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Fran Lebowitz Will Not Be Tweeting Today | It's a good thing that author Fran Lebowitz is so tight with editor/restaurateur Graydon Carter that she can walk into Monkey Bar (or the Waverly Inn) without a reservation and get a table a moment's notice. If she had to use the phone—or Monkey Bar's email reservations system—she'd be in serious trouble. WWD asked her if Lebowitz if she spent any time using Twitter or Facebook and this is what she had to say:More
• Graydon Carter's Monkey Bar is no longer accepting reservations by phone. In other Carter news, Carter's Vanity Fair has very nice things to say about Carter's Waverly Inn, which you'll no doubt be surprised to hear. [Eater, VF]
• Celebrity settings: A roundup of restaurants where celebs were spotted eating this week (or at least where gossips said they'd been spotted). [GS]
• Osteria del Circo is closed due to a gas leak. But Sirio Maccioni will be happy to seat you at Le Cirque instead and he'll give you 25% off, too. [Eater]
• JGV clears the record: He did not cook for four presidents past and present last week. Just one ex-president, a mayor, and UN Secretary General. [JGV]
• Teany caught fire today and will probably be closed for several weeks. [Eater]More
From Steve Fishman's chat with Vanity Fair editor-in-chief (and restaurateur) Graydon Carter in this week's issue of New York:
One afternoon, I ask Carter if he is worried about the future of magazines. We are in his office on the 22nd floor of the Condé Nast building. Carter has lately put on a few pounds, and his curved desk of blond wood seems cinched around him like a seat belt. "You try opening a restaurant and not gaining weight," he says—weeks before, he'd opened the Monkey Bar, and before that the Waverly Inn, and one of his two assistants, visible through a connected sliding-glass window, takes reservations.
• A roundups of restaurants opening this week. [NYM, Eater]
• Scuderia, Silvano Marchetto's two-month-old restaurant, has ditched its chef, Claudio Cristofoli, after a handful of not-so-good reviews. [GS]
• Not much has changed at Soho's Delicatessen, reports The New Yorker: "If Topshop were a restaurant, it would be this restaurant. [NYer]
• Daniel Boulud's DBGB Kitchen & Bar opens to the public in early June. The décor? The shelves feature old copper pots donated by famous chefs. [GS]
• Dylan Lauren's candy store opened in a pop-up space inside a Hong Kong shoe store this week. A permanent location may be forthcoming. [WWD]
• Mix Shake Stir, a cocktail book (obviously) dedicated to concoctions served up at Danny Meyer's restaurants, was published today. [EMD]More
• Did Beyoncé really send a look-alike to stand in for her at an art museum in Vienna so she could go shopping instead? That's what many Austrians seem to think, and the museum now says it plans to issue a protest. And here we were thinking decoy body doubles were just for presidents and mafia kingpins. [AFP]
• James Gandolfini erupted at a group of paparazzi outside the Waverly Inn the other night. Fortunately—for the drama-loving masses, at least—they kept their cameras on during the episode and it was all caught on tape. [TMZ]
• Real-life roommates Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick might be splitting up, since Chace is reportedly looking for a loft of his own downtown. [P6]
• Mel Gibson and Russian singer Oksana Grigorieva made their first public appearance together last night at an X-Men screening in LA. [People]
• Strippers at Sapphire East's opening were supposedly told not to take their clothes off until after Samantha Ronson finished her set, since she's "so girl-crazy, she can't concentrate." [P6]
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• The Four Seasons may be having its moment as it celebrates its 50th, but things aren't so cheery across the street. John McDonald and Josh Picard's Lever House closes on Friday, supposedly for "renovations." [TFB]
• Jim Lahey's Co. gets a one-star from Frank Bruni in today's Times. [NYT]
• The Post's Steve Cuozzo isn't blown away by Per Se's à la carte menu. [NYP]
• Restaurants & Institutions list of the 100 top-grossing restaurants is online. Tavern on the Green, Smith & Wollensky, Tao, Buddakan, and Sparks Steak House round out New York City's top five. [R&I]
• A roundup of what's opened this week, and what's coming soon. [NYT] More
