RRF Tease, Howard Hughes JGV, CWFF change, Michelin Chicago, and more...
Family Meal - Friday, April 8th, 2022
Hello Friday,
And hello from the very beautiful, very vaccinated island of Bali, where — our own vaccinations and multiple negative PCR tests in hand — we are taking a bit of a break from almost two and a half years of Hong Kong’s COVID rollercoaster.
It can be hard to tell what’s a few weeks of standard tropical humidity wear and tear, and what’s two years of a near zeroing out of international tourism, but I’m trying to get a better sense of how the industry is faring here, and will report back ASAP.
In the meantime, for those of you who know Bali, one key bit of news: Padang Padang beach is almost totally unchanged in the 12 years since I was last there, except that someone put a permanent yellow street sign on top of that one huge rock that says “Stay Present.” I never thought I could be embarrassed for a big rock, but here we are.
Let’s get to it…
The Relief – Headline in Roll Call: “House passes $55B aid package for restaurants, other businesses.” Reality check from CNN’s Manu Raju on Twitter: “It faces tough sledding in the Senate amid opposition from Republicans concerned about the costs.”
Raju says Republican Senator John Thune immediately “threw cold water on GOP support for an aid bill to restaurants after the House passed the $55B bill,” mostly because no one wants to spend more money right now. There is a lot of Republican skepticism about the plan to fund the bill with cash recovered from pandemic grant fraud investigations, and even if that money does exist, Restaurant Revitalization Fund sponsor Senator Ben Cardin (D) told Roll Call’s Aidan Quigley, David Lerman, and Laura Weiss in a separate article that a different, $10B COVID “preparedness” bill may get first dibs.
Oh, and also the House version of this aid bill is different than the Senate’s version, so there’s that to iron out. And none of this will be done in the next couple weeks at least, and probably none of it will matter at all without Republican support.
And that doesn’t even get to the part about border security horse trading around the $10B package, and the Senate’s schedule being clogged by other standard and wild card commitments, so…
I’m not saying you shouldn’t call your senator, but my hopes remain low.
That Planned Community $$$ – Headline in the Houston Chronicle: “Howard Hughes Corp. buys stake in Jean-Georges Restaurants.” Hughes, which invested $55M in the restaurant group, is the company behind the redevelopment of a good chunk of Manhattan’s South Street Seaport district, now anchored in part by JGV’s Fulton (the restaurant boasting my favorite duck/man mural of all time). Vongerichten already has restaurants in resorts and country club type settings, but this partnership is interesting because Hughes is mostly focused on massive planned communities in suburban (and exurban) areas. Maybe JGV will be franchise neighbors with Wolfgang Puck at some new desert golf / tract housing project soon?
P.S. – If you’re interested in the sheer scale and style of some of these Big Bluth developments, I regretfully recommend this promo video. It includes a bonus cameo from chefs Kwame Onwuachi and Edward Lee, who pop up at the 3:06 mark, right when the CEO says “diversity” in an otherwise not so diverse video…
The Festival Circuit – Speaking of diversity… Missed this big rundown on changes at Charleston Wine & Food from Clyde McGrady in WaPo last week: “A food festival accused of ignoring Black history is trying to change.” McGrady has some big numbers to back up claims of change: “In 2020, Black, Indigenous or other people of color made up 16 percent of the festival’s chefs, beverage professionals, winemakers and musicians. This year they account for about 34 percent, according to spokeswoman Alyssa Maute Smith.” Not sure how many of those ID’d as Black, but “Shellene Johnson, 50, has been to the festival more than 10 times and said this is the Blackest it’s ever been.” In a city like Charleston, that’s not nothing.
Michelin Season –Michelin Chicago’s full list came out Tuesday, and “included four newcomers, awarded one star each: Kasama in West Town, Claudia in Bucktown, and Esme and Galit, both in Lincoln Park. A grand total of 23 Chicago restaurants earned stars — one fewer than last year.” Eater’s Naomi Waxman has a breakdown on the rest, plus all the pandemic-year closures and pauses that knocked others off and kept some out.
