tinge of nostalgic sadness”—that the magazine would no longer use the one- to five-star ratings system that had been in use since 2008. Instead he and the magazine’s other food reporters will use what he calls “a newfangled by-the-numbers rating scale” of one (“unfortunate”) to 100 (“nirvana”) that will assess “all of the hundreds of tangible and intangible factors that add up to an excellent (or terrible) dining experience, [so that a] world-class deli can sit alongside a top-flight tasting room; astonishing pizza will be given the same weight as life-changing pho, superlative khao soi, or the most elaborate flight of caviar at the most pretentious restaurant in midtown.”
    I’m not sure how this will work out and I’m not crazy about lumping a restaurant like Le Bernardin or Per Se together with a pho storefront or taco food truck. One of many problems with the Zagat vox populi system was that it was very rare to find any restaurants ranked below 21 points (out of 30), which meant “very good to excellent.” And most people merely glanced at the numerical rating and decided whether to visit or not.
    With few exceptions, newspaper and magazine arts critics—theater, movies, ballet, music, painting—do not award stars or numbers at all. When the late Jonathan Gold (below) took the job at the L.A. TImes, he refused to award star or number ratings.  How does one give a high grade to a show like Hamilton, a movie like Gone with the Wind or a performance of Lohengrin at the Metropolitan Opera if there is no textual context? I suppose there are people who would rush to buy tickets to Hamilton without knowing anything about it, but in the case of restaurants, a three- or four-star review is enough to make them hit speed dial to get a reservation ASAP at the hot new place in town. Still, when a play or a movie takes out an ad in a newspaper, magazine or on TV, the stars are splashed across it, usually with a half-sentence blurb containing word’s like “Best of the Year” or “Sure-fire Oscar contender.”
    I, for one, have always opposed giving out stars or numbers, preferring to think that reading my thorough assessment is the only way to really find out the high and low points, the ambiance and service, the noise level and the wine list. When I reviewed for the suburban edition of the Times and later for the Gannett newspapers, I was directed (forced) to award stars but, in the latter venue, tried to buffer my ratings by giving half-stars in many cases where the difference between two and three was a big gap.
    The fact is, most restaurant critics loathe being forced to award stars, lying awake the night before deadline wondering if people will misunderstand a two-star (“very good”) review as meaning “not so hot,” and never give it a try. (The New Orleans Times-Picayune awards red beans.)
    Star ratings for restaurants began as early as the middle of the 19th century, with Murray’s Handbooks for Travellers (later called the Blue Guides) and the German Baedeker Guides. But France’s Michelin Red Guides, which the French Michelin tire company began in 1900 as an aid to chauffeurs who needed both a guide to gas stations and repair shops along a route as well as one to provide their employers with a good meal, became best known for its stars (actually symbols called macarons): One indicated  "A very good restaurant in its category"; Two meant ”Excellent cooking, worth a detour"; and Three identified ”Exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey"—descriptors still in use today. (Back then, to get a star a restaurant had to prepare food for guests’ pet dogs along for the ride.)
    Later on Michelin began using other icons, like “Bib Gourmand” for restaurants serving good meals at a modest price, as well as forks indicating comfort level, wheelchairs for accessibility, even a beer mug for notable beer lists.
    Eventually Michelin came around to providing full-scale text reviews in its city guides, starting with New York. (The country guides still offer only a sentence of description along with the stars.) Nevertheless, when the Guides appear each spring and fall for various cities and countries, the media wait anxiously to be the first to report which restaurants received what number of stars as well as those that lost them. The award of a star or the removal of one can insure either success or failure.  In one infamous example, a chef in France, hearing a rumor his restaurant would lose a star, committed suicide before the guide’s publication, which, in the end, did not demote his stars.
    I’m afraid that, owing to the Michelin modus operandi copied by so many other media, that the stars and numbers are here to stay, especially since people’s attention span has been so drastically reduced by being overwhelmed by online information sources like Yelp and Trip Advisor. Of course, on Amazon.com you can get a four-start rating for a hair dryer.
    Headlines, including the size of the type used, have traditionally been media’s shorthand intended to announce the importance of a story, and I have no problem writing them, such as “Bing Bang Brings Modern Cantonese Food to Tribeca” or “Finally There’s Good Italian Food in Miami.”  Those are meant as enticements to read what I labored so hard to write and to get right. Stars and numbers are not enticements. Instead, they are like flashing lights giving either warnings or alerts, which are reasonable enough for car wrecks and circuses but not for restaurant reviews.

