Tavern on the Green is coming up for bids and the gladiators are salivating. “Yes, Alan Stillman and I have talked about doing something together at Tavern,” says Nick Valenti (the man who spun off Restaurant Associates to emerge as Patina Group and buy all of Stillman’s out-of-town restaurant). Dean Poll, the Long Island restaurateur who brags of boosting the Loeb Boat House take from $8 million to $18 million in 2007, hopes he has an inside-the-park advantage over all the usual suspects competing for Tavern’s expiring license, because “there are not many Saturday, Sundays or afternoons available in my party room. I could really fill that place.”
        The Parks Department has promised to get the Request for Proposal (RFP) out soon to give suitors time to puff up their acts, doodle their plans, maybe give the winner time to book a few parties before the license expires December 31, 2009. Industry gossips see Danny Meyer, Drew Nieporent (who spent some of his youth working at Tavern) and maybe even the Ciprianis...more   1-2-08

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        The lure of the Iron Chef, and the rage for cooking (or at least watching it) has not been lost on the nouvelle Metropolitan Opera in its holiday production of Hansel and Gretel, three acts set in three kitchens. A master stroke was hiring Jean Georges’ pastry wiz Johnny Iuzzini to bake the monster black forest cake poised on a Mick Jagger tongue that gets ravaged in act three: the cake, not the tongue.
     A filmed version will be shown in 600 theaters world wide on New Year’s Day, a brand extension of opera dreamed up by the Met’s exuberant new director Peter Gelb. Of course, 2500 school children, many of them students of the culinary arts, would be invited to the dress rehearsel, and beforehand, a student Bûche de Noël baking competition judged by Iuzzini himself. Our Insatiable Reporter, Sylvie Bigar, couldn’t resist. 12-29-07 

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      Bartenders at Gilt in the Palace Hotel are seeing a parade of ripe Lolitas, their slightly older sisters and teenling touristas flocking to the bar as if it were a shrine. Well after all, it’s the bar location spot for Gossip Girls. They squeal and plead for a cocktail and are shocked bartenders just can’t be seduced into serving them. A few are so brazen they actually pull out a real I.D and are dashed when told they have to be 21. “But you serve the Gossip girls," the bar crew reply, "That's TV. This is New York." 12-19-07

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         The Nobu team has decided it’s time to cash in (or is that cash out?). Nobu and his partners have been talking to Thomas J. Barrack Jr., founder and top gun at Colony Capital, big players in hotels, resorts, casinos and the force behind Xanadu, the 2.2. million square foot sports, leisure, shopping and family entertainment complex sprouting in the Meadowlands. Expect Nobu Hotels and Casinos, Fast Food Nobu, maybe even miso lollypops and Nobu sneakers. Why not?  It’s all about branding. Well, how long did we expect to keep the guys down on the farm after Steve Hanson’s rich harvest? Hansen’s $158 million deal with Starwood Capital for just half his B.R.Guest fiefdom seems to have ignited a rash of restaurateurs looking for rich suitors. 12-17-07

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        My Paris mouth, publicist and events wizard Yanou Collart tells me that the restaurant of the moment in Paris is Paul Minchelli’s tiny ad exclusive place at 21 Rue Mazarine (formerly La cafetière).  With only eight tables and a private salon upstairs you have to show the "patte blanche" (white paw) to get in, she says. That means you have to explain why you're entitled. Familiars of Minchelli, once the chef at the legendary Le Duc, include Isabelle Adjani, Pierre Bergé, Alber Elbaz and John Vinocur. 12-16-07

        Collart recently staged a hard-hat dinner for local swells in the construction debris to promote Les Petites Sorcieres, a bistro that two-star chef-owner Ghislaine Arabian plans to open December 26 at 14 Rue de Liancourt in the 4th arrondisement. French fries were served in a paper cone. 12-16-07

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        Is it possible Daniel Boulud may have overestimated the cravings of his fans?  His Feast et Fêtes catering arm set up a charcuterie buffet table just like the one he’ll have at Bar Boulud across from Lincoln Center (one day soon) for a party at Louise McBain’s celebrating the first anniversary of her glossy Culture and Travel.  A bold few gourmands were thrilled (as I was at a media preview) but many of the guests shuddered at the piggy fare and turned away, I am told – all that fat, all that pork, all that cholesterol. Presumably fat-phobes, vegetarians, and social x-rays will stick to Boulud’s safer havens.  (Look for  "An Oink, A Squeak  and A Quack.") 12-14-07

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        I am not sure the guests were that much happier Sunday night at the after-dinner for Peggy Siegal’s “Kite Runner” screening at MOMA.  Peggy’s loyal power pack – Pete Hamill, Mort and Linda Janklow, Ben Gazzara, Judith Jones, Bartle Bull – descended on Brasserie Ruhlman as instructed.  Well-trained sharks quickly claimed tables and sat sipping wine and nibbling pannini waiting for dinner.  Only to discover those sandwiches were dinner.  Vegetarians and carbophobes just kept drinking. 12-14-07

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        David Pasternak will be running the Fish Shack in right field when the Mets open their new stadium in 2010. 12-11-07

        Steven Kalt has left his restaurant Corso at Wynn Resort in Las Vegas because he thinks it’s time for him to expand his franchise, or so he was telling me over chicken salad sandwiches on seven-grain bread at Fairway Cafe,when across the room we spotted Tom Valenti.

        “What does Tom Valenti eat for lunch?” I ask Tom.

        “I had the egg salad on whole grain,” he says.

       “I wanted egg salad,” I confess “But eggs on top of mayo is two sins, so I had the chicken salad sandwich, one mayo sin.”

       “I had that twice already this week,” he says, “That’s why I had the egg.”

        Kalt finished off his chicken salad sandwich and went off to find an interesting opportunity – could be here, he told me, or in Los Angeles. 12-11-07

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        Walking home from my office about 7 p.m., I am surprised to see two firefighters, sans helmet but otherwise in battle dress, leaning against the barricade at the Ansonia. “I just don’t feel like cooking tonight,” one of them said. 

        Oh my, I thought, I know just how you feel. 12-11-07