And last but not least: The Corrections – I did the silly DC thing where I googled “Ketanji Brown Jackson restaurants” and (attention District industry types), this is what I found out:
First, Justice Jackson is not afraid to send stuff back. One of her friends told WaPo’s Marc Fisher, Ann E. Marimow, and Lori Rozsa: “I was raised to keep your head down, don’t make noise. You don’t want them to think this or that because you’re a Black person. But Ketanji would say small things. In a restaurant, she’d say, ‘My order is not correct,’ whereas I had this fear and I’d take it as it came.”
And second, there is a woman named Clare Cushman who serves as “the Supreme Court Historical Society’s director of publications,” and wrote a book called Table for 9: Supreme Court Food Traditions & Recipes. In an LAT piece about how bad the food at the court is — “Judges in general are not foodies” — she told Joel Stein, “It turns out the newest justice on the court has to sit on the cafeteria committee. ‘It’s like hazing,’ Cushman explained. ‘Though Elena Kagan put in the new frozen yogurt machine and it made her a lot of friends.’”
One word, Justice Jackson: conveyerbeltsushisystem.
And that’s it for today!
I’ll see paying subscribers here Tuesday and the rest of you on Friday for next Family Meal.
And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and Instagram, and send tips and/or cold water on GOP support to andrew@thisfamilymeal.com. If you like Family Meal and want to keep it going, please chip in here. If you got this as a forward, sign up for yourself!
Here begins the Family Meal that went out to paying subscribers on Tuesday, April 5th 2022. If you’d like to get Tuesdays’ on Tuesdays too…
What If Breakup, Forlini's out, Greater 50 Best, and more...
Hello Tuesday,
And hello again to paying subscribers only!
The Internet has been slightly choppy here in beautiful Sanur, Bali today, so I’m going to cross my fingers, hope this goes through, and save my thoughts on the journey and this place for another time. Needless to say, if you built the backbone of your economy on tourism, the last two years have not been kind.
Let’s get to it…
The Relief – Did I say the Restaurant Revitalization Fund was dead? Turns out our friend is slightly alive… Roll Call’s Lindsey McPherson reported Friday: “The House might vote [this week] on a small-business pandemic aid package that would provide $42 billion for additional restaurant relief and $13 billion for other ‘hard hit’ industries. The Rules Committee is scheduled to meet on the revised bill Tuesday [today] afternoon, which indicates floor action soon after.”
I still wouldn’t get my hopes up just yet, especially given there’s another $10B COVID “preparedness” bill they’re also trying to rally bipartisan support for, and a lot of this seems to hinge on whether the costs can be “be offset by ‘all funds rescinded, seized, reclaimed, or otherwise returned’ from various programs in prior pandemic relief laws.”
But still, a tad more hope this week than last? And Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman says even Republican Democrat Joe Manchin is “supportive” of at least one of those COVID packages, so maybe that’s something? (I dunno. He could be blaving.)
The Suits – “A power struggle is emerging between a pair of investors behind some of Chicago’s buzziest restaurants.” Per Eater Chicago’s Ashok Selvam, “The co-owners of Maple & Ash and Etta — the flashy Gold Coast steakhouse and neighborhood hangout, respectively — met Friday, April 1 in Cook County circuit court over what co-founder David Pisor is calling an ‘illegal coup.’ Pisor, a co-founder of What If Syndicate, the group that owns the two restaurants, has filed a lawsuit claiming that he’s been banned from the restaurants as co-founder Jim Lasky attempts to oust him from their company. The complaint alleges Lasky has ‘repeatedly threatened to air Pisor’s “dirty laundry,”’ in regards to ‘alleged conduct that happened years ago… unless Pisor agreed to accept a below-market buyout from Lasky.’ Lasky is listed as the sole defendant.”
