Add Freemans

Thanks to On The House, Eater readers get a glimpse of the cast staying up to read the reviews after the big show:*

At the end, Taavo was the one that called it. Ten years in architecture and fashion has given him a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to critics. He didn’t stick around to see how the review came out, but he texted me later, “Critics have been slamming the Stones for decades, but they like making music and people like listening to it. Our food is simple, but people like it.  We’re not trying to be Phillip Glass.”

There is something to this analogy, but not everything. Bruni's labored swan dive/degree of difficulty gripe seems to miss the point. Yes, Grant Achatz might offer an interpretation of Devils on Horseback where prune leather was carved into the shape of pentagrams, and served with a dusting of hoof and brimstone, but this ain't that place. Sometimes folks want to hear "Jumping Jack Flash," or, I suppose, "Satisfaction."**

And yet. If in, fact, if there are still critics paying attention to the Rolling Stones, I doubt their gripe is that Mick and the lads do not sound enough like Philip Glass. The beef may be that the Stones have been at it for too long, but if Freeman's were a person, it would still be wearing Pull Ups. In fact, the most damning criticisms Bruni had were for the service, not the food. Based on un-recent experience, the environment of Freemans is not one that encourages people to be excellent to one another, and I imagine spending the duration of a shift, rather than a meal, would only exacerbate this feeling. In any case, if you are running a spot serving twelve-dollar mac & cheese in an alley on the Lower East Side, attitude is an important part of the equation. It is not hard to imagine that the very same hauteur and discomfort*** that keeps the masochists/dedicated followers of fashion coming back for more would be calculated to antagonize a representative of the midtown power elite straying far from the soothing confines of the Time Warner Center. Ultimately, I suspect that this will pass, and that not much Bruni could say could deflect the trajectory of a place like Freeman's.That said, if the Bruni review humanizes the service at Freemans a little but, that's not bad news.

*I feel as if this scene is a staple of many films but can't think of a specific example. Help.
**If I ran Freeman's, the whole staff would be wearing t's tonight that say "Satisfactory." (Admittedly, I thought the same gambit was lame when Julie Powell boosted Mr. Badthings Domino's diss for her slug, but that's diffferent.)
***My visit predated the expansion, so I imagine that the feeling that waiting for a table is like scrapping for a rebound with Maurice Lucas may have diminished.