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.”
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 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...
February 2, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
La Fonda del Sol
The headline is this: Josh De Chellis seems to have found his cooking mojo again – sophisticated but more accessible than what he did at Sumile and it’s only a week into…
January 26, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Corton Again / Gotham Miami
Drew Nieporent has Paul Liebrandt under his wing. Or was it vice versa? Had the obstreperous young Brit kidnapped the sage veteran...
January 20, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Defrosting in Miami
Bargain flights and icy wind chill conspire to lure more weekenders than I expected. Bankrupt moguls, the nouveaux pauvres and the recently unemployed need a soothing retreat at these cut-rate prices…
January 12, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
West Branch/Dovetail
Tom Valenti has long been a hero of the Upper West Side, our Buffalo Bill, braving the far outer steppes when Broadway was mostly retail and coffeeshops…
January 5, 2009 | BITE: My Journal
Macao Trading/Pizza Fix
Nocturnal moths fling themselves at the latest cocktail bar…we’re here to check out chef David’s Waltuck’s vision of what Macao eats....
December 29, 2008 | BITE: My Journal
Christmas Dim Sum/Kefi Expands
Chinese food on Christmas Day is a New York custom. Except for some delis like Barney Greengrass (where you couldn’t count on a table even if you were the Pope) most restaurants are closed…
December 22, 2008 | BITE: My Journal
Rouge Tomate/Casellula
Did this restaurateur come all the way from Belgium hoping to sell New York a new cult? And isn’t East 60th Street just off Fifth an unlikely temple for some contempo macrobiotic sprouting?
December 18, 2008 | BITE: My Journal
Hooking Fishtail
Burke himself is a greeter in mufti as if to make it clear he just dreamed up the place, a showcase for sustainable fish, some of it supplied by his own fishing boat…
date
December 15, 2008 | BITE: My Journal
Shang Magic
It says a lot about the souped-up speed of gentrification in New York and even more about Susur Lee that he was willing to close his rocking hit restaurant in Toronto for a hotel dining room above Orchard...
December 11, 2008 | BITE: My Journal
Lansky’s Deli
I never doubted Chef-partner David Ruggiero could pull this off… the Brooklyn-born ex-boxer has boundless imagination…
December 7, 2008 | BITE: My Journal
John Dory/BarBao
With just fifty seats and not much aisle, and given its elite gastropub provenance, born out of Spotted Pig with April Bloomberg at the stove and Ken Friedman wheeling about out front…
November 30, 2008 | BITE: My Journal
Picking Up Pieces/Irving Mill
Not everyone gets to read their obituary in the New York Times…There are pig people and no-pig people. Personally, I don’t encounter many who are neutral…
November 24, 2008 | BITE: My Journal
Cracked Eggshells
To be officially declared redundant by New York magazine, long the oracle and chronicler of what’s hot and what’s not…is painful…