Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• Armin Amiri's Socialista is closing for good, and Giuseppe Cipriani, of course, is partly to blame. [Page Six]
• Everything you missed at yesterday's porkfest, Cochon 555. [Eater, TFB]
• Masa Matsushita has returned to Matsugen for the next three months. [JGV]
• Tim Zagat chats with the Post about Restaurant Week. [NYP]
• Adam Platt gives two stars apiece to 10 Downing and West Branch. [NYM]
• Wass Stevens has landed himself a role in a BlackBerry commercial. [GS]
• More bad news for chef Gordon Ramsay: His empire is supposedly "crumbling," and he's also been banned from Mario Batali's restaurants for calling him "fanta pants." [NYP, Guardian]

Bruni's Best | Frank Bruni's list of the 10 Best New Restaurants of 2008 is online. Here they are: 1. David Chang's Momofuku Ko, 2. Drew Nieporent and chef Paul Liebrandt's Corton; 3. (tie) Scott Conant's Scarpetta; 3. (tie) L'Impero; 5. Dovetail; 6. Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Matsugen; 7. Adour Alain Ducasse; 8. Daniel Boulud's Bar Boulud; 9. Allegretti; 10. Mia Dona. [NYT]

• Frank Bruni of the Times heads to Elizabeth and bestows a single star on the restaurant that has seen two chefs come and go in recent months: "It has its problems, annoyances and confusions. Just four months old, it has already changed plenty, and it still doesn’t seem entirely sure of what it wants to be." [NYT]
• Danyelle Freeman isn't overwhelmed by gimmicky Delicatessen, and gives the SoHo spot a single star. [NYDN]
• Jay Cheshes of TONY is much more impressed with Delicatessen. Notwithstanding the long waits (and the Charlotte Ronson uniforms), the restaurant gets a four-star review. [TONY]
• GQ's Alan Richman visits Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Matsugen and takes Bruni's side in the critical dispute over the unconventional soba house. [GQ]
• Paul Adams of The Sun pays a visit to Convivio and he's impressed. [NYSun]
  

• Adam Platt isn't feeling much love for Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Matsugen. In this week's issue, he gives JGV's soba house a single star. [NYM]
• The New Yorker spends some time at Eli Zabar's Amagansett Farmer's Market. The conclusion? The prices aren't for faint of heart. [The New Yorker]
• Benjamin Shih, owner of Williamsburg's Royal Oak and Sweet Up's, is opening an LES restaurant, Hotel Chantelle. And he's using a military loan to do it. [NYM]
• The Food Network has a new show in the works that will be a cross between an eating competition and The Amazing Race. [THR]
• NYMag's food blog has lost editor Josh Ozersky to Citysearch. [Eater]

• The war between between Georgia and Russia is having an impact on the local restaurant biz: Russians are avoiding Café Georgia in Brighton Beach. [NYDN]
• After 10 years in business run, Sweet & Vicious on Spring Street has closed its doors although the owners say it's just a "brief hiatus." [Gothamist]
• It's only been open for a few weeks, so why was Sasha Petraske's Kurve closed last night? [DbtH]
• Apparently making cool designs with your latte foam is not only hugely popular, it's also considered an art form. [WSJ]
• Jean-Georges Vongerichten is thrilled about the three-star review that his Matsugen received from the Times in case you were wondering. [Jean Georges Blog]
• Virgil's BBQ is giving away free ribs tonight in Times Square, just in case your Aunt Edna is visiting from Des Moines. [Eater]

• Frank Bruni of the Times gives three stars today to Matsugen (left) for its "obsessive attention to detail." He especially likes the noodles ("never too floppy or too firm") and the "startling" desserts. [NYT]
• The Post's Steve Cuozzo checks out Matsugen, too, but the "ordinary" shrimp and overpriced Wagyu ribeye leave him less than enthusiastic. [NYP]

• Frank Bruni of the Times hands out one star to Persimmon, where he says dining is an "adventure" filled with uneven dishes and "spasmodic" service. [NYT]
• Paul Adams at the Sun is won over by Forge's solidly American dishes, although he wonders if he'll be seeing quality ingredients and a large staff a few months from now. [NY Sun]
  
• Danyelle Freeman of the Daily News visits Matsugen and gives it four out of five stars, gushing about the "astonishingly fresh" noodles. [NYDN]
• Over at TONY, Jay Cheshes is a fan of Matsugen, too: Five out of six stars for his "transporting blockbuster meal." [TONY]
• Robert Sietsema of the Village Voice heads all the way up to Harlem to check out Keur Mame Diarra, a Senegalese restaurant that offers only "three or four choices for any given meal." [VV]

• Frank Bruni hands out two stars to Szechuan Gourmet in Midtown where, he says, "the heat is almost always on, and it comes at you in different ways." [NYT]
• Danyelle Freeman of the Daily News is pleased enough with Sheridan Square to give it two stars, even though the restaurant's chef, Gary Robins, walked out the door last week. [NYDN]
• GQ's Alan Richman pays a visit to Persimmon Kimchi House. Despite some reservations about Korean cooking, he walks away pretty happy with the $37, fixed-price, four-course menu. [Style.com]
• Ryan Sutton of Bloomberg News hits up Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Matsugen, deeming it "a worthy, albeit noisier heir to Honmura An, the Zen-like soba temple that closed last year." [Bloomberg]
• Paul Adams of the Sun checks in on Marc Meyer and Vicki Freeman's Hundred Acres, which was formerly Provence. [NY Sun]

• Frank Bruni finds Midtown seafood stalwart Oceana "still very much worth boarding," handing it three stars and deeming its fish "superbly cooked." [NYT]
• New York's Adam Platt is the latest to shower praise on Scott Conant's meatpacking Italian restaurant Scarpetta, where he give out three stars for the "high-minded, almost priestly brand of Italian cooking." [NYM]
• Gourmet's Ruth Reichl "fell head over heels" for the "gutsy, flavor-forward food" and "extraordinary" pastas at Michael White's brand-new Convivio. [Gourmet]