    Once upon a time Manhattan’s Upper East Side was the gastronomic playground of what was long ago referred to as “New York Society.” Very wealthy men and women, arrivistes, fashionistas, shady foreigners with Manhattan condos and oligarch wannabes packed a wide range of restaurants that knew how to cater to the often ridiculous demands for tables, dishes not on the menu and other follies.
    As Barbara Walters once said, “I just had my hair done, so I had to have lunch at Le Cirque,” referring to the epicenter for chic dining in its day, now long closed. Also gone from the scene, among others, are Lavandou, Mortimer’s, Elaine’s, Parioli Romanissimo, Primavera, Le Relais, La Côte Basque, Gino’s, and La Goulue.  This last, opened by Jean Denoyer in 1972, was the quintessential Franco-New York bistro, looking very much like any number of boîtes on Montparnasse, with its butter yellow façade and lace curtains, frosted glass and fin de siècle wood paneling, and a menu of bonafide classics ranging from onion soup gratinée to steak au poivre.
    La Goulue was ground zero for the Ladies Who Lunch, and New York Times critics like Ruth Reichl never failed to snipe at what she (all too enviously) called  “a club [where] there are no dues and no secret handshakes, but its members know who they are. Interlopers are quickly put in their place.”
    However popular La Goulue remained for more than a quarter century, its demise came in 2009, owing to a Scroogey landlord who wanted the space (now a Prada boutique). Many devastated patrons would adopt Denoyer’s other brasseries around town—Ruhlmann’s at Rockefeller Center and  Orsay uptown—but they pined for La Goulue, with Denoyer swearing he would re-open soon, with all the original furnishings he’d wisely put in storage.
    Well, it took nine years, but last winter La Goulue did re-open elsewhere, and to everyone’s delight, it looks today precisely the way it did before, right down to the frog green matchbooks, now, in a smokeless dining room, transformed into little notepads.  The chef, Antoine Camin, is the same. Even the phone number is what it always was.
    What is new is an expansive, beautifully skylighted room to the rear (right) and a clientele that now includes a plethora of real estate developers—which I find ironic, given that one of them had put La Goulue out of business. Few of them bother to put on a jacket, much less a tie, to dine there, though women still dress up for the occasion to meet their friends. Can’t waste a new hairdo.
    Time warps have a great deal of appeal for those of us old enough to remember La Goulue fondly, even if we weren’t part of that imaginary club. Its timeless Parisian beauty is part of the allure, but, especially for those who’ve  never been to the restaurant before, it now epitomizes a rare, civilized ambiance that begins with a grand welcome at the door by the ebullient operating partner, Craig Pogson (left), himself a veteran of the earlier incarnation, whom the restaurant’s website calls “the naughty Maître D’Hotel of the fabulous ‘90’s.”  Perhaps he was, but today the impeccably dressed Pogson beams out far more savoir-faire than he does out-of-fashion naughtiness. He checks on your table throughout the evening, handles requests with aplomb and invariably meets you as you exit, saying, “Now, remember, this is your home away from home!”
    That, coupled with first-rate service by a young staff, might be enough to maintain old-timers and win new converts to La Goulue, but I’m very happy to report that the food, albeit much the same menu as before, has been improved and refined without losing any of its linkage to French bistronomy.
    I doubt you’ll find a more rigorously authentic soupe à l’oignon gratinée aux deux fromage ($15) than chef Camin’s perfectly browned version of caramelized onions, while tartare de thon “La Goulue” façon Japonnaise ($24 or $36) is a welcome novelty made with tuna instead of beef, well spiced with wasabi miso, coriander and crispy tempura. (Beef tartare is available as a main course.) A hearty winter’s terrine of duck and cèpes ($17) comes with a crisp golden pastry crust just thick enough to matter in the cooking and thin enough to enjoy as part of every bite. Sadly, the restaurant’s signature cheese soufflé ($28) is available only at lunch, which is good enough reason for me to return at midday.
    Rarely do I order salmon because it is invariably farm-raised and muddy tasting, but La Goulue’s wild Scottish salmon, pale pink, not orange, served with pecans, delicata squash and citrus jus ($35), redeemed my affection for the species.  So, too, was loup de mer (mis-named and mis-spelled on the menu as “bronzino” on the menu) delicious, with levels of flavor gained from quickly roasted cauliflower and a tangy citrus-saffron vinaigrette ($36).  Carré d’agneau ($48) came as a generous loin of Colorado lamb with dreamy fondant potatoes and a bite of chimichurri.
    And so we come to Le steak au poivre vert de Madagascar ($48), once ubiquitous on French menus, now rarely encountered.  La Goulue’s version, made from excellent beef with a creamy reduction flecked with green peppercorns (left), reminded me how much I miss this dish, and a plenitude of perfect frites clinched my high opinion of it.
    For dessert the classics endure: light-as-air île flottante bobbing in crème anglaise ($14); a caramelized apple tart ($15) that tasted very much like apples; and ice cream-filled profiteroles dripping with dark chocolate ($14).  Three cheeses ($23) are also available.
    Pogson proudly oversees a wine list filled with bottlings, especially Bordeaux, that he wants his guests to try, so prices are quite reasonable.
    The prix fixe lunch menu is a steal at $32, and there is a light Café à la carte menu available.
    The restaurant’s name refers a Moulin Rouge dancer, née Louise Weber, immortalized by Toulouse-Lautrec, who garnered her sobriquet “La Goulue”  (the glutton) for her habit of slugging down patrons’ drinks.  The woman once called the “Queen of Montmartre” came to a sad, penurious, bloated end, but her colorful bonhomie lives at the New York bistro named in her honor.  In so many delectable ways, La Goulue is a nostalgic reminder of the true gaiety of the good life, now filtered through a New York skylight.

Open daily for lunch and dinner.

BUT AFTER HIS ORDEAL,
HIS SKIN WAS SILKY SMOOTH

Alameda County Sheriff’s Office extracted a 29 year-old near naked man (left) they found wedged for two days inside the grease vent of an empty Chinese restaurant in San Lorenzo, CA, where he was under suspicion of attempting to rob appliances. “We decided to be a little compassionate,” Sergeant Ray Kelly, public information officer for the Sheriff’s Department, told NPR. “We figured he’s been through enough and it is in the holiday spirit.”