BITE will keep you in touch with what I’m eating and what I love and what I left on my plate. I’ll share dialogues I have with heroes and divas, princes and barracudas and what I overhear from the next table. Not every day will I have a meal worth writing about, I suspect, not good enough, not bad enough. Dear friends have asked me if I could try to be meaner so I fit in better on the net. I intend to try. As any man who has lived with me will tell you, I was born to be a critic. Of course, isn’t it the critic who has the thinnest skin of all? I must admit to a certain anxiety. It’s been a long time since I wrote without an editor, a fact checker and a copy-reader to catch my errors, misspellings and typos. I apologize in advance. I’m left-handed and that can sometimes be confusing. I might have stopped reviewing restaurants twenty-five years ago when my first novel, Blue Skies, No Candy lingered on the best seller list. But I am addicted to instant gratification. So I’m still here. On my death bed, I am sure my last words will echo those of the sister of Brillat Savarin:
“Bring on dessert.”
June 29, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
The Not-at-All Standard Grill
Already heat-seeking nomads are three-deep at the bar and I am looking right at Anna Wintour. I know for sure this is the place to be tonight…
June 22, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Marea Battens Down
Sea creatures here are wild, line-caught, deep...
June 15, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
DBGB Daniel’s Burger Joint
It’s already standing room only with the usual foodie first nighters in full swarm, the industry and media and uptowners who define themselves by the tables they can snag.
June 8, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Marea Braves the Tides
Marea is definitely swimming against the undertow of financial woe and frugality chic. It’s not as if chef Michael White and his partner Chris Cannon…
June 1, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Locanda Verde
It’s possible that the management team here is more celebrated than tonight’s VIPs and visiting foodies. Clearly Robert DeNiro and his partners at the Greenwich Hotel mean business…
May 18, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Table 8 Transplant
I want this place to be good. Not just for the...
May 11, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Bar Artisanal/Armani
How quickly downtown’s nomadic grazers swooped in. It’s Saturday night. Leggy girlfriends perch at lounge tables, sipping cocktails, eyeing a milling crowd….
May 4, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Bouleymania
Bouley was on a jag, drunk with the dream of it. So sue me. I’m a fool for vulnerability in a man. After his fiasco at Secession…
April 27, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Monkey Bar/Telepan
Oh no, here we are again, outcasts at Hogwarts, I’m thinking as we walk up to the locked door of Graydon Carter’s new Monkey Bar…
April 20, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Slash and Trim
Is this bombed out Bushwick street the newest...
April 6, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Italy/Eating Up Italy
Now we’re in Italy, tagging along on a gastronomical discovery tour with chef Cesare Casella, and All-Bran topped with fruit…
March 23, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Fatty Crab Uptown
The rumored cloning of Fat and Crabby on Broadway seemed yet another gift in the great gastronomic greening of my own Upper West Side haunt...
March 16, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Old News/Minetta Tavern
Forks clashed, egos were mashed. A committee mulled the list of reservation hopefuls that afternoon and by seven the chosen began to claim their tables at the new old…
March 9, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Eating LA: Animal. Mozza. Bazaar. Rivera.
I twitter and shiver at the word “pig” on a menu – constant vibration in these porky times - so how can I resist a restaurant called Animal
March 2, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Oak Bar/Meat Cute in LA
Maybe in another time the Oak Room would have had a chance. I can’t exactly imagine when exactly for this once upon a time “Men Only” retreat…
February 23, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
‘Inoteca/Flex Mussels
The doctors Denton – Jason and brother Joe – have found a sure-fire cure for their ailing Bar Milano on Third Avenue, just right for the times… Delete it. Paste in its place ‘Inoteca, a familiar joint with devoted fans…
February 9, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Four Seasons at 50
I’m always anxious when I walk in. I don't want...