Grub Street

After a little more than a year in business, super-trendy Niko, the Japanese restaurant that took over the former Honmura Ahn space on Mercer Street, has closed — for now, anyway. "We had a flood; whether or not we reopen depends on what happens with the insurance,'' says owner Cobi Levy, who was a partner in the equally trendy and short-lived Charles before opening Niko. But sources close to the situation say that Saturday was the restaurant's last night, and the damage caused by a burst water heater could have easily been repaired if the restaurant had wanted to remain in business.

If change is good, Wylie Dufresne is in for some happy days. This week, the kooky chef-trailblazer scraps his entire menu at wd~50, most of which has been offered since opening day nine years ago, for something brand spankin' new. Even the format is new, as the restaurant will now offer two tasting menus, a concept he tried to avoid for fear of self-importance (“I was afraid people would associate a tasting menu with a temple, a church”) but has come to embrace. He also says his mad-scientist touch has been tamed, not that his crew isn't currently using "vacuum pressure to press the essence of pistachio oil directly into pores of zucchini" or anything. [NYT]

Who knew? Fig Newtons have dropped the "Fig" and now go exclusively by the name "Newtons." “We needed to let fruit be the core of the brand as opposed to the fig,” said a spokesperson, alluding to various fig-killers like chewy strawberry and pomegranate. Also, the word fig is associated with "prune," which is associated with IBS and old people, “and that’s not good.” [NYT]

Sounds like Joe Bastianich's Restaurant Man has taken a page from How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, now that Esquire's John Mariani (who was described in the book as a "self-righteous, condescending prick" who "slashed my balls off") has torn JoBa another new one, with a publicly released letter calling him "vile" and "duplicitous," and describing the memoir as "what seems an attempt to out-Bourdain [Anthony] Bourdain and must appall your mother ... " [Page Six/NYP]

Charlie Sheen's lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to a classy New York strip club called Cheetahs, claiming the Charlie Sheen Room, a VIP area that served sushi off naked dancers, could hurt their client's reputation. Threatening millions in damages, Team Sheen insisted his name be removed from the den of naughty maki and sticky rice, or else. The president of Cheetahs said Sheen's name wasn't doing much for business anyway, assuring that the naked sushi room is "not where you do crack." [Page Six/NYP]