Food Sectional, New York Times: The entree is dead, I tell you! Do you hear me? Dead!

And you thought small plates were a trend? Nay, they're a nefarious plot! Or, as Kim Severson says in "Is the Entree Heading for Extinction?," "The entree, long the undisputed centerpiece of an American restaurant meal, is dead."

Upstarts like the snack menu, with its little offerings of polpettine and deviled eggs, are encroaching from the flank. Crudi, salumi plates and cheese boards have piled on. The appetizer, once a loyal lieutenant, is demanding more attention on menus. Side dishes and salads, fortified by seasonal ingredients and innovative preparations, are announcing their presence with new authority.

But the gravest threat may be the dining public, which seems to have lost interest in big, protein-laden main dishes.

“I think the entree has been in trouble for a long time,” said the chef Tom Colicchio. “Eating an entree is too many bites of one thing, and it’s boring.”

Of course, as the purveyor of a menu that specializes in nothing but bits and pieces that, once assembled, become entree-ish, Colicchio would say that. But it doesn't mean he's wrong. (My dinner at Lucques last night: a beet-carrot salad and a slice of sheep's-ricotta tart. Both appetizers, both delicious.)

Frank Bruni's one-star review of loungeatery Grayz suggests that if the entree isn't dead, no restaurant wants to be caught dead serving one.

“We don’t serve dinner,” said a woman who answered the phone late one afternoon when I called to check if Grayz, a new venture from the justly acclaimed chef Gray Kunz, had its full menu in effect that night. It was Thanksgiving weekend, so I wanted to be sure.

And bar snacks didn’t await me when I showed up several hours later. In fact, my companion and I ordered a five-course tasting menu that began with quail, proceeded through venison and ended with a chocolate soufflé. It cost $85 per person.

In my book that’s dinner. And Grayz’s reluctance to call it that — or to cast itself as a full-scale restaurant — opens a window into the befuddled and befuddling soul of the place.

Also noted in Florence Fabricant's Off The Menu: A "Top Chef" contender (Dave "I'm not your bitch, bitch" Martin, Season One) is opening Crave on 42nd on the deepest west side; restaurant magnate Jeffrey Chodorow is closing Wild Salmon Jan. 1, and Jason Neroni, former petty larcenist/Porchetta chef, will join forces with Katy Sparks at 10 Downing in Greenwich Village.