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"So, who are Porter and Frye?", I asked the hostess last night. "Do they really exist?" She smiled, then said that various legends about Porter and Frye certainly did exist, and then got straight to the point: no, they were not real. The name was invented by a restaurant consultant. She said it's supposed to suggest a dining experience that is high quality without being fancy, or something like that.

Porter & Frye is the new restaurant inside the Hotel Ivy, described in the Star Tribune as the Twin Cities first five-star hotel. I am not sure how a hotel can have five stars the day it opens - but it doesn't really matter - I used to be in the business of handing out stars myself, and I can tell you that they really don't mean much.

Well, the name sounds very waspy/British to me, and I don't usually associate the cuisine of New England or Olde England with culinary creativity - more with cucumber sandwiches and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and overcooked peas. But the two British names strung together do have a sort of uppercrust ring, as in Currier & Ives, Crabtree & Evelyn, Smith & Hawkens, Abercrombie & Fitch. But I have noticed lately, while shopping the bargain bins, that a lot of companies have gotten wise to this strategy, and there are a lot of off-brands of made-in-China merchandise that carry names like Cholmondeley &Fflolkes, designed to suggest the upper-crust.

Too bad, because it gives the restaurant a bit of a wannabe aura before you even walk in the door. And it clashes just a bit with the image of talented chef Steven Brown, who has crafted a reputation as a sort of culinary Diogenes in search of real food and honest flavors - and has a repertoire that goes well beyond roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

Appetizers to share are priced by the half-pound - from $18 for a sausage plate to $25 for charred ahi tuna and $26 for Alaskan king crab with lemon, capers, brown butter and a cocktail sauce. Entrée prices range from $10 for a medium portion of gnocchi in marinara sauce, and $13 for a vegan preparation of squash and broccoli rabe in a maple tofu sauce, all the way up to $49 for a dry-aged bone-in ribeye and $65 for a surf-and-turf of lobster and New York steak.

We only sampled a few dishes - a beautifully presented arugula salad ($7) with golden baby beets and sliced kumquats in a black pepper and citrus vinaigrette ($7), a very rich and elegant ham hock and rock shrimp chowder, the aforementioned vegan squash entrée (tasty but insubstantial), and a delightful parmesan-crusted walleye ($16), very fresh and moist, and perfectly complemented by a savory lobster risotto. The real highlight of the evening was the dessert - a silky and sensuous panna cotta ($8), served over coconut and passionfruit creams.

I'm not going to offer up any sweeping judgments about the place because it's too early, and I didn't same enough different dishes, but my first general impressions are that the quality is very high - as you would expect from Steven Brown. Some of the prices also seem quite high but if you choose carefully, there are affordable options. I wish I had known about the bar menu, which offers gourmet burgers and pizzas in the $10-$12 range, before I ordered dinner. It's available in the bar and adjoining first floor dining room, but not in the lower level dining room.

Kathy Jenkins of the Pioneer Press reviewed Porter & Frye right after it opened and trashed it, which sparked a lively discussion on MinnSpeak. Is it fair to rate a restaurant so soon? .

I don't think so. (Jenkins has done this before - I spoke to another local chef recently, who complained that she showed up right after he opened and gave him the same treatment.)

When I reviewed restaurants at the Strib, the policy was to write a short just-the-facts Now Open piece as soon as possible after opening, but to wait at least a month before running a real review with positive or negative judgments. Actually, I don't see much harm in running a positive piece based on a very early first impression, (as Rick Nelson did in his Now Open piece on Porter & Frye), but a negative piece can be unfair and damaging.

But this is a case where I am a firm believer in a double standard. Because newspaper critics still have a lot more influence, they need to be a lot more careful - and to hold their fire until the restaurant has had a chance to work out the snafus. But a blogger like little old me simply isn't going to have the same impact, so there is less reason to hold back - and a critical review early on from a blogger can actually serve as a valuable wake-up call for a newly opened restaurant - here are some issues you had better work out before the big guys show up at your door.