See, Colicchio's not actually opening a new restaurant; he's starting a venture called "Tom: Tuesday Dinner" that will open up every other Tuesday, then disappear! The first exotic location for your pricey meal? A "tiny space" in the private dining room of Craft, another one of his already existing restaurants!

Reservations will be taken by telephone six weeks in advance, and the price of the meal ($150 to $250 depending on the menu) will have to be prepaid with a credit card. Menus will only be announced about a week before each meal; they will be posted on a website, tomtuesdaydinner.com.

If this works out, we're starting a new venture: "Track me down at an undisclosed location and pay me $1,000 and I will tell you where the nearest McDonald's is."

Though he deems it "satisfactory," Bruni points out Michael's most obvious flaw: it charges outrageous prices to people who want to see and be seen, so who cares about the food? I'll tell you who: Frank Bruni.

The shrimp were entombed in a dense, soggy beer batter and interred in an almost monochromatic landscape of goat cheese, puddles of dark miso aioli and shavings of summer truffle that might have been shavings of summer rubber for all the flavor they had.

California cuisine? More like gloppy, affected pub grub, for which Michael’s charges $25

Zing! You could have had a corner seat, Frank, but now forget it. How about the obligatory media-food tie-in?

Across a series of visits I had some enjoyable food, notably the renowned Cobb salad, less a salad than an entire ecosystem, vast and verdant, with enough avocado to feed three I.C.M. agents or five Vogue editors.

Gracious. Now back to the main point:

And shouldn’t a diner paying $38 for sea scallops get more than two, situated at opposite ends of a long hillock of sautéed snow pea leaves?

Also keep in mind Michael's is hated by its own waiters, and its sommelier gave Bruni a bum recommendation on Chardonnay. On the upside, you are guaranteed to meet Laurel Touby there.

[NYT; pic via Radar]

I mean the restaurant has a jacket-required dress code, for God's sake. Their tasting menu is $220 a head (with wine pairings)! It's one of those storied haunts that needs only to quietly go about its gourmet way to drum up praise and customers. But now, like Faye Dunaway and now Vogue before it, Le Bernardin is bowing down to the reality gods in search of, well, that hideous term "relevance." While this evening's reserved patrons won't actually be served by the blotto, under-the-bus-throwing, vain yet desperate contestants, they still have to sign waivers (to be faxed over!) and deal with camera crews and all that reality jazz.

CUSTOMER 1: I do say, Harold, there seems to be a lapel mic in my Kindai Maguro.

CUSTOMER 2: Oh Evelyn, do shut your face.

6/22/08

WE HEAR: THAT Stephen Colbert will belt out the National Anthem at the Partnership for Public Service gala Tuesday night at Cipriani 42nd Street, where Police Commissioner Ray Kelly will be presented with the Theodore Roosevelt Award by his friend, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

6/19/08

SIGHTINGS: "DANCING With the Stars" runner-up Jason Taylor and former Miami Dolphins teammate Dan Marino backing up Carlos Santana on bongos and cowbell at the Samsung Four Seasons of Hope Gala at Cipriani Wall Street.

5/25/08

WE HEAR: The 540 Latino-philes at Cipriani 42nd Street the other night applauded the news that Goya Foods owners Joseph and Carmen de Unanue donated $3 million to the Fifth Avenue museum of Hispanic culture.

5/20/08

WE HEAR: THAT comic Lewis Black will perform at the 21st Anniversary Gala of the Cooke Center for Learning and Development tomorrow at Cipriani 42nd Street.

4/29/08

WE HEAR: THAT John Catsimatidis is being honored with Frankie Valli by the Friars Club on June 16 at Cipriani 42nd Street, where the cast of Broadway's "Jersey Boys" will perform.

1/26/08

WE HEAR: THAT the Halcyon Company will auction off a walk-on role in "Terminator Salvation" during the Cipriani AmFAR event Thursday.

.

[Outside of Page Six, we should note, the Post seems to cover Cipriani's troubles pretty aggressively.]

