Jeff Ayars heads video at Blackbird, produces independent films, and formerly field-produced stories for MSNBC and NBC News.

On a sweaty night last July, I went restaurant-hopping with wunderkind chef Marcin Król in anticipation of his pop-up collaboration with Blackbird. I had recently acquired the go-to camera of the performative male community, and was duty-bound to document every morsel that hit the table. Dishes were rotated, hands were frozen, chopsticks were balanced. I accepted my position as Vibe-Killer-In-Chief. Does that lemon have another squeeze left? Can the coup glass have more condensation? Strike the seafood tower — the ice looks like it’s from AMC.

For a little while, though, snapping such photos scratched my cinematic itch.

Then, suddenly, I was struck with an existential question: “why?” Why was I trying so hard? Don’t we all know that trying isn’t cool? Or, more to the point of this piece: does anyone really want to see, let alone believe, your perfectly orchestrated food porn that serves no greater purpose than a grating social media flex?

I happened to catch the precise retort to my question in 47.3 megapixels: Chef Król absentmindedly using his (outdated) iPhone to snap a single shot. Done. Back to eating. Dude was locked, in the zone, with no time for performative documentation.

If this article has made its way to you, I’d wager you’re likely responsible for a handful of the 1.5 trillion photos taken per year — an estimated 85 billion of which are of food. That’s over two-thousand photos every second.

Should we stop this madness? Yes! But of course we won’t. The only alternative is to photograph our food in a more nonchalant way. So, whether said photos wind up on your grid, in a magazine spread, or rotting in your digital waste bin, I humbly present the following suggestions as someone who lets food get cold for a living.

Pretty food, ugly flash
The low-hanging fruit. Use your iPhone or the early aughts point-and-shoot that you just overpaid for on eBay. This has already saturated faux-casual culture, so limit yourself to one shot. Nothing says try-hard like blinding your server.

“I’m good, but I’m busy.”
If you insist on retaining some artistic integrity, grab the frame just after the perfect frame. Yes, you can set your blocking, dial in your light, line it up — but then miss it and move on.

Or miss the dish entirely
“I’m so busy (and present and grateful) that I totally forgot.”

The work flex
You’re not bragging, you’re so busy and this is all room service had.

The high-low
“I can’t resist but I’m self-aware.”

The confessional
Raw. Shameful. A cacio e pepe is as hard to photograph as it is to eat, but you can hear the antacids rattling into my hand.

Pure cinema
No amount of preparation could have achieved this, my most memorable food moment of the last seven years. The sunset, the graffiti, the waste, the temptation. Why didn’t they finish it? Where did they go? Why wasn’t I invited? The photo below is the only version that I found. I didn’t bother to adjust my shadow or crouch for a closeup. The result? An effortless snap that my adversary, Monsieur Marcin, might have taken.

But back to my night with Marcin

Like all art—and, yes, in this case I am really stretching the definition to include our ‘phone eats first’ shots—sometimes it’s what we choose to leave out that tells as much as what we include. Case in point: my night out last summer. Gun to my head, I couldn’t tell you what I ate that night. But my best photo? Sure. It’s this slapdash shot of Chef Król stealing the last seat from me at Sip & Guzzle, which captures the vibe of that evening better than any perfectly-framed food photo could have. Sometimes nice guys finish last, and nice photos don’t do numbies. In the end, I didn’t get my nightcap, I certainly didn’t photograph it, and yet I slept like a baby.

My advice? Don’t try. But if you must, make sure nobody knows.

Baker. Grocer. Mensch. Eli Zabar is a man who needs no introduction, especially here in his hometown of NYC. We caught up with the OG Foodie (a term we are sure would make him bristle) in a corner booth at his eponymous UES spot Eli’s Table to talk Parisian power lunches, the transcendence of a simple, honest meal, and why he loathes black and white cookies.

My mother wasn’t a very good cook, and she didn’t cook many different things, but she made copious amounts. Dinner wasn’t complete without a couple of boiled chickens, couple of roasted chickens, then there would be boiled beef, and this is all the same meal. We had a house up in the country. There was a farmer across the road. My brother Stanley would run out and get the corn. They’d just picked it, you know, and he’d run home with it, and so we had corn, and there was always some vegetables and these platters of steaks, grilled steaks.

This was in Putnam County, in an area called Mohegan Colony. Mostly full of real lefties, communists. My parents would invite everybody to come over. We were in the food business, so we had tons of food, Sunday morning bagels and lox and white fish and herring, different kinds of herring, rye bread, thick sliced rye bread, all in copious amounts. Men would talk politics. It was loud. I was five, six years old. My parents spoke English to me, but spoke Yiddish among the group, and sometimes Russian. This was 1949, 1950, the war wasn’t so far behind. That’s my first association with food.

The first time I had real French food, in France, I was 17. I was with a friend of mine. We were on a bike trip through Europe. Stopping in little villages, sleeping where we could. I remember going to a grocery store. I remember buying a baguette and a Camembert, and I remember opening that Camembert. It had a kind of raw milk smell that I’d never experienced before. That slightly barnyard smell that comes from raw milk. It wasn’t even ripe all the way through. It had a little chalkiness, and still it was delicious. I was 17. We were on bikes. I was free.

The original La Petite Ferme was down in Greenwich Village, and it was owned by this French guy whose family came from Burgundy. Let me talk about this place, okay. It was down on, like, Charles Street, where the Village could still be extremely charming. It was very small, very few choices on the menu. And they had cuckoo birds. They had birds in cages that were cooing during the meal. I mean, it was very rustic. This was a gay guy who had extraordinary taste and everything was really delicious. It was so simple, like, big bowls of mussels in kind of a vinaigrette with red onion served at room temperature. Doesn’t sound interesting, but they were delicious. I loved that place. They eventually came up here to 71st on Lexington and it failed. But there was a time, you know, that Jackie Onassis went there. Society went there, but it was really, really good and full of its own style.

There was a place called Steinberg’s Dairy Restaurant between 81st and 82nd on Broadway. There was a time when, you know, in the 1920s, ‘30s, ‘40s, if you were Jewish and upwardly mobile, that’s where you lived. Riverside Drive. West End. Sometimes on Broadway. Otherwise over on Central Park West. That was the mecca of wealth. There were all kinds of restaurants and one of them was this dairy restaurant called Steinberg’s. They only made dairy. They made the most delicious blueberry blintzes, and they were crispy. They were fried. My mother made blintzes, and they were very good, but they were soft. Steinberg’s only made them with cheese. They made them with blueberries, and they served them with sour cream. That was absolutely delicious. I would go with my two brothers. I was a kid. It lasted until I was about 18.

They had maybe a 20-foot mural. A mural, a painting, on the wall. It was very New York, very 1920s kind of WPA project from the Depression. It was of young people under the George Washington Bridge having a picnic. I remember it so well because in the end, when the restaurant closed and the building got sold, one of my brothers bought the building and took the mural. Now it’s in his dining room. Every time I go over there, I see it and it brings back memories.

We have a house down in the Provence area, and I have a big wood fired, kind of pizza oven that looks like it’s been there since the Middle Ages, but we actually installed it. It’s outside. I’ve never turned on the oven inside the house. I demand that everything we make has to be cooked in this oven. It’s kind of a discipline to make things the old way. If you want to bake pastry in this oven, you’ve got to wait to the very, very end when the fire has actually gone away, and the oven is still basically a little hot. And you know it by feeling it, by feeling the temperature. And let me tell you, I’ve screwed up so many things in that oven. I’ve burnt my bread a thousand times. I love it when Oliver comes. My sons Oliver and Sasha, they’re very careful. I’m burning things left and right, and they’re very careful. I make bread every day.

I used to be a slave to the bread making process. Because bread, bread doesn’t wait. Everything had natural yeast, a natural starter, sourdough, you know, when it’s ready, it’s ready. It’s like a soufflé. You’re ready for it. It’s not ready for you. I keep playing with the flour. I keep playing, playing with the grains. I get the amount of water and the amount of mother. It takes about five days for the mother—which has been sitting in the refrigerator since I left in September of the year before—to kind of revitalize itself. Maybe a week. Sometimes, after three days, I begin to think it’s dead and it’s not going to come back. I have sleepless evenings over that. And finally, it does, it does come back.

I’ve been yelled at so many times at markets in France. Thousands of times! I like to eat little things along the way. The French don’t like that. It’s not part of their culture. To give samples. It’s very rare. It’s not like when you go to farmers markets here in New York. I’ve gotten severely embarrassed. I mean embarrassed. Called out. I wish to disappear. I’ve been called out so many times that my wife won’t go with me to a market without a promise that I won’t touch anything.

It’s very hard to find fresh peas. You’ve got to take a pod or two, you know, stick your hand in and open it up, eat the pea. I mean, otherwise they taste woody. No, I taste everything as I’m going through the market.

There’s a big chocolatier in Zurich called Sprüngli. I walked in and on the shelf right behind one of the women working there they had challahs. So, okay, so I brought this challah. I ended up making bread pudding with in in Paris with Joanne. Johanne Killeen. She’s my wine wife. She owns Al Forno restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island, which is arguably one of the most delicious restaurants in America. They’re not actually in Providence. You’ve got to go over a bridge to get there. Her husband, George, who passed away about six or eight years ago, invented this grilled pizza. It’s very, very thin, and they do it on a grill, on a charcoal grill, and it burns a little bit. And they put all kinds of toppings on it. It’s a vernacular. It’s Italian. It’s, you know, Providence is like Italian. It’s Portuguese, but it’s like American Italian. George came from Yonkers, you know. He and Johanne, they’re not Italian, but they’ve spent so much time in Italy that they kind of married the most, finest, and delicious aspects of Italy with this, with the vernacular, the American vernacular of Italian food. So they come up with something that’s totally delicious. Portions are enormous. It’s a unique, unique place in America.

I had my birthday at Troisgros a few years back. And I’d say, of all of the quote ‘fancy restaurants,’ that one stands head and shoulders above every one of them. Why? Because it’s a family restaurant, and that kind of hospitality is true hospitality. They care about you, and they talk to you like they care about you and they treat you like they care about you, like you’re going into somebody’s home. There’s no other restaurant like it. It’s about an hour, an hour and a half southwest of Lyon. It’s famous, three Michelin stars, but I’m not interested in most of those kinds of meals. But I love this place. I went there for the first time when I was about 31 or 32 years old. The family had a hotel for many generations, and they had a restaurant downstairs. The father’s two sons had taken over the place and had built it into something very special. I remember staying there for four or five days. I told one of the two brothers, I said, ‘I’m in the business,’ even though I’d only been in business for a couple of years. He said, ‘well, come with me to market. If you can get up at five, we’ll go to the market together.’ He had a little French van, you know, and we went to the market. I helped him carry the cheeses and helped him carry the meat. I helped him carry things into this van. And when I left, he gave me a bundle of Havana cigars. They came wrapped together with a ribbon. It was a bundle. It was like a gift. It’s that spirit, that spirit of giving back. I would say, that was among my inspirations for my whole life. And it confirmed what I thought good food was.

I don’t think anybody should be at the table for more than an hour and a half or two hours. Unless you’re with the most boisterous, wonderful group of buddies, and then it doesn’t make any difference what you’re eating, right? But a Michelin-starred restaurant, that’s not the kind of place you’re going to have that experience.

I’m looking for very simple food, just very simple food, well prepared. I mean, where it appears that not much has been done to it. But in fact, there’s been a great amount of thought to getting it exactly right, right in terms of… it’s hard to describe where everything kind of works because, you know, it’s an amalgam of a lot of different things. When you talk about meals, you’re talking about putting a lot of different things together. It’s not just the food, it’s the glasses. It’s the glass. It’s the wine list. It’s the choice of wines on the list. It’s a million things. Very few places really put the whole picture together. I, as I said, I think Troisgros puts the whole picture together.

There are lots of places that I like here in the city. I like Penny a lot, okay? And I like Claud a lot. I like the lobster at Penny. I like that it’s cooked there. It’s not like they made it mise en place a couple of hours ago, and then dip it in some warm broth before it comes out. I mean, it’s, like, made there, and it’s right.

Parcelles is a restaurant in Paris. The menu hardly ever changes. It’s got a few appetizers and a few main courses. I like it. I like the wines. I like the glasses. I like the true energy, the true understanding of the people that work there. I don’t even know their names. They probably change. And, you know, I order the same things every time I go, the menu doesn’t change a whole lot.

What else? What could I tell you? Where are we in this thing, in terms of restaurants, places, meals? My twins, Oliver and Sasha, it’s great coming together with them, because they actually bring a new, a young vibe to it, and they appreciate things. We went over to Sushi Noz — you gotta go there. The guy makes it all fresh, right? I went there with Sasha. It was a Sunday, four o’clock. They were going to the movies, and before they went to the movies, they were going there. So I met them there.

Le Griffonnier is a place in Paris that you’ve got to go to. It’s right off the Élysée Palace. It only serves lunch, and it’s like three guys hustling as fast as they can. It’s like Paris’ Midtown Power Lunch place. Everybody is wearing suits, smoking cigarettes, drinking wine. It’s not expensive. They have a little table right outside the door for the smokers to eat, and every time you want to leave, one of the three people at the table has to move. They have to stand up in order to get the door open. The place is packed, okay? Everybody’s, like, very French. It’s about 70 percent men, 3 percent women. And the women, they know it. They’ve been there. They’re treated like men, you know? It’s a very cool. One of my closest French friends, who’s in the wine business, took me there. Every March, his friend of mine and I and Oliver and Johanne, my wine wife, we go there, we go have this lunch. We look forward to this lunch.

I like Shake Shack. I like that crispy burger. And a vanilla milkshake. I love a vanilla milkshake with a heavy dose of ice cream, mostly ice cream, not too much.

I have the lowest possible opinion of people who like black and white cookies. I mean, listen, I make, we make black and white cookies. We have guys in my pastry shop making black and white cookies all day long. We just spent, like, $60,000 on a machine that can make the batter that we can bake into black and white cookies. But I’ll go back to my earlier statement. I have the lowest possible opinion of anybody who likes a black and white cookie. I like cookies that have lots of butter in them. There’s no black and white recipe that has that. They make them with oil or margarine or shortening. I mean, it’s a goyish American affectation. Having said that, my wife loves black and white cookies. My kids, too.

There’s this American guy in Paris, he’s 25 and he opened a little tiny bakery. His name is Jack Henry. The bakery is, like, very narrow. He works all day long by himself. He apprenticed at some very interesting places. He worked on the line at Estela when he was, like, 16 or something. I mean this guy, so he makes this kind of whole grain buttery cookie that’s crunchy, crunchy, and then he puts a filling of leeks that he’s cooked in butter and some greens and some other stuff, and he covers it with another cookie, so it’s rectangular, and it comes out of the oven and he crimps the edges. When that comes out of the oven and you eat that, that crunchy, that butteriness… it’s absolutely delicious. He’s on Rue de Tournon, down from the Luxembourg Gardens. I don’t know how he makes a living, but it’s cool.

This was great. It’s… it’s free association. It’s like therapy. Thank you.

To say we live in an uptight era just might be the understatement of the year. Drinking and socializing are out. Self-optimization is in (we see you, bro). You can blame all this on doomscrolling, dating apps, fear of AI, the paradox of choice — the list goes on and on.

Our collective uptightness applies to dining, too. The hot table, bucket list restaurants, the must-have (and document!) viral dish. This is nothing particularly new. Countless apps and content series have made us all culinary experts, trekking the world like roving gourmands with our smart phones firmly in hand. And most of the time, we condone this type of behavior! Being gastronomically adventurous is a good thing, for both guests and restaurants alike. However, the downside of this means we’ve all become—on some level—insufferable, hype-chasing snobs. There comes a time when we could all just…relax.

Well, that time is now. Below, our proposal for 25 simple restaurant pleasures to abide by this spring when you just want to get back to the basics and dine like no one’s watching.

25.) Put your phone away
We’ll dispense with the obvious first, aka a sin of which we’re all guilty. You’re there with people you actually want to be with, right? And if you’re alone, eat, imbibe, and people watch, just like olden times.

24.) No work talk
Even at a business dinner! Also: forget humble bragging about being busy, it’s tacky.

23.) Never modify your meal
You are not the chef, and in the chef you trust.

22.) Don’t nitpick reservation times
A hotspot can take you at 10:30 p.m. on Sunday? Great, accept the reservation. Go ingratiate yourself and maybe next time they’ll seat you at a more reasonable hour. Big things have small beginnings.

21.) Wait on a line
There’s a reason why Via Carota and other iconic/dependable spots of its ilk always have folks queued up. You are not smarter or savvier than them. Go join the fray. It’s worth it.

20.) Make friendly eye contact
This applies to everyone working at the restaurant you’re patronizing.

19.) Have a cocktail order
A go-to drink signals something about yourself to the rest of the world. You’re confident. Consistent. You live by a code. Don’t look at the menu. Don’t ask annoying questions. Order. Drink. Rinse and repeat.

18.) Don’t split the bill
Going Dutch and itemizing everything is for cheapskates. Once in a while, cover the whole shebang, even if you didn’t have an appetizer and only swilled one glass of wine. Live large. The good karma will return to you in spades.

17.) Or your entree
Order decisively and eat with no regrets.

16.) A salad cancels out the order of fries
Just ask RFK, Jr.

15.) Forget the valet
Get some steps in!

14.) Have a finely-tuned fried chicken radar
You should know the best fried chicken sandwich within a 10 mile radius of your home.

13.) Embrace mid pizza
No, not all the time. But have a mid pizza joint in your rotation that never has a line and always serves acceptable slices.

12.) Don’t read internet reviews
Or write your own. Not everyone needs to be a critic.

11.) Always do an amaro
Bonus points if you use it to wash down an affogato.

10.) Ask for more bread
“Don’t fill up,” they say. That will never happen…

9.) Fridays are for liquid lunch
Get your work done and get out of the office. Drink good wine while it’s still light out.

8.) And conduct an affair while you’re there
If you must, of course. Just ask the French. Look for a sleepy little joint where you won’t be spotted making eyes at each other.

7.) Tap water is fine
So is the house red.

6.) Ask for a bottle of A-1
Go ahead. It’s your steak.

