Because readers frequently write asking how stars are awarded in a restaurant review, I'd like to share with you my criteria for what contributes to a four-star rating, the highest. The best restaurants offer such a seamless experience that diners rarely focus on what makes the restaurant good, but if things go wrong, everyone would probably agree on what made the restaurant bad.

	Robert J. Pavuchak, Post-Gazette Touches such as gold-edge china plates and the view -- in this case, a spectacular look at the Point from Le Mont on Mt. Washington -- contribute to a restaurant's rating. Click photo for larger image.

The restaurant guide Zagat Survey, considered by most gastronomes to be indispensable (but not available for the Pittsburgh market), divides its rating into four categories. First is food, then decor, service and cost. These four fields are also the basis for a Post-Gazette restaurant review.

FOOD

Four-star chefs are creative. They seek out unusual ingredients and create new and inventive recipes that frequently set new trends. These chefs are several steps ahead of their colleagues. What they are cooking today often becomes available in lesser restaurants a year from now. A top chef is an artist in every sense. He is both composer and musician. He creates a dish and then executes it. A mastery of technique is important, and it helps to have a foundation of classical cooking methods before setting out on a course of improvisations.

Still, the best chefs are those who are willing to take chances. Style of food is very much a matter of personal taste, but I tend to appreciate simple cooking with unusual and quality ingredients. Fresh and local products are important. Too many ingredients make a muddy taste palate. Often a squeeze of fresh lime, a dollop of estate-bottled olive oil and a sprinkle of salt will trump the most complicated classical sauce. Knowing when to keep it natural and when to embellish is key to producing four-star food.

Part of the food equation is an imaginative wine list with a well-chosen selection. I like to see wines from growing regions and countries.

Pittsburgh has a number of above-average chefs. If food were the only feature of the overall equation, we would have more top-rated restaurants. It is other qualities that bring down the scores of our restaurants. Places that I consider to have first-rate chefs are: Eleven, Laforet, Baum Vivant, Red Room, BonaTerra, Abrio, Cento Anni Alla Famiglia, Lautrec and Aqueous.

SERVICE

Service is a key issue, and one is more likely to notice when it is bad than when it is great. It is the area that, in my opinion, is the weakest in our restaurant scene. Great service can make an average meal memorable, but poor service can torpedo a memorable meal.

What do I look for? Good service is attentive but not hovering. I appreciate friendly service but do not want to spend much time in conversation with the wait-staff or to be treated as a close friend. I expect the wait person to time the progress of the meal. There should be a pause between courses. Nothing is more annoying than to have the entree arrive while I am still enjoying the appetizer. Or for the bread to arrive half way through the dinner. Patronizing wait persons are totally unacceptable, especially those who want to tell you what their favorite dishes are.

Since they are not the ones dining, I have never understood why what they like on the menu matters. If I want their advice or have a question regarding a dish, I will ask. I draw the line at being gratuitously told what to order by the server. I am also offended when a waiter responds to my order with, "Great choice." His or her approval of my choice is totally irrelevant.

Even on the basics, Pittsburgh's waiters are sadly un-trained. The "put down from the left and remove from the right" rule is rarely observed. Today's casual service, which comes at the diner from any direction, is the dining equivalent of using "ain't" in conversation. It might be done, but it isn't correct.

The other cardinal rule of dining room service is to remove all plates from one course before bringing the next. I recently was in a restaurant where the chatty waitress took the dessert order and returned with two desserts, which she served while pushing away messy salad plates, bread plates, salt and pepper shakers and a bread basket, all of which she left on the table while we ate our desserts.

It is not unusual to have to request that water glasses be refilled, while waiters love to refill wine glasses and empty the bottle as quickly as possible in hopes of selling a second bottle. This is related to another problem; wine glasses should never be filled beyond the halfway mark to allow the aromas of the wine to collect inside the glass and increase the drinking pleasure.

A glass that is filled to the brim does not allow the consumer to appreciate the complex compounds coming from the wine.

In my opinion, when a wait person is reciting a list of specials that are not on the menu, it is incumbent to give the price of each special.

If there is a table of several people being hosted by one individual, the waiter should be sensitive to and take direction from the person who will be paying the check. A reader once wrote me regarding a dinner he hosted where the waiter, without first asking the host, poured mineral water costing $7.50 a bottle for the entire table after one guest requested it. The host was charged $22.50 for three bottles of water that he had not ordered. Surely in our best restaurants we deserve a higher standard for the service part of the meal.

Among the best-trained wait-staffs in Pittsburgh restaurants are those at The Carlton, Lautrec, Aqueous and Laforet.

DECOR

This category covers more than just the furnishings of the restaurant. It begins with ambience. It can be hip, staid, sexy or dull. It can be mod, retro, elegant or funky. It can be noisy, quiet or in-between.

The noise issue is an important one for me and figures prominently in my overall appraisal of a restaurant, as does the smoke. Both of them can spoil a meal for me.

I consider dining out a social engagement. Part of the pleasure is conversation with my dining partners. If the noise level is such that conversation is difficult, the evening is a loss. I even object to music from overhead speakers. Most people don't require background music when they dine at home. Why add music to the already elevated decibel level of an active dining room?

Any vestige of tobacco likewise ruins the dinner. The growing number of restaurants that offer smoke-free dining looks like a positive trend. Another aspect of the decor is the spacing of tables and the size of the tables. When restaurants crowd their tables or make them too small in order to accommodate more diners, it is the consumer who suffers, and this results in a lower score for the restaurant. The quality of china, tableware and accessories figure into the final number of stars. If a restaurant has an extensive wine list with fine wines, it must use special wine glasses. The glasses should be long stemmed and of thin crystal. The quality and shape of the glass plays a major role in the taste of the wine and cannot be overlooked.

I love fresh flowers but do not feel it is essential to have them on display. On the flip side, it is important not to use fake flowers anywhere in the restaurant. Plastic green plants and dried flower arrangements or wreaths are an instant turnoff.

Lately, there is a trend to scatter a lot of oversized and unusually shaped bottles of preserved red peppers, olives or fruits on any flat surface of a restaurant and call it "rustic decor."

I would prefer an empty flat surface to this not very interesting and unnecessary approach to filling up space. Local restaurants with good decor would include Hyholde, Cafe Zao, all the Nemacolin Resort restaurants, Eleven, Le Pommier and Laforet.

COST

Here we are talking more about value rather than actual cost. We expect to pay more for expensive ingredients and for high-rent neighborhoods. We expect to pay for an extensive wine list, although I cannot swallow the typical 300 percent markups on wine that many restaurants consider their due. By-the-glass prices are frequently marked up 500 percent. I maintain that doubling the cost the restaurateur pays is fair and whenever possible, I patronize places that subscribe to this policy. Sadly, The Carlton has renounced its popular pricing program, which added only $10 to the cost of any wine.

Now you know how I dole out stars. I would love to hear from you regarding your own criteria.