Mouthful - Stars in your eyes

All right gang, let’s see a show of hands: How many of you crack open CL, flip to the food section, glance to see how many stars the restaurant being reviewed has received, make a quick mental note and then move right along to the Blotter? Mm-hmm...just as I suspected...

Stars are the odious tools of critics everywhere. They’re split-second snapshots for readers in an instant-messaging society, telling them, in exceedingly broad terms, whether a restaurant is worth visiting or not — or to what extent a restaurant has succeeded as defined by its own aspirations. They are, first and foremost, opinions.

Every newspaper has its own definitions about the stars it assigns. We work on a five-star spectrum defined as follows:

: extraordinary

: excellent

: very good

: good

: fair

Restaurants that we investigate and find to be below fair generally don’t get reviewed. It’s a waste of print. We don’t usually do a formal review of one-star restaurants either, unless it’s a restaurant of some prominence in the dining scene that is clearly not making the grade.

Five-star restaurants are easy to define: They’re the flawless experiences on every level, the special occasion restaurants like Seeger’s and Bacchanalia that set the benchmark for fine dining in Atlanta. (It’s interesting to note that we haven’t seen a five-star caliber restaurant open in this town in many a moon. Damn this economy!)

Four-star restaurants, such as Joël and Aria, are those places that hover just below the five-star mark. They offer some of the best dining in the city in terms of food, service and atmosphere, and it’s the rare soul who walks out feeling like they’ve had a less-than-wonderful experience.

Below four or five stars is where the bulk of restaurants reside on the continuum. A three-star restaurant is a place where you can generally get a great meal. The food is focused and creative, service is on its toes, the prices don’t make your hair stand on end and the vibe feels right for the experience. Every once in a while, you may get a clunker entree, or the noise level may drive you crazy even though you love the calamari, so you keep coming back.

Two-star restaurants fall into two distinct categories for me: They are either botched three-star restaurants or holes-in-the-wall worth knowing about. In the first category, I mean the kitchens in these reasonably ambitious spots send out solidly uneven fare that usually ain’t cheap. Servers are often inexperienced or apathetic. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have good meals at such places, but it’s likely you won’t be wowed.

In the second category, I am usually referring to modest restaurants that, despite the lack of decor or attentive service, have grub worth seeking out. Sylvia’s Pastry, which I recently reviewed, comes to mind. It’s three-star food: I’m gonzo for the homemade tortillas, and I’d rather eat the food at Sylvia’s than at most any other Mexican joint in town. But the place has three tables and you eat off paper plates, so I define that as a two-star experience.

The bottom line is that a two-star rating doesn’t mean you should skip the restaurant. As with every star-rated venue, it means read the review, visit the restaurant and, if it sounds like something you’d enjoy, visit the restaurant and decide for yourself.

Thoughts on the star rating system? E-mail me at bill.addison@creativeloafing.com