More and Weirder Trends From Restaurant Guru Michael Whiteman
We recently had occasion to assay the National Restaurant Association’s somewhat dubious restaurant trends piece. Today brings us a far more formidable attempt — that of Michael Whiteman, the restaurant-business guru who, with his late partner Joe Baum, created Windows on the World and the Rainbow Room, and who is now a full-time restaurant consultant. Whiteman’s trends are even more disturbingly freaky than were the NRA’s but seem mostly accurate to us. Here’s how they break down.
NewsFeed
Breaking: Serendipity 3 Closed by DOHEater has rumblings, and our trusty Channel 4 has just confirmed that Serendipity 3, that Upper East Side bastion of desserts and diabetes, has been shut down by the Department of Health. Let’s hope it’s because of some anal plumbing violation and not, y’know, because there are rodents near the Frozen Hot Chocolate.
BREAKING: Serendipty Shut Down By The Department of Health? [Eater]
Update With Bonus Vomit: “In last night’s inspection, the inspector observed a live mouse, mouse droppings in multiple areas of the restaurant, fruit flies, house flies, over 100 live cockroaches.” Holy mother.
Openings
Spike Jonze Anoints Bacaro With Celebrity Cred
On Monday we hit one of Bacaro’s bacchanalian opening parties and suggested a Halloween visit to preview the spooky (and soon-to-be-sceney) basement. Eater, in telling folks that the place wouldn’t open till Thursday, scared off the riffraff and we had no problem strolling in (again, no doorman or publicist or list, just word from a staffer that bubbly was on the house all night) and immediately tucking in to gratis plates of cuttlefish risotto, gnocchi, marinated sardines, spaghetti alle vongole, meatballs, and so on.