5.) Be a regular at a local spot
Just don’t bring your first dates there.

4.) Have an order
What applies to drinks applies to meals, too. Are you club sandwich coded? A shrimp cocktail fiend? Steak frites toujours? Pick a lane.

3.) Say ‘yes’ to meatballs
Bolognese, too. These are the meals sure to coax out that inner child your therapist says you’ve long been neglecting.

2.) Good meals are like good sex…
They should always conclude with a cigarette.

1.) Linger over lunch
In a world rife with self-optimization mania, a leisurely meal and nowhere else to be signals the ultimate in luxury. Plus if it’s lunch, the restaurant staff isn’t trying to turn tables. Stay until the sun sets. Just make sure to keep ordering, and do tip well.

Colin Camac (aka @resyguynyc) is officially Blackbird’s “Strategic Sales Lead,” and unofficially is our resident insider’s insider. He is out, on the town seven nights a week, sniffing out the city’s best joints, skateboard in one hand, martini in the other.

After a whirlwind week in Mexico, my girlfriend Marcela and I returned to NYC to do what we do best, namely, check out spots new and old. Needless to say, the two weeks below did not disappoint, and I was able to congregate with many of my favorite folks in the industry. All of which made the inclement weather more than manageable.

All the restaurants and bars below our worth first time or repeat visits, so add ‘em to your list, friends.

Colin

Coqodaq
📍 Flatiron
🍽️ Korean

Why I Ate Here: Last minute invite when friends’ table had extra seats after people left early to beat the snow. Simon Kim’s temple to Korean fried chicken is always a fun landing spot, especially on a chaotic weather night.

Who I Ate With: Lala (host of Put It In My Mouth podcast), Marcela, Lucy (Steak Club / The Wild Honey Pie), and my friend Gloria who was in town from LA for work.

What I Ate: Champagne picked by sommelier Fred, caesar salad, 24 karat nuggs topped with caviar (a must), regular and soy garlic chicken (my preference over gochujang), cold perilla noodles, and soft serve before heading back out into the snow.

Bistrot Ha
📍Lower East Side
🍽️ French-Vietnamese

Why I Ate Here: After years as a pop-up and then a snack bar, the Ha’s team opened their first full restaurant — one of the most hyped openings of the year.

Who I Ate With: Emmett Burke (owner of Emmett’s).

What I Ate: Bright, punchy dishes heavy on fish sauce, lime and chilies. Sticky rice with pork and foie in fish sauce with pickles was the standout. Also crab salad eclair, leeks vinaigrette with mussels, and profiteroles.

Corima (Eliane pop-up)
📍 Mexican
🍽️ Chinatown

Why I Ate Here: Pop-up from Kobe Desramaults of Eliane and In de Wulf, hosted at one of my favorite restaurants in NYC.

Who I Ate With: Phillip Kirschen-Clark (chef/owner of Phillip Marie).

What I Ate: Corima’s house flour tortilla (the best here), potato with caviar, turbot in reduced mussel sauce. Curveballs included a brain taco and mushroom and abalone tostada. Mezcal throughout.

Chin Up Bar
📍 Nolita
🍽️ Cocktail Bar

Why I Ate Here: Brand new LES gin-focused bar — one of my two spirits of choice.

Who I Ate With: Jenna Ransom (artist) and Chef Phillip Kirschen-Clark.

What I Ate: Perfectly made house martini and a dealer’s choice cocktail with gin, curry, coconut, apricot and lime. Fried clams and a strong raw bar.

Le Veau d’Or
📍Upper East Side
🍽️ French

Why I Ate Here: Team lunch done properly at one of my favorite dining rooms in the city.

Who I Ate With: Timothy & Rachel (Blackbird team).

What I Ate: Salade lyonnaise, pate en croute (a must), steak frites, and poulet roti over mashed potatoes. Always fantastic service.

For All Things Good (TJ Steele pop-up)
📍 Bed-Stuy
🍽️ Mexican

Why I Ate Here: TJ Steele (chef/owner of Claro) doing a memelas pop-up at the Bed-Stuy molino.

Who I Ate With: My friend Thalia.

What I Ate: All five memelas. Pork rib over beans with cotija was my favorite. Soft braised chicharron prepared like trippa alla romana was a really fun play.

Superiority Burger
📍 East Village
🍽️ Vegetarian

Why I Ate Here: Presidents Day meeting in the East Village — stopped in for their underrated lunch service.

Who I Ate With: Marcela.

What I Ate: “The Ezekial 4:9 grilled cheese w/ pickled Norwich Farms daikon & carrots,” with creamed cabbage hidden inside and tangy pickles on the side. Incredible fries.

Moon & Back
📍 West Village
🍽️ Thai

Why I Ate Here: Valentine’s Day lunch wandering the Village looking for somewhere not insane.

Who I Ate With: The arcela.

What I Ate: Giant prawn with green nam jim and fried watercress salad, chicken & shrimp dumplings, khao soi that brought me back to Chiang Mai, and pork blood larb with dill.

Kees
📍 West Village
🍽️ Cocktail Bar

Why I Ate Here: Friends from PDT & Mixteca opened their long-awaited high-end bar.

Who I Ate With: Sarah (VP at Boka Restaurant Group).

What I Drank: Fancy vesper with Grey Goose, Tanqueray 10 and Chateau d’Yquem. Mini mezcal negronis with Del Maguey Tobala. Large backbar heavy on brown spirits.

Noz 17
📍 Chelsea
🍽️ Japanese

Why I Ate Here: Belated birthday dinner; downtown location of Sushi Noz with a shorter, more nigiri-focused format.

Who I Ate With: Sarah (VP at Boka Restaurant Group).

WhThe at I Ate: Kohada, young sea bream, bottarga with grilled mochi wrapped in nori, shirasu handroll with anchovy sauce, custardy tamago.

Bar Bianchi
📍 East Village
🍽️ Italian

Why I Ate Here: Industry family meal hosted by Jamie Gordon, longtime industry bar vet.

Who I Ate With: TJ Lynch (co-owner of Mother’s Ruin), Naama & Assaf Tamir (Lighthouse), Will Wyatt & Alex Thaboua (Electric Burrito / El Camino / High Life Burger).

What I Ate: Martinis, fantastic breadsticks, caesar salad, and a large serving of lasagna.

Golden Steer NYC
📍 Greenwich Village
🍽️ Steakhouse

Why I Ate Here: Las Vegas steakhouse import; excited to see how it translated to NYC.

Who I Ate With: Steak Club and Alexandra Shapiro (Hoexter’s / Flex Mussels).

What I Ate: Shrimp cocktail, oyster shooters, tableside caesar and wedge, tomahawk and porterhouse medium rare (preferred the char on the tomahawk), and tableside bananas foster.

Schmuck
📍 East Village
🍽️ Cocktail Bar

Why I Ate Here: Post-event stop; Barcelona import built to feel like several rooms in a large home.

Who I Ate With: Jamie Skrocki (runs memberships at ZZ’s Club).

What I Ate: Martini variation with blended vermouths topped with olive oil drops. Savory, food-inspired cocktails — I’ll be back for the Thai larb one.

I have seen every movie nominated for an Oscar this year because I spend a great deal of my free time at movie theaters with reclining seats and full-service menus.

I don’t know if I’m a cinephile, per se. I don’t have a Letterboxd account. I will watch almost anything: horror, action, period dramas. Mostly, I just like to emotionally eat in the dark. This isn’t a hobby or a coping mechanism. I need this. It’s my thing. My kink, though I don’t think it’s rooted in childhood trauma or anything particularly Freudian. I’m not going to write “don’t judge me,” because I don’t care if you judge me.

I gotta house this chicken goat cheese wrap while Jesse Buckley cries about her dead son.

When I’m sitting in a movie theater, cramming an overstuffed smashburger into my face, I am relieved of the burden of civilization. I can truly be my truest, most honest, and grotesque self.

The only person I have to make eye contact with is Leo DiCaprio’s giant head projected on a silver screen. I can disappear while sucking BBQ sauce off my fingers.

It’s a liberating act of radical surrender.

As a rule, I feel immense social pressure to wipe mayonnaise or hummus or Gochujang-paste from my beard when I’m in public, but not so when I’m sitting, feet up, in a vinyl La-Z-Boy-style theater seat. It is a safe space. Possibly, the safest.

​​It is no secret that the movie theater business is in steep decline. Ticket sales are down nearly a third from just five years ago, and the number of adults who go at least once a month fell 22 percent between 2019 and this year. There are various reasons for this, the growth of streaming platforms chief among them. People are staying home, binge-watching made-for-Netflix shows and movies, and slowly evolving into hideous, Cronenberg-esque couch-human hybrids.

There’s also a creeping behavioral problem: an epidemic of rudeness at the major chains. According to a recent poll, a third of moviegoers admitted to taking a call during a screening — 46 percent of millennials and 42 percent of Gen Zers. There’s barely anyone monitoring out-of-control texting or scrolling. Then there are the smaller indignities: the food options are limited, and commercials blare before trailers.

But the theaters where I like to debase myself aggressively discourage cellphone use, don’t shove ads down your throat before the show, and offer more sophisticated food options.

These theaters serve a surprisingly diverse selection of comfort foods that sit somewhere between upscale fast food and serviceable gastropub. One place serves filet mignon sliders with blue cheese, caramelized red onions, arugula, and garlic aioli. It’s bougie but tasty. I’ve ordered a perfectly fine tuna salad and snacked on blistered shishitos and fried pickles. My local sit-down theater serves a fried buffalo cauliflower sandwich that I’m really into. Even the popcorn is kicked up and tossed with truffles, Parmesan, or ranch seasoning. Old school Regal theaters? There’s only one option: butter-flavored car oil.

I’m not a drinker, but these theaters all have bars, and if you want an IPA, or a cocktail, or a spiked milkshake, they can make that happen.

Sometimes I go to the movies in the mornings, say 10 a.m. on a Saturday. I zoom right to my reserved seat (always an aisle) and order a coffee and French Toast sticks or a breakfast pizza with bacon, eggs, mozzarella, and scallions. Then I snarf it all down, blissfully checked out of reality, while zombies moan on the big screen.

I’m also not some anti-social loner. I enjoy eating at restaurants. I put my napkin on my lap and never slurp my soup. I can twirl pasta with a fork and splatter nothing. I have been known to attend dinner parties, where I laugh and make small talk, and no one knows that I am on autopilot, a human Waymo.

It’s just that if given the option, I’d rather put on sweatpants and do my best impersonation of a self-force-feeding foie gras duck while watching a Portuguese-language drama about political oppression in South America at a movie theater that also plays indie hits and black-and-white classics.

I’m not reinventing the wheel. There was a time when one of the cornerstones of American leisure time was the ‘dinner and a movie’ one-two punch. This was a classic couple activity—first dates, anniversaries, and regular ol’ Fridays. It was also one of the things you’d do with friends. I spent many nights in the late 90s watching Wesley Snipes movies on LSD with my best buds. Later, in the 2000s, I was a master at sneaking Taco Bell gordita crunches and Popeye’s biscuits into AMC theaters.

I’m sure there are still people who grab a bite at a nearby hotspot and then go to the multiplex. I’m not one of those people anymore. When I ask my wife if she wants to go see a movie, she knows what to expect: me, eating chicken wings while watching The Rock punch someone.

I’ll be honest with you because the internet is the one place in our society where being honest with countless strangers is rewarded with positive affirmations: it’s always midnight in a movie theater, and I do love munching on quality garbage as my eyes glaze over. I recently watched a sci-fi comedy about a time traveler, and I happily popped little pretzel dogs into my mouth after gently dunking them in a spicy mustard sauce. I ate those pigs-in-blankets with my pinky up, like a little French dauphin.

A few years ago, apropos of nothing, my therapist interrupted me—then looked me square in the eyes—and declared, “You need to get out more.” And I had been talking about a funny meme. I responded immediately, and defensively: “I go to the movies.”

And then I told him I go to the movies and gorge on mozzarella sticks. Yes, I go with my wife sometimes. And friends. But mostly, I like to drink Coke Zeros and eat loaded fries all by myself.

I reminded him, too, that when I’m at the movies, I am surrounded by the family of man, who are also mindlessly chomping away as light flickers in their dead eyes.

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Colin Camac (aka @resyguynyc) is officially Blackbird’s “Strategic Sales Lead,” and unofficially is our resident insider’s insider. He is out, on the town seven nights a week, sniffing out the city’s best joints, skateboard in one hand, martini in the other.

We're finally back after a brief hiatus for the holidays and some of the coldest weather we've seen in years. For this special edition, I'm taking you through my recent birthday trip to Mexico where I met my girlfriend Marcela's family, explored her hometown of San Juan Del Rio in Querétaro, hit coastal Baja, and revisited Mexico City favorites. This trip showed me how special Mexico is — every region has unique food and specialties, and the seafood was a revelation. If you're planning a trip south, use this as your guide.

Colin

Gorditas Doña Coco
📍 La Peña de Bernal
🍽️ Querétaro Gorditas

Why I Ate Here: Fresh off the plane, Marcela’s family insisted this spot near the base of one of the world’s tallest monolith boulders was a must-visit for gorditas. The town was hosting some sort of festival, so the streets were absolutely packed.

Who I Ate With: Marcela, her mother, and several family members who’ve been coming here for years. Most remembered the town as less commercialized, though nobody could say exactly when it changed.

What I Ate: After dodging crowds up the hill, we finally made it to this small indoor/outdoor stand. The table came set with salsas and escabeche. I ordered papa con chorizo, chicharrón prensado, and migajas with queso. The chicharrón prensado was the star—braised pork skin full of flavor with a chewy texture inside warm masa. The migajas, tiny bits of crispy pork mixed with cheese, was also a hit.

Maizajo
📍 Mexico City
🍽️ Masa-focused taqueria

Why I Ate Here: Pretty much everyone I spoke to pointed me toward Maizajo, a restaurant specializing in masa with a taqueria downstairs and fine dining upstairs. Our friend Cesar reserved us the taco chef’s counter — a small standing table in the middle of the kitchen.

Who I Ate With: Marcela, our friend Clara (an artist from Paris), and my friend Sam Morris, head bartender at Sip & Guzzle, who was in town for a brand trip.

What I Ate: As we walked upstairs for drinks, a cook handed each of us a fresh warm tortilla right off the comal with salt and salsa. That hospitality and corn flavor told me we were in for something special. At the kitchen counter, choices were taken from our hands. First up: a small fried tortilla filled with head-on shrimp and a sliver of mayo—like perfect shrimp tempura in a mini flauta, absolutely incredible. Their signature campechano taco—a mix of suadero and longaniza—burst with flavor, doctored with just a little lime. The brisket taco with guava mole was insane, bitter fruity notes meeting fatty BBQ-style brisket. Desserts were best in class, both the tres leches and flan.

Ultramarinos
📍 Mexico City
🍽️ Seafood

Why I Ate Here: I wanted a celebratory birthday lunch spot where we could have a long, boozy meal. Everyone suggested Ultramarinos over the classic Contramar, and I couldn’t be happier—it was one of the best meals I’ve had in a while.

Who I Ate With: The whole crew: Marcela, Clara, Thalia, Evan Sung, Omar, our friend Elias, plus Marcela’s mom and brother Gonzalo.

What I Ate: This is now a permanent stop on my Mexico City itinerary. We started with all three tostadas on the menu—shrimp, tuna, and caracol (snail). Shrimp may have been my favorite, but I’d order all of them again. The seafood tower for seven featured some of the best clams I’ve had—dressed with diced onion and bright mignonette. Tacos Gubernador—shrimp in slightly spicy tomato sauce with cheese on warm flour tortillas—shouldn’t be missed. My favorite dish of the trip came next: camarones a la parrilla, full shrimp sliced down the middle and cooked in a sauce of onions and its own head juices. They served these with tiny rolled bean tacos on the side to dip in the sauce. It had everything. The pasta roja con cangrejo (crab) with rigatoni would stand with the best Italian versions anywhere. Whole fish baked in sourdough and served tableside with buttery sauce and trout roe rounded out an EPIC meal.

Tacos El Franc
📍Tijuana
🍽️ Tacos

Why I Ate Here: When Frank C from Frankies tells you he just had the best tacos of his life in Baja, you listen. After consulting with Cesar, who helped plan the trip and confirmed how incredible they were, this became our first stop off the plane.

Who I Ate With: Cesar Sandoval (National Brand Rep for Casa Lumbre Spirits), Marcela, and me.

What I Ate: After a flight delay threatened to derail our packed Tijuana itinerary, we finally made it to this wildly busy spot. The inside is stark white with tons of people working behind counters — taqueros and a tortilla assembly line in perfect sync. We went for everything: tongue, cabeza, incredible carne asada, and my personal favorite, their adobada (al pastor). This place should not be missed on any visit to TJ.

La Carreta Guerrerense
📍Ensenada
🍽️ Seafood

Why I Ate Here: We arrived early hoping to catch Mariscos El Gordito before they sold out, but they weren’t opening for another hour. We pivoted to this cart about 10 minutes away—a mariscos shop specializing in stacked tostadas made famous by Bourdain.

Who I Ate With: Marcela.

What I Ate: Ensenada may have been the most eye-opening stop of the trip. This small seaside town had some of the best seafood I’ve ever had from roadside stands you could easily miss. Four people worked the cart, cleaning seafood and dressing tostadas. We ordered two each to try as many as possible. Within minutes we had plates with two tostadas piled impossibly high with the freshest seafood imaginable. All were mind-blowing, but the best was the #1 “Singapur”—crab salad topped with shrimp and octopus. The sweet crab salad was the perfect base for salty seafood. We also loved the campechana: tuna salad with shrimp, octopus, snails, scallop, and clam that hit you in the face with briny ocean flavors. They had about 10 salsas to doctor your tostadas to taste.

Mariscos El Gordito
📍Ensenada
🍽️ Seafood

Why I Ate Here: A small mariscos cart that routinely sells out within an hour or two of opening.

Who I Ate With: Marcela.

