Pro tip: your fat friend (read: me) doesn’t want to sit in the booth.
restaurants
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Server, Busser, Manager, Spy: Inside the High-Stakes World of Restaurant Oppo Research
When a famous critic enters a restaurant, they become the most scrutinized item on the menu.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Spies, Dossiers, and the Insane Lengths Restaurants Go to Track and Influence Food Critics
When a glowing review can catapult a restaurant into stardom and a bad one can spell its doom, owners increasingly resort to a mainstay of political campaigns: opposition research.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Japanese Origins of Modern Fine Dining
How kaiseki — Japan’s formal dining tradition — became a major (though often unacknowledged) influence on modern haute cuisine.
Posted inFood, Nonfiction, Quotes
Grist for the Celebrity Food Mill
Did Rocco DiSpirito sell his culinary soul for a paycheck and some Bertoli frozen pasta?
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Chef Who Wouldn’t Cook
Rocco DiSpirito was once the next great American chef — so why hasn’t he been in the kitchen for the last 13 years?
Posted inFood, Nonfiction, Quotes
To Be an Instagram-Ready Restaurant, Don’t Forget Your Selfie-Optimized Lamps
Sleek-kitschy idiosyncrasy is all the rage.
Posted inEditor's Pick, Food, Nonfiction, Quotes
To Be an Instagram-Ready Restaurant, Don’t Forget Your Selfie-Optimized Lamps
Sleek-kitschy idiosyncrasy is all the rage.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Instagram Is Pushing Restaurants to Be Kitschy, Colorful, and Irresistible to Photographers
How the popular app has transformed the way diners, designers, and marketers approach restaurants. (Hint: that bold wallpaper pattern isn’t there by accident.)
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Haute Cuisine Has a Low Wage Problem
How an army of unpaid apprentices keeps the world’s best restaurants afloat.