Restaurant Review: Bruno in the East Village

Funny, I loved Bruno's--the tastes were fresh and unusual, and delicious at the same time. The vegetables appetizer included the best crudites I've ever tasted--I'd love to know how and where they found such sweet radishes (which are usually not my favorite vegetable, by far). It was a treat to watch the chefs cook with ardor and attention a few feet from us at the counter. Yes, the decor is spartan and the lighting is full-on, but in a way both were a tonic--I felt like my attention was then focused on the food. The entire experience felt authentic and unique, although yes, it did take some risks and may not be for everyone...

happy to read a review like this. for the absurd prices we're paying to help subsidize restaurants' exorbitant rents, there are more than a few lackluster, "emperor's new clothes" establishments out there. contra, i'm looking at you.

Ya know why “The dishes will come out as they’re ready”? It's because the dining experience is focused on chefs, not customers. Since they've been lifted from the steaming kitchen to celebrity status, it's all about them. I'm fear Slojkowski and Gulino may not even understand how to improve their customer's experience based on this review.

Try getting a bowl of soup before the rest of your randomly served courses in an East Village restaurant.

Mr.Wells, Great review with some fantastic observations - meticulous and responsible critics like you make me keep my faith in the world of restaurant reviews...More power to you.

To Mr. Wells' editors: if cutlines for photos must consist of excerpts from the review, it would be a fine service to readers if the excerpts actually referred to something in the photo. But that practice, as lame as it may be, is preferable to the one-word cutline "vegetables." Ask your photo editor to pick up the phone and call Mr. Wells for some assistance. I'm assuming we all know vegetables when we see them. Something more illuminating may be in order.

The NYTs should explain the true costs of eliminating tipping and having an automatic 20% administration fee. Voluntary tips are not taxed, while tips included as a fee are taxed. Thus, if the sales tax is 10%, then you pay a 10% tax on the tip. There have been quite a few articles lately about eliminating tipping, but I haven't read a word about the hidden cost of additional taxes to the employees, business owners and customers. All will pay more in taxes when tips are eliminated.

Speaking of comfort, your colleague wrote about his dining experience at The Happiest Hour http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/dining/hungry-city-the-happiest-hour-i..., a one note joint if there ever was one, where he literally had to eat on his knees. And yet that place is a NYT's critics pick and ★★. Pretty fickle.

No wonder the kitchen's focus on looks more than taste, given the food porn of NYT's reviews. I just hope those fermented tomatoes were intended to be fermented.

I have to say that this is one of he more bizarre reviews I've read in this column. As someone who has dined at Bruno's three times, and happily on each occasion, I am here to defend it. The vibe in the restaurant is very cool. The furniture, although it looks to be stiff and awkward, is actually really comfortable... and is designed in a way that works with the vibe of the place.

I don't completely disagree with the reviewer about the appetizers: although they are interesting and feature novel ingredients, they aren't the stars of the menu. That said, neither are they duds.

The pizzas, however, are marvelous~! I thought they were the best I'd ever experienced. And then I brought Italian friends with me and they agreed. They're fascinating and delicious both.

The service could be improved upon but any delays I experienced seemed to be the result of a very popular restaurant trying to handle the throngs.

The prices are actually very reasonable for the quality of the food and the vibe. I was really shocked to read that they were given no stars. They surely deserve at least one if not two.

TN

If I may offer the rather trite observation that when you go to a pizza joint, you should order pizza.

I ate here a month ago and thought it was good. Not brilliant but perfectly good. The food was interesting. Service was friendly and warm. No one will mistake the atmosphere, seating included, for "fine dining". Nor should they; it's a pizza place. This review is 50% criticism of current "food journalism," 50% about Bruno itself. And while I personally agree that "food journalism" is a pretty sad state of affairs these days, don't take it out on Bruno. They're doing what people nowadays want, and doing it well enough to get a star.

Re: Bruno

The review confirms that my pizza of choice remains around the corner; there is nothing here to dispel my opinion that Luzzo's still serves the best pizza south of 14th Street.

Uncomfortable seating, food that comes out when they (not you) want it to, high prices, inauthentic ingredients...but buzz. So in New York it might do well.

"It takes some getting used to, but..."
That's all I needed to read. I don't want food that I need to "get used to". I love to try interesting flavors and unusual combinations, but I have no interest in cajoling myself to keep eating something until I've gotten used to it enough to enjoy it. My time, money and palate are worth more to me than that.

I sat on crates in a friend's apartment during our college days. I'm not doing it as an adult. The use of crates as seats in this restaurant is laughable. Only pretentious, desperate to be trendy diners would welcome being abused this way.

