This hilarious bad review of RF O’Sullivan’s in Boston by A Hamburger Today reminded me: there are so many people that don’t know how to cook a burger. Why? Because it’s not as easy as it seems. Once you clear away several widely-held misconceptions, however, it gets a lot easier.

Do not use any kind of [...]

Finally! Minetta Tavern is open. Yes, that one, the place that’s been around for 72 years.
Amid all the buzz about Keith McNally’s new venture, there was always one thing that wasn’t clear. Why had he chosen this crusty old place as the next incarnation of McNallyism? If you’ve lived in New York long enough, you [...]

Burger blowhards are everywhere these days. Just as every Ray’s Pizza calls itself “the original,” every place that can scoop together a handful of ground meat and throw it on a grill likes to call their burger “the best.”
After a disappointingly diminutive burger at Resto and a misfired one at Bar Marmont, I was getting [...]

One last dispatch from LA.
Something momentous has happened in Hollywood, though many there don’t even realize just how big a deal it is. One of the chefs from the Spotted Pig, Carolynn Spence, who trained under April Bloomfield, has decamped to Bar Marmont. As any New Yorker who counts the Spotted Pig among her favorite [...]

What happens when Frank Bruni leaves the building? Can a restaurant keep its standards high after a positive review, or do they just keep on gettin’ through the gettin’ through? Bruni knighted Resto a “terrific new restaurant” in mid-May. Since his rapturous descriptions of Resto’s hearty, meaty fare appeared at the beginning of a hot [...]