Well, folks, as another man who gained a lot of weight in his late twenties once said, “This is the end.” It’s been just about five years since I started Grub Street with then-editor Josh Ozersky, and since then I’ve written over 7,600 posts — half of them about Momofuku. But it’s time to pack my bags, or at least this nice little picnic basket of booze that Lillet sent over. (Thanks, Lillet!) Hopefully this won’t be the last time you see me on Grub Street; my colleagues Jenny Miller and Alan Sytsma will surely link to me when I start my new gig in August — right, guys? In addition to them, I’d like to thank all of our past interns and also our present ones (Ray Rahman, Danielle Walsh, Samantha Zalaznick, Mickey Woods, Michelle Marques, and Alice Urmey), our freelancers, copy editors (most recently Alicia Kennedy), photo editors (Mary-Louise Price did the above illustration and Jed Egan has also been a rock), and of course our photographer Melissa Hom, who took my favorite photo in the world. Thanks as well to all the good folks in the restaurant industry who let me be a fly on their wall, and hopefully not too often in their soup. And, of course, you — thanks for reading!

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The TBD pop-up isn’t the only thing keeping Ryan Skeen busy these days: Flo Fab reports that he’s the consulting chef at Il Cibreo, the relaunch of Campo on the Upper West Side. The new Italian menu, posted at Diner’s Journal, will be introduced Wednesday. [Diner's Journal/NYT]

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Filed Under: openings, campo, il cibreo, ryan skeen

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Yesterday the Times stopped to wonder where all the Tompkins Square Park gutter punks known as “crusties” have gone. Well, this might be a clue: The former sidewalk café of St. Marks yakitori Go Japanese, which closed some months ago, has been renamed CRUSTY HUT, and despite the logo, we’re pretty sure it’s not pizza crust they’re talking about. And we’re thinking that’s not apple juice in there, either.

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Pat Mahoney of LCD last year.

Le Fooding, the roving French festival that celebrates the food world’s enfants terribles, will return in late September in a big way: New York project manager Anna Polonsky tells us the first event, on September 17, will be an outdoor concert at Elizabeth Street Gallery. “The idea is that the food is really bad at music concerts and at the same time, when you go to really good restaurants, it’s sometimes not so fun,” Polonsky tells us. The bands have yet to be confirmed (Thurston Moore has expressed interest), but one thing’s for sure: You’ll see Nancy Whang on the decks while her former LCD Soundsystem bandmate and noted foodie James Murphy cooks a dish alongside “rock-star chef” Inaki Aizpitarte of Le Chateaubriand in Paris. There’ll be Van Leeuwen ice cream, as well as cocktails from Richard Boccato and Sasha Petraske. Meanwhile, the second event, a so-called “pop-up table d’hote,” promises to be epic.

Polonsky tells us the pop-up dinner at the Honey Space (a Chelsea exhibition venue that will be outfitted with a communal table) will be a continuous 48-hour affair going from September 23 at 8 p.m. to September 25 at midnight, with fourteen chefs trading off four-hour shifts. The feast will kick off with Andrew Carmellini and Hugue Dufour, and then, à la French surrealists’ “exquisite corpse” method, “every chef will have to do a little bit of the former chef’s menu,” says Polonsky. So who are the chefs? Confirmed so far is an international roster that includes Kobe Desramaults (In de Wulf, Belgium), Armand Arnal (La Chassagnette, France), Sat Bains (Restaurant Sat Bains, U.K.), Blaine Wetzel (Willows Inn, San Juan Islands, Washington), Fulvio Pierangelini (Hotel de Russie, Italy), Brooks Headley (Del Posto), Mauro Colagreco (Le Mirazur, France), Adeline Grattard (Yam’Tcha, France), Corey Lee (Benu, San Francisco), and Massimo Bottura (Osteria Francescana, Italy).

Tickets will go on sale sometime in August. Four-hundred of them will be released at $75 to $100 for the concert (the price hasn’t yet been set) and 40 $100 tickets will be available for each four-course seating at the pop-up (that price includes half a bottle of Veuve Clicquot).

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Filed Under: foodievents, adeline grattard, andrew carmellini, anna polonsky, armand arnal, blaine wetzel, brooks headley, corey lee, elizabeth street gallery, fulvio pierangelini, hugue dufour, inaki aizpitarte, james murphy, kobe desramaults, lcd soundsystem, le chateaubriand, le fooding, massimo bottura, mauro colagreco, sat bains, the honey space, thuston moore

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While the Fort Greene Park Conservancy looks for food vendors for its summer concerts, another free show in the park is bringing food from neighborhood spots Madiba, Rustik Tavern, Buka, General Greene, and Brooklyn Moon. At the 3rd Annual Fort Greene Festival on Saturday, June 25 from noon till 10 p.m., Rosie Perez will host performances by Mos Def, Res, Sophia Urista, and more. See the full lineup here.

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Filed Under: foodievents, brooklyn moon, buka, fort greene park, general greene, madiba, mos def, rosie perez, rustik tavern

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The original Luca Lounge.