Selvam details police reports and allegations (characterized for the purposes of the business dispute as “unverified banter”) of Pisor being an “absentee owner” and harassing the marketing director around the time he thought he was being ousted from the company, but the only thing I feel pretty clear on right now is what’s at stake:
“Revenue for What If has climbed from $35 million in 2019 to a projected $180 to $200 million for 2022.”
The End of an Era – In NYC, “Forlini’s, one of Manhattan’s last remaining red sauce joints that first opened in 1956, has officially closed, owner Joe Forlini confirmed to Eater in an interview. The building that houses [the restaurant] has also been sold.” Emma Orlow has the details, but I’m still busy re-reading Alex Vadukul’s 2018 NYT piece about how a surge of Vogue trend types made the back room a sudden scene (with loads of great photos from Amy Lombard for contrast).
As Jason Diamond said in his Grubstreet tribute this week (edited for non New Yorkers): “The best of [Any City’s] classic institutions don’t reinvent themselves for new generations; they are reinvented by the city itself.”
The Geopolitics – In February, 50 Best took a bold stance on Ukraine by not mentioning anything about it at all in a standalone tweet that read only: “At this current time, we are planning on holding The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2022 in London in July.” (The awards had been planned for Moscow.) Last week, they came out with their big Asia list, and having apparently learned sensitive political lessons, did a bit of the ol’: Congrats to the restaurants in Taipei, Taiwan! Uh. Actually. Congrats to all the restaurants in Taipei, Greater China! Ah. Well. You see. So. Congrats to all the restaurants in Taipei! Now, only cities are listed for all entries, because who even knows which government rules what these days, really... (Kathy Cheng has a twitter thread detailing the edits from the, uh, Taipei perspective.)
And last but not least: The Media – Lots of big moves happening in food media while I was traveling:
In CA, both the LA Times and the SF Chronicle food sections got new editors, with the LA Times finally naming a permanent editor almost two years after Peter Meehan’s infamous departure. Laurie Ochoa will take over as General Manager of LAT Food, and Daniel Hernandez will move into the editor role. They are both pretty known quantities at this point, but Eater LA’s Mona Holmes has a good rundown on backgrounds and history if you need it. Can’t wait to see what they do.
Meanwhile, the Chronicle has replaced editor Serena Dai (who moved on to be Bon Appétit’s digital editorial director in February) with reporter Janelle Bitker, who has been at the section since 2019. Bitker says she’s delighted, but: “Most importantly, I'll be hiring for a deputy editor and a reporter ASAP, so I'd love to hear from you!” (By which she means me, folks.)
And at Eater, once-EIC Amanda Kludt has fully succumbed to Vox corporate’s freelancer-skin chairs and is now officially known as “Group Publisher of Eater, POPSUGAR, Punch, and Thrillist.” She is handing her From The Editor newsletter / column duties over to new executive editor Stephanie Wu. Kludt will be very much missed! But will Wu find the keys to that mothballed Eater Digest podcast in her old desk? TBD…
Oh, and if I’m in PR or at the host stand for any new or up-and-coming restaurants, I’m keeping my eyes out for new Bon Appétit restaurant editor Elazar Sontag, whose Twitter and Instagram feeds show man flying quickly around the country (in Chicago today?), eating (at least) five meals in a day, and musing about the trials of dining alone. Sounds a lot like a big glossy list in the making to me…
Plus, P.S. – Writer Esther Tseng says DoorDash is approaching potential contributors for a new print magazine…?
I will write for it as long as DoorDash promises: 1) I can write in pig latin and 2) No one at DoorDash understands pig latin.
And that’s it for today!
I’ll take more Bali tips if you’ve got them, and see you all here Friday for next Family Meal.
And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and Instagram, and send tips and/or unverified banter to andrew@thisfamilymeal.com. If you like Family Meal and want to keep it going, please chip in here. If you got this as a forward, sign up for yourself!