What I Ate: Around 12:05, I spotted someone with a large cup of coctel and found the small stand with three guys already working at a furious pace. It was amazing watching how fast and clean they worked — one making tostadas, one cleaning clams, another assembling cocteles. The coctel master was incredible to watch, tasting each one individually to ensure perfect flavor. We started with a tuna tostada, much smaller than earlier ones, with finely chopped tuna, herbs, peppers, and avocado slices — a really fresh, bright bite punched up with salsa. Next came a clam opened to order, quickly cleaned and mixed with lime, onions, avocado, and housemade cocktail sauce with a horseradish kick. One of the top dishes of the day. Finally, a campechano cocktail made by the master himself — clams, shrimp, and octopus perfectly seasoned in a large glass with cocktail sauce and lime. Each bite delivered the best of the ocean all at once. A can’t-miss Ensenada experience.

Hussong’s
📍 Ensenada
🍽️ Bar

Why: Hussong’s is the oldest cantina in Mexico still operating today, opening in 1892. It is also known as the birthplace of the margarita.

With who: Marcela

What I ate: After getting my face melted by how good our tostadas were we took a short walk to Hussong’s to take a beat after hitting our next food stop. After a pat down by security we entered a mostly empty old bar that reminded me of a Mexican version of McSorley’s, with older gruff bartenders and sawdust on the ground around the tables. We both ordered margaritas on the rocks and the bartender quickly built two in highball glasses. The first sip was a bit jarring as none of the flavors seemed to be incorporated into the drink with the absence of a shake, but it came together a bit more with a few stirs of the straw and we settled into a little buzz before hitting the next stop.

The kitchen gets all the attention, but what about FOH? That’s where worlds collide. Our anonymous columnist (who is currently in search of a job at a new restaurant) suffers the tribulations of table service for your entertainment, and perhaps enlightenment, too. Today, she takes on the trope of the coveted Valentine’s Day reservation.

Picture This, Girls:

February 14th. 4:45 p.m. You’re running late. You shoot off an apologetic text to your date as you swaddle yourself in layers. It is both an effort to ward off the frigid winter and an attempt to disguise your cocktail attire before it becomes socially acceptable to begin drinking. You recognize you are not remotely hungry yet, but still rush out the door for your 5 p.m. reservation.​

Scrambling through the door, you spot him by the host stand, anxiously checking his watch. Instead of a sweet, festive peck on the cheek, his attention is swiftly diverted to the host stand. No hello, simply “We are all here.”

The hostess leads you to a long line of two-tops, sandwiched shoulder to shoulder and performatively gazing at one another with complimentary glasses of cheap champagne. You apologize for being late. He tells you unconvincingly that it’s ok, he just really didn’t want to lose the table.​

As the winter temperatures dropped and swiping season set in, you were impressed by his initiative to see you a handful of times in quick succession. And when he dmed you asking you to be his Valentine, you were touched and a little surprised. But as you glance at the Pre-Fix menu ahead of you, it all becomes clear.​

He definitely made this reservation before he met you.

Men: what you think this signals vs what it really signals

Since the turn of the 20th century, jaded single friends have disavowed Valentine’s Day as a Hallmark holiday, a day for the candy and greeting card companies to capitalize on our existential fear of being alone. But it seems to me, February 14th has a new puppet master. The show is now run by one powerful entity: Big Reservation.

Said reservation wranglers begin fueling our anxieties early. “National Reservation Reminder Day” falls on January 13th – not literally, I just made that up, but the logic tracks, because that’s when the whispering starts. Chiding email marketing messages and the dreaded notify lists that threaten you with impending loneliness, warning you that not being able to secure a table is like the modern equivalent of never securing a mate.

You see, men used to go to war; now they sit at their laptops, sweaty-palmed, waiting for the reservation platforms to open the books. These men aren’t storming beaches anymore; they are booking a two-top at 6:15 p.m. 4-6 weeks in advance. It’s tragic, but TikTok has found your favorite spot, and a Finance Bro is shilling out $25K a year on his Dorsia membership to make sure he can eat there at 7 p.m. on a Friday.

It’s all very American Psycho. Reservations are now a status symbol, everyone of course knows that, and technology has turned it into a blood sport. As a man, especially one trying to signal something in this city, where you sit down for dinner on February 14th is just about as important as the watch you wear on your wrist. So no, your Raya match isn’t making a grand romantic gesture; he’s working on a power play.​

It takes a true Patrick Bateman to secure a Valentine’s Day reservation at a top spot. At this point, 7 p.m. at [insert hotspot here] isn’t sexy, it’s borderline psychotic. A 5 p.m. Pre-Fix with a two-hour time limit on tables isn’t going to set your night up for success. Truthfully, gentlemen, it makes you look like a chudd.

Preemptive and prescriptive plans can lead to disaster, resentment, and ridiculous cancellation fees. Real romance doesn’t fit neatly into a Tetris-style POS. It requires spontaneity (remember that?), not the stifling rigidity of a reservation.

I mean, truthfully, what’s more romantic than huddling close together in the vestibule and hoping for a cancellation? There’s nothing sexier than a finagle. Or just go to the bar and get trashed, forget about dinner altogether, nobody wants to fuck on a full stomach anyway.

Blackbird is now live in Aspen, Vail, and Breckenridge, three of Colorado’s finest ski towns. Pay with Blackbird to earn the best rewards in dining at 30+ standout spots across all three resorts. Just open the Blackbird app map and set your location to “Mountains, CO” for the full lineup. See you on the slopes.

The best nachos I have ever had are at The Red Lion in Vail, Colorado. I have had them many times, most recently last month, when I devoured a plate while seated at the bar. Nachos, like anything in my life, are best enjoyed when paired with skiing. Or following skiing, to be more precise. Nachos at a ballgame? At the movie theater? Please, I won’t even deign to acknowledge that such subpar experiences (aka gas station-coded nachos) could possibly compete with the perfect culinary collab that is nachos x skiing.

In fact, I’ll go one step further: nachos are America’s greatest contribution to the sport of skiing. There, I’ve said it so you don’t have to. Like all things great in America, we of course got nachos from somewhere else. As legend has it, nachos were invented in Mexico as border food made to appeal to the palates of U.S. military families (in truth, they were invented by the dish’s namesake, restaurateur Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya, who served them to American military wives who’d that night come over the Texas border in search of a snack). How nachos migrated to the ski slopes is anyone’s guess, but I can tell you that—as counter intuitive as this might sound—there is no superior food in skiing. Bratwurst? Fondue? Spaghetti bolognese? Nein. Non. Non se ne parla! Such “traditional” alpine foods pale in comparison.

But! But! But! But… America contributed plenty to the sport of skiing. I hear your protestations, dear patriotic powder hound, and I anticipate your counterpoints, many of them valid. Sure, we invented freestyle skiing—or hot dogging, as it was referred to back then—and snowboarding, too. Plastic ski boots and aluminum skis? You betcha, both innovations hail from the grand ol’ US of A, baby. Did the 10th Mountain Division play a part in liberating Europe during WWII? Yup. And let’s not forget our contributions to the world of ski cinema, from directors like Dick Barrymore and Warren Miller to flicks like “Aspen Extreme” and the early George Lopez-vehicle “Ski Patrol.” “Lindsey Vonn!” you shout. “Bode Miller! Mikaela Shiffrin! Ted Liggety! The Mahre Brothers!'“ Also: hot tubs. Still, nachos, in all their culinary simplicity and cheese-laden perfection, trump each and every one of those examples. One could even argue that nachos are the hot tub of appetizers. Had nachos attempted an Olympic comeback in Cortina this week, they would’ve won the gold medal.

“Nooooo,” you scream, as petulant as a one-handed Luke Skywalker dangling over the reactor shaft of Cloud City. “That’s impossible!”

(Why am I weaving Star Wars analogies into this thoughtful, deeply-researched essay about après-ski nachos? Who knows. Just go with it).

To which I—towering over you in that aforementioned reactor shaft in the bowels of Cloud City on the gas planet of Bespin—reply, with all the dispassionate wisdom of a Sith Lord: “Search your feelings, you know it to be true.”

Yes, if you’ve ever snapped into a triangular tortilla chip whose structural integrity is being tested by the layered slop of chili, melted cheese, guac, salsa, and sour cream somewhere on the side of a mountain, or even better at the base of one (meaning you’re already drunk), then it is right now—at this very moment—dawning on you that I am right. Let that realization wash over you, my child. Feel it tickle your nerve-endings. Welcome to the ‘Cho Club™️.

When I am skiing in Europe, which I often do and highly recommend (don’t call me some bougie elitist — it’s cheaper than skiing in America, flight included, and lightyears more charming), I invariably think: this couldn’t get any better. This thought usually occurs to me at après-ski, when most happy thoughts hit me, just as the sun is setting and my buzz is building and everything feels right with the world. And then I remember that I can’t order a heaping plate of nachos to share with my fellow après-ski devotees, and I am crestfallen.

This is not entirely true. One can technically find nachos at some ski bars in Europe, and all of them are equally terrible. If you ever find yourself in St. Anton, Austria, and are struck by a hankering for nachos, preferably of the supreme variety (is there any other kind?), do yourself a favor and don’t bother. The lederhosen-bedecked waiter will serve you a plate of Doritos, with a side of melted cheese not even the most shameless 7-Eleven franchise would deign to sell their customers. Said Doritos won’t even be Nacho Cheese flavored, but rather Cool Ranch. Except they don’t call them Cool Ranch in Austria or anywhere else in Europe. They call them: Cool American, which I’ll admit is a fucking fantastic name. But nachos, they are not.

Sadly, last month when I dined at The Red Lion in Vail, I hadn’t been skiing that day, and so the nachos didn’t feel earned. This diminished them, but only by a bit. Like all bars that pride themselves on their nachos, The Red Lion takes the extra effort of layering the cheese over the Jenga-like layers of tortilla chips, so that once you’ve dusted the top tier of chips, you aren’t left with some booby prize of an appetizer consisting of dry tortilla chips and not much else (what do they have back there, nacho sous-chefs? They must). Like any self-respecting plate of ‘chos, the ones found at The Red Lion come with quac, salsa, and sour cream all appropriately centered at the top of the pile, like a crown rather than pushed to the side in separate bowls like condiments. Because calling such essential ingredients condiments would be blasphemy. As with everything comprising a plate of nachos—the cheese and the chips and the chili (should you go for that)—the trinity of guac, salsa, and sour cream are fundamental, creating a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Some other great things about nachos: they are perhaps the only food in which the vegetarian option is as good (or, I would argue, better) than the meat options. They are messy, but not as messy as wings, nor are they conceited like wings, always boasting to be the best around no matter where you get them. They require effort and reward that effort with delightful surprises the deeper you dig. “By jove, a chip three layers deep yet absolutely lousy with blended cheese!” Yes, king. Related: nachos inspire competition considering that all partaking in the dish vie for the best bites, yet—silly thing that they are—they keep things convivial, not cut-throated. Nachos are the proverbial campfire around which we spin stories of a day on the slopes. And then, of course, there are margaritas, undoubtedly the best post-ski beverage, and perhaps the subject of a future essay. Is there a cocktail that pairs better with a dish than margaritas do with nachos? Like the plate of nachos, margs should come big, preferably in a pitcher. Shy of that, or if you’re committed to consuming them single-serving style, a proper pint glass will do, which is exactly how The Red Lion serves their ‘ritas.

I could go on and on. But if you’ve made it this far and still don’t believe me, well, may God have mercy on your soul. Word of warning, however: don’t ever disparage nachos as a simple dish, as anyone who has ever attempted to make them at home can tell you. This past Super Bowl Sunday, I threw my hat into the ring, and the resulting nachos—if you can call them that—we’re not even a cheap imitation of what I’ve enjoyed at ski areas across America.

Or maybe that was the real problem: I hadn’t skied before I ate them.

So you survived Dry January. Congratulations! Now get ready for Wet February. It’s a month-long challenge we invented yesterday over Slack. Consider this your get out of jail free card. Anytime one of your newly-minted health nut friends who sounds like the Surgeon General scolds you for indulging in a drink or three, simply say, “relax, man, I’m doing Wet Feb.”

Dry January is a post-holiday detox, and for some, laying off the booze at the start of the year is a great way to reboot and refresh. But it’s still the dead of winter, and you deserve a couple drinky-poos. Maybe a tipple after work with your work spouse, or a long Mimosa-fueled brunch with the besties? Relax, text the chat. Wet February is a life-affirming movable feast of spiked coffees and piles of pasta, a low-key celebration of cocktails, human connections, and pancakes for the table. Next stop: Moderation March, and then spring. Here are eight ways to jump on this (soon-to-be) hot new trend.

1. First thing: order a Hot Toddy

   There are few beverages that warm the cockles of the heart more thoroughly than the Hot Toddy. What is a cockle? No one knows, it's a mystery. A hot toddy is a simple drink: whiskey, honey, lemon juice, and hot water. Also known as Irish Robitussin, hot toddies are supposed to cure all manner of ills, from stuffy noses to sore throats and basic ennui.
   

2. One martini and a dozen raw oysters, please
   Fight the cold with cold. Specifically, two to three ounces of glacial vodka. Wet Feb is the perfect time for a dry martini, extra icy, and twelve plump oysters plucked from the near-frozen ocean. This pair is best enjoyed somewhere a little fancy, a little old school.
   

3. Put a Hawaiian shirt on (over your sweater)
   If you can't go to the beach, make the beach come to you. The classic piña colada, ideally served in a festive vessel sprouting all manner of absurd tropical garnishes, is one of the great lazy August boat drinks, a simple mix of coconut milk, rum, and pineapple, served frosty. It's also a must-drink during the dark days of winter. Trust us.
   

4. End a meal with a digestif

   End a long, raucous dinner with class: a slug of digestif, which, famously, aids in digestion. Some are bitter, others are herbal. Italian Sambuca and Greek ouzo both have a licorice-like bite. Fortified wines like Port and Sherry burn, sweetly. All of these post-feast buzz enablers have one thing in common, though, and that's they're served in tiny glasses. Love a tiny glass.

5. Play darts!
   Go forth into the tundra and find a nice dark bar with a glowing jukebox and play some darts with your besties or some stranger at the bar. But before tossing pointy things for small amounts of money, toss back a boilermaker, the dive bar classic. What's a boilermaker? A bottle of beer and a shot of something brown. This is the anti-cocktail, a simple, working man's pick-me-up. Be careful, though, more than two and the dart board starts to move.
   

6. Pop the champagne
   Fight the wind chill with bubbles. When was the last time you poured yourself and your significant other a flute of fizzy, punchy, sparkling wine? Champagne is the official drink of Valentine's Day, which happens in the middle of February, the middle of cabin fever season. Here's the truth: Champagne can be enjoyed on any given Tuesday night. Celebrate Wet Feb by killing a bottle of cheap champers, the drama queen of libations.
   

7. Spike everything, for fun

   Spike everything with Kahlúa or Bailey's. Yeah, they're cloying. Yeah, they're for amateurs. But, dammit, they're delicious when generously dumped into, oh, whatever's hot. Coffee? Tea? Mugs are underrated alcohol delivery vehicles. Hot chocolate? Enjoy an adult cocoa, it's Wet Feb. Anyway, a strong cup o' Joe and a jolt of liquor is like Liquid hygge.
   

8. Have a beer
   Nothing says summer like a pilsner, but drinking a can of garbage-quality beer in a snowy field has its own pleasures. This Wet Feb, crack some brewskis with your people outside, and fill your lungs with winter. Talk about stuff. Sigh. Switch to hazies to match your mindset (but not too many, those things pack a punch). Chug but be chill.

Everyone carries a whiff of their hometown, no matter how much distance they try to put between themselves and the place. As for me, I grew up as a townie—a resort rat—in a New Hampshire ski town, where my Austrian father ran the local ski school (back then, Austrians ran ski schools in America the way gourmet restaurants always had a French chef in the kitchen). This makes me a skier, through and through, despite my best efforts to shake such a one-dimensional persona. Skiing is the first (and sometimes only) thing people ask me about, though I suppose I’m also to blame. I still get excited when the leaves fall in November and depressed when the first buds return come April, right here in New York City. I still pine for pine trees laden with snow, love the municipal mayhem of an old fashioned Nor’Easter, and when a frigid wind whips through the city and folks complain, I need to restrain my inner cold weather lover (which, appropriately, manifests as a grouch) from telling them to “go move someplace warmer, then.” Humbug, indeed.

But perhaps what I love best about skiing—even more than first tracks, and deep powder, and bluebird days, and whatever other indelible attributes we associate with the sport—is the food, from the overpriced garbage I shovel down in a cafeteria to the good stuff you find in fancier resort towns. Ditto goes for drinking. There’s just something to be said about indulging in the comforts of a good hot meal and/or a warm buzz in a cold place, and I’d argue that there’s no finer place to do so than on the side of a mountain. I have friends who are perhaps purer skiers than me, meaning they’re the type of people who would prefer to scarf down a pre-packed sandwich on the chairlift rather than sacrifice a few runs by stopping for lunch. To me, this is crazy.

My love affair with lodge food began early. Having a father who worked all winter long running the ski school seven days a week, the mountain—a little place called Waterville Valley, funded by the Kennedys and notched in New Hampshire’s White Mountains—became my de facto babysitter. This was especially true on winter weekends, when I, a shy kid in all other walks of life, resumed my role cosplaying as one of the rich brats in the seasonal ski programs, and later on the race team. When I wasn’t pissing off the ski patrol by skiing too fast down the mountain, I swaggered around the lodge in my unbuckled ski boots, pilfered cafeteria trays and used them as sleds, and spent a good deal of time in the ski instructors lounge. Of the latter, I can still smell the sour smell of beer wafting from kegs and the sharp, chemical tang of hot ski wax being ironed into the bases of skis.