How to Snag a Last-Minute Restaurant Reservation | We have no idea if this works, but you're walking down 57th Street today and have nothing better to do, feel free to give it a try and report back. "Want a impossible Babbo, Le Bernardin or a Waverly Inn resy last min (or any rest)? Easy and free... Go to the Four Seasons Hotel on 57th Street. Pick up a house phone ask to be connected to restaurant of choice. When restaurant picks up tell them you are calling from the Four Seasons Hotel for Mr "YOURSELF" and need a reservation for 2 or 4 or whatever. Tell the host at the restaurant that dinner will be quick for you have a art gallery show to attend which you can look up on www.artinfo.com. Has worked every time!" [Eater]
• Hope you're ready to go through it all over again: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis have all agreed to participate in a Sex and the City movie sequel. [Us]
• Graydon Carter should really consider writing a nutrition cookbook: It seems Madonna's secret to eternal youth is the salmon with lentils at the Waverly Inn. [L&S]
• Still more drama from the inaugural festivities in DC earlier this week: Chris Matthews got pissed about having to wait on line, Sharon Stone was annoyed she had to co-host a segment on CNN with D.L. Hughley, and Halle Berry went into panic mode after her dress got caught in an escalator. [P6]
• Gwyneth Paltrow was spotted on a flight doing yoga in the aisle recently. Is this becoming a trend? [Star]
• Charges against Mathias Guerrand-Hermès have been dropped. [NYDN] More
• Did Lindsay Lohan split up with Samantha Ronson? Is she now in "complete denial" about it? And what's going on with her and Sean Penn? All good questions! [P6]
• Graydon Carter's plan to win over neighborhood critics of the Waverly has been revealed: He gives them tables at the restaurant and puts their pictures in Vanity Fair and, sure enough, his foes magically turn into friends. [P6]
• On the View yesterday, Tom Cruise described the death of Jett Travolta as "horrific," but said that Scientology had absolutely nothing to do with it. You've been warned, people. [People]
• Remember Lisa Bonet? Well, she just had a baby girl who she named Nakoa-Wolf Manakauapo Namakaeha Momoa. Yes, she stole the name you were planning to use. [NYDN]More
John DeLucie Responds | John DeLucie, the chef at the Waverly Inn and now consulting chef at Charles, responds to the suggestion that Ron Perelman may be a backer of the West Village hotspot: "That's not true, but he's a very good customer nonetheless. It’s me, Graydon, Emil Varda, Sean MacPherson, and Eric Goode." [Grub Street]
Graydon Carter is paid a very comfy salary to serve as the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair (it's reportedly in the neighborhood of $2 million a year) and the perks that come along with the job are priceless. But is it enough to plow your cash into various restaurants around town? Probably not. A couple of weeks ago, we learned that longtime Carter pal Ron Perelman happened to own the building occupied by Carter's Waverly Inn. Over the weekend, Page Six mentioned that Ron Perelman was possibly teaming up with Jon Bon Jovi to reopen the Blue Parrot, the Tex-Mex restaurant in East Hampton, and added that "[Perelman] is said to be a backer of Graydon Carter's Monkey Bar." More
Was Leslie Kaufman hoping to land a standing reservation at the Waverly Inn by making today's Times assessment of Graydon Carter's West Village nightspot more glowing than anyone would have thought possible? Most impressive of all: how many friends of the Vanity Fair editor she manages to squeeze into the piece. Did you know that Ron Perelman owns the building it's in and that the quinoa risotto with green curry sauce was added at the request of vegan Russell Simmons? But in case you imagined that mere wealth provided an entrée to this dazzling scene of fabulous movers and shakers, think again.More
Spottings | Pierce Brosnan waving to fans on his way out of Da Silvano ... Agyness Deyn taking her puppies for a walk, iced coffee in hand ... Lourdes Leon checking out her manicure outside Madonna's Upper West Side apartment ... Kirsten Dunst carrying a stack of magazines and a cup of lemonade through SoHo ... John Mayer leaving his apartment downtown, en route to a gig on Long Island ... Carolyn Murphy, Gwyneth Paltrow and Elizabeth Hurley outside the Waverly Inn.
