Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Allegretti, the "Flatiron West" white tablecloth joint from Ducasse protege Alain Allegretti. Today, the Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows:
Zero Stars: 5-1
One Star: 3-1
Two Stars: 4-1 √√
Three Stars: 8-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1
What Allegretti has going for it: a chef with a serious pedigree, reports of excellent service, and raves for the French regional cooking from critics as varied as TONY's Cheshes, the RG, Moira Hodgson, and the fickle restaurant old timer herself, Gael Greene. The possible downsides: place is stuffy, the food won't win any ingenuity points, there is a noise issue (a big pet peeve of the Brunz), and the menu features some incredibly lofty prices given the economic climate. Adam Platt and Bruni often find themselves on the opposite sides of the star granting coin, but it should be noted that Platt had a veritable slam for half of the menu just this week, calling one sauce "starchy, Chinese style." While a favorable one is a definite, and more likely, possibility, our gut feeling is that Frankie Two Stars will throw down the two.
· Allegretti [NYT; after 8 p.m.]
√√ denotes the Eater bet.For more stories from Eater, go to eater.com.