I also spent a considerable amount of time looking for my father, who, being a bit of a showboater, and a man allergic to paperwork, was seldom found in his office. What I always needed from him was lunch money, something he was loathe to give me given the cost of everything, even with his employee discount, which the old ladies working the cash registers extended to me. Where I wanted to spend Dad’s lunch money was at the pizzeria on the second floor of the base lodge. It stood wedged in a corner, below the staircase that led to the third floor après bar, and to the left of the cafeteria, where the burgers were the greasiest I can remember. Sometimes the line for pizza spread all the way from the front counter of the pizzeria to the lodge’s freestanding fireplace, halfway across the second floor, its four-sided hearth flanked by skiers removing their boots to thaw their feet out over lunch as they talked lighthearted shit in their heavy Boston accents. To me, the pizzeria’s long line was warranted, as was the precarious act of trying to balance two slices of cheese pizza and a fountain coke on a tray while clomping down the stairs in my ski boots back to my father’s office (a journey that still fills me with fear). I would eat lunch at his desk, streaking tomato sauce on his papers and whatever else I rifled through while eating. The pizza served in the Waterville Valley base lodge was, and remains in my mind, even though I cannot recall its exact taste, the finest pizza I have ever had in my life. The tomato sauce, the puffiness of the crust, the exorbitant amount of cheese — all of it. I am sure were I to have it now it would disappoint, monumentally so, as most things from one’s past do, but since I cannot, it will forever remain cemented in my mind as the platonic ideal of pizza — a totem that takes me home.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed ostensibly better meals in better ski resorts. It began in Utah, Deer Valley to be exact, where I joined family friends and first—if you can believe it—had oysters, some 30 or 40 of them by the time the night was through, much to the amusement of the adults, who all made jokes (none of which I grasped) about my sure to be surging teenage libido. In my 20s, I discovered Austrian après-ski on the side of a mountain high above St. Anton. There, at the Krazy Kanguruh and The Mooserwirt, the two bars that serve as a one-two punch at the end of everyone’s ski day, I learned the fine art of table dancing in my ski boots while swilling steins of Austrian beer and downing Jägerbombs. Put these two bars anywhere else in the world, and they are the epitome of tacky; but slap them on the side of a mountain, and this snob is in his happy place.

A year later, I found myself in St. Moritz for the season, the place where my parents had met, and working as a ski instructor, just as my father once had. This meant that in addition to teaching my clients how to turn, as well as schlepping their gear from the lobby of The Palace Hotel to the lift, I was in charge of lunch reservations. The slopes of St Moritz—Corviglia, that is, the main resort—are lousy with lunch spots. Alpina, Trutz, Chadafö, Paradiso, the latter rife these days with influencers. But the real spot, back in those days, was La Marmite, cantilevered over the slope like a ship cresting a white wave. Floor to ceiling windows gave way to the Engadine Valley, far below—a valley that Nietzsche once claimed had saved his life—but the guests were always too preoccupied with their food and the scene to care. I must’ve taken clients there some 50+ times that season. So much so that the ski school director, a man who called himself “The Robert Redford of the Alps,” admonished me for fleecing too many guests out of a free lunch. But, hey, I had a thing for the place’s truffled flammkuchen (a wafer thin pizza that went for $100 a pie) and their venison, served with a fried egg over polenta and gruyere. One time a client ordered a magnum of Riesling and insisted on skiing home. It took us over two hours to get down the mountain that day, and she fell so many times that she’d ripped the seat of her Bogner one-piece to shreds.

There were other clients in St. Moritz, of course, many of them better behaved. Surprisingly enough, the Trumps rank among them. Ivanka and Don Jr., upon learning that I would have to adhere to the Downton Abbey-type rules in the private Corviglia Club and eat downstairs with the rest of the instructors (aka “the help”), cancelled their reservation and opted for the cafeteria instead, so that we could all lunch together. I remember laughing over fries and thinking how normal they were. And then there were the ski instructors, the more senior and charismatic of which called the shots. On a particularly miserable day in February, St. Moritz and the rest of the Engadine socked-in with a low-elevation white out and pummeled by an icy snowfall, I was paired with a fellow by the name of J.P. He had a permeant sun tan, his skin as leathery as a catcher’s mitt thanks to not having experienced summer in three decades (he taught in Australia during their winter), and—despite being in his fifties—skied like a badass, usually with a Gauloises cigarette wedged between his chapped lips. J.P. had taken a shine to me earlier that season, mostly because he knew that my father had been an instructor in St. Moritz back in the ‘70s, and he taught me things, like how only rubes believed you couldn’t drink red wine with fish, and that if you wanted to stay at the bar past 7 p.m., when all instructors were expected to return home and change out of their uniform lest they incur a 400 CHF fine, all you had to do was turn your red jacket inside out so that it looked like a generic black parka.

“Putain” JP spat on that cloudy day, looking at me and shaking his head at the exuberance of our clients — a corporate group from Deutsche Bank.

JP devised a plan that would lead to minimal skiing. Where to stop for coffee, a long easy run to a neighboring town followed by an even longer gondola ride sure to eat up plenty of time, and when to break for lunch. When the wine list arrived, JP grabbed it, rolling his eyes at the client who’d dared try to snatch it first. JP only ordered the good stuff, and plenty of it. He got our clients so drunk that afternoon that they all downloaded on the funicular back to town and called it a day.

On the last day of that ski season in St. Moritz, Bar Finale, down in Celerina, gave away all its remaining alcohol for free to instructors (the only people left in town), and I promised myself that once I’d drank enough I’d finally say hi to the blond Swiss girl I’d been making eyes with all season. Sadly, the place ran out of booze long before I’d summoned enough liquid courage to approach her.

My skiing, and thus my mountain lunches, have decreased since then. Still, there have been a few good ones. Hot dogs and cans of Fat Tire at the Dawg Haus at the base of Blue Sky Basin on the backside of Vail. Or ducking the rope off Game Creek Bowl and skiing down to Minturn for Mexican and margaritas at the Minturn Saloon, where old school skiing paraphernalia festoons the walls and the pitchers go down so smooth that you always miss the bus and need to call a cab home. At the Hospiz Alm in St. Christoph, Austria, there’s a slide to the bathroom in the basement to save guests the trouble of having to take the stairs in ski boots after lunch, and on the sun terrace at the Alter Goldener Berg in Oberlech, you can’t go wrong with a lunch of speck, kaspressknödel, and kaiserschmarr’n — though, and I speak from experience here, it might cut your ski day short; consider yourself warned. If you ever find yourself in Kitzbühel, particularly during Hahnenkamm weekend, try to scare up a Salzburg-style “bosna” from one of the street carts (and tell them to go hard on the curry powder). And here’s a deeper thought: an on-mountain restaurant just might save your life, as it did mine. It was some six years ago, atop the Passo Pordoi in the Italian Dolomites, at the Rifugio Maria, over Neopolitan-style pizza and spritzes with my wife, that I first began to come to terms with my father’s death. While looking out the window at the glacially capped Marmolada, a mountain Dad had long mythologized, I began to see him not as the seemingly indomitable six-foot-four man who had somehow irrevocably succumbed to cancer, but as a myth in his own right, whose spirit was now draped upon this alpine land he once called home, or anywhere—really—that I was fortunate to traverse on a pair of skis.

Since having kids (two boys, the eldest of whom we named J.P., after my instructor pal), my ski territory has contracted, and my big trips have all but gone away. We go up to Vermont frequently to see my mom and to sneak in a little skiing, and sometimes up to New Hampshire, too. But I’ve spent a good deal of time at miniature mountains teaching my children. One isn’t even a mountain, but an artificial slope at the American Dream Mall in East Rutherford, NJ. It is there, indoors on artificial snow, the temperature tuned to an unwavering 28 degrees Fahrenheit, and never the slightest gust of wind to spoil things, that I’ve taught both boys the basic fundamentals of the sport. Our classroom is a far cry from Dad’s Alps, or even Waterville Valley; still, as sacrilegious as it feels, it gets the job done, and we always make sure that we reward ourselves with lunch afterward. While there is no lodge to speak of, there is a food court in the mall, and sitting there in our snow pants, our skis propped up beside us, our jackets piled on a chair, it almost feels as if we’re somewhere high up on a mountain. We get slices of pizza from Best Pizza. It’s far better than the pizza I bought with Dad’s money all those decades ago in the base lodge at Waterville Valley, surely, and yet sitting there, the three of us silently chewing our slices, replenishing ourselves on dough and cheese and tomato sauce, it somehow reminds me of it. Maybe it’s the fact that we’ve earned this food, and to know that I have passed this sport down to my children, all of it, lunch included. Or maybe the pizza itself is a time machine, and eating it after a morning of skiing makes me feel like a kid again.

I hope that someday my boys will explore the ski world as I have, and that whatever they eat on the mountain—the lodge dark compared to the sun-splashed slopes, the two of them feeling momentarily blind as their eyes adjust to the interior—reminds them of splitting a pizza with Dad at the mall after skiing, back long ago when they first learned the sport.

Reservations are down. So is revenue. Is there a worst month for restaurants than January? Every year, our favorite industry is forced to lurch through 31 days of dining doldrums before it can resuscitate itself come February.

Well, we only have ourselves to blame, and some of us are more guilty than others. So what kind of January diner are you? Funny you should ask...

The Soup Enthusiast
We all know the one friend who’s gotten a little too into soup — they’re asking the chef for the recipe at the end of the meal. It’s half romanticizing winter, half delusions that the third packet of oyster crackers isn’t going straight to the bottom line. Beach bodies begin in winter but not at the bottom of your broccoli cheddar bowl.

The Sunday Sports Bar Football Fan
Fantasy football still exists for some, but not you, friend who finished in last place. Still, you’re not giving up a standing 6-top with the fellas at Wogies every Sunday. While the rest of us are mapping out the year or catching up on sleep, you’re standing in solidarity with the boys and a beer tower, mock-drafting for the 2026 season (“our year”). And yes — the jersey stays on (“Babe”).

The Dry Januarist
Isn’t Dry January basically No Nut November for the sobriety/non incel-crowd? It’s a virtue-signalling fad, a month of Instagram posts from goody-goodies bragging about being on the wagon while silently white-knuckling it until they can binge drink in February. We’re not saying you shouldn’t give up sweet, sweet alcohol for a few weeks. More power to you! We are saying you don’t have to make “I’m Not Drinking And Neither Should You” your entire personality.

The ‘It’s a Great Day for Drinking’ Friend
The opposite of the Dry January Goody-Goody is the Jolly Ol’ Boozehound who loves to hole up in warm, dark bars and drink the day/night away as snow falls and the temperature drops. That person sure is fun! They love a hot toddy, too! Of course, once everything thaws, they can quickly turn into ‘I Don’t Have A Problem’ Friend, but let’s worry about that in the spring?

The Carbo-Loader
January means eating all the pasta. Not some. All of it. No more pasta? Moving on to dumplings.

The Fondude
You could call them the friend with the après-ski problem, but we just think Fondude’s got a little more razzle dazzle to it (aside from the gendering – sorry ‘bout that). While the rest of us are hibernating over takeout, or devoting ourselves to juice cleanses and other half-baked health hacks (see below), these kings and queens are living it up in Aspen, Whistler, St. Moritz, Gstaad, Lech, Verbier, and other wintry enclaves downing melted cheese like fine wine and deleting all manners of drinks as if après were a medal event in the upcoming Cortina Games.

The Health Nut
Keto, gluten-free, juice cleanses, some weird nut diet resembling that of a squirrel stocking up for winter. Summer is 165 days away and you’re determined to look good in that swimsuit. The budget for dining out has been reallocated to a $400 Equinox membership and an annual pass to Bathhouse, but we’ll see you at Emmett’s in February for a pizza and a martini when you fall back in line.

The Homebody
There are four different Venmos staring at you from December’s slew of holiday dinners. Of course, that one friend had to order champagne under the guise of ’tis the season and sure, you ordered the three-level seafood tower, but “it’s actually more economical than getting seafood à la carte.” Whatever the story is, it’s peanut-butter-and-jellies for you, friend.

The Reservation Hunter
For those who kept it between the ears in December, your reward awaits. There’s perhaps no better time to dine out in New York or anywhere else. Bar seats are open (but, really, should they be reserve-able in the first place?), juicy four-tops are popping up on Resy and OpenTable left and right. There’s a calm magnanimity to restaurants in January — the pours are a little taller, the atmosphere a little chiller. This is for the true veterans, the regulars, the folks who show up rain or shine not just for the ball drop. We salute you.

Go to any city in America—even, in some cases, small towns—and one might argue that we’re already living in a culinary dreamscape. Omakase this, izakaya that, revived French classics, Oaxacan masa, Montreal-style glizzies, whole spots devoted to Korean Banchan. Indeed, how far this great land of ours has come.

And yet, to quote that silver-tongued crooner Billy Idol, we want “more, more, more.” When better than the beginning of the year to propose 56 fresh (and somewhat unhinged) ideas that we want to see take root in restaurants during the next 12 months.

56. Reinstitute Frog Legs
The test of every French restaurant shouldn’t be an egg, but an amphibian. Plus: they taste like chicken!

55. Ban Reservations for Bar Seats
First come, first served. Throw an elbow if you must.

54. We Want Drink Ornaments
Some say, leave the origami out of cocktails. That’s fine when it comes to garnishes. But trinkets? Umbrellas, little monkeys hanging off the side of one’s martini? Yeah, bring those back.

53. And Doggy Baggies
The ultimate flex: letting everyone know you just dined at 4 Charles. Restaurant-branded doggy bags are the Birkin Bags of restaurant merch.

52. More Pillows
If it was good for the Romans, then it’s good enough for our crumbling empire. If you force someone to sit on a banquette, provide them with nice pillows. Same with booths.

51. Restaurants with Their Own Club Cars
Watch this space…

50. Bring Back 21 Club
This year? Pretty, please?

49. Phone Lock Boxes
If it works at a Chapelle Show, it should work at a restaurant. Be present, player.

48. But Put Phone Booths In the Back
There are times when persons of leisure must excuse themselves to take a private call.

47. And One More Thing: Scrolling Sections
Remember smoking sections? What if restaurants reopened request-only back rooms where individuals or families of four can happily stare at their phones like zombies while slowly chewing burgers and chicken tendies?

46. Bowls of Salt and Pepper
We don’t care if it’s unsanitary; we want to be able to apply one, two, or three finger-pinches of salt and pepper to our food.

45. More Marshmallows!
In desserts! In cocktails! On top of sweet potatoes!

44. Mix-and-Match Pasta
Yes, we should be able to mix agnolotti and orecchiette if we want; it’s a free country.

43. Extra-Large Tapas
First, sharing is overrated. That’s fine if it’s your thing, and there are endless restaurants that are happy to shake you down for the least amount of food possible. We just want a plate that’s like family-sized for one. Isn’t that an entree, you may ask? No. It’s tapas, but huge.

42. Tabletop Jukeboxes
These small, personalized music machines were popular in diner booths for decades. Why can’t we have one at our favorite Michelin-starred restaurant? Listening to Geese while crushing foie gras? Imagine the decadence.

41. Flambé Everything
Fire good!

40. The Year Of New England Clam Chowder
Lobster bisque is overrated. We want to see New England Clam Chowder on every menu, even in the summer; it’s the Cadillac of cream-based soups.

39. Pigs-in-a-blanket Dim Sum
Who wouldn’t appreciate a squeaky cart selling à la carte mini-hot dogs halfway through dinner service?

38. Industry-Wide Charcuterie Ban
Then bring it back big and fatty in 2027

37. Dine-In Waymos
For the gastronomes on the go.

36. Every Knife Is A Steak House Knife
The steak knife is the ur-knife, the knife from which all other knives spring, and whose utility cannot be questioned. One can cut butter with a steak knife, but one can’t cut a porterhouse with a butterknife.

35. Burger Bun Choice
Brioche buns are too sweet. Pretzel buns too firm. One should be able to choose one’s burger bun, since it’s the first element of a burger one’s senses encounter when chowing down.

34. House Hot Sauce Arms Race, Please
Every restaurant, no matter its concept or cuisine, should take the time to labor over a house hot sauce that is unique, tasty, and mouth-scorching… ideally, something each spot takes pride in, too. And every restaurant should also compete with each other over the best hot sauces. We deserve a hot sauce renaissance.

33. Allergy Cards
Print them, present them, pass them, collect them. No more explaining your real or invented aversions. FOH might laugh at you, but they’ll also thank you.

32. BYOB(read)
It’s time we make like Eli Zabar and normalize bringing your own bread (and butter).

31. Soundproof Breakup Booths
The awkward restaurant whisper fight is a right of passage in any relationship. Throw some soundproof booths in the back and let enraged couples have it out over supper.

30. Tunnels Between Restaurants and Bars
For a discrete transition between dinner and debauchery. Like the tunnels a-listers used to slip in and out of the Playboy Mansion back in the day, but, you know, like less gross and creepy.

29. Euro-ify American Après-Ski
Glühwein. Spritzes. Fondue and raclette. Table dancing in our ski boots. Why can’t we have this?

28. Make (Some) Clubs Hard to Get Into Again
No, not all of them. But we need some velvet roped joints in the zeitgeist again, with an intimidating bouncer deciding who gets in and who gets rejected. Friends, fit, vibe, swag – say what you will, it all plays. Sorry, them’s the rules.

27. Airplane: The Restaurant
We’ve had tin diners. We’ve had Pullman cars. Let’s step it up with an actual fuselage – a retired 747 or Concorde. Make dining jet set again.

26. Buying drinks for other parties
Sending a round is the ultimate old school move (just ask Chef JJ) that deserves a comeback in this socially awkward age.

25. Kids Rooms at Restaurants
Let them eat chicken fingers in hermetically-sealed, soundproof chambers! (while their parents fight in the other chamber – see idea #31).

24. Dry April
We need alcohol in January. April, not so much. Take a breather before summer, when it’s truly time to play like a champion.

23. Find “Undercover Waitress” a New Job
Our queen cannot remain unemployed.

22. Consider the Meatloaf Sandwich
Cheesesteak? Chicken parm? C’mon, just give this underrated leftover classic the star treatment it deserves.

21. Retire the Word “Invite” for Pricy Meals
Wow, how kind of you to “invite” us to join you on New Years Eve for $1,000 pp++

20. More Regional Mexican Food
Time to go deep on arguably everyone’s throned cuisine.

19. Year of the Hot Dog
Burgers get all of the love, but what about their skinny underdog cousins?

18. Chicken as THE Choice for a Large Plate
It could be the boring choice, but it doesn’t have to be. Bring back The Nomad-style pomp and let’s eat some amazing birds. Bonus points for interesting breeds.