One official says the company has tried to walk a fine line with its response, maintaining the chain's wholesome image without alienating potential customers. "I don't feel comfortable talking about this...because it is a complicated issue for the brand," says Michele Kay, executive vice president of WPP Group's Grey advertising firm, which handles the Olive Garden account.

The purported issue here is whether companies should embrace "rogue" famous fans, even if they're as disreputable as—the two examples actually used—a Playboy model or a rapper. In other words: how does corporate America deal with blacks and loose women?

Olive Garden, of course, is foolish. A blond Playboy model perfectly embodies their outward deliciousness and inner emptiness. Don't let her defect to Applebee's, you fools.

[WSJ; pic via Evil Beet]

• DO have neighborhood clout. The president of the local block association, Marilyn Dorato, has her own table at the restaurant, which she occupies weekly. Graydon wouldn't want to much of a fuss over the limos and paparazzi and drunken revelry and so forth.
• DO NOT complain about your food. "The reservations system has miniprofiles on clients: the number of times they have eaten at the restaurant... whether they complained about the food, whether they yelled at a waiter..."
• DO NOT work in reality TV or hedge fund management. "'For that reason, we screen calls from the 203 area code,' [Carter] said, poking fun at chateau country in the Connecticut suburbs."
• DO NOT notify the paps of your reservation. "Mr. Varda admits that there is one group [blacklisted]. 'B-list stars who call the paparazzi from inside the restaurant... They are not invited back.' (Privacy is so sacred at the Waverly that Mr. Varda says he has stopped a major film star from photographing his own family at dinner.)"
• DO NOT take a seat in the garden. It is Siberia. Carter claims it's great but "no one is buying it."
• DO NOT sit out front, oh God: "There is also a tiny outside area out front with tables in summer, but that is irrelevant — one frequent diner called it 'tragic.'"
• DO NOT brag about hanging out at the bar. No one cares, because that is also Siberia.
• DO perhaps try just asking at the front desk. It worked for the Kaufman. Go figure.
• DO be Harvey Weinstein, a very close personal friend of Mr. Carter. "Weinstein, for example, lives nearby and, according to Mr. Varda, frequently arrives for dinner without calling ahead to reserve. 'He is family,' Mr. Varda said, 'so we make room anyway.'"

Or just wait for the restaurant to become less fashionable, or for your ego to stop caring, both of which will happen eventually. (Until that day, you can scour the restaurant's blog for still more tips.)

[Times]

(Photo by Pistols Drawn on Flickr, who managed to do what the Times could not and get a picture inside the theatrically secretive restaurant.)

The detonation will be broadcast live on the company's website. The message of this stunt? "Our company sucks."

Teaser ads for detonation day include a sledgehammer wielding marketing executive who smashes a hanging lamp that would have been found in an "old" Ruby Tuesday's. Full-page newspaper ads show the brand's "manifesto" with copy shaped like a bomb.

If this doesn't work, they can just run ads saying "PLEASE GO TO APPLEBEE'S."

[BrandWeek via Adfreak]

Shake-activating the phone's search, Bruni finds that

"The Tasting Room, which was on this block, closed more than a month ago. Shortly before that, the restaurant Elizabeth opened across the street. With a few shakes, Urbanspoon nonetheless guided me to the Tasting Room. Even after many shakes, it never suggested Elizabeth, instead recommending Rialto, which was the restaurant that Elizabeth replaced. Rialto hasn’t been open for half a year."

UrbanSpoon: missing every restaurant that is actually important.

Where to Eat? Ask Your iPhone [NYT]

A tipster to Eater says:

At Bette last night for the closing party. I live and work in the area and dined there fairly regularly. The bartender told me that Amy Sacco sold the restaurant and gave the staff about 8 hours notice.

Cold. Why, we remember a few years back when we were talking about Sacco's "quest for total domination," and HBO was planning a story about her rise to fame. She had so much success in the city, she said she'd rather die than return to her native Jersey.

Then things started to slowly go downhill. Rumors flew that Sacco was stiffing her PR agency; the usual suspects started placing bets on when Bungalow 8 would close. Her doorman struck out on his own. She tried to export her magic to London, but failed to find the same popularity.

