Is man-mountain and "Top Chef" judge Tom Colicchio stretching himself too thin? The glabrous chef, who recently opened a Craft outpost in Los Angeles at the offices of superagency CAA, was visited by the Michelin Man yesterday who, with a nerfy yet firm hand, stripped away the lone Michelin star of Colicchio's…
Tonight at Da Silvano, there's a dinner for Michael Kirkland, the director of the design firm Groupe Halleon. We were forwarded the invitation to the dinner—and at the bottom, we noticed something curious! Attached was a handy document that provided concise yet colorful sketches of those attending. Let's learn some…
Walking into Hooters on 56th Street is like stepping into a magical drive-through carwash where the water has been replaced by fried food and the surly attendants by big-breasted women wearing orange leggings. It's not an experience that leaves one feeling clean in anyway. We headed up there yesterday to celebrate…
A recent visitor to groovy downhome Greenpoint restaurant Queen's Hideaway writes: "I was eating there this weekend. The back garden was full of kind of Greenpoint hipster. All of a sudden a mouse runs right across the pavement followed in quick pursui t by a cat. The cat caught the mouse and began toying with it. For…
Dear Timesperson: Do you feel a little meh? Slightly gassy? A bit eggy? It may be your work diet! The New York Times cafeteria menu, we notice, features four kind of quiche four out of five days. Sure there's other choices, but that's a heckuva lot of quiche and perhaps too much. Only on Friday does the quiche station…
New York Times restaurant critic Francis Bruni one-stars Gemma in the Bowery Hotel today. (We said it was like TGIFridays mixed with the set of "8 1/2" with a nod to the boudoir scene in "When Doves Cry.") Salient Bruni-isms include, "Gemma loves candles the way Liberace did," and that it's "a cheat sheet of a…
The object of your curiosity is a $21 variation on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich: a special, though almost every night it's on the menu, described as a "torchon of foie gras, macadamia nut butter, strawberry-vanilla jam, toasted brioche." At a restaurant known for taking culinary whimsy to a sometimes illogical…
On Thursday night, Mariah "Sparkle" Carey showed up at Graydon Carter's Waverly Inn. But when the paparazzi magically materialized for her, the regulars turned vicious.
After reading the Voice's paean to the new garden of tempura called Barfry, we figured we had to check it out sometime. We really wanted to peek into Market Table, which is next door; it's Joey Campanaro of Little Owl's new place in what used to be Shopsin's, but it's only open for lunch these days. Dinner by Friday,…
As was much anticipated, "Inside Edition" aired their Rat Patrol segment yesterday. Did Eddie Hayes' work on behalf of Da Silvano pay off? Pretty much. In fact, every restaurant with rats shown here gets tons of response time—is Inside Edition more afraid of lawyers than of vermin?
Mario Batali, owner of Babbo et al and the man whose ample physicality has filled Food Network television kitchens for years, has been dropped from the network, the Post's Braden Keil reports today with ill-concealed schadenfreude. That means no more Jake Gyllenhaal just stopping by to sample the culatello! Perhaps…
Though Centro, that newish Italian place in the West Village, is already filled with desperate girls in their thirties, you can bet that when Daily News restaurant critic Danyelle Freeman walked in, she was immediately ID'd. As we've noted, she's been quite athletic in getting her face "out there." Guess what? Her…
Spitzer's Corner, an alleged gastropub that opened recently on the Lower East Side at Rivington and Ludlow, has 39 beers on tap. Its menu, designed by ex-Le Bernadiniere Mike Cooperman, is much less ambitious. Six entrees, a splatter of apps and a couple of slimy raw bar items. The interior is prairie sparse. If Laura…
Last night, at Little Giant on the Lower East Side, two earlythirtysomethings were on a date. He was wearing a black t-shirt, his skin was an unhealthily alabaster and the baby fat of his youth had given way to the slight pudginess of middle-age. He worked for Apple or maybe Gucci. It was unclear. She was cute and…
/eks/ is Williamsburg's official entry into the great Froyo Wars of 2007. Off the bat, the place gets handicapped because of the name. It's like owner Edong "Neo" Kim is tricking us into saying the letter "x," which is like when the older kids at camp make the younger ones chant "We Are Sofa King We Todd Id." Also his…
More tales of drunken dining: "I once got a blowjob in the McDonald's on the LES." Charmed! Not quite a Burger King bathroom, but not bad nonetheless. [Sexbot]
We asked for your stories of drunken dining and you obliged: "I dated a girl that could cry on command, and we used to go out to really nice places and stage fake fights when we were wasted. I would yell and scream and shes scream and cry and then cinematically run out in tears. I'd chase after her and then we'd just…
Last night, we took a date to Wakiya, the new high-end Chinese restaurant at Ian Schrager's Gramercy Park Hotel. The first thing one notices upon entering the space is the strong scent of burning oolong tea. ("It's behind the banquettes," the waiter proudly explained.) The second thing is the tapestried walls.…
Gemma, the new Italian restaurant in the Bowery Hotel, is nothing if not spectacular. As baroque as the hotel lobby, every inch of the space is crammed with vintage candelabras, portraits of stern Italians or faggots. Copper pots dangle from hooks and wine bottles line a shelf that encloses the whole restaurant, like…
While the Bond Street tapas restaurant Mercat is basking in the luminescence of Frank Bruni's recent glowing star, there's part of it that still is relatively kept in the dark. Supposedly there's a secret room in the back and down some stairs, called Mercat Negra. Suckers for anything with the patina of exclusivity,…
