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• The increase in food prices last month was the greatest one-month hike in eighteen years. [NYP]
• Mariah Carey was very protective of her wedding cake — which was delicious, by the way – on the way to the Bahamas. [Mouthing Off/Food & Wine]
• Not only is there free coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts today, but you can also get a free Southern Style Chicken sandwich at McDonald’s if you buy a drink. [Midtown Lunch]
Number 90.Photo: Patrick McMullan
The 100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate [NYO via Eater]
The more things change…Photo: Mike Rogers
Related: McNally Plans to Frenchify Minetta Tavern, Assures CB It's No Big Deal
Ed Behr's The Art of Eating strikes again.
• The very study that was used by the Health Department to crusade for mandatory calorie posting in food chains may now be used by defense lawyers to undermine the law’s future. [NYS]
• Some Lower East Siders are not stoked about Bruce Willis opening the Bowery Wine Company, so they’re going to buy a pig, name it Bruce, and then eat it. [NYP]
• Wine bars are everywhere, and, thankfully, they’re a lot less stuffy than they used to be. [NYT]
The Minetta Tavern enters the McNally-verse.Photo: Mike Rogers
La Esquina showed how it's done when it pleaded for a liquor license for its sidewalk café. A large group of supporters attested that owners Derek Sanders and Serge Becker are "altruistic and very caring." Said one resident: "I would personally be bothered if I couldn't sit down and have a beer." Word! And application approved. —Lucy Tang
Clinton Hill: Some people like Sushi Okdol on Myrtle Avenue, others find it "meh," but the place will host children’s birthday parties. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Midtown East: The owners of Burger Kings at 485 Fifth Avenue and 129 East 47th Street refused to sell $1 value meals because they say they were losing money on the company’s specials. The locations have been shuttered, but they’re suing BK for the right to charge more in Manhattan. [NYDN]
Soho: Always wanted to make a "collective memory sausage"? You can on April 8, when the Umami Food and Art Festival kicks off at Roulette, 20 Greene Street. [Strong Buzz]
Upper West Side: Michael Psilakis plans to move Kefi around July to open his fourth restaurant. [Gothamist]
West Village: Anito Lo expects to have her barbecue spot, Q, around April. [Eater] Something’s happening to Minetta Tavern, but it might not be Keith McNally's doing. [Eater]
The parties up here won't look like this.Photo courtesy Profile Public Relations
The Times reported last week that New York will get its own Lee Schrager food festival this fall (as we predicted last year), but does the city’s food community really want one? We rang up a few people who we’d expect to be involved with such an event and got a mixed reaction.
Carroll Gardens: The Clover Club — the Smith Street cocktail spot from the Flatiron Lounge people have a sign up. Getting close! [Off the Presses]
Gramercy: Shockingly, for some cooked-food enthusiasts, "some of Pure’s dishes, and not just obvious things like salad, are downright delicious." [Mouthing Off/Food & Wine]
Greenwich Village: Somebody told somebody that a bartender at a new bar told him that Keith McNally may have put a $1 million bid on Minetta Tavern. [Eater]
Hell’s Kitchen: Video of Dave Martin concocting a special Valentine’s Day gelato to serve at Crave. [Snack]
Tribeca: David Waltuck "first got behind the stove [at Chanterelle] — and set the restaurant on its path to becoming one of the city’s most cherished — before he was 25 years old. He’s now 53." And ready for a Q&A with Frank Bruni. [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
West Village: Grom is totally coming to Bleecker Street, and they’re accepting applications now for a March opening. [Eat for Victory/VV] Was Beatrice Inn raided and shut down last night? [Down by the Hipster]
According to a new class-action suit being brought against Keith McNally, servers at Pastis and Balthazar were forced to foot the bill for customers who walked out on their checks, in addition to being denied minimum wage. [NYP]
Frank Bruni, like many other critics, believes a restaurant’s chicken dishes speak volumes about its overall quality. [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
E-mails sent by Starbucks Corp. managers reveal their efforts to prevent unionizing among their employees, although labor experts say the activity is not illegal. [WSJ]
Purveyor of cruelty-free caviar.Photo: Patrick McMullan
Keith/George and Jody/Cory.Photo: Patrick McMullan (McNally) and Johnny Miller (Williams)
Keith McNally, or George Wentworth?Photo: Patrick McMullan
When you're done in the restroom (left), there's flirting and soap-squirting at the communal sink (right).Photo: Daniel Maurer
Bushwick: Too hard to keep organic? Resident and Blue Hill at Stone Barns alum Kelly Geary will purchase your share of produce from Community Supported Agriculture, turn it into weekly meals (and pies), then deliver it (citywide). Just join by the first week in June. [DailyCandy]
Long Island City: New Greek restaurant Agnanti opens Memorial Day near the Astoria pool. [LICNYC]
Lower East Side: Bowery Whole Foods blamed for beetle infestation in apartments at Avalon Christie Place. [Racked] Rumor mill set a-cranking with speculation that Keith McNally might turn an empty space on Essex and Canal into a Parisian brasserie. [Eater]
Red Hook: The Added Value farm that employs South Brooklyn teenagers will be featured on a PBS series dedicated to sustainable food. [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
Times Square: You know that neon sign for Virgil’s? It’s a bowl of Chinese noodles. [Lost City]
