Some of the “secret dishes” that Page Six Magazine includes in its roundup of off-the-menu items aren’t so secret — we’ve written about Le Bernardin’s piballes, the MacShorty at Shorty’s .32, and the secret items at Le Cirque before —but hey, if you want to impress a date, you could do worse than ordering your steak with uni butter at the Strip House. Just avoid carping, “Adam Sandler and Bruce Willis get theirs this way!” Ew.

"I'll Have What DeNiro's Having": The Most Exclusive Dishes in Town [Page Six Magazine]

Eric Ripert is so devoted to Tibet that he even went to India to say hello to the Dalai Lama. And last night, the Ripper devoted the formidable resources of Le Bernardin’s private dining salon to a benefit for the Tibetan Aid Project. Five of the country’s top chefs cooked five courses: Michel Richard, whose Central in D.C. just won the Beard Award for Best New Restaurant, made a mind-blowing lobster-pear vichyssoise; Yosuke Suga from the Atelier de Joël Robuchon prepared pan-sautéed amadai in a yuzu-citrus broth; Jennie Lorenzo of the Fifth Floor in San Francisco served a sous vide chicken and langoustine pair; Ripert made his magnificent escolar with red-wine béarnaise sauce (still the greatest fish known to man, even if it does supposedly cause orange diarrhea); Alfredo Ayala of Delirio restaurant in Puerto Rico brought a roasted pork loin; and Le Bernardin’s sweets guy, Michael Laiskonis, closed with Gianduja cream, Oregon hazelnuts, honey, banana, and brown-butter ice cream. Prior to the meal, all five chefs were presented by the Tibetan Aid Society with Tibetan shawls, a traditional form of thanks, and posed proudly with them in the kitchen. The benefit raised an undisclosed bundle for the cause of buying sacred books for Tibet, and there were no empty seats. Next year, in fact, Ripert plans to close the whole restaurant down and do it in the main room.

Related: Eric Ripert Hobnobs With the Dalai Lama

When Eric Ripert told us that he was starting his own Website, Avec Eric, we knew it wouldn't be full of random woolgathering like some other chef blogs. Though only two posts in, the Ripper already has a laserlike focus on one subject: toaster-ovens. While it will no doubt become a more traditional chef site, right now the Le Bernardin chef is devoted to exploring the use and greatness of toasters. And why not? After all, when you think of Eric Ripert, you just think of toaster-ovens.

Avec Eric [Official site]
Related: Paul Liebrandt Stuns Web With Most Banal Blog Ever

Aldo Sohm, the good-natured wine director at Le Bernardin, is the best sommelier in the world. Last year, Sohm bested all his American rivals, but faltered in the international competition. The contest, which was held in Rome, involved a wine-recognition test, a flawed wine list needing correcting, table service, and a food-and-wine pairing. This year, he bested rivals from thirteen other nations to be named “Best Sommelier in the World.”

Update: The Ripper chimes in on Sohn's win: “Of course this is a very big deal for Aldo and Le Bernardin,” says the Le Bernardin's chef. “What is truly impressive and makes Aldo even more of a champion is that he accomplished this enormous task while working full time as our wine director, never taking off one day to study or prepare.”

Related: Le Bernardin Lands the ‘Best Sommelier in America’

The temptation to give their own places sky-high ratings has proven irresistible to many a restaurant owner — it’s like asking a portly, middle-aged man not to describe himself as "37" and "athletic" in an Internet personal ad. But according to tech blog Techcrunch, OpenTable's new Diners' Choice lists incorporate ratings only from people who actually made resies and showed up. The lists aren’t touted on the site yet, but being Internet geniuses, we found the beta version and the top five NYC picks: Per Se, Le Bernardin, Gilt, L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, and Eleven Madison Park. It does say something that people who actually plunked down cash at these places had good things to say about them afterwards.

