In an interview with Steve Lewis, Pop Burger honcho Roy Liebenthal waxes nostalgic about his old club, Tabac; discusses how the décor of his later places came from his love of modern art; dissects his failed projects (Pop closed after the manager was killed by one of his employees; Pizza Bar didn’t fly because, go figure, New Yorkers don’t like eating pizza under black light — and for that matter, neither do folks from Jersey!); and promises another Pop Burger (sans bar) “in the downtown-Broadway area, near Houston.” Shocker: He will not be doing Vegas or Atlantic City, which Uncle Steve dismisses as “like a Third World country.” You hear that, Mr. Sevigny?

Things That Go Pop In The Night (Part One) and (Part Two) [Good Night Mr. Lewis]

It’s no secret that Beatrice Inn, Employees Only, and Smith and Mills owner Matt Abramcyk is poised to open a lounge on the fifth floor of the Chelsea in Atlantic City (we’ve just heard it will be called the Terrace and will officially open the weekend of July 25, after the hotel’s opening party a week prior — and there are sure to be friends-and-family festivities before then), but according to a long overdue profile in the Observer, that’s not the only thing he’s working on.

Taavo Somer, the Über-cool tastemaker of Freemans, certainly outed himself as a lover of cheese when he put the Rusty Knot together, but who knew he’d take it this far? In a Q&A with the Times’ rich-diculous blog the Moment, he tells us all about his fantasy travel companion.

Given the food world's obsession with all things Chang-related, it's odd that the chef's series of Big Think video interviews, which were posted in January, haven't already made the Internet rounds. They're very good, both for the questions they ask (who are the greatest American chefs? Answer: Andrew Carmellini and Alex Lee) and for the way they capture Chang's personal charisma, which doesn't always make it through in the adoring articles written about him. He gets to weigh in on some of his favorite subjects, such as the folly of cooking school, and he even seems to be warming to the idea of a restaurant in Vegas: “We're always stuck in these crazy, small, weird locations. To start fresh in a new building would be really amazing.” He even muses about opening something in Austin. There's a lot of Chang here, so it might take a while to work through it, but if you're a major fan of the guy, you shouldn't miss it.

Ideas by David Chang [Big Think]

Joe Bastianich, having just opened B&B Ristorante in Las Vegas with Mario Batali, isn’t letting the sands under his feet settle. In December or January, he’ll open Carnevino at the Venetian. Bastianich is likely handling the wine (he’s out of the country and unavailable for comment), but Daisy May’s Adam Perry Lang will oversee every part of the meat program, from procurement to dry-aging.

Marco Pierre White, the London restaurateur who became perhaps the first celebrity bad-boy chef and the youngest to earn three Michelin stars, may arguably have been the man responsible for teaching his onetime protégé Gordon Ramsay how to show his temper. “Perhaps I created the monster,” he confesses in his new memoir, The Devil in the Kitchen: Sex, Pain, Madness, and the Making of a Great Chef, out next week. Like Ramsay, White was a famous hothead, but don’t expect him to revive his practice of eighty-sixing customers if and when he takes on the American market (possibly as a partner of Mario Batali). We talked to White about his plans for expansion and his upcoming stint as the new host of Hell’s Kitchen.

RUB, fresh off its coronation as the best place for barbecue, apparently cannot be confined by the bounds of our city. We hear from sources inside the restaurant that an immense 9,000-square-foot outpost is in the works at the Rio in Las Vegas, with a planned summer opening. It will look completely different from the cramped New York original, with an open floor plan, 250-plus seats, and three full-size show rotisseries capable of slow-cooking whole pigs over wood fires. And apparently, this is only the start of a RUB plan for global domination: The restaurant’s negotiating to drop outposts into Harrah’s casinos both inside and outside of these United States. James Bond better let out that tuxedo.