Sacco recently called New York nightlife—and herself—"overrated." Now she's been proven right.

Chris Coleson of Richmond, VA ate mostly McDonalds' salads and wraps for six months to drop his gut.

Mr. Coleson has not spoken with the fast feeder but said that people on the street ask him if he was inspired by Subway pitchman Mr. Fogle. (He's become something of a local celebrity after a couple of newspaper articles, including a front-page profile in the Richmond-Times Dispatch.) He said the idea was born out of his wife's skepticism at his ability to lose weight.

"I told her I could lose weight eating anywhere," he said. "I told her I could do it eating at McDonald's."

But!

Far from signing him as its next spokesman, McDonald's avoided attaching importance to Mr. Coleson's accomplishment. "There have been numerous success stories like this one, where consumers elected to follow a responsible diet with adequate exercise and incorporated McDonald's food in a very positive way," said McDonald's USA spokeswoman Danya Proud. "We continue to work on helping people understand how to strike the right balance between diet and physical activity."

Dr. Christine Gerbstadt, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, called Mr. Coleson's plan of 1,200 to 1,400 calories per day a "starvation diet."

Ridiculous. So what if it is a starvation diet? That shouldn't dissuade the company from sending Coleson a fat check and sticking him in a couple of commercials. How many other huge weight losers who eat exclusively at your restaurant do you think are going to come along, McD's? Smarten up!

We really don't need another Jared, though. GOD.

[Ad Age, pic via InRich.com]

The miracle berries go for $2-3 each. But a single one makes everything in the world taste sweet. And the tasting parties have barely concealed orgiastic overtones:

He believes that the best way to encounter the fruit is in a group. "You need other people to benchmark the experience," he said. At his first party, a small gathering at his apartment in January, guests murmured with delight as they tasted citrus wedges and goat cheese. Then things got trippy.

"You kept hearing 'oh, oh, oh,' " he said, and then the guests became "literally like wild animals, tearing apart everything on the table."

"It was like no holds barred in terms of what people would try to eat, so they opened my fridge and started downing Tabasco and maple syrup," he said.

[NYT. You can buy em wholesale here.]

MR. MORELLET: I didn't want any press. I was so scared because I'd seen so many restaurants opening with a bang, big media, blah-blah-blah. And it's a disaster.

MR. RUBINSTEIN: I must have gone in there at least a half-dozen times before I wrote about it. Then the review came out, and I remember being home on a Saturday night, and the phone rang at about 8 o'clock, and it was Florent, furious. Furious.

MR. MORELLET: After he wrote it I called him and yelled at him and I said, "Listen!" I put the phone up to the din of the dining room, which was really loud, and hung up.

MR. RUBINSTEIN: He basically started with a stream of invectives that went on for five minutes. He cursed me out. I'd betrayed him. Destroyed him. He called me every word in the book. He slammed the phone down. The phone rang two minutes later.

MR. MORELLET: And then I called him back and I said: "Come over. We have to have dinner."

Advertising and restaurant executives point to several reasons that neither campaign was a hit. The bizarre red wig commercials were too much of a departure from Wendy's folksy brand; the apple was not a strong enough image to represent Applebee's. It is unlikely, though, that either one would have been ended so quickly in better economic times.

Instead, both marketers have opted for a more recession-proof approach: glamour shots of food that are intended to make mouths water and prompt consumers to reach for their wallets.

THEY WILL BE MISSED. Wait; no.

[NYT; disclosure: I once worked with Doug Quenqua, author of this article.]

"The first thing I tell them is to round up every price that ends with 95 cents to 99 cents. You've got an item $10.95, raise it to $10.99. If it's $7.75, make it $7.79. All the chains have done it — Applebee's, Chili's, all of them. It's just four cents and your customers won't notice, but that could easily mean $5,000 to $15,000 a year for the restaurant."

There's a science to where on the menu you display that price, too, he says. Take a typical two-column menu: The description of the food is on the left, and the price is an inch or two from the description, on the right. Bad idea, says Mentzer. Get rid of the second column, he recommends, and put the price at the end of the sentence that describes the dish.