Vito DiTomaso tells us he reopened Luca Bar yesterday, and chalks the seizure due to non-payment of taxes up to “bad accounting”— “New York City is a very tough market,” he says. “You don’t get bills, you get bills, you don’t get bills, and bills get piled up.” He says he plans to “give it more than we were giving before,” starting with a new menu in the coming weeks that will be more like the one that the original Luca Lounge on Avenue B offered in 1997. “We were the first place to bring a Neapolitan personal pizza to the neighborhood,” says DiTomaso. Though he wants the new pizza-focused menu to be “a little bit of a surprise,” he plans to forgo the fancier food he’s been serving lately (“It’s very hard to run a kitchen and hire chefs and cooks and dishwashers—it takes a toll on business”) and “take it back to how we started—very basic, very loving, caring food.”

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Filed Under: reopenings, east village, luca bar, vito ditomaso

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Yesterday evening we cruised by Del Posto (home of Manhattan’s most expensive meal, per Bloomberg’s breakdown of prix fixes) and noticed a group across from the restaurant holding signs like “WE LOVE JUST FOOD” and “BATALI, SUPPORT FAIR FOOD.” Turns out we were looking at a Fair Food Potluck organized by the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, the group that helped bring a lawsuit against the restaurant. Though Batali and Bastianich sued the ROCNY and scored a restraining order against the protesters back in November, ROCNY co-director Rekha Eanni tells us the restaurant dropped the order a month later, and as a result, “there will continually be actions outside of Del Posto to let the public know what’s going on.”

Eanni says that about 60 to 70 people showed up yesterday, including several of the suit’s plaintiffs, along with members from the Riverside Church, Just Food, WhyHunger, and ROCNY. In the words of the event’s flyer (which includes a link to a petition that’s 580+ signatures strong), they brought “just food” to share. So what’s just food, anyway? “Batali really puts himself out there as a green restaurant and he’s trying to get green restaurant certified, and he’s a big player in the local, sustainable, environmental food movement,” says Eanni. “So last night was about sending the message that sustainable restaurants and businesses are also about having good working conditions and treating workers fairly.”

According to Eanni, no one from Del Posto came out to speak to the protesters, but she thinks they’ll get the message. “They’re going to have to do the right thing,” she says, “because there’s a very public expectation that they will do the right thing.”

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Filed Under: lawsuits, del posto, just food, mario batali, rekha eanni, restaurant opportunities center of new york, whyhunger

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Yesterday we told you about La Camelia, the new one from the Maria’s Mexican Bistro team, in the former Junno’s space. Now we have the menu for you. To drink, there’ll be an extensive tequila list, as well as wines from Europe and North and South America. La Camelia will be open for lunch Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. till 4 p.m.; for brunch on weekends, 11 a.m. till 4 p.m.; and for dinner, 5 p.m. till 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and till midnight Friday and Saturday.

La Camelia Menu [PDF]

La Camelia, 64 Downing St., nr. Varick St.; 212-675-7060

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Filed Under: openings, la camelia, maria’s mexican bistro

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Doughnut Plant (the subject of today’s City Sweet Tooth comic) is expanding its Grand Street location, according to the Lo-Down. No more waiting on the street! [Lo-Down]

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Le Baron just hosted a pop-up shop while waiting to open (so— the club pops up at another club while hosting a pop-up shop— it’s pop-up madness!); and now Thrillist tells us that Eddie Huang (who just popped up at LTO) is doing the food at a five-day pop-up featuring over forty local designers. Once you pop, you can’t stop! [Thrillist]

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Filed Under: foodievents, eddie huang, le baron

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Time Out interviews Peter Hoffman about the life and death of Savoy. He reveals that he was disappointed to lose the Union Square Pavilion restaurant to someone who “has no history of working with the Greenmarket farmers, no relationship with the people who are there and no skill set to amplify the market movement by having the restaurant placed in the middle of Union Square.” He rattles off a list of distinguished Savoy alumni: “Caroline Fidanza, who owns Saltie in Williamsburg. Andy Feinberg at Franny’s, John Tucker who owns Rose Water, Charlie Kiely and Sharon Pachter at the Grocery.” And he talks about Savoy’s replacement: “The second floor is going to be more a fun and festive room to be in. [There may be] communal tables, and some of the menu items will be designed to be eaten as a group.”

Interview: Peter Hoffman [TONY]

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Filed Under: closings, peter hoffman, savoy

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In its quest to stir up two Little Italy feuds in one month, the Post interviewed some neighborhood shopkeepers and restaurateurs who didn’t seem too big on Eataly (“Eataly is for the kind of people who’d rather spend $700 on a pair of shoes than $70,” says a restaurateur) and slapped on the incendiary headline “Eataly Pinches Little Italy.” First off, there really aren’t more than a few Italian food shops left to pinch in Little Italy, and Eataly is a half-hour walk away — it’s not like they opened right next door. And yet Lou Di Palo, in a photo caption, is described as “one of the Little Italy merchants feeling pressure from the popular Eataly” — even though Di Palo isn’t quoted in the piece and seems to be doing just fine. Not only that, but as we’ve pointed out, Di Palo is a favorite of Lydia Bastinachi’s, who has collaborated with the store (her DVDs are still sold on its website). We weren’t surprised, then, to get an official statement from Di Palo’s rep.

According to the statement, “Lou, who has worked closely with Lidia Bastianich and Mario Batali sees them and his fellow Italian food purveyors as colleagues not competitors on the exciting NYC food scene and welcomes their collaboration in promoting Italy and the Italian cuisine in the US.” We’re assured that “not too many sleepless nights are spent worrying about the Italian mecca uptown!”

Eataly pinches Little Italy [NYP]

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Filed Under: beef, di palo, eataly, little italy

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