NY Times Files Double Review On Back Forty, Back Forty West

Back Forty Burger

By James Mulcahy

This week, NY Times critic Pete Wells did double duty, filing reviews on sister restaurants Back Forty and Back Forty West. Peter Hoffman owns both of the spaces, having recently replaced his SoHo restaurant Savoy with a new outpost of his beloved Back Forty, which has been a hit in Alphabet City for years. While Wells comes away impressed with the new digs, the success seems to come at the expense of the old Avenue B haunt. Check it out:

"Over the last month or so, I’ve had a string of extremely pleasant meals at second-generation Back Forty West, and a succession of sloppy, careless ones at the place it was modeled after. It’s as if Back Forty has gone into a long, jealous sulk, like a family cat that responds to the arrival of a new baby by hiding under the couch and scratching at anybody who gets too close."

Ouch. He goes on to laud the new outpost's execution of dishes and veggies and says that "direct comparisons between the two restaurants were nearly always punishing to the older sibling." Check out the full review here.