West Village: A photo ode to Blue Ribbon Bakery’s indulgent sandwiches. [Gothamist] Former fab Bungalow 8 bouncer Armin Amiri’s new club, Socialista, will have a little person named Anthony manning the door. [NYP]
Odeon: McNally's potty training.Photo: Daniel Maurer
City Council to introduce a bill giving authorities more power to crack down on restaurant labor violations like the alleged ones at Saigon Grill. [MetroNY]
Related: 100 Students to Protest Saigon Grill [Grub Street]
Kobe beef, having once appeared on Le Bernardin’s menu, is taking over and chasing the fish away – a fact chef Eric Ripert is less than thrilled about. [NYP]
Bizarre details of Mr. Chow’s abuse emerge from the lawsuit, including information about one employee who was forced to lie on the floor and be menaced and even kicked by the diminutive restaurateur. [Gawker]
Did Keith McNally really have to go there?Photo: Patrick McMullan
Keith McNally: Bruni Has 'Unremittingly Sexist Slant' [Eater]
Having earlier disposed of Balthazar, Bruni moves on to Morandi and asks: “Is this tribute or burlesque?” Though he doesn’t dig the menu’s “greatest-hits approach,” he concedes Jody Williams’s food is “getting a worse rap than it deserves” (seems he read the Platt review). Final word: “Morandi can simply feel tired before its time, and not quite worth the struggle to get in and stay upright in the scrum.” [NYT]
Spiga, meanwhile, isn’t taking a traditional approach and suffers for it, according to Tables for Two. Chef Salvatore Corea has ideas, but “too many ideas, in some cases”— starting with the cocoa gnocchi. [NYer]
Sietsema brings his own Wonder bread to publicity-starved Fette Sau and finds baseball-bat beef ribs, spectacular brisket, damn good flank steak and shredded lamb “fragrant with the odor of pasturage.” [VV]
Related: Williamsburg’s Weird Barbecue Place
"I get people who start speaking to me in Russian and are disappointed I’m not Russian."Photo: Melissa Hom
Keith McNally talks about Balthazar, where the breakfast service is "absurdly busy" and his last meal would be "on the navel of the actress Maria Bello." [Mouthing Off/Food & Wine]
More radio morons in hot water: CBS suspends Elvis and JV for pranking a Chinese restaurant, asking for "shrimp flied lice," making dumb egg-roll jokes, and other old-time, racist vulgarities. [CBS News]
Spain’s El Bulli named top restaurant in the world again. No. 2? The Fat Duck in London. It’s a proud day for molecular gastronomy. [CNN]
Waiters in 40 restaurants formed a huge identity-theft ring, recording credit-card numbers and making $3 million in purchases. [Fox NY]
Donald Trump gets a sweetheart deal from the state to build Trump on the Ocean, a huge restaurant and banquet hall, on Jones Beach. [Newsday]
Chef J.J. Rachou is still feeling the sting from his Department of Health closure and can't bring himself to reopen Brasserie LCB yet. “If you lift every can, you find a cockroach,” he says. [NYT]
Morandi: Not so bene.Photo: Jeremy Liebman for New York Magazine
As Eater reported, Weekend Epicure seems to be a scam (we’ve heard the same), and now both Danny Meyer and Keith McNally are on to PrimeTime Tables and the telltale ways in which they call in for the spots they then sell. Is this it for the reservation biz? PTT will surely change up their methods, and we’re guessing that other restaurateurs won’t be quite so aggressive as long as their tables are filled. But blame it on karma or the plain hard realities of business, just know that a seat you buy might not be a seat you actually get.
Commence Resy Scalper Retreat: McNally, Meyer onto Primetime Tables [Eater]
Earlier: Soon You Will Have to Pay for All Your Reservations
Brooklyn Heights: Magnetic Field hosts its Jeopardy-inspired booze game tonight. Remember to answer in the form of a slurred question. [Brooklyn Record]
East Village: Callecito, from the owners of Mercadito, will open across the street on Avenue B. (And a block from Cafecito, in case you weren’t confused enough.) [NYS]
Fort Greene: Three pounds of yams, $1. Did we mention they’re jumbo yams? They are. [Gothamist]
Harlem: Emperor’s Roe Champagne-and-caviar bar has closed, and a great pun is soon to be lost to time. [Harlem Fur]
Meatpacking District: The Keith McNally–backed Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation will rally tonight to protest the Gansevoort billboards. [Blog Chelsea]
Midtown East: You can now get comfort food in addition to the typical steakhouse fare at Blair Perrone. Assuming you weren’t already comfortable with steak. [NYT]
Park Slope: Brooklyn Pita coming to Seventh Avenue; Delices de Paris bakery reopens after adding mouse-excreta backlash to its list of married-owner woes. [Gowanus Lounge]
Soho: Your prayers answered: Savoy will be doing a special Seder menu. [VV]
Or you could just have a liquid lunch.Photo: RJ Mickelson/Veras
Related: Restaurant Openings [NYM]
Apparently, abuse of every kind is rampant in kitchens. Herewith, complaints leveled against Daniel, Jean Georges, Megu, Babbo, and more. [NYP]
Post–KFC–Taco Bell scandal, New York restaurant closures triple. [NYP]
Morandi is, like every other Keith McNally venture, a smashing success, and likely to remain so. [NYP]
The owner of the Hotel Gansevoort abjectly apologizes for its monstrous sign but says that the lease has been signed and that there’s no way out of it. Whether this satisfies Keith McNally and other opponents remains to be seen. [NYP]
Rachael Ray conquers yet another swath of America, becoming the official “spokes-chef” for Dunkin’ Donuts. She will develop a line of dishes for the chain. [Nation's Restaurant News (registration required)]
The FDA allowing factory farm veterinarians to use cattle antibiotics which may lead to resistant microbes and eventually endanger humans. The Times is not down. [NYT]
