You guys, did you know that restaurant empire-builders like Danny Meyer and Daniel Boulud expect borderline-ridiculous things from their employees? Are you in any way, even slightly, surprised? Allow Page Six to pull back the velvet curtain from before your sheltered eyes! more ›

The debate over whether or not children should be allowed into restaurants enters a new stage today, with the news that one brave London restaurant charged one mother a small "baby tax" for bringing her spittle-strewn bundle of joy. Is this the closest thing to a compromise we'll get? more ›

For those who follow these sorts of things: the 2012 Michelin Guide for New York restaurants is being released this week, and aspiring gourmands will need to prepare their Metrocard if they hope to achieve the ultimate in dining out bragging rights. more ›

Just as we predicted following the announcement that Sam Sifton will be leaving his post as restaurant critic at the Times, there's been a whole lot of speculation about what will happen next. But is getting paid to eat out every night really the dream job that it appears to be? Maybe not so much. more ›

Defying the legions of morbidly obese Americans who believe that bigger is better, stubborn New Yorkers insist that sized-zero restaurants are all the rage, and penny-pinching restaurateurs aren't complaining. more ›

There's been a big ole brouhaha about kids in restaurants in the past few days—specifically, about whether or not children and their big mouths and poor table manners should be allowed in restaurants at all. more ›

The Great Recession may technically be over but that doesn't mean that the majority of diners are whipping out their checkbooks for long dinners of caviar and champagne. Instead, pretty much as Danny Meyer predicted, a new report shows that the habits of diners, even affluent ones, have been directly modified by the new economic order. more ›

The rules keep coming in. Bartender and restaurant manager Patrick Maguire already published his list of 64 things restaurant patrons must never do (in response to restaurateur Bruce Buschel's list of 100 things servers should never do), but now Endless Simmer is starting their own list of customer no-nos. They back up Maguire's assertion that "Gimme" is not the proper way to start an order (pardon us), but have some new rules too: more ›

Bon Appétit , in an attempt to appeal to a broader, younger, and theoretically "hipper" audience, has recently revamped its logo. Taunting came in full force, via Grub Street, who concluded, "[t]he truth is that Bon Appétit will never be any hipper or friskier than it is, because no magazine about upscale entertaining can ever speak to people that don’t have big houses and plenty of time on their hands." Adam Roberts, the Amateur Gourmet,... more ›

Tonight another season of Top Chef will come to an end as a new connoisseur of cuisine is crowned with a big white hat. So who's it gonna be? Dale, Hung and Casey are the three remaining chefs, and last week they gave us some easy recipes to cook in a small NYC kitchen, the dirt on Newark, and told us how they've been preparing to face Padma & Co. one last time. more ›

The life of a food columnist may seem glamorous to some -- tasting events, restaurant openings, dining out several nights a week -- but sometimes it feels downright gluttonous. After a particularly over-the-top week, when I received an email from the folks at Blueprint Cleanse offering me a free sample 3-day juice cleanse, I jumped right on it. more ›

Okay, so slaving in the kitchen for hours on end isn't for everyone. If you want to leave the entire Thanksgiving planning, shopping, prep, cooking, and cleanup to someone else, or if the thought of eating aunt Irma's dried out excuse for a bird throws you right over the edge, dining out might be for you. Grab the family and a few friends for good measure and instead of making a turkey or a pumpkin pie, make a reservation. more ›

Boston Celtics player and Brooklyn native Sebastian Telfair continues to deny he had anything to do with Fabolous shooting's outside of Justin's earlier this week. Earlier, the Post reported that Telfair's $50,000 necklace was stolen two hours before Fabolous was shot and a witness heard Telfair call someone "to take care" of it. Supposedly Telfair was just calling to ask for an escort because he was concerned about his and his fiancee's safety - i.e. the call wasn't a hit. more ›

you make sure another resident of your building doesn't think you're a mugger), offices (do you invite your coworker to your wedding), cellphone and iPod usage, friendships (if you make more money, except to give the nicer gifts), dining out (if the food is bad, it's not the waiter's fault, so you still need to tip!) and awkward family situations ("Hey, my kid is kicked out of school!"), it's all about how to navigate through various situations with grace and aplomb that would still make many titter about you behind your back. Of course, our favorite section centered around the ways of subways and cabs; certain subway stock character were analyzed like this:

THE DOORMAN more ›

I've never wanted a vast loft space dwelling more than the day I wandered around Moss and saw the sheep. They were basically three sizes of sawhorse designed to look like grazing sheep for sitting astride. I immediately had visions of a small flock of seats gathered in a shady corner of a huge apartment on Astroturf with maybe the skin of one of these awesome chairs laid over a similar wolf stool. Imagine the fun at cocktail parties as people spread the mutton settees around the room, those in skirts demurely sitting sidesaddle. It's not often I am swooped up by a spatial vision and for that I will always be grateful to Murray Moss and his showroom on Houston. more ›

Houstonist reports on cross-dressing thieves and undressing educators this week. A Peeping Tom defends himself with a papaya and an outraged onlooker asks Ken Lay, "TATER TOTS OR FRIES?" Also, FEMA wants it's money back. more ›

Extra, extra - it's time to get your free NY Times tabloid, the MarketPlace Weekly, this afternoon! It will be full of "classified ads, supplemented by articles culled from The Times's Job Market, Real Estate, Automotive, Business and Dining Out sections, among others." Hmm, so it's like a reverse paper - mostly small type ads, with some content; we're officially in the bizarro world. The NY Times tells NY1, "We have an opportunity to reach an 18- to 34-year-old reader – or perhaps even a Times reader – with very specific information. It's very targeted toward those readers that are interested in finding a new job, purchasing a home or purchasing a new car." Well, Gothamist gets the need for job listings (sometimes scrolling through Monster gets tiring!), but purchasing a home or new car seems a little more...aspirational for the 18-34 year old reader. If there were listings for sample sales and concerts, not to mention free wine tastings at area wine merchants and free anything else, then you're talking. Anyway, here's the official word from the New York Times:

Street teams strategically positioned at over 250 commuter centers including Grand Central Terminal, WTC PATH, Pennsylvania Station, the Port Authority, the Staten Island Ferry, Jamaica Station and Hunters Point in Queens, Flatbush Avenue and the Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, and The Grand Concourse in The Bronx, will hand out the weekly during the peak afternoon travel times of 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. MarketPlace Weekly will be available every Thursday. The guide will also be given out at select college campuses in the city.

No, that's not what we mean -- get your minds out of the gutter. A dozen of New York's chefs are joining together for "Get in Bed," a benefit for Plan USA's tsunami relief efforts. On January 31, twelve chefs including Floyd Cardoz of Tabla, Food Network host and cookbook author Tyler Florence, and Zak Pelaccio of 5 Ninth, will each cook one dish, for a total of eight savory and four sweet dishes. The benefit is being held at BED, which features, you guessed it, actual beds in which you can dine. Cost is $2,000 per bed (holds up to eight people) or $250 per single ticket. Plan USA, established in 1937 to help children in impoverished countries, has already set up makeshift camps for homeless and orphaned children in Sri Lanka and are committed to rebuilding communities impacted by the tsunami. 100% of the money raised will go to their rebuilding efforts. [via Gayot and Andrea Strong] more ›

Regina Schrambling, Food Writer more ›