Restaurant review, Commercial Appeal.

Any practiced restaurant flâneur will tell you that when it comes to dining out, first impressions are almost always correct. The look of a room often telegraphs the intentions of a place, even the contents of its menu, before you’ve even been ushered to your seat. Crystal chandeliers and waiters in tuxedos mean a caviar dish or two, as surely as the smell of hickory smoke means pork barbecue. In New York, where dining genres evolve in endless permutations, this phenomenon is even more pronounced. A red felt rope outside the door usually means the room inside is big and dark, Asian-fusion food is being served, and you won’t be able to hear yourself think. The color red on the walls presages stolid Italian pasta, while hand-cut mirrors and yards of brass rails practically scream “steak-frites.” Which may be why the weary restaurant veteran to my right hadn’t been inside Commerce, the newest hot, hot restaurant in the West Village, for more than 30 seconds before she rendered her verdict. “This place is exhausting,” she said.

Restaurant review, http://nymag.com/