In addition to the flour for the crust, Margherita pizza has just three ingredients: plum tomatoes, soft mozzarella, and basil leaves. I am a stickler for using only the ingredients called for if a cook or chef is making a historical dish. There is no garlic on a Margherita pizza. There is no feta cheese (as called for once by a New York Times food writer) in Pasta alla Norma. There is no turmeric in saffron Risotto.

Italian cooking is simplicity itself. If you're going to put garlic on a Margherita pizza, you haven't made one. You've prepared something else.

If a chef is contemptuous of the basics, quick fame may come in a short burst, but sooner rather than later, that shooting star will fade out.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Mr. Well's whispered secret of prix fixe menus being so much simpler for the kitchen, comes as A Great Revelation. I recently lambasted a local restaurant in the Comments section for their pretentious prix fixe Sunday brunch, where they announced , "We want to make people feel like we're cooking for our friends and family!"

I replied, "I am NOT your friends or family. When I come to a restaurant with my friends, we want to select what to eat individually, not just eat whatever is most convenient and profitable for YOU."

When your pizza "lacks...crunch," it's over. All the fermenting and color-coordinated ingredients will not make it a great pizza. It'll be like eating out of a soft, clammy hand - albeit - one that has the flavor of New York State wheat berries. And those can be eaten otherwise.

Carrot-top pesto? Good grief. That does it for me: scratch this place. What a desperate notion...which does seem to be the theme here--desperation. Desperation to make a splash, desperation to be noticed. Oh, what New York, queen of cities, does to all of us in the creative professions.

I haven't been to this restaurant so I can't comment on the critiques of the food BUT it is the first review I've read in these pages for a very long time (too long, in fact) where it seems that the proper balance is being given to the food AND the atmosphere AND the service in a way that's reflected in the final rating. It's about time there was some push-back on these trendy places that think they can get away with providing crates for customers to sit uncomfortably on and call themselves a "restaurant". Likewise, pretty pictures do not a good restaurant make and while I'm not (entirely) against innovation in food, when it comes to pizza I really do think that the Neapolitans got it just about perfect and if there isn't ONE classic pie on the menu here, I think I'll skip it (especially if I can't be guaranteed a crispy crust).

Are they guiding ships to shore with that lighting?
Whitewashed crates for seats at the counter? High decibel conversations? Sounds like this should be a review from The Onion instead of the NYT.

I live a block away... Good pizza but twice the price of others in the neighborhood with three times the attitude. And you have to sit on god awful wooden torture seats.
Please, take the attitude down a notch and also give some comfortable seats...

As a life-long New Yorker of Italian ancestry, I must state that none of my female relatives in this country ever milled her own flour for pizza - yet the pizza each produced was superlative.

Thus I'm disposed to avoid Bruno's because this "artisanal" approach (milling one's flour in a basement on East 13th Street) sounds both pretentious and ludicrous to me.

The choice of ingredients is certainly unusual, to quote the sliudes: country ham and sliced peaches, a sauce that incorporates sweet, juicy garlic and some fermented tomatoes, vegetables that seem to have more flowers (edible?) in them, and a mushroom pizza made of unspecified mushrooms.

Are the uncomfortable seats aimed to make the clients' stay as short as possible?

Let me get this straight. Mr. Wells drops 2 stars on Superiority Burger, a *burger* joint, and then backhands other critics for overpraising Bruno?

That's rich.

"It’s hard to explain how great something tastes, but easy to show how great it looks, and in the short run, contemporary food media rewards the latter." Here, in a pithily worded nutshell, is yet another reason why some of us will go to our graves preferring print!

Just goes to prove the axiom: You can get a better meal, cheaper, at home.

Well we had an excellent dinner there Sunday evening - two delicious appetizers - the fairytale eggplant and the diver scallops; one margherita pizza; and one pasta with collards, clams and bacon. Service was efficient, smiling and warm. Wine and beer was interesting, if the usual NYC over-priced. We sat at a table, the seats weren't sooooo bad - although those stools do look brutal to this 60 year old. We were, of course, the oldest people in the place, but people were nice to us anyway . . we'll definitely go back. No stars seems a little harsh,, and if you are that worried about overwhelming them early, why not hold for another few months - why jump on the bandwagon?

I'd like to see a lot more transparency about the relationship between restaurants, public relations firms and the media. I accept that in the competitive restaurant world, particularly in big cities, a new restaurant has to have some help standing out from the crowd. But, as I read food writing, particularly on the internet ( an example is suggested by your allusion to David Chang's Fuku and Eater's enthusiasm), I am constantly questioning the writers' objectivity. I wonder how many comped meals, friends and families dinners, press releases and other inducements preceded a rave review. Any light the Times can shine on this issue will make better diners of all of us.