The [AOL] Time-Warner Center Restaurant All-Stars

Ladies and gentlemen, gourmands and those with expense accounts: The [AOL] Time-Warner Center Restaurant All-Stars! The Times' restaurant critic William Grimes looks at the wealth of cooking talent the new AOL Time-Warner Center boasts (but the Time Warner Center is NOT A MALL - it's One Central Park, okay?). The breakdown:

Coming from that Napa Valley oasis of cooking, the French Laundry, is Thomas Keller. Representing the Beef Council is Jean-Georges Vongerichten with steakhouse Prime. Think Alain Ducasse is cheap? Then Masa Takayama's Asayoshi $500 sushi dinners is your answer. For mere upper-middle-class plebes, Gray Kunz will open Café Gray, "a large brasserie with an Eastern European flavor" and Chicago's Charlie Trotter will make a foray into NY by way of seafood. And Noriyuki Sugie's Asiate (French–Japanese) opened this past week at the Mandarian Oriental.

Other NYC restaurateurs aren't admitting they are freaked out, claiming more of a concerned and aware stance. But it could be argued it's all for the good of gentrification: Mandarin Oriental manager Rudy Tauscher tells Grimes, "This part of the West Side will reinvent itself, and you'll see a repositioning over the next few years. This is going to be quite a lively spot." Totally...Gothamist can't wait for stories of poaching staffers, suspicious health inspection reports or "fires," and stolen equipment.