OpenTable Ranks Restaurants, Guarantees No Fake Reviews [TechCrunch]

If you want to feel good about living in New York, read this approximately 19,000-word essay about a pilgrimage made to Le Bernardin by a Denver food writer. There are so many levels to enjoy in this one. There's the fact that the writer, Jason Sheehan, has written the most sustained and rapturous ode to a restaurant we can remember. Then there's the part about the citizens of Denver outraged at not being able to enjoy a vicarious thrill when Sheehan lets it be known that he won't be dining at the place. (“I could hear the screams of pain and sobbing disappointment from Denver’s top-fuel foodies. I got letters from friends. I got phone calls from horrified fans. I got e-mails from other critics and chefs and civilians who were simply flabbergasted.”) Best of all are Sheehan's efforts to honestly grapple with how to convey the pleasure he had from the five-star fish emporium. It's not like we get to Le Bernardin that much, either — the last time we ate The Ripper's cooking, it was a take-out container of baby eels.

Dinner at Le Bernardin [Denver Westward, via Fork in the Road]

Related: Le Bernardin's VIPs Get Baby Eels

The last wave of “Just Ask the Locals” tourism ads featured Danny Meyer, and this time around the city has selected chefs Eric Ripert and Marcus Samuelsson — along with Diddy! — to dish on their favorite spots. Ripert give props to the wood-burning oven at Peasant — “absolutely fantastic” — while Samuelsson fingers Aquavit (for shame!), as well as Jean Georges, Luger, Republic, and wd-50. For late-night eats, he's all about Blue Ribbon Brasserie, Florent (despite its imminent demise), the Spotted Pig, and “anywhere in Chinatown” — although, except for Wo Hop and Noodletown, places in C-town tend to close on the early side. So if you see confused tourists wandering the darkened streets of Chinatown or attempting to gain entry into a shuttered Florent, you know whom to blame.

Just Ask the Locals [NYC Visit]

Why should we care what the San Pellegrino company thinks are the world's 50 best restaurants? And yet, as with Michelin, Zagat, and every other ranking, we always do. San Pellegrino's angle is that they rank the top restaurants worldwide, thus awaking nationalist fury in every slighted country. (The list is determined by a global poll of chefs, restaurateurs, and food writers.) Which, as usual, means every country other than Spain, since again El Bulli has come out on top, followed by England's the Fat Duck, France's Pierre Gagnaire, and another Spanish entry, Mugaritz. But — a consolation to the U.S. — next on the list come back-to-back Americans: the French Laundry and Per Se. After that, the U.S. falls off the list until Jean Georges at 17, Le Bernardin at 18, and Chicago's Alinea at 21. No doubt the list has a major snob appeal and will make a fine to-do list for international bons vivants.

El Bulli Named World's Best Restaurant; Per Se, Noma Advance [Bloomberg]

We got an excited call from Eric Ripert the other day. "I have baby eels!" the chef said. "You have to try them!" We weren't exactly thrilled at the prospect. But the Ripper assured us that baby eels were the rarest of delicacies — live, translucent creatures with an ungodly flavor.

No less a personage than Eric Ripert spilled the beans on the great unspoken secret of the organic movement: A lot of the food tastes bad. Speaking to an audience of trendsetters at the PSFK New York conference last week, the Le Bernardin chef said, “Organic and sustainable doesn’t mean that your product is good. An organic cheese ten years ago was inedible, like rubber.” Of course, the Ripper also said that with technology on the march, sustainable food will soon be as good as it is virtuous. But it isn’t yet, not always; and only a man of the Ripper’s caliber could get away with saying so in public.

Ripert: Good Food Will Eventually Taste Good [PSFK]

When you think of Eric Ripert, you tend to think of ethereal lobster, marinated fluke, transporting escolar with miso brown butter, and the like. Which made it weird when the chef started enthusing about his hamburger the other night. “It's the best hamburger anywhere — better than anywhere in New York,” the fish master says.