Pete Wells of the New York Times reviewed Untitled, Danny Meyer’s restaurant on the ground floor of the new Whitney Museum on Gansevoort Street, giving the restaurant two stars and beginning the piece with the following zinger: “If you can get past the name, a graduate-school groaner that I am supposed to underline, but won’t, there is nothing pretentious about Untitled.” (We will decline to underline the name as well, as a matter of solidarity.)
He didn’t have terribly kind things to say about the restaurant’s design–which, like the rest of the museum, is the work of Renzo Piano. The dining room, Wells says, “can look like an espresso shop.” He continues: “At Untitled, you look at a hulking industrial slab across Gansevoort Street. At least it is an improvement on the view from my old desk at Mr. Piano’s New York Times building, where I peered into the dark soul of the Port Authority Bus Terminal.” Ouch!
He was more positive about the food, which needless to say fared much better with Wells than that other art world destination restaurant–Larry Gagosian’s Kappo Masa on the Upper East Side, which received zero stars, and a slap on the wrist for its gratuitous price mark-ups. Wells recommends Untitled’s fried chicken (“very fine meat”), but cautioned against the smoked pork ribs. Duly noted.