17. Less Wine Bars That Are Actually Just Restaurants Without Liquor
Fully commit to the grape, cowards.

16. Up the Pairing Game
We want beverage pairings utilizing all styles of wine and spirits instead of just wine. Non alcoholic pairings need to get some love, too.

15. Death of the Spiel
Ok, this is a polarizing topic ‘round here, with some proponents of the spiel. As for the rest of us, we say nobody needs to be walked through the menu any longer. Are there specials not listed? Are you out of anything? If not, let’s get some water on the table and come back shortly for the drink order. We can handle the menu.

14. Upgrade the Seafood Tower
Less predictable options, more unique raw and cooked preparations, with different types of clams and crawfish and more crab.

13. Listening Restaurants
Sure, listening bars are cool and all, but those white label City Pop records pair just as nicely with Poulet Rôti.

12. Affogato Ice Cream Stands
Imagine how locked you’d be this year if you punctuated every afternoon with some chocolate chip cookie dough swimming in espresso?

11. The Great Diner Renewal Project
We cannot lose these precious institutions, and it’s time for the government, wealthy altruistic donors, or another third party to step in.

10. Enough with the protein maxxing
We get it!

9. Give Polenta the Star Treatment
It’s the sexiest grain-based dish. Just ask the Italians.

8. Normalize Iced Red Wine
It’s glam, just ask “it girl” Sasha Mutchnik.

7. Restaurants: Step Up the Art Game
You should be a gallery with food.

6. 86 Any Guy Who Treats a Dinner Date Like a Podcast
Debating your date isn’t sexy. Go home, Theo Von.

5. More Tavern-Style Pizza
Especially here in New York.

4. Comfort Food Tasting Menus
C’mon, Achatz, let’s reclaim that lost Michelin Star with some deconstructed tater tots.

3. Smooth Jazz Bars
Controversial? Sure. Smooth? Always.

2. Fitness Apps That Unlock Meals On The House
Torch those calories with 10,000 steps? Your table awaits…

1. Restaurant Divorce Court
Who gets the joint in the breakup? Let the restaurant decide who truly is the regular. Sorry, no joint custody.

The kitchen gets all the attention, but what about FOH? That’s where worlds collide. Our new anonymous columnist suffers the tribulations of table service for your entertainment, and perhaps enlightenment, too.

TUESDAY

3:25 p.m. Reality is malleable. This is what I’m telling myself sighingly as I begin setting up the dining room. If I cultivate the love and the light within my soul, perhaps the universe will bless me with a seamless service.

3:55 p.m. Reality may be malleable, but once again, family meal is not. Slimy-looking sausages and peppers will not help morale. I run down the block, speedwalking into Tenichi mart, attempting to salvage both my stomach and the brief window of time I’ll be allowed to sit down in the next six hours.

5:15 p.m. A shift without a sunset… working through the dead of night. I must say that starting service with the sun already down feels horrible. Not only is it affecting my circadian rhythm in a way that I am sure will take years off my life, but it is warping how time passes in a sick and twisted way. Clocks move differently in the darkness.

7:00 p.m. If you hadn’t guessed, the energy in here tonight is incredibly haunted. The spookiness only magnified as I get a closer look at who the host just sat in my section. Tonight’s equivalent of a ghost. Table 56 is now populated by my ex-boyfriend’s old roommate’s friend, who frequently responds to my Instagram stories. He’s on a presumed date with a girl whom I follow on Instagram, but don’t know if I have ever met in real life.

Serving a nodding acquaintance is one of a waitress’s most difficult challenges. It’s a confusing and sloppy social dynamic that forces you to marry your waitress and person personas while attempting to financially benefit off your charms. You suddenly go from girl to servant, friend to employee, enslaved to their whims and wishes, potentially altering the state of your casual relationship forever.

7:15 p.m. After unsuccessfully attempting to pawn them off to another server, I approach the table with dread, preparing for the “Omg! I didn’t know you worked here,” in which I desperately have to play off the amount of time I spend in this god forsaken room in order to feign being way more successful at my creative endeavors. I swiftly usher them to the drink menu, desperately trying to utilize alcohol to smooth out the awkwardness of this interaction.

7:25 p.m. While getting their orders and noting her gluten allergy, I simultaneously try and gauge how much banter I’ll have to employ to guilt them into overtipping me. He, of course, is eagerly engaged, while I can’t decide if she wants to kill herself or me.

At the end of the day, this is the West Village, and he will be the one throwing his card down, as is the drybar-Patagonia vest culture. So I put the extra effort in to throw in some of the classic canned lines. “And the chicken comes with fries… so you can’t beat that!” Words that really don’t even sound like words coming out of my mouth anymore.

8:30 p.m. I’ve successfully performed a calculated dance, maneuvering us to desert with limited table interaction. Switching off apologetic smiles as I feign business in the dining room and strategically waltzing out of the kitchen when a dish headed their way appears on the line.

But now it’s judgment day. The bomb that is the check with zero comps is about to drop. The mask of feigned friendliness will be ripped off and the pressure to tip 30% removed. There is hope, though, one saving grace in the form of the only thing we are allowed to send “Friends” (loose term) of the restaurant. A tiny swirl of ice cream.

“How bout some dessert?” I say with a big, stupid smile on my face. She’s quick to tell me they are too full and they’ll take the check. I’m screwed. I walk to the Toast iPad and hesitate. To swirl or not to swirl, that is the question. I decide to fire it, darting to another corner of the dining room as to hide the fact that I am not getting them that check they asked for.

8:45 p.m. A coworker closes them out, I avoid goodbyes by hiding in the coffee station, for once happy to return to simple waitressdom and not personhood.

10:00 p.m. A party of four West Village girls with rocks on their fingers and product worth more than I’ll make tonight in their hair are obliterated in the middle of the dining room. A tablescape of fries, little gem salad, and martinis separates the presumed Charlotte of the group from the drunkest of them, as she leans in trying to get her girl to hold it together.

But you can’t save them all. She’s gone full bobble head, swinging and swaying in her seat. On one violent downward sway, she lets it rip, puking on the floor. I alone see this, in what feels like slow motion, until her friends help her up and usher her to the bathroom, barfed Basque food all down the front of her artizia slip dress. At the Toast iPad, I inform the floor manager while simultaneously asking if I can be cut.

THURSDAY

3:25 p.m. I am late and not looking forward to this. The whole gray December thing is really stifling any forced positivity I can muster. I am keeping my headphones on for set up, listening to Lana Del Rey (which I’d argue is the most apt waitress music of all time) and wistfully dreaming of sunshine, success, and a margarita.

3:55 p.m. As I begin to drench white rice in Cholulah (the only edible option from family meal), I realize there is a stirring of activity coming from behind the host’s iPad. Interest piqued, I suddenly find myself on my feet, peering over their shoulder at the Rezy, reading a note under a random name, “This reservation is for Gwyneth Paltrow.”

I thank God for a little excitement.

4:25 p.m. As the GM lists off our VIPs for the night, I size up my coworkers and manufacture the shining feeling that out of all of us, I am the best suited to serve Ms. Paltrow. At the very least, I am the most excited.

5:00 p.m. To solidify my opportunity, I corner the GM at the Toast iPad and shamelessly yet successfully plead to be given her section. Now, this may be seen as some type of star fuckery, and in real life I’m morally outraged by the notion, but in restaurant life I am desperate for a taste of razzle dazzle, glamour, and the insider knowledge of how well Gwyneth Paltrow tips.

​And YES, fine - I have an undeniable fantasy of being so utterly charming that I am adopted, married, hired as an indentured servant, or whatever by one of these celebrities and swept away from the waitressing world.

5:05 p.m. Service starts, and I skip to the bathroom, hoping to ensure I am operating at my most beautiful. I am more than disappointed at what stares back at me in the mirror. Whatever grease is not collected in crusty stains across my yellow t-shirt seems to be in my hair. I’m looking like a lifeless Cinderella. I’ve got to do something about this.​

I beeline it for the GM and frantically inform her of our problem. There is no way in hell I am serving Gwyneth Paltrow looking like I spent 16 hours washing dishes and another 48 in a prison cell. Thankfully, she’s almost as excited about Gwyneth as I am, and in an act of mercy allows me to go to the office and retrieve a fresh T-shirt. Usually, I would be docked like $30 for this, but because it is truly out of necessity and no fault of my own (other than me being the one who spilled things all over it and did not have it laundered before this shift), she gives it to me for free.

5:20 p.m. I’ve rebraided my hair, hounded coworkers for a little blush and concealer, and thrown the old shirt in the trash. I should probably see if I have tables.

6:00 p.m.I am pulling a Princess Diaries, walking like there is a book on my head as I walk three brothy ass bowls through the dining room. “Goop Girls don’t have stains,” I whisper to my coworker as I heel-toe-heel-toe by.

6:30 p.m. I stand by the bar, an eagle eye on the door. Then, a billion-dollar blonde in a low ponytail pushes her way through the front door. I have butterflies. I run to the coffee station to catch my breath. Also, I am assuming she’ll drink bottled water and not tap.

7:00 p.m. Things are going swimmingly. Ms. Paltrow and I are laughing, she’s telling me about eating shrimp in Biarritz, I am nodding like I totally relate. She’s polished and polite as well as hungry. She needs some snacks before she has any wine, and I happily offer to get her some bites to start things off.

The sunshine coming from Table One is immediately overtaken by a cloud at the host stand. A horde of people, the teens being transformed into one big table. No, no, no, it can’t be. Not a large party. Not in my section. Not NOW. But my pained expression to the host doesn’t stop them from leading the group of 12 to my section.

7:20 p.m. After a small tantrum that got me nowhere and a pained introduction to the large party, I rush back to get Gwyneth’s wine order. Apologizing profusely for the delay, in a way that makes it a little too obvious, I am emotionally invested in our interaction.

Because she’s Gwyneth Paltrow, she’s just going to order as they go, and because I’m me (a waitress), I have to smile and nod regardless of knowing that this may set me up for failure as it completely dismantles my ability to streamline her meal.

8:00 p.m. 12 people is too many people to take to dinner. It leads to sidebar conversations, a fracturing of the group, and awkwardness over who had more of what. I really do believe that in order to truly dine together, you must share food as well as conversation. Besides, it would do us all some good to be a bit more selective about our dining partners.

That being said, the 12 top is playing a game of musical chairs in a valiant attempt to prove me wrong, making it impossible to figure out who ordered what beverage.

8:45 p.m. Reaching across the 12 top’s crowded table to clear some chicken, I look longingly at Gwyneth, as she smiles at the backwaiter graciously getting her dessert order. (Just a peppermint tea, of course.) Her stunning elegance and grace distract me as I bump the head of position 8 (formerly of position 2 fame), spilling chicken jus all down the front of my crisp yellow t-shirt.

I barely apologize for the bump, nor the splattered jus. NOT IN FRONT OF GWYNETH. I sprint to the kitchen to dump the plates in dish, then head back to the host stand to beg for a Tidestick, not keeping my expletives to a whisper.

8:50 p.m. I tend to be slightly over aggressive with the Tide stick, always resulting with a giant wet splotch where the stain used to be. When you need immediate relief, this isn’t really much of a solution. So I return to Gwyneth, delivering a tea and the check with a defeated smile.​

10:00 p.m. Of course, my last table in the restaurant is the 12-person army of belligerent drunks. I feel beaten, battered down, and am cursing their espresso martini order. A closer hesitantly comes to take them off my hands. I lean on their shoulder, wistfully staring at where Gwyneth once sat, tortured by thoughts of what could have been. If only I could have spent a little more time with her…

The tip she leaves me? 30%.

TUESDAY

7:00 p.m. It is a Tuesday at 7 p.m., and I am driving home from filming a movie in Pennsylvania when I receive an email from the GM, subject line: “REDACTED Schedule.” I am assuming this is due to the frantic texts I sent about calling out to do this job and the fact that I have been too busy to work a consistent schedule in months.

The email reads:

I wanted to reach out regarding the upcoming schedule. After some careful thought and consideration we’ve made the difficult decision to downsize a bit. In adjusting our hours and staffing needs, we will be removing you from the schedule moving forward. We will take responsibility for covering all your future published shifts.

​

It feels a bit like getting broken up with by someone who you’ve actively been trying to distance yourself from for weeks. I have two thoughts: “Whoa, I just got fired for the first time” and “Omg, I don’t have to work tomorrow!”

I respond with:

“Well, I guess this is goodbye then!”

No follow-up from the team, interestingly enough. Curious if it had to do with spilling Jus on that guy’s head, but no use dwelling on the past. For now, I am collecting unemployment and thinking of getting into Poker.

X

Back in the day, restaurant “merch” meant an old t-shirt you wore for softball practice and sleepovers, stamped with the name of the local burger joint down the street. Sure, you had outliers like The Black Dog Tavern in Martha’s Vineyard, which stumbled its way into a cute black dog logo that sparked an entire sweater line worth more than the restaurant—and maybe the island itself—but those stories were few and far between.

These days, it’s different. The door’s been blown off its hinges. Restaurants are turning their brands into marketing juggernauts, monetizing every bit of likeness. Restaurant merch is being dangled like a carrot, and folks are biting. For the record, we here at Blackbird fully endorse this trend – the more great restaurants can capitalize on their brand the better.

But back to the merch itself. As in, what is the guy in the backwards Il Buco hat trying to tell you? That he has a great affinity for rustic Italian served alongside a tremendous wine list, both by the bottle and glass? Or perhaps he is telegraphing that a $300 pasta dinner on Bond Street is just a Tuesday night?

Here are a few of our favorites, each one befitting a different personality. Even if you can’t stand the person wearing it, you’ve gotta admit they look pretty good.

St. John Tote Bag - London

For the gastro-heads, St. John—the famous Central London snout-to-tail restaurant—is the shrine, and the classic tote bag its holy grail. The pig logo, a nod to their snout-to-tail philosophy, is about as strong as they come. The restaurant naturally weeds out the unadventurous, featuring dishes like Chicken and Ox Tongue Pie…not for the faint of heart.

What you’re trying to say:
If you spot a St. John Tote on home turf, it deserves a tip of the cap. A trip to St. John isn’t exactly tea at Windsor Castle. The tote signals you know a thing or two about food and have made the pilgrimage to back it.

Where we will spot you:
Back in the States, you’re bombing around Flushing or Harlem looking for a niche taco place. Manhattan no longer excites your adventurous palate. You dragged a date to Astoria for “the best Egyptian she’s ever had.” She ghosted you shortly after, but her loss — you’re headed to a guy who cooks traditional Chinese out of his backyard this weekend.

How to pull it off:
This tote deserves more than just being your everyday office cruiser. Load it up for a picnic: Salumeria, smelly cheese, a bottle of wine, and a Sunday journal. Off to a good start.

IYKYK Rating: 10/10

Paul Bert Shirt - Paris

Paul Bert used to be a deep, deep cut, reluctantly passed around by folks in the know as the place to get the best steak frites, maybe of your life. Unfortunately, like all good things, social media has outed this well-kept secret (is nothing sacred?).

The silver lining? Giftshop Paris. Despite a few press hits, this brand, which assembles one-off collabs with iconic brasseries, has stayed niche. Brasserie Lipp, Fontaine de Mars, and, of course, Paul Bert. The secret is out on the steak frites, but Giftshop still remains for those in the know.

What you’re trying to say:
You went on a solo trip to Paris to research wine-bar concepts…long lunches with Hemingway in hand (or, even more of a signal to the heads, some A. J. Liebling), and it was transformative. Even if you ordered the sweatshirt online and had it shipped straight to your door…we’ll never tell.

Where we will spot you: The well-curated mystique makes it hard to spot you, honestly. Whether it’s performative, the byproduct of a trust fund, or a little bit of both text us back, we’re worried.

How to pull it off:
Cigarette in one hand, espresso in a ceramic in the other. Despite being back for a month, you can’t shake saying “bah oui” instead of yes and insist on a crisp pack of Gauloises rather than the P-funks your rube-like friends still puff. Speaking of which, those friends are waning, but they’re just jealous of that Paul Bert sweatshirt.

IYKYK Rating: 9/10
(Pro tip: Paul Bert just dropped a collab with Frenchette. If you’ve got one of those, 11/10.)

Lucia Hat - New York

With the iconic green-and-white Lucia pizzerias popping up all over New York (including the new Gramercy location), their classic Italian-style logo was too good not to slap on a hat. But they didn’t stop there — tees, beanies, the works.

What you’re trying to say:
You’ve been around the block. Lucia is the pizza New Yorkers go to. L’Industrie can keep their hypebeast lines. Fini the cult following. Lucia has stayed a neighborhood spot.

Where we will spot you:
Everyone knows the one unemployed friend (sorry “creative director”) hanging out on a random Tuesday in Dimes Square. They’re wearing this hat.

How to pull it off:
Levi 501s, white tee, Adidas Sambas, iced coffee. You’re out the door.

IYKYK Rating: 8/10

Amber Waves Hat - Hamptons

Amber Waves is a small not-for-profit farmstand outside Amagansett. Since 1954, they’ve served the community with some of the island’s freshest produce.

That said, they’ve probably raised more money from the cult-like following of their hats than from all the veggies combined.

Where it gets interesting is who wears them: outside of the crunchy intended audience, there’s the West Village girlie and the private-equity dad (with the beaded Buddhist bracelets, of course). At first glance, these personas have nothing in common but a deeper look reveals the hat may not be the only through line…they summer in the Hamptons, have an affinity for $100 lobster salads, and know a guy who can get them into Stephen Talkhouse. The Amber Waves hat remains a badge of honor.

What you’re trying to say:
You summer in the Hamptons…that’s literally the only thing they are trying to say.

Where we will spot you:
Vintage Defender cruising down the Montauk Highway, a group of girls on the 4:06 LIRR Cannonball, divorce court.

How to pull it off:
Even though this hat falls victim to unfortunate occasions, it’s a great trucker. Pair it with white Vans, those aforementioned beaded bracelets (both parties seem to wear them), and a tee from Montauket, and you’re ready for a sunset rum punch.

IYKYK Rating: 2/10

Fini x Local Hoops - Brooklyn

Everyone knows Fini has one of the best slices in Brooklyn, if not New York. What you may not know is that Fini hosts youth basketball tournaments, competitions, and clinics — winners take home “Fini Pizza for Life!”

