A New York Classic: Looking Back

When I wrote my own review of the (now defunct) restaurant in the New York Times, my editor refused to let me say that Ponte's occupied the only block in New York where you could leave a camera on the front seat of your car knowing it would still be there when you returned. It was not, he said, sufficiently subtle.

I was interested to see how other reviewers handled that issue. John Canaday, as you can see, simply called the place "sinister." Jay Jacobs, in his 1983 Gourmet review, put it slightly differently.

And then, just as a reminder of when this review was written, here's an ad from that issue of the magazine.