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| Hi readers, it’s Amanda, your Editor in Chief, back with my weekly roundup of everything—both on and off Eater—that piqued my interest in the food world. RantLet's dive right into the deep end. This week marks the opening of a brand new Keith McNally restaurant in New York, which—no matter what else is going on, or how recent his last opening was, or who the chef is—is always a Very. Big. Deal. It’s called Augustine. It’s in the newly-revived Temple Court downtown. Looks gorgeous. Eater NY’s Nick Solares went to the press preview and loved the food. Can't wait to try it myself. But then there's this. Perhaps to drum up some buzz for the restaurant this week, McNally wrote in an essay for the Times that he’s a tad wistful for the days when sexual harassment protection wasn’t such a Thing. When people could screw openly. He writes: “[I]t’s difficult not to be anything but fully supportive of a system that protects employees from harassment. But, remembering what it was like to be in my 20s, I believe it’s also important not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.” Now, McNally is famously cheeky, and I’m sure a lot of readers saw no issue with this. But it makes me cringe. The restaurant industry is the single-largest source of sexual harassment charges filed by women with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And according to a recent survey of 700 industry workers, “sixty percent of women and transgender workers and 46 percent of men reported that sexual harassment was an uncomfortable aspect of work life.” As the wonderfully outspoken Jen Agg tweeted, you can still fuck your co-workers in the cellar—or, as McNally did, meet your two future wives in restaurants. You just can’t sexually harass them. Opening of the week: The Shaw BijouWho’s behind this place? Top Chef alum Kwame Onwuachi is a rising star in the food world, even though he hasn’t (until this moment) run his own restaurant. He already has a book deal in the works because his background (his mom sent him from the Bronx to Nigeria when he was 12; he sold candy bars on the subway to pay for culinary school) is so compelling. What is it? It’s a high-end restaurant serving food inspired by Onwuachi’s childhood and travels in a 32-seat dining room that looks absolutely stunning. It’s tasting menu-only (a big trend in D.C.), and $185 a head before drinks, tax, or tip. Where is it? The Shaw, AKA D.C.’s next big neighborhood. When will it open? It opened to the public on Tuesday after about a year of delays. Why is it such a big deal? It’s an incredibly bold move for an untested chef to open such an expensive restaurant. It’s a Black chef opening a splashy restaurant in a scene—or an entire industry, really—dominated by white men. And any restaurant this expensive is bound to attract notice. How’s it going over so far? Washington Post critic Tom Sietsema already filed a “First Bite” declaring it not worth the $500 price tag. But I’m still going to make a resy. Eater’s must reads of the weekIn her profile of chef and Sqirl owner Jessica Koslow, Marian Bull realizes that Sqirl is the restaurant that makes everyone want to move to Los Angeles. Chef and restaurateur Ashley Christensen, my new role model, came on our podcast The Eater Upsell this week to talk about diners, running her North Carolina restaurant empire, and the recent celebration of women in the kitchen. Here’s the transcript. Ugh now I need to eat the burger at Mr. Dips, Andrew Carmellini’s burger joint and ice cream shop inside an Airstream on top of an ugly boutique hotel that is ruining the skyline of my neighborhood. I don’t care about Starbucks holiday cups but maybe you do. (TL;DR: everything’s fine.) Patience is not a virtue I happen to have, so people being late to dinner (or breakfast, lunch, drinks, coffee) drives me up the wall. My colleague Hillary feels the same and has put together a very helpful guide for our tardy compatriots as part of our new series of Life Coach guides. Dallas’s restaurant critic hates queso, the national food of Texas. The greatest food movie of all time, Tampopo, was just restored and re-released for its 30th anniversary. As Joshua David Stein notes in his review, “The film is loopy noodling fun.” Hey, New Yorkers: Sugarfish opens today.Instagram interludeThings to read that are not from Eater but also goodI dislike Tasty. Partially because, as a food media brand, Tasty is the exemplar against which the rest of us are judged when it comes to Facebook video views. Partially because they create dumbed-down and formulaic recipes videos that don’t help people cook and sometimes don’t actually work. That said, I bow down in respect at their 500 million/month reach and strategic mastery of the medium and platform. They've created something new that everyone across the internet is trying to copy. And they’ve reaped significant rewards from it. [Adweek] The Verge relaunched this week, and it’s absolutely fantastic. [The Verge] This is a piece on British food slang that I wish Pelin had written for us. [First We Feast] There’s a mathematical model for engineering food that delights our senses [Quartz] Dave Chang is not screwing around with his delivery service Ando. He’s raised $7 million in venture capital, including money from investors Aziz Ansari and Jimmy Fallon, and has “a voracious appetite for growth.” [New York Times]Oh, and one more Eater story to wrap things up: We published a personal essay by a guy (Achewood’s Chris Onstaad!) who peed on his brother in a Carl’s Jr. Enjoy! -- Amanda Kludt, Eater Editor in Chief | | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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