Steve Cuozzo Slams One Day-Old Gaga Restaurant Joanne

Post critic Steve Cuozzo drops in on opening night at Joanne, the new Upper West Side trattoria from Lady Gaga's dad Joe Germanotta and chef Art Smith and immediately files a scathing review of the experience. It smells of "acrid-smelling burnt vinegar," busboys pour still water into sparkling, chef Smith is reduced to bussing tables, the meal stretches on for over two hours, and don't get him started on the food:

Grilled calamari with bitter greens and radicchio were the worst I’ve had in a lifetime of squid-mongering, the salad unseasoned and the calamari like leather. One-note orecchiette with shellfish recalled the flaccid pasta commonly doled out along Long Island’s Jericho Turnpike — or at 35,000 feet.

Unspeakably fatty veal osso bucco was $38. In a review the other day, I criticized the same dish at new Caffe Storico, where it cost only $28. Come back, Caffe Storico! All’s forgiven.

For the record, Cuozzo justified the early review by saying that the owners "with the windiest hype machine east of the Pacific, have been trumpeting the joint for months." And by the way, Tony Bennett stopped in stopped in "looking radiant." So it wasn't a total wash.
· You’ll gag on the food at Gaga’s [NYP]
· Papa Gaga's Joanne Trattoria Opens Tonight on the UWS [~ENY~]

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Joanne Trattoria

70 West 68 Street, New York, NY 10023 Visit Website

Joanne

70 West 68th St., New York, NY