So naturally, they teamed up with Local Hoops. Like the pizza, most of the collab is sold out, but it’s worth having a look.

What you’re trying to say:
The Fini hat seems to be a mainstay for anyone who’s moved from Manhattan to Williamsburg in search of more space. You traded your studio for a two-bedroom, a significant other, and a dog. The Fini merch says, “Despite all that, I’ve still got it… right?” (Scratches neck nervously).

Where we will spot you:
Dragged to Barry’s class by your significant other. The hat is the only thing hiding the horrific hangover from last night’s “drinks with the fellas.”

How to pull it off:
The whole Fini x Local Hoops line belongs on a basketball court. Whether it’s the Knicks game or pickup at the local park, reach for the Fini Hat.

IYKYK Rating: 6/10

Elena - Montreal

Elena, a new-school pizza and pasta spot in Montreal, could stand alone as an apparel brand — and in some ways, they do. Their “boutique” includes chore jackets, water bottles, Ciele hats (deep pull), and even croakies that would make Connecticut lax bros proud.

What you’re trying to say:
This is for the true culinary heads, you’re saying that you don’t mind an eight-hour trip north to Montreal to get that French injection when “Paris is just not in the cards this year.”

Where we will spot you:
You fancy a good slice with great vibes, you are likely headed to Parla, Emmets on Grove, Joe and Pats in LA or Rubirosa in its heyday…you’re a cool cat.

How to pull it off:
Pair the croakies with Steve McQueen’s signature Persols from The Thomas Crown Affair.

IYKYK Rating: 10/10

J.G. Melon - Upper East Side

These are the pieces your dad might’ve rocked. If you grew up on the UES — Dalton, Horace Mann, Columbia Prep, one of the like, you might’ve reluctantly worn the tie Grandma got you for Christmas. The UES is back, and so is preppy couture, so no surprise the iconic Melon logo is everywhere.

The best part? They list the merch right on the menu, as if it were a side of fries. Just remember, cash only.

What you’re trying to say:
You grew up on the Upper East Side. Every Blackout Wednesday since you were of drinking age (14 for New Yorkers) started at JG’s. You roll your eyes that the UES is hot again, but never worry that there is a line, Bobby (RIP) behind the bar knew you were family.

Where we will spot you:
Anywhere but Brooklyn.

How to pull it off:
Khakis, Barbour, and a good pair of Belgians.

IYKYK Rating: 7/10

Fanelli Café Sweatshirt - SoHo

Smack in the middle of SoHo — the epicenter of fashion — it’s no surprise Fanelli Café has dipped its toe into the merch game. Of course, being just south of Houston, it has to be a hoodie. Flip the logo upside down and you’ve got yourself a $60 collector’s piece…available only at the bar for even the most discerning hypebeast in your life.

What you’re trying to say:
“I swear, bro, I think the bartender is into me.”

Where we will spot you:
Corner table under the sign, any season. When not at Fanelli, you’re below grade at Lure Fishbar (RIP) or down the block at Balthazar for a French 75 and seafood tower…as long as someone else is paying (there’s always someone else paying).

How to pull it off:
This is the perfect boyfriend sweatshirt, the one stolen the morning after a night out. Grab it and never give it back.

IYKYK Rating: 6/10

Great White — Los Angeles

Right under the Venice sign, just off the canals, you’ll find one of the greatest all-day cafés from the Aussie team behind Great White. A stone’s throw from the Pacific, the shark logo is everywhere.

What you’re trying to say:
You’re far more likely to do morning yoga than a Saturday lunch reservation, but if you must: “We’re going to Great White.” And no drinks…too many toxins.

Where we will spot you:
Santa Monica and Venice, full stop. You stay west of the highway, always. Fine…you went to the Hollywood Hills once because a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend knows Charlie Puth but that’s it. When you need to detox the next morning, we’ll spot the shark hat at Great White.

How to pull it off:
Barefoot, matching Great White towel, Bieber smoothie from Erewhon. Great White’s avocado toast, while basic, is admittedly pretty good, but the merch is even better.

IYKYK Rating: 6/10

Lords - Greenwich Village

First came Dame, born from a popular Covid pop-up serving some of NYC’s best fish and chips. Then came Lords — a nod to London pub food and its trendy love affair with offal (wonder where that idea came from…cough cough). Now they’re over at 10 Downing Street with their third concept. Seeing a theme here, as such it’s only fitting that Lords merch draws inspiration from Oasis-style tees and the classic soccer scarves.

What you’re trying to say: None of us actually know what you’re trying to say lLiterally) ever since you went with your grandparents to London it’s “pint” instead of “beer,” “pub” instead of “bar,” “uni” instead of “college,” and “footy” means “football” rather than America’s sport.

Where we will spot you:
Glued to the couch every Saturday and Sunday watching “prem,” because how could you possibly watch a sport with ads?

How to pull it off:
Pint of Guinness in one hand, scarf around the neck, Blundstones on your feet. You nearly got a whippet to complete the look, fortunately, someone talked you out of it.

IYKYK Rating: 8/10

The kitchen gets all the attention, but what about FOH? That’s where worlds collide. Our new anonymous columnist suffers the tribulations of table service for your entertainment, and perhaps enlightenment, too.

THURSDAY

3:25 p.m. Mother Nature has provided us with a perfect Noreaster, a divine act of grace that has permanently closed the outside dining area. As I approach the restaurant, I see an unhoused man has set up shop in front of the door. I decide to use the service entrance rather than start my shift off on that foot. Entering through the kitchen I see leadership huddled across the street. They wave to me — I smile awkwardly back.

3:45 p.m. As I set up the dining room, I am pulled aside by our GM. She promises me I’m not in trouble. My head believes her but my heart is pounding. There is something about being led to the back of the restaurant by your superior that feels mafia-esque, like I’m about to get got in the office.

She leads me out into the dribbling rain where the Chef/Owner (who I guess in this fantasy is ‘The Don’) is dubiously hunched in a trench coat. We huddle close while they covertly ask me about “my experience” with the AGM. I don’t hold back, recounting Napkingate with the strategic threat of tears in my eyes.

3:55 p.m. I skip back to family meal, a big old grin on my face. I make eye contact with a coworker and realize he has just had a similar experience. I grab a plate of rigatoni, pop down next to him and whisper, “it’s beginning.”

4:30 p.m. We learn that The Don will be on the floor tonight, acting as a sommelier and “another set of hands.” This is unprecedented. I am wary, not thrilled to have a looming authority figure on the floor but then I realize: He’s there to keep an eye on the AGM.

5:15 p.m. The coffee station is abuzz with whispers and theories. Do they know they are being watched?

5:25 p.m. Ok yes, they know. But it’s clear their humongous ego has gotten in the way of seeing why. Diligently moving across the floor and up all of our asses, they shoot themselves in the foot. Nitpicking, refolding napkins and aggressively lecturing, truthfully they are unloading rounds. I should feel guilty about how giddy I am watching this play out.

6:00 p.m. The Don congratulates me on outselling him on wine. He flashes a genuine smile at me as I bring up a heavy plate combo that was once a contentious issue at the pass. We are all shocked at how helpful he is and how much kinder and less sweaty he looks not under the fluorescent glow of the kitchen. There’s not a stressed-out neck vein in sight. Maybe this place ain’t so bad!

7:30 p.m. The AGM slides next to a senior server as she slices baguette for a table in her completely flat sat section. Amidst her attempt to keep up, the AGM begins a lecture on the thickness of her bread slices. The AGM is so in her face that she slices her hand with the serrated knife. I go to find her in the office, telling her to make sure the Don sees the blood and thank her for her sacrifice.

9:30 p.m. I have two tables and typically I would have already caused a stink about not being cut, but there is a silent agreement among staff to really let the AGM cook. They are notorious for keeping 15 people working for three tables, and we are all invested in letting The Don see how ridiculous it can get.

10:00 p.m. As those two tables finish their dessert in a nearly empty restaurant being served by five servers, three runners and two bussers — I am finally let go.

“We may have won” I whisper to my coworkers as I do my sidework.

FRIDAY

2:25 p.m. I have 25 minutes to pick a Halloween costume and no ideas. Earlier this week it was revealed to us that for one night and one night only we could ‘wear whatever we wanted’ to work under the guise of a Halloween costume. This is a once in a career opportunity for FOH, as we are typically sentenced to prescriptively sexless outfits designed to keep us devoid of personality or charm. I’m cursing myself for almost wasting it. I panic, tearing my room apart in an attempt to pull something together. Eventually, I just throw on a long black dress and go ham with some black eyeliner.

It’s always been my opinion that the best Halloween costumes are vague and malleable, shifting with the energy of the room. This is also a good philosophy for waitressing. If any tables ask what I am I have a variety of responses. “I’m a person, just like you”, “I’m Bellatrix Lestrange”, “I am whoever you need me to be”, “I am hungover.”

3:25 p.m. Truthfully, I am dismally hungover, suffering through a Clinical case of Open Baritis from the previous night. I’m hopeful the holiday will create space for ample libations on the floor tonight.

4:25 p.m. Lineup is full of corny Halloween jokes, we all laugh desperately, determined to make the most of working the Holiday. It’s also brought to my attention we have hired a bouncer for the night. Seems we learned a lesson during Pride, when the restaurant came under a glittery siege of blackout drunk gays needing to use the bathroom. A bouncer! What a novelty! I have three burning questions I have to ask. 1) Are we tipping him out? 2) What’s his name? 3) Will he be dressed up? All I learn is he will be arriving at 6 p.m.

5:25 p.m. One gulp of Sancerre in and I’m on a mission to make some magic tonight. Sometimes when the mood strikes me, I sincerely want my tables to have a wonderful time. Step one, get ‘em drinking. But my first table is swatting my attempts. A freshman FIT student is sequestered at table 5 with her Two Coastal Elite Parents. “Do you have any drinks with, like, electrolytes in it?” This is not the energy I was looking for. I try to point her to a sparkling lemonade, apologizing that the bar does not have cucumber. Eventually she buys what I’m selling. “That could work. Sorry I’m just super hungover.” It’s nice to know my liver and I are not alone in our disastrous state but I’m going to need her to board my train energetically or else the night could go downhill.

6:00 p.m. The bouncer arrives, his name is Jeremiah and he is not dressed up, we are unsure if he is getting tipped out but its fine I feel safe now <3.

7:00 p.m. The bartenders are dressed as Charlie’s Angels and we’ve created an incredible protocol for what I have now dubbed Angel Shots. No I know, but I’m reclaiming the term. I pretend to get a wine out of the fridge, ducking behind the bar and gulping down some prebatched martini. Not going to lie, it’s electric in here tonight.

7:30 p.m. There are few feelings worse than a true fall from grace. At the height of my waitress magic making, a table of two elderly couples decides to knock me from my waitress pedestal and humble me to my core. “Excuse me, we love the Turbot but I wouldn’t say it’s filleted.” Their glares hit me in the stomach and the whimsical world I built in my section crumbles to the ground. I explain that while yes the bone is on the plate, the fish has been filleted by the chef. They proceed to try and prove to me it’s not. I nod solemnly and walk away, doing a turn in the dining room before standing directly behind them and talking about how much they hate me. Angel Shot.

8:45 p.m. New drink order unlocked. The girlie at Table 23 asks me for a martini “Extra Strong.” I want to whisper to her, “you’re perfect to me.” I feel no need to inform her that because a martini is made up of 100 percent alcohol it is in fact always extra strong.

8:55 p.m. Addendum: I do have to inform her of this fact because soon enough she waves me down. “I asked for my martini extra strong and I’m sorry but this is not extra strong.” I nod, getting ready to explain, but she stops me with, “I would know I was a bartender when I was 21.” I want her to stay exactly how she is. I tell her we will remake it and leave it up to Charlie’s Angels to figure out.

9:15 p.m. Two girls dressed as Native Americans in the year of our lord 2025. They’re ordering shrimp cocktails and leaving a trail of feathers around the dining room. I pick one up. New costume unlocked: I am now a crow.

10:00 p.m. Jeremiah Update: He is feasting at Table 2, we aren’t tipping him out but they are giving him dinner. One of the Angels wants to get a bag. It’s time for me to go to my Halloween Party.

TUESDAY

3:55 p.m. Big mysterious vats covered in tinfoil land at table 43. The dining room is 80 percent set up, it’s time for family meal. My coworker and I play a little game before peeling back the foil. Will it be a terrifying mystery sausage or freaky chicken?

The Linecook who dropped it off, hears our predictions and stands proudly as we discover we are both wrong. He smiles. “It’s Pasta! With Clams!”

… With clams? Death sentence

When it comes to family meal, I’m no idiot. I’ve learned my lesson. Freaky chicken is chicken that has been in the fridge too long to sell, sausage is the cheapest protein they can buy that will feel some type of legal requirement to feed us.

When a surprise ingredient makes its way into one of those vats, you have to ask why.

Where the fuck did these clams come from? The gutter? You found them in the gutter in 2024?

Alas, with at least five miles of steps ahead of me in the next six hours and a really terrifying balance in my bank account, my only choice is to nimbly maneuver the suspicious clams out of the penne.

4:25 p.m. Line up has a different vibe. The one of the nicer Chef De Cuisines is at the pass tonight, he sits down next to me as the AGM calls lineup, looks like we are sitting down tonight. The AGM has been at our sister restaurant for a week or so. I did spread the rumor they were fired but sadly manifestation doesn’t always work how you want it to.

After the CDC returns to the kitchen, The AGM turns to us and begins to repent. I can’t quite look them in the eye because they are suffering through real emotions, remorse, shame, hope. There are tears being blinked back and an earnestness that plants a small seed of respect in my heart for my former (?) enemy. This may be the conclusion of napkingate.

6:30 p.m. There are beautiful evenings where God (well in this case, the Midwestern Twunk) seats nothing but angels in my section. Cozied up at Table 56 is a couple that I have decided are my new parents. As previously mentioned, our waitress outfits are entirely sexless, which makes it difficult to utilize so many classic tip boosting maneuvers. So recently I’ve experimented with pivoting, opting for the Orphan Annie angle instead. Pippi Longstocking braids, oversized everything, and a kind of tragic hope in my eyes.

7:00 p.m. My coworker doesn’t feel so good, there’s fear in his eyes and a small bead of sweat by his temple. He’s a closer and didn’t hear about the clams. Four bowls of pasta bodied by the pass, he and one of the bathrooms are about to be out of commission for a while.

7:45 p.m. Mom and Dad are wrapping up their meal. I send them an ice cream, they’ve invited me to their restaurant in Danbury, shout out Rosie’s Tomorrow off rte 84. They ask me if I’m an artist, I blink my eyes and sheepishly say yes. “We thought so.” They thank me for the hundredth time for a beautiful meal and tip me 40 percent. I miss them now as I write this.

8:45 p.m. The last reservation has been sat and it seems the AGM is really trying to make good on this apology because I get cut at a glorious 8:45 p.m. Does this mean I will make a good $100 dollars less than I anticipated? Yes. Do I have the will to continue for $100? No.

9:00 p.m. I’m saying my goodbyes at the door, when a man returns from a mid-meal smoke. He turns to us with a look that’s a mix of conspiratorial and drunk. “Hey, so… my friend over there is falling in love.” My coworker and I are instantly invested. “... with that silver fish-shaped salt container” We smile awkwardly, unsure where this is going. “What would happen if one of those went missing?”

Before we can answer he slides us both a wad of cash. “It’s yours brotha” I tell him, stuffing the cash in my pocket. He grins, thrilled. My coworker and I look at each other in disbelief, reveling in the fact that someone was stupid enough to pay us to let him steal something he truly could have just pocketed. I walk outside and take the wad of cash out my pocket, in a twist of fate, they are twenties. He gave me $100.

Colin Camac (aka @resyguynyc) is officially Blackbird’s “Strategic Sales Lead,” and unofficially is our resident insider’s insider. He is out, on the town seven nights a week, sniffing out the city’s best joints, skateboard in one hand, martini in the other.

It’s been a wild few weeks, but I’ll keep this installment focused (mostly) on my recent West Coast adventure. I was sent to LA for the launch of Blackbird on the West Side and had an absolute blast. We have some incredible restaurants signed on, and it was great to feel the excitement of everyone who was participating. I also made some solo mission stops around town, as well as caught up with a few good friends for meals during the short time I was out there. As for NYC, I made it back with enough time to go to a few Italian spots, including possibly one of my favorite restaurants in the world that I have been frequenting since childhood.

Colin

LA

Coni’Seafood
📍Del Ray
🍽️ Mexican coastal

Straight off the plane—that was delayed an hour—I was absolutely starving, so I took a car directly to Coni’Seafood to check it out. I had read a bit about it previously and was excited to give it a try. Coni’s is known for Nayarit-style food and has been slinging mariscos in one form or another since 1987. I was bummed to find out that I was there during a period in time that they were cleaning their grill, so their famous grilled snook was unfortunately not an option. Every table starts out with a bowl of chips and a fish-shaped bowl of a really zippy and spicy salsa verde. I decided to try an order of their tostaditos, which were six tortilla chips topped with marlin paste as well as shrimp and octopus ceviche, surrounding a bowl of more ceviche. The marlin paste was slightly smoky, adding some fun nuance to the ceviche. Following that, I went with a shrimp aguachile, raw shrimp topped with onions, swimming in a bright green sauce bursting with acid, and slightly cooking the shrimp. The dish looked beautiful and had a nice kick to it. Finally, I ordered one last plate of cooked shrimp “al mojo de ajo,” which came with a side of rice and had a deeply flavored dry chili spice, brightened up with some lime and garlic that I really dug. Would definitely come check this place out again and need to try the snook.

RVR
📍 Venice
🍽️ Japanese izakaya

As it was one of my absolute favorite meals from my last visit, I made one reservation before coming to town, and that was at RVR. Again, it was a really great time, and I can’t explain how perfect the feel of this restaurant is. I randomly sat at the same table as last time, right by the DJ spinning vinyl, and was able to survey the whole room from a spot in the corner. Highlights of this meal were the tiny fried fluke bites the kitchen sent out for us that I believe may have been a special that day. The light fry really let the fish shine with what I believe were tiny pickled onions on top. You absolutely cannot go wrong with any of the handrolls, and we went with two each, a kanpachi as well as uni. I think the vegetable section is one of the strongest parts of the meals here as well. I gushed about this place a few weeks back, so we can leave it at that, but this is a must-visit if you’re on the west side for any reason (plus you can check in and pay with Blackbird).

