Week in Reviews

Although he has some issues with the service, Alan Richman is very impressed by Estela, the new Houston Street restaurant from Thomas Carter and Ignacio Mattos. Richman writes: "If there is anything wrong with Estela, it's that it allows too many people to come to dinner, but Mattos's cooking is so exuberant, original, unconventional, and compelling, I don't know how you can keep them away. I don't even know what to call his food. Maybe contemporary, but that's so yesterday. I don't think it's Uruguayan. I've been there, and I never ate anything as extraordinary as this." [GQ]