Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

A few years ago, Vanity Fair columnist and author Michael Wolff announced that he would never dine at the media hotspot Michael's ever again. Did he suffer a horrible case of food poisoning? Get attacked by an elderly socialite with her Hermès handbag? Actually, his outrage stemmed from the fact that he'd been denied his customary table at the restaurant. Now we get to hear the other side of the story: Steve Millington, the general manager of the restaurant, describes the Wolff brouhaha on the Fortune website. And it turns out that quite a few Michael's regulars were pretty psyched to hear they'd no longer have to see him during their lunch hours: More

It's a good thing Times dining critic Frank Bruni reviews food for a living, which only relies on his sense of taste and not his eyesight. The photo that accompanied his takedown of power lunch spot Michael's yesterday included quite the collection of moguls in the background, not that Bruni—or anyone else at the Times—seemed to notice. In the audio interview that accompanied the review, Bruni says that the eatery "seems to draw in particularly large measure from the publishing, literary and journalistic worlds. You know, you might see someone like Graydon Carter there. Apparently, you do see some celebrities there. I didn't spot them, but maybe I just missed them as I was hustled to Siberia." Carter isn't much of a Michael's devotee, actually, but perhaps Bruni should have taken a closer look at the picture that accompanied his review.More