In one of the earliest reviews, The New Yorker's Kate Julian wrote that, in contrast to the earthy-sounding name, the food and decor "evoke some utopian future where the people have renounced not just meat but also soil, in favor of brightly colored, hydroponically grown produce.

New York Magazine ranked it top restaurant in the Lower East Side in 2018, calling its food "careful, complex, and delicious, but not overly science-y".

For example, she took issue with an early, mostly positive write-up in The New York Times, in particular objecting to its negative description of the lighting, the conduct of its photographer, and for generally reviewing restaurants too soon after opening.

[14] Pete Wells noted Cohen's consistent use of humor in his New York Times review, in her interviews, through her blog, and visible in her professional work such that a "cookbook in comic-book form [seems] not just sensible but inevitable.

Instead, it's a transparent, sometimes triumphant, more often self-deprecating look at how the restaurant runs, including the agony of working with contractors to build the 350-square-foot East Village space and why a salad is $14.