• Restaurateur Luca Marcato will reopen Luca as Cavatappo Grill in August, the same month he opens a second outpost of Cavatappo Wine Bar in Gramercy Park. [Feed/TONY]

• Over the years, Budweiser trampled dozens of local beer brands thanks to its strong marketing, a fact more lamentable than its sale to InBev. [Salon]

• The new Gotham City pizza at Domino's, so named due to the release of The Dark Knight, is just a regular pizza with way too much pepperoni on it. [Slice]

• Denzel Washington tried to open a bottle of Champagne at 151 the other night, since his server couldn’t do it. Washington failed as well, but then the cork hit the server in the face. [NYP]

• The city’s battle with fast-food restaurants continues as Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer says big chains receive too many tax breaks. [NYT]

• The Pillsbury Doughboy is currently stationed at Park Avenue and 51st Street, where he is handing out slices of cake to kick off the company’s Campaign for a Sweeter America. Pillsbury is also donating 1,500 sweets to the New York Food Bank, which just seems like a bad idea. [Gothamist]

• Starbucks begins selling its new Pike Place Roast today, and the new coffee blend promises to be less gag-inducing than its other brews. [WSJ]

• And if you want to taste that new blend, all Starbucks locations will be handing out free eight-ounce samples for 30 minutes starting at noon. [NYP]

We said it here first: Bacon has jumped the shark. [American Madness]
Related: Bacon Has Jumped the Shark

• A judge is barring the Health Department from enforcing the law requiring chain restaurants to display calorie info on menus, until April 14, by which time he’ll have decided what to about the New York State Restaurant Association’s lawsuit against the city. [NYP]

• A list of schools that received shipments of the recently recalled beef has been released by the Department of Agriculture, but there’s still no list of retailers. [NYT]

• Top Cheffer Dale Talde explains why he needs to have some attitude in the kitchen: “I’m Asian, not the tallest dude in the world and I look like I’m 12.” [Bottomless Dish/Citysearch]

Hearst Publications is supposedly in talks with the Food Network to publish a new food magazine and has been stealing editors from Every Day With Rachael Ray for months. The only problem? The channel’s big stars don’t seem to be a part of the publication. [Mixed Media/Portfolio]

Soto chef Sotohiro Kosugi responds to fears of too much mercury in tuna. “Eat with balance. Balance of meals is the key to a healthy life.” [Bottomless Dish/Citysearch]
Related: Sushi Eaters Face Tuna Fears

Neil Ferguson, Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsey, Jamie Oliver, and others are leading a full-on British culinary invasion on our shores. [Chicago Tribune]

The Board of Health decided yesterday in a unanimous vote to make all chain restaurants with fifteen or more outlets – approximately 10 percent of the city’s restaurants – post calorie info on their menus starting March 31. RIP, 1,230-calorie triple Whopper with cheese. [CNN]

Laboratory tests run on sushi samples from twenty Manhattan stores and restaurants revealed shockingly high levels of mercury in bluefin tuna, so high that the FDA could technically take the fish off the market. And if you’ve got to have your tuna sushi, you’d best head to Fairway and avoid Blue Ribbon Sushi at all costs. [NYT]

Gourmet editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl is “obsessed with” Momofuku Ssäm Bar, “like everyone else in New York,” according to her. [TONY]

Michael Chow of Mr. Chow is hit with a $5 million lawsuit for skimming tips, demanding “cult-like attention” from staff, and utilizing “degradation as a management technique.” [NYP]

Cooking-school graduates are being crushed by their student-loan debts: “The story is always the same. The school convinces the student they are going to be the next Julia Child or Wolfgang Puck, and the student will sign anything.” [NYT]

The Smith and Wollensky Restaurant Group finally agrees to be bought out by Patina Restaurant Group [NYT]
Related: The Secrets of Steakhouse Riches [Grub Street]