Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

♦  In this week's issue of New York, Adam Platt gives two stars to Brooklyn's Char No. 4. David Bouley's Secession isn't quite as lucky, coming up star-less for its "jumble of tired brasserie conceits." [NYM]
♦  Josh DeChellis has signed on to become executive chef at La Fonda del Sol, the Spanish restaurant inside the Met Life building that is slated to open in January. [NYT]
♦  David Burke's Fishtail opens this week; the soft launch is tonight. [Eater]
♦  Page Six mag takes a look at the city's "smoking speakeasies," spots where the city's smoking ban is almost never enforced. [Page Six Mag]More

Today the Times details the pervy nightmare endured by Martha Nyakim Gatkuoth, a 25-year-old former hostess at Tavern on the Green and the lead complainant in a federal discrimination lawsuit against the restaurant that was settled last month for $2.2 million. Among the indignities Gatkuoth says she had to put up with: regular boob and butt-grabbings by the restaurant's director of operations; docked pay when she refused to perform sexual favors on said director; and frequent racial epithets (she's an Ethiopian immigrant). Of course, restaurants have long had a rep as ridiculously brutal places to work—see Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential or Bill Buford's Heat—but the proliferation of suits also has some (like, uh, the restaurateurs who are getting sued) wondering if it's all part of a shakedown to extract cash. (Presumably, a multi-million dollar settlement is cushier than collecting 18% tips every night for the next decade; when you factor in having to deal with the press—and lawyers!—perhaps not so much.) A sampling of sexual harassment suits at high-profile restaurants—including both the absolutely horrific and not-so-serious—below.More

• Protestors, counterprotestors, a wildly exaggerated connection to Bruce Willis: the East Village's Bowery Wine Company has it all. [Observer]
• Gray Kunz's Grayz will go from a lounge/events space to a full-on restaurant. [NY Sun]
• Michael White's L'Impero is getting a new name (Convivio), a new look (bright colors), and a new culinary focus (southern Italy). [NY Times]
• Andrew Carmellini has officially served his last plate of homemade pappardelle at A Voce. [NY Times]
• Tony May's 20-year-old Central Park South staple San Domenico will close today and reopen in a new location off Madison Square Park as SD26 in early 2009. [Eater]
• $40 beers and other alcoholic anti-bargains for the profilgate. [TONY]

• High drama at Central Park Boathouse yesterday: two employees were abruptly canned and 14 others briefly stormed out in protest before management caved. And yet by day's end it was the most boring restaurant in the city again. [NY Post]
• They're going to have to rename popular West Village spot Market Table, uh, Table: It's ditching its market section to make way for more seating. [Strong Buzz]
• The long wait for Jean-Georges Vongerichten's soba house Matsugen to open is over. Hysteria, commence! [Eater]
• How Frank Bruni's delightful smackdown of Robert De Niro's Ago stacks up with other gems in the Bruni ouevre, like his annihilation of Ninja and his night at cleavage carnival Robert's Steak House. [Blackbook]
• Gray Kunz may revive his Cafe Gray in what's now Oceana. [Food Writer's Diary]