In November, Mahira Rivers and Ryan Sutton — names likely familiar to in-the-know New York diners — started as contributing restaurant critics at The Times, writing brief reviews that award stars to New York City restaurants. Their work first appears on Tuesdays in the Where to Eat newsletter (subscribe here), and each month those reviews will be aggregated and published on nytimes.com and in the newspaper.

The contributing critics adhere to The Times’s ethics guidelines. And like our other critics, they do not give advance notice when visiting restaurants, they visit multiple times and they try to reserve tables anonymously. They pay for all their meals, and strive to have the same dining experience that any customer would.

Here are our first four brief reviews.

ImageAt Chateau Royale, a dressy crowd knocks back martinis as strong as lighter fluid.Credit...Colin Clark for The New York TimesThis sequel to the restaurant Libertine is an enjoyable, if rather rich ode to a bygone era of New York French dining.

Chateau Royale

★

By Ryan Sutton

“In the Beginning Henri Soulé begat Le Pavillon and La Côte Basque,” The Times’s restaurant critic Craig Claiborne wrote in 1969, channeling the Old Testament to trace the evolution of our city’s fine-dining scene. More than 50 years later, his sentiments still feel relevant, especially since the old Le’s and La’s laid the foundations for a buzzy newcomer: Cody Pruitt’s Chateau Royale. The Libertine sequel is an enjoyable, if rather rich ode to a bygone era of New York French dining.

Get your high-acid small plates elsewhere. An edgy neo-bistro, this is not.

At this Greenwich Village carriage house, replete with red banquettes and white tablecloths, a dressy crowd knocks back martinis as strong as lighter fluid. And the chef Brian Young channels the ancien régime with cream, foie gras and Dover sole à la Grenouille. He digs up a recipe for lobster thermidor, and the delicate shellfish suffocates in melted Gruyère. He makes a chicken cordon bleu that, when cut, spills out Comté like a lava cake.

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