"You want people to read the price after they've read the description," he explains, "not before."

Spelling out prices on the menu instead of printing them in numerals supposedly also helps people buy more, but I always thought it was a damning sign of pretentiousness. In any case, the article is quick to point out that this is aimed strictly at increasing the food industry's profit margins, not at making Americans any more fit or less fat than we already are. Relax, fat Americans.

Kottke explains the technical side of this feat, but the best part is watching the commenters on Bruni's Diners Journal blog. Some of them, after various technological contortions, got reservations:

One even offered his own review (since Bruni hasn't yet gotten in):

Very "ooo-mommy" indeed.

The paper found that Irvine lied about being a knight in England; lied about the nature of his college degree; was not really a full-fledged "White House chef;" has bragged about a "Five Star Diamond Award" that is basically available to any asshole with a credit card; and owes thousands of dollars to people who worked with him on his unopened restaurants. He also may have acted like a jerk while out in St. Petersburg restaurants, possibly the biggest sin of all for a food industry guy. They do acknowledge that he's a good cook, though.

This video repeats a lot of the assertions about his experience; might not get to hear those again. If the cooking thing doesn't work out for him, he'd make a good contestant on "American Gladiators."

It's just people who hate things. But you know what? If they don't like my beef-cheek ravioli and the rock-and-roll we play on the sound system at Babbo, they can suck my dick. I don't care.

For years, New York's restaurateurs had been used to worrying only about the New York Times critic, who could be relied upon to come at least three times and as many as five. A bad review from the Times, usually written with all the wit and energy of a church sermon, might be devastating for business, but at least the chefs and owners knew it was properly researched. Nobody could or would say the same about the bloggers.

Oh yes, oh yes. No, we tried to change. I had to change the general manager, the No. 1 chef, the pastry chef, and the officer manager. It's like changing your driver when your car is going at 150-miles-an-hour speed. It was very traumatic, but I had to do it.

I will treat them completely with indifference, regardless of what they say.... Still, a good review from the New York Times makes you feel good. Not only me but the people that work in the kitchen. Can you imagine how you feel uncomfortable being here and working [after a bad review]? Especially the young people. When a bad review comes, sometimes they look at me and say "Why?" You have to try to explain and just try not to think about it. [Portfolio]

Mr. Chodorow is also planning on opening China Grills in Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Hawaii, Dubai and Moscow, as well a Kobe Club in Miami sometime next year. In Los Angeles, Mr. Chodorow is bringing the Citronelle chef Michel Richard from Washington, D.C., to help open a new incarnation of Mr. Richard's old L.A. restaurant, Citrus, which closed in 1998. He also has two restaurants opening in hotels in the Dominican Republic, and what he calls a "big Italian project" in New York.

Chodorow comes across as defensive and a little bumbling, but generally likable and definitely sane. But his publicist Karine Bakhoum (wife of Primetime Tables reservation pimp Pascal Riffaud), is even more nutso than previously thought.

A curated selection of Karine Bakhoum's wisdom:

• "'Let's not talk about the past,' she cooed. 'It's just not interesting.'"
  
• "'Oh, you're so sweet!' said Ms. Bakhoum. 'He's a mushy-mushy.' She said this in the cadence normally reserved for babies and poodles."
  
• "'Jeffrey's very misunderstood. That's the problem. ... When you're bigger than life, people love to jump to conclusions.'"
  
• "'I think Kobe Club may be my favorite restaurant in America,' said Ms. Bakhoum, who has represented Mr. Chodorow for several years. 'It's that decadently beautiful and delicious. The creamed corn with the truffles? I want to lay down and die.'"

  Chodorow Eats New York [NYO]

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

(This all plays into a pet theory: It's like the cast of characters that make New York interesting—Kenny Shopsin a prince among them—are constantly being called upon to reinforce faltering areas and retreating from hopeless ones. It's the strategy of a losing army. So the Lower East Side is richer for Kenny Shopsin and the West Village happy but poorer without him.)

