Veal with sweetbreads at SD26 (Photograph: Virginia Rollison)

San Domenico’s Tony May has passed the family torch to his daughter Marisa at the new SD26, writes Jay Cheshes, who awards the restaurant four stars. It’s “enormous, modern and frenetic—the opposite of its stuffy forerunner.” [TONY]

Three-star Russian chain Mari Vanna “trades in both pre- and post-Soviet kitsch,” but “you pay for the spectacle as much as for the food.” [TONY]

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Allen & Delancey's strip loin with panzanella (Photo: Lizz Kuehl)

Jay Cheshes gives Allen & Delancey four out of five stars, anointing its newest chef, Ryan Skeen, a “rapidly maturing talent—his food here is far and away his most impressive to date—[it] might soon put him in the ranks of the best cooks in New York.” [TONY]

“Chef Scott Bridi…has a masterful command of [meat],” but Lot 2 would be even better if it paid “more consistent attention” to its veggies. [TONY]

The Standard Grill “is not the place I would send friends who want to study the latest contortions of the yoga masters of haute cuisine. But it is exactly where I would direct anybody who needs to recharge by plugging straight into the abundant, renewable energy source that is downtown Manhattan,” writes Pete Wells in his one-star review. [NYT] Read more »

New York strip steak at Prime Meats. (Photograph: Roberto De Luna)

Jay Cheshes heads to the three-star Prime Meats, where “top-notch ingredients speak for themselves.” [TONY]

Blanca Rincon makes fresh pasta in the dining room of Spina, and while “the fruits of her labor are phenomenal,” they’re worth only two stars when “muddled by poor sauces.” [TONY] Read more »

"Million Dollar" roasted chicken at the Standard Grill. Photograph: Roxana Marroquin

The Standard Grill receives four stars from Jay Cheshes for “big, wholesome flavors at affordable prices,” served in a “warm, weathered setting.” [TONY]

The pies at Veloce Pizzeria are “delicious burnished squares—somewhere between Sullivan Street focaccia and the typical doughy Sicilian slice”–worthy of four stars. [TONY] Read more »

The Standard Grill Chef Dan Silverman (Lever House) presents chophouse fare with a seasonal bent at this restaurant, opening this week in André Balazs’s Standard New York hotel. Affordable dishes include grilled trout with currant-and-pine-nut relish. Menu items are available in both the airy front barroom and the more formal dining room, which features a vaulted subway-tile ceiling and a floor inlaid with pennies. Among the cocktails are drinks named after the city’s public swimming pools (the Jefferson contains Plymouth gin, lemon and lime juice, rosemary syrup and green Chartreuse), and the roughly 100 wines focus on good values from small producers. 846 Washington St at Little W 12th St (212-645-4100)