Don Antonio’s
📍West LA
🍽️ Mexican

After a few early meetings, I skipped off to lunch at another old-school local SoCal Mexican spot called Don Antonio’s. Don Antonio’s has been doing its thing on the west side since 1982. It’s one of those places that makes you crave a margarita. Since it was 11:30 a.m. I behaved myself and resisted the urge. Looking at the menu, it seemed like a standard Tex-Cali-Mex place, offering large burritos, enchiladas, and combination plates. I started out with a massive order of shredded chicken nachos. If I had to do it again, I would most likely go beef or chorizo, but that felt like it would feel too heavy, as I also wanted to try a combo plate. The nachos themselves were some of the better nachos I’ve had, with gooey melted cheese and topped with jalapeños, sour cream and guac. For the combo plate, I opted for Don Antonio’s special, which was a hard shell beef taco, cheese enchilada, and chile relleno that came with rice and refried beans. It was a ton of food and was exactly what I was looking for. The enchilada, specifically, was probably my favorite part of the dish if I had to pick one.

Night + Market Sahm
📍Venice
🍽️ Thai

After our Blackbird launch event at Only the Wild Ones, a friend and I took a quick Waymo—a wild experience—over to Night + Market Sahm for some Thai. This is the only location of Night + Market I hadn’t yet been to and much like the others, it’s fantastic. We got there just as the place was slowing down and jumped at the offer of free wings when you purchase a bottle of wine. The wings were sticky and spicy, basically the perfect thing for drinking a bright bottle of orange Brutal (didn’t clock the exact bottle) that had a bright, juicy flavor with a finish of salinity that was really nice. We followed the wings with pork jowl with jaew chili sauce to dip, fatty and well-balanced with the sauce. My go-to at any Thai restaurant where it is available is the crispy rice salad with fermented pork, and this one definitely hit the spot. The fermented sour pork is a flavor I can’t get enough of. We rounded the meal out with a great version of shrimp pad thai and a delicious pastrami pad kee mao. The pad kee moa, bursting with flavor from the young peppercorns, was a welcome last-minute addition from my friend. The most fun dish of the night though, was the restaurant’s version of a crunchwrap, stuffed with spicy krapow chicken, Thai basil, khao soi queso (what?!?!), crema, lettuce and tomato, wrapped in a tortilla. A really great bite.

Komal
📍 South Central
🍽️ Mexican

After a stroll through the Santa Monica Farmers Market, my buddy Jeremy from Beethoven Market wanted to bring me to Komal, a molino that turns out incredible Mexican food on freshly housemade masa, and it was an absolute highlight of the trip. The storefront is directly across from Holbox in the Mercado La Paloma food court. Unlike Holbox, there was no line at all and we walked up and ordered straight away before grabbing one of the empty tables in the area. Soon enough, the food was delivered by the incredibly helpful staff, starting with a plat of tacos de suadero. Two brisket tacos on insanely good corn tortillas topped with onion, cilantro, and a side of salsa roja. We followed that with an order of flautas, three to an order mixed with both blue and yellow corn tortillas, stuffed with ayocote beans and topped with a deeply flavored mole, queso fresco and crema. The mole was really a showstopper. Tlacoyos came next, thicker, oval-shaped tortillas with more mashed ayocote beans and topped with roasted nopales, queso fresco, crema, and salsa verde. I loved the chew on the thicker tortilla and the nopales as well as the salsa verde, which brightened it all up to contrast the earthy beans. My favorite bite was the often Instagrammed flor de cabeza quesadilla, which was a squash blossom quesadilla on a beautiful corn tortilla, quesillo cheese, and a sweet corn sofrito that blew me away. Such a fantastic lunch and a place I will definitely be coming back to on any subsequent visits to town.

Osteria Mozza
📍 Hancock Park
🍽️ Italian

For one of my last nights in LA, my friends suggested I knock another classic restaurant off my list, and we headed to Nancy Silverton’s Osteria Mozza. We snagged a late reservation and walked into an absolutely packed dining room at 8:45 p.m. on a Wednesday. The room felt familiar and comfortable in a very old school way, and we were quickly shuttled to a nice corner table after a quick stop at the bar to see some drink menus. I randomly bumped into a server who I went to high school with as we were walking to our table. It always blows me away when these “small world” moments happen. The GM who knew some of our party got us started with some mini fig martinis, which was one of the better martini riffs I’ve had in a while and a great way to start rolling into our first dish of the night. We started off picking a few things from the “mozzarella bar” portion of the menu, ordering both Cantabrian anchovies and the burrata and braised leeks. The anchovies in particular were a highlight dish, two fresh mozzarella balls served with bread and an incredibly briny and delicious tin of anchovies. It was the perfect amount of saltiness and the type of anchovies I really enjoy, paired nicely with the creaminess of the cheese. The team also sent us their famous burrata and bacon, which were little individual crostinis topped with marinated escarole, caramelized shallots with the cheese and bacon and provided a really nice salty, sweet, and creamy balance. A red endive and fennel salad that was beautifully dressed with an anchovy vinaigrette and layered expertly was another real highlight. The brightness and salt of the vinaigrette worked really well with the bitter leaves. We went with pasta as a main course, and all three hit the spot. My favorite of which was a classic ragu bolognese with garganelli, which happens to be one of my favorite pasta shapes. Both the agnolotti with butter and sage as well as the orecchiette with sausage and Swiss chard, were also best in class. I would also highly recommend the biscotti misti for dessert as it was the best biscotti I’ve ever had.

Felix Trattoria
📍Venice
🍽️ Italian

On our Blackbird launch day, I wanted to pop into some spots to check out the experience and give our new partners a few reps with the platform, so I decided to pop into Felix right as they opened and have a quick snack and martini at the bar. I have to say the food here was really on point, and I will definitely be coming for a more well-rounded meal on my next visit. As part of our Blackbird launch week promo, I was gifted the wonderful stuffed squash blossoms. Unlike other versions of this dish, these were really lightly fried, letting the flavor of the blossom and cheese mixture really shine. Following the blossoms, I ordered suppli in bianco, filled with branzi—an aged cow’s milk cheese—rice, prosciutto cotto and topped with a dusting of salty pecorino. It was as delicious as it sounds and was really well-executed. My favorite dish of the meal though, was an insanely tasty plate of prawns in salsa verde. The prawns were very gently cooked and served whole so that you could remove the heads and suck out all of the incredible prawn flavor. You rarely get a dish like this prepared so well in the US, and usually can only find stuff like this in Europe (from most of my experience). I can’t wait to go back and get them again.

NYC

Bernie’s Restaurant
📍Greenpoint
🍽️ American

It had been forever since I’d popped into Bernie’s and ended up snagging a Friday night table . Bernie’s is the perfect example of a restaurant opening in the exact right place and the exact right time, giving a neighborhood exactly what it wants. The feel is so comfortable and classic, and the food follows suit. We started out with an order of martinis and mozzarella sticks. The sticks, larger than most versions in town and some of the better ones around, were seasoned nicely and topped with more grated cheese. Bernie’s Caesar salad is a classic example, dressed nicely and served in the old-school wooden bowls as they should be. For mains we went double chicken, ordering both the chicken parm as well as a half order of the house vinegar chicken. While the parm is solid, I don’t think I’ll come back again without ordering the vinegar chicken, which is served in a bright vinegar sauce with peppers and onions. The chicken was really nicely cooked, and the peppers specifically brought the whole thing together. Lemon ice box pie is always a great way to end a heavy meal.

Don Peppe
📍Ozone Park
🍽️ Italian

Topping off an already massive dining week, I wrapped up the weekend with my sister’s birthday dinner at our family favorite (for almost 40 years now), Don Peppe in Ozone Park. If you haven’t been, I cannot recommend this place enough, as it is one of my absolute favorite restaurants anywhere. The vibe is as old-school as you can get, a bright room, with fans and large tables everywhere, waiters who have been here for decades, and horse racing memorabilia covering the walls. It has a feel completely unique to itself, and the only menu is printed on the wall. Regulars will know what they are ordering without even looking, and our standard order is the same every time. Sure, you can go off script and start ordering the everyday red sauce classics, but doing that for me is missing the point. Don Peppe’s does a few things better than anyone and it is a damn shame when people go there and don’t get the right stuff. Another thing about the restaurant is that you need to bring a crew. A 4-top works, but you really want a table of at least six to get the whole experience. Pro tip: it is also directly across the street from JFK, so if you ever have a late flight or get in during the afternoon, you can pop over for a bite. So, without further ado, I now present to you the perfect Don Peppe order — don’t fuck this up:

*House salad — with meat and cheese.

*Baked clams — put this place on the map.

*Stuffed artichoke — they have it available maybe 30% of the time, but always ask.

*Eggplant rollatini — this is a sometimes order, but a great version and definitely worth ordering in a big group.

*Linguine with white clams — so much garlic, you’ll smell it for two days.

*Linguine with shrimp Luciano — off-menu pasta in a shrimp and onion pink sauce.

*Veal Don Pepp — non-negotiable, best dish on the menu, done better than any other place. Don’t ask me why or how.

Falansai
📍Bushwick (but moving to Greenpoint)
🍽️ Vietnamese-Mexican

I made it in for the last night of service at the current iteration of Falansai. Falansai is a Mexican-Vietnamese restaurant by my good friend, Chef Eric Tran, and is one of the most fun restaurants around. They are closing shop and moving to a new location in Greenpoint in about a week or so, but I wanted to get to the OG Bushwick spot for one more meal before they made the move. We went with the standard Dac Biet 3-course meal, which is always more food than you need (don’t even get me started on the 5-course!), and is always such a great meal. We started with the first course of incredible duck tamales, a dish of marinated cucumbers and tomatoes, and a bowl of papaya with vermicelli noodles. All of which were even better punched up with the house sauces of spicy fish sauce, salsa matcha, and the house ginger hot sauce. The massive main course was the always great lemongrass beef skewers (4x) as well as a Boston mackerel with a tomato-coconut curry, all served over rice with herbs and fried shallots over the top. It also included a large bowl of duck pho broth with veggies on the side. Such a great place, I can’t wait to see what the next chapter looks like.

The kitchen gets all the attention, but what about FOH? That’s where worlds collide. Our new anonymous columnist suffers the tribulations of table service for your entertainment, and perhaps enlightenment, too.

Tuesday

2:25 p.m. An hour before my shift, I send a “You def need me tonight, right?” text to the Floor Manager. Transparently, this is the third shift in a row I’ve tried to get out of—mostly because I’m sick, but also because there are just so many other things I’d rather be doing.

Sadly, for the third time in a row, my feeble attempts at getting cut have failed.

3:15 p.m. I arrive, foggy brained and achy, unsure of how long my voice will last. I am quickly aware I am not the only one that feels this way. Two-thirds of openers are wheezing.

I don’t know if everyone understands how gross being a waitress can be. In many ways a restaurant is a lot like a preschool. Both are hotbeds of tantrums, spilled liquids and germs. And just like a toddler you are going to get sick and you are going to get everyone sick.

4:50 p.m. Hardboiled eggs for family meal. I try to convince myself there’s an old wives’ tale that eating old eggs will cure a cold. It does not help. I resort to the deli, grabbing a powerful triptych of ginger ale, Gatorade, and chocolate, establishing stability, strength, and morale.

5:15 p.m. The host leads a group of elderly diners to my section. I shake my head. “I could kill them and it’ll be on your hands,” I tell her. It feels like biological warfare. I start wondering if there have ever been lawsuits about restaurants infecting the general public. It seriously feels like Wuhan in here.

5:45 p.m. I walk in on my other ailing coworker staring at the wall in the coffee station. We stand there stoically, feeling very sorry for ourselves. I bring up the potential lawsuit. She asks if it would be against the restaurant, or if we’d ultimately be culpable. Excellent point. I realize I don’t make enough to cover legal fees and drop it.

7:00 p.m. I watch my coworkers hungrily attack a plate of cold fries. My ailing coworker mercilessly dunks a hunk of them into the aioli and I watch as everyone else does the same. We will all be dead in a week.

7:30 p.m. My voice has entered a new level of raspiness. It sounds kinda good, I wonder if it in tandem with the glassiness of my eyes will invoke a kind of pity increase in my tip average.

8:15 p.m. I’m playing it up now. Walking slowly. Taking my time, pretending to be faint by the POS. Knocking the host out of the way, as I reach for the Advil under the host stand. People begin to tell me I don’t look so good. It’s working.

8:45 p.m. The Floor manager has begun coughing as well. I bribe them with some medicated cough drops and hurry myself off to bed.

Saturday

4:50 p.m. After three days off, I have defeated Tuesday’s illness and am feeling strong, noble, brave, and ready to serve some imbeciles on a rainy Saturday night. Did I sleep for a total of three hours last night? Absolutely. But I’m off that shocking high that comes once you’ve finally conquered an illness and are ready to rumble.

5:20 p.m. Okay, actually, I might have still been drunk upon arrival. I’m immediately tasked with our Chef de Cuisine’s baby mama’s birthday celebration.

There’s a unique stress that comes with serving a member of BOH, heightened by their partner’s inevitable R.B.F. For one, I’m acutely aware that this man both knows and cares far more about the food than I ever will.

I get off to a rocky start: his in-laws won’t take a seat at the table, and I approach too early with water. His wife is drinking some made-up cocktail the bartenders concocted for her. Everyone asks what’s in it, and I have no idea. Even after the bartender explains, my missing REM swipes it right outta my brain. I return to the table, panic, and lie: “Hibiscus and orange juice.” I turn away before they taste it to avoid seeing their confusion.

5:50 p.m. As we move on to entrees, my panic continues. I really never know what to do when there’s a baby at the table. Is it rude not to give the baby a share plate? At what age can a child use a steak knife? I’m not a mother — clearly, I’m a young waitress. Developmental stages are not my jurisdiction.

6:15 p.m. I’ve basically given up, hovering occasionally to ask if everything is all right, which is dumb because if it weren’t, the CDC would already be down in the kitchen. After dessert, I basically beg my manager to give them the check.

10:00 p.m. The end rolls around easily and I am relieved of my servitude duties. I go downstairs to fold my napkins. Laughing with coworkers, life is beautiful. There was a point where I convinced myself that not folding all 30 napkins would have karmic consequences, but nowadays I just feel it out, get into a flow state, vibe, you know?

10:10 p.m. On the way to stash my napkins in the server station, I accidentally make eye contact with my nemesis, the AGM. I avert my eyes quickly. From that fleeting glance, it’s clear they have an agenda. I hurriedly type in my code to Toast, clock out, and whisper to myself, “They can’t hurt me now.” If only I knew.

“You see this?” I look below my knee. The AGM is pulling out my napkin stack. “This looks messy.” They’re holding a napkin whose fold is askew. By “askew,” I mean only to the trained asshole who thinks people sit down at a restaurant and are upset that a napkin is folded slightly asymmetrically. They proceed to undo my handiwork and refold the napkin.

Before I can process the horror, they begin on the next napkin in the stack, informing me that all “30” of my napkins are heinous. They proceed to go Origami Master on my ass, straight up in the middle of the floor.

Thus begins the public humiliation ritual of refolding these napkins, with hawk eyes watching over me. Not only in clear view of the patrons whose dining experiences I was just leading but in the way of my coworkers. I am experiencing a physical sensation of anger like I have never known. I take a deep breath, locking eyes with my horrified coworker, whose kind glances prevent a rage blackout

After the disgusting display of power is over, I say “Thank you” without looking at them and beeline it to the bar, where I’m wordlessly handed a shot which I graciously down before getting the fuck out of there.

Sunday

4:25 p.m. Despite barely surviving Napkingate last night, I arrive at work hopeful today. I’ve been promised an early release on account that, believe it or not, I am more than a mere waitress and have an event to attend at 9:15 p.m.

4:30 p.m. And we’re off to a strong start as Enemy Number One, Napkin Lord, is heading out early. They give me a conceited nod on the way out that I ignore. Napkingate has made the Floor Manager incredibly concerned about FOH morale, so much so that they are allowing us to sit down for lineup. And at Table 5, no less!

I feel like a princess in the big corner booth, realizing I’ve never seen the restaurant from this angle. To top it off, the Chef brings out new dishes for us to try. A rainy Sunday, a bowl of bouillabaisse, and a promised out-time within the next four hours? God is good.

6:00 p.m. The closers come, and I realize Napkingate has incited a movement among my coworkers. The coffee station has become some kind of rebel-force meeting place; emails are drafted, action plans written, and threats whispered. A revolution has begun.

8:00 p.m.There’s a large party seated in the Teens. Something horrible happens when 11 people sit down to dinner, and I’m thrilled it’s not my problem tonight, yet somehow I reap the reward. The kitchen accidentally doubles down on their pre-fix, cheffing up too many salads and brothy beans, leaving them to be hungrily devoured by FOH. “It’s like Christmas!” I proclaim, taking a spoon to a steaming plate of beans. I realize I’ve never eaten this dish warm, and it scratches my hangover in a gorgeous way.

8:30 p.m. Easy release. I fold my napkins performatively and run into the rain to continue the rest of my life.

Colin Camac (aka @resyguynyc) is officially Blackbird’s “Strategic Sales Lead,” and unofficially is our resident insider’s insider. He is out, on the town seven nights a week, sniffing out the city’s best joints, skateboard in one hand, martini in the other.

Even a rough Steak Club outing couldn’t keep this week from being full of great meals. It really does blow my mind, though, that restaurants known for one —literally says it in the name—can’t make that one dish a memorable one. Home cooks all over the world cook great steaks, and it’s amazing to me when we find these places with professional cooks and equipment that just don’t. Anyway, I crushed some amazing pizza this week and went to some of my favorite classic places in the city. Sometimes the best meals are at places that have been doing it forever.