Anyway. This isn't a knock on Market Table. Of the Bedford Street restaurant row, it is by far the best. Barfry is a bowling alley to its ballroom. Blue Ribbon bakery, though it's been there forever, can only look on in envy at what Market Table has done and think to itself, "Whoa, that is like a better us!" (That's how I feel when I look at Seth Meyers.)

The times I've visited Market Table, the food has been nicely done. There's also Yuengling which, as a Philadelphia boy, warms my heart. The crab cake sandwiches are, according to a Washingtonian friend with whom I ate, Chesapeake quality. Ed Levine calls their lunch hoagie one of the best in the city. The swordfish steak, on a bed of corn, avocado and greens, really showcases Price's ability to coax the best out of a fish.

The check comes in music books. One time I got a Marvin Gaye bio. The other night, my dinner for one (not sad, I had a book) came to $60, The check was tucked into the page of John Szwed's So What: The Life of Miles Davis. It was on page 269, at which point Miles Davis is roaming through the flash and funk boutiques of the West Village, high out of his mind. Would he have preferred Kenny Shopsin's blisters on my sisters to Mikey Price's apple and fennel salad?

From Eater:

Regarding the convo, wrong again: the Chodorow was eating with his lovely wife and was on the phone with his designers. Here's the thing: there is an issue with the stingray bar top currently installed at the restaurant. Just didn't hold up. "When you experiment with new materials, sometimes the solutions aren't that easy," says El Chod. Now on order is not the cheap stuff, but this stuff (click "stingray parquet"), which promises to be more durable. While repairs are being made, there is a temporary covering on the bar. So, that's that.

Dear Frank, The penguin has returned to the South Pole where it belongs. I'm contributing the money I would have spent on a larger ad to the fight against global warming. Really glad you loved the wild salmon at Wild Salmon. It is like no other salmon I've ever tasted. Regards, Jeff. P.s. Loved "your" cameo in Ratatouille."

On the first front, after some scrambling, they came back with an organization called Conservation International which, we guess, combats global warming. What are the chances some PR flak thought, "Doh, they're actually calling us out. Quick, somebody Google 'conservation'!"

But in response to how much dough Chodorow is throwing away, we got "We are not disclosing the amount at this time." This either means somewhere around $20K (the approximate difference between a full pager and a 2 column ad), or maybe nothing. A better formulation would have been "I'm contributing the money I'm going to lose at my business due to my continuing obsessive craziness to the fight against global warming." That way the environmentalists would be trillions of dollars richer!

[Scan: Eater]

Rocco DiSpirito Joins Bertolli to Inspire Home Cooks With Simple, Flavorful Ideas for Making Mediterranean Meals [PR Wire]

We asked a slightly more observant Jew to translate the lines. She in turn asked an even more Jewier Jew who, finally, asked the Jewiest type of Jew, a rabbi, for clarification. Word from on high is that the place was a Chevra Kadisha. The Chevra Kadisha is the religious group that cleans and washes the dead before burial. They also were responsible, largely, for waiting with the corpse before burial to guard against theft. This is one of the biggest mitzvot one can perform. (That and pretending not to be disgusted by the crumbly lips of your grandmother.)

All this means that one point in time, not too long ago, Chickie Pig's was filled with deceased Jewry. Now it's just filled with prosciutto and drunken overflow from neighborhood bars.

The space itself, as semi-gratuitously noted the New York Times today, is kitted out to look old. "The floors, walls and ceiling of the main dining room are covered with wood salvaged from piers, mushroom barns and factories." And in the back there's a pool table, probably one of the nicest in the area, surrounded by weird pulleys and other farming equipment.

As for the food, whether you'll like it or not depends on how you feel about shmaltz, buttermilk and fried shit, of which there is a lot on the menu. Also on the menu is the trademark Chodorow logorrhea. The salad isn't just mixed greens and duck but "honey locust farmhouse greens, east corner wonton roasted duck, poached rhubarb, fennel, grilled spring onions, citrus dressing." Dude. It's a salad, chill.

Borough felt a little "meh." It's comfort food in a comfortable environment. If you don't mind paying fairly stiffly for such, well, at least you're still in Manhattan.