Whose star is rising, and whose star is fading?

Question: Whose work are you watching?

Adam Plattt: New York’s full of-- It’s like writing or ballet or theater. There are great young artists coming to New York all the time. The restaurant business is so vicious that sometimes it takes a while for them to sort of find their footing but recently there have been a few good restaurants that have opened up. There’s a young chef-- There’s a new restaurant called Dovetail which is on the Upper West Side. Fraser is the guy’s name and he worked at a bunch of restaurants in New York I think and even ran his own kitchen- ran the kitchens in a bunch of restaurants, the last one on the Upper West Side and I didn’t think very successfully but at Dovetail he’s the co-owner and the food there I thought was really exceptional especially for the benighted neighborhood that it’s in but there are a lot of great young chefs in New York. Andrew Carmellini is a great young chef. There are a lot of them. It’s often hard to sort of choose who’s the best.

Question: Whose star has faded?

Adam Platt: I review one restaurant at a time and I don't keep track of how they're up or down, up or down. Stars tend to dim as a general rule with expansion and empire building and this-- the odd thing about Chang as I said is he's actually getting smaller instead of bigger but the general rule is that as you expand it's very hard to maintain control of what you're doing. You are making more money but it very hard-- it requires-- you have to be a good-- a great chef but also a great manager and a great businessman and there are certain chefs who are like that. Danielle is like that. Jean-Georges is like that. They actually are able to run quite a large number of restaurants at quite a high level but I think that's the exception rather than the rule.

Recorded: 4/22/08