Colin

Ceres Pizza
📍Little Italy
🍽️ Pizza

After last week’s failed attempt at securing a clam pie from Ceres, I came back this week with a better understanding of the rules and was able to snag one of the pies. I dropped in with two friends for our pickup time around 5:30 p.m. and ordered both the clam special as well as a cheese pie. Both are some of the absolute best pizzas in town right now. The cheese pie was again super thin and crispy, with no real cheese pull, but perfectly seasoned sauce and more of a light char of the cheese on top. The clam pie, however, is immediately one of my favorite pies in the city. The pie comes with a lemon and several shucked clams around the top, but the briny flavor goes so deep on this pizza. It reminded me a lot of one of my favorite clam pizzas ever at the now-closed Franny’s in Brooklyn. The clam pie is only offered on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and you have to come in person to place your order. It is probably the most expensive pizza I have ever bought, but to me it was worth every penny.

Leon’s
📍 Union Square
🍽️ Italian

I hadn’t been to Leon’s since its early days and decided to meet a friend for a bite at the bar last Friday night. I walked into an absolutely bustling dining room and full bar that felt great. The top-notch martinis made the short wait for a seat go by quickly, and before we knew it, the bar staff had two seats ready for us. Leon’s is the follow-up to one of my favorite local West Village spots, Anton’s, and the team expands on their Italian palate with some French and Middle Eastern flavors. We started out with the incredible lamb arrosticini as well as the fava bean falafel. The arrosticini (Italian skewers) were perfectly cooked and juicy. I wish I saw this dish around the city more, as I think they are such a great way to start a meal over some drinks. I’ve always really enjoyed Leon’s falafel as well, bright with herbs and in a light pool of tahini that gives it a creamy bitterness that I love. For pastas, we had a wonderfully nutty, fall-tasting ravioli as well as the classic cavatelli with sausage and market greens. Leon’s also makes one of my favorite chickens in town, boned, charred skin, and nicely spiced, laid out over a bit of tahini with some cilantro. It’s beautiful in its simplicity, and is absolutely perfect with their big green salad with cheese. Nick and Natalie have another great neighborhood spot in a small area of lower Manhattan that could use just that.

Pinch Chinese
📍Soho
🍽️ Chinese

Walking around trying to find a place to walk in late on Friday night, and we decided to check out Pinch Chinese. I hadn’t been since they first opened, but it was always really good, and I am happy to report that it still is. They have a really nice selection of dumplings, so we went with a few of those. We started with some very good soup dumplings, bursting with juicy pork soup and balanced out by the vinegar/ginger dipping sauce on the side. Following that, we went with an order of pan-fried beef dumplings, crispy on one side with a nice chew on the other. I would definitely order both again. The “Wind Sand Chicken” was always a favorite of mine, a whole bird, brined for three days, sliced, and topped with crispy garlic. We paired it with a seafood fried rice and topped it all with the house chili oil for a bit of kick, and it was great. My absolute favorite dish of the evening was kind of a surprise, as we ordered the “Hong Kong Style Lobster,” which came with morel and wood ear mushrooms as well as baby corn. What arrived was a really impressive dish of lobster stuffed into morel mushrooms with a gelatinous sauce that was addictively delicious. I had never seen a dish like it, and it was impressively done. Pinch is a great spot if you’re in the area and looking for some solid Chinese options.

Mama’s TOO!
📍West Village
🍽️ Pizza

There is currently an embarrassment of pizza riches in the West Village, and sometimes it’s hard to choose which place to go to. This Saturday, for my friend’s birthday, we decided to pop into Mama’s TOO! and brave the weekend crowds just before opening. The line moves way faster than in the early days, and we had only a short wait before ordering. I hadn’t had their pizza in a while, but I came away really impressed with how great it was. Even considering how much volume they do, it is still some of the best pizza in town. We went with an upside-down square, which is my personal favorite here and is my ideal square slice. I tried the bruschetta square for the first time as well and was really surprised at how much I loved it. The tiny blistered cherry tomatoes added a really nice burst of acidity to the garlicky crust of the white pie. For a place that seems to specialize in square slices, the NY round pies are insanely good here as well. After not eating it for a while, we had a slice of the pepperoni vodka, and I was blown away by how light and airy it was, while having a great flavor to the crust and holding its crispiness. It was all really impressive. We topped the order off with their cheesesteak, which puts a kind of cacio pepe spin on the classic, stuffed into their house-made seeded roll. It is a standout cheesesteak in a city that’s just starting to understand how good this sandwich is.

Barney Greengrass
📍 Upper West Side
🍽️ Jewish deli

Barney Greengrass is one of my absolute favorite places in the world, full stop. The over 100-year-old UWS institution is a perfect example of old school NYC. I try to get up there as often as I can, but usually only make it about once a quarter. If you haven’t been, Barney Greengrass is an old-school appetizing store. For those not in the know, “appetizing stores” are shops associated with old-school Jewish-American culture in NYC, mostly specializing in smoked fish products. Downtown has Russ & Daughters, and the UWS has Barney Greengrass. I was first introduced to the store when I was opening up Fatty Crab nearby around 2009, and a friend who grew up in the city asked if I had ever been. Once I found out what it was, I was there that week for a bagel to go for lunch that day. Since the place is known as “The Sturgeon King,” I figured that would be the move, and I have never gone here again without getting that same sandwich. Nowadays, I wouldn’t think about getting a sandwich to-go, as sitting in that dining room adds even another level to the experience. The servers, who have been there for years, are gruff, efficient, and really create an only-in-NYC vibe. My order is pretty standard every time I go, and it always starts with the sturgeon on an everything bagel with cream cheese, onion, tomato, capers and comes with a lemon wedge and half sour on the side. To me, it’s a perfect sandwich. The latkes here are best in class, fried and thick but with a really perfect consistency on the inside, served properly with both sour cream and apple sauce. The last dish that for me is a must order is their version of a LEO (classic lox, eggs & onion), but served with nova instead to keep the salt in check. It comes with the eggs scrambled pretty hard and onions cooked down and brown with little bits of nova throughout. It is served with a bagel of your choice, and I love to eat it with cream cheese as well. Smear a bit of the cold cream cheese on the warm bagel and top it with the NEO mix to get a delicious and fun hot and cold temp as well as textural bite that is one of my favorites around. This place is worth the trip to the UWS, and while it is definitely not cheap, it is an absolute classic. Also worth noting is its quirky policy of no credit cards on the weekends, so bring cash unless you hit it on the weekdays.

Quick hits, Pop-ups & New openings

Icca’s Chef Kazushige Suzuki at Sendo
📍 Midtown
🍽️ Japanese

Last minute, I saw online that Chef Kazu from Icca was once again popping up at Sendo for the following night. I immediately bought a ticket at 11 p.m. and was happily seated at the bar directly in front of the Chef for the early seating the next night. Chef Kazu, who usually presides over his one Michelin Star counter, which starts around $350 per person, has recently done a few pop-ups here, offering a less elevated but still spectacular omakase, this time at $200pp. It was once again an incredible experience and such a treat to dine at his counter again. His rice is delicious, and his selection of fish is always exciting and a bit outside the norm of the omakases you see everywhere. His signature kawahagi (file fish) chopped up and mixed with its own liver was a highlight, as well as the tiger prawn and saba. I will continue to scoop up this ticket any time it’s available, and highly recommend you do too!

Blue Ribbon Brasserie
📍Soho
🍽️ American

Late Saturday night, after seeing a movie, there was really only one answer for where to go eat, and it’s always Blue Ribbon Brasserie. I have written about how much I love it here before, so I won’t go too long here, but I love that they are back to being open late (2 a.m. nightly), even if it’s not as late as it used to be. The place still is an absolute classic and a must for any young restaurant professional to check out after a shift as a rite of passage. I went with the standard raw bar offerings, the always awesome steak tartare, and one of the best duck clubs I have had here. All of which are worth ordering. If you’ve never been and are ever hungry late, this is the spot.

Photos by Vivien Killilea

It’s official, Blackbird has landed in LA. As of today, you can check in and pay with Blackbird and earn $FLY at 50+ of LA’s best restaurants across Santa Monica and Venice. From icons like Gjelina and Felix Trattoria to favorites like RVR, Beethoven Market, and Milo & Olive, LA’s most celebrated tables are now part of the Blackbird network.

To celebrate launching in such an exceptional restaurant town, we threw a little thing for our our restaurant partners and friends of the brand last night at Only The Wild Ones — for our money one of the vibiest spots off Abbot Kinney. There were cocktails, bites by The Butcher’s Daughter, Crudo e Nudo, and Sweet Rose Creamery, vinyl DJ sets, ice sculptures (c’mon, not our first rodeo), and some of the best folks in the biz. Scroll on for the photo dump.

Restaurant lovers unite, indeed.

To explore where you can check in in LA, open your Blackbird app and set your map to Los Angeles, CA. You’ll earn $FLY every time you check in and pay — and can spend those points at any Blackbird spot across the country, from Venice Beach to Brooklyn.

Not in LA? Earn $FLY by referring your LA friends. You’ll both get $20 in $FLY when they check in for the first time. Just open your app and tap “Get $20” at the top of the page to grab your referral link.

Colin Camac (aka @resyguynyc) is officially Blackbird’s “Strategic Sales Lead,” and unofficially is our resident insider’s insider. He is out, on the town seven nights a week, sniffing out the city’s best joints, skateboard in one hand, martini in the other.

Last week, I went to one of my all-time hidden gem spots that I have been going to since the mid-aughts. I also hit a very underrated joint, as well as some really exciting new openings. So many good bites last week, make sure to check these places out, especially the ones that don’t get as much buzz as they deserve.

Colin

Tsukushi
📍Midtown East
🍽️ Japanese

Before hitting the Deltron show for night two, my friend Lala (Put it in My Mouth Pod) and I decided to get back to Tsukushi in Midtown East. Tsukushi is an old-school homestyle Japanese restaurant that serves a six-course non-sushi omakase that changes daily. It has been one of my favorite best-kept secrets for a little over 20 years now, since I first read about it in a Peter Meehan 25 & Under review for the Times. I immediately knew I needed to check out this spot, and I went back almost every week for several months. Catering mostly to Japanese businessmen, it was an incredible spot to go, whether at dinner time or late at night, as it kept really late hours, which was perfect for my restaurant schedule. Since then, the restaurant closed for a few years before reopening again on 50th and 1st several years back, and I try to make it up there whenever I am craving the special type of comfort food that I only seem to find there. Chef Norihiko Manabe now does all of the cooking himself with one server, at least on the Monday I was there, manning the dining room. The meal is always simple and very delicious, starting with fresh vegetables, sometimes cooked, marinated, or raw, and going into a small sashimi plate before a “house special dish”—usually a soup or stew of some sort—before leading into cooked fish and then meat. Tsukushi very much feels like you stepped into someone’s home, and the delicious food and simple preparations feel like a warm hug. Bonus points for the fact that you can buy bottles of iichiko Shochu, and if you don’t finish them, they will label it with your name for your next visit.

Superiority Burger
📍 East Village
🍽️ Vegetarian

Superiority Burger is always a fun choice when on the east side. After a quick work meeting at El Camino, a block away, a friend and I walked into SB and were able to snag the last two seats at the dining bar (not the back bar), which is my favorite place to sit at the restaurant. Sure, the burger and sandwiches on the menu are all great, but the real beauty of this place is the rotating market specials, at least one of which always blows me away. On this visit, my surprise favorite was a dish simply called “chunked pumpkin,” which was pumpkin cooked down in chunks as well as mashed with chili paste, Thai basil, and amazing little fried pieces of halloumi. It was a dish I have been thinking back to all week, and it was so fun to eat with the bits of halloumi coming off as fancy fried cheese curds. TFT (Tofu Fried Tofu) is a perfect example of the vegetarian-style junk food with well-sourced ingredients that the restaurant is known for. The spicy mayo and slaw really gave the sandwich a fast-food feel, but it was so much tastier. Sweet and sour beets with scallion cream cheese and crumbled pretzels were a revelation when I first tried it a few years back in the smaller location, and they remain so today. I have already gone on and on previously about how perfect the French fries are here, and if you still haven’t had them, they are now available at dinner time as well. Still, my favorite things at Superiority are always the desserts. I always make sure to get a gelato/sorbet combo, which on this visit was frutti di bosco sorbet and graham cracker gelato, which was predictably incredible as well as the “fancy dessert” special, which was a play on s’mores.

Foul Witch
📍East Village
🍽️ Italian

I had been itching to get back to Foul Witch as I think it is probably the most underrated restaurant in lower Manhattan, but also because, since my last visit, they started a really interesting aged beef program. Last week, I had a good friend come back to town and was looking for a fairly last-minute Friday night res, and this was the perfect place for a 5:45 p.m. res before he hit a show at Webster Hall. We started with the house focaccia with butter as well as the Fire & Ice. This is the best way to start a meal here, and the Fire & Ice is an old-school Roberta’s classic that is still a must-order. A fiery n’duja spread thick on the plate and covered with creamy burrata, which you then eat with the bread…it can’t not be good. Following that, we hit their twist on a Caesar, which is a shaved celery salad with anchovy and pecorino that I need to order on every visit, and I find it completely addicting. The pasta is always on point here and this visit was no different. I always order the sweet and savory veal tortellini with amaretto, but on this visit, we also added a fantastic cappelletti with Futsu pumpkin, buffalo milk butter, and prosciutto. The cappelletti was earthy, sweet, and salty, balanced really nicely, and a great dish for the season. Finally, for the main event, the restaurant offered both an 80-day aged Double R Ranch rib steak as well as a vintage (seven-year-old cow) 70-day dry-aged steak. Chef Carlo recommended we do a side-by-side to be able to really compare and see the differences aging has on an older animal, and it was a great experience. We started with a really well-cooked 80-day, which was cooked long enough to render the fat and give the steak a really nice bite. You could taste the nuttiness and funk that comes with age, and it was one of the most flavorful steaks I have had recently. For the vintage, it was a much different textural experience with a bit more chew on it and a deep beef flavor that you don’t get from just aging. It’s hard to explain without tasting it but while it still has the normal aging flavor, the way the meat tastes is just so much beefier. Foul Witch is still one of the best East Village spots around and one of the last remaining great restaurants that you can book without too much hassle.

Quick hits, Pop-ups & New openings

Shifka
📍NoHo
🍽️ Mediterranean

Shifka is the new pita shop from the Sami & Susu team that just opened on the Bowery. I was invited to an early preview and was really impressed with what I tried. Both sandwiches were really fantastic, and I think this is an amazing addition for a quick bite in the neighborhood. I first tried the lamb kebab pita, a juicy meatball of a kebab served with amba (pickled mango condiment), aioli, roasted onions, peppers, and topped with both a pickle and shifka pepper. The meat was bursting with lamb flavor, and I loved the aioli, adding a bit of an acidic kick. Even better was the spicy harissa chicken, tender roasted chicken topped with sumac onions, yogurt, and parsley, also with the pickle and shifka pepper. I loved how spicy it was and hope they keep the big flavors, as it was delicious.

Ceres
📍 Little Italy
🍽️ Pizza

After months of hearing the hype, I finally made it down to Ceres in Little Italy after seeing their clam pizza special online. Once I showed up around 4:45 p.m., it was clear that the Clam Pie (only 15/day) and I had not fully understood the demand or how to order it before I randomly showed up. Either way, I had already arrived, so I decided to order their standard cheese pie, which I was told would be about an hour. After a stroll around and a quick stop at the Shifka pre-opening (see above), I walked back in to pick up my pie. The pies are nicely charred, crispy and thin, topped with a fresh grating of cheese on the finish. I loved the deep flavor of the crust and think that this is one of the better pies in the city. I’ll definitely be coming by to check out the clam pie in the next few weeks.

Wild Cherry
📍 West Village
🍽️ American

From the incredible team behind Frenchette, Le Rock, and Le Veau d’Or in partnership with A24 at the Cherry Lane theater comes Wild Cherry. The room with fewer than 50 seats already has the feel of the next downtown hot spot, and the menu is chock-full of hits. We started with the classic dish of oysters with chipolatas that this group has on most of their menus, and it is about perfect. If you’ve never tried, it’s an absolute revelation how perfect an oyster pairs with the tiny sausages. One of my favorite dishes of the night was the scungilli, simply described as also including “celery onion.” In actuality, it was a whole conch shell filled with the thinly sliced sea snail with celery, onion, and celery leaves all swimming in a beautiful black pepper vinaigrette. It was so good, and a dish I can’t wait to eat again. The kitchen also sent us out a really good scallop dish with melon that accentuated the gentle sweetness of both in a really great way. Lastly, a new downtown burger has entered the chat, and it is very much my style in its simplicity. The thick patty is cooked to medium rare with a nice char on the outside, placed on a brioche bun with sauce choron (a tomato-spiked bernaise), clothbound cheddar, and some thinly sliced raw onions. Wow! I can’t wait to come back and crush the rest of the menu.

What Colin Made: Cocktails for a tailgate (Fish House Punch)
📍MetLife Stadium
🍽️ Cocktail

Playing the Eagles this week, I went with a classic Philadelphia cocktail called a Fish House Punch. The Fish House Punch goes back to an early social club of gentlemen fisherman drinking and barbecuing at their clubhouse (the Fish House) and goes all the way back to at least 1794 (according to cocktail historian David Wondrich), with the recipe remaining pretty much the same since then.

I started this recipe the night before by making a lemon oleo saccharum, which is just a fancy way to say I muddled the peels of 8 lemons into 2 ½ cups of sugar and let that sit at room temperature overnight. A few hours before I was going to build the batch, I added 16oz of boiling water to the mixture and mixed it up with a whisk to basically create a fragrant lemon syrup and left it uncovered in the fridge until cool.

To the syrup, I then added:

1 750ml btl of Smith & Cross Rum

12oz of peach brandy

12oz of VSOP cognac

96oz of water for dilution

Traditionally, this should all be served from a large punch bowl filled with a massive ice cube to keep it all cold and so that it dilutes slowly, but as I was tailgating, I added it into several plastic quart containers to be poured over cups with ice and topped with freshly grated nutmeg. It was a boozy and slightly fruity-flavored cocktail that tasted very on-brand on the first crisp fall football night of the year.