When Food & Wine named Paul Kahan one of America's Best Chefs in 1999, his restaurant Blackbird was already beginning to secure its legendary status in Chicago. The restaurant is so highly regarded, in fact, that when...
A friend the other day said to me "Hey, you should open a restaurant!" That was about the thousandth time someone has said that to me because they know I like and write about restaurants. What they don't understand is...
How does a gal from Pittsburgh end up creating a culinary buzz in Sonoma, CA? Well, with lots of talent and plenty of airline miles. After Chef Janine Falvo graduated from the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute in 1998...
With the Democrats poised to assume control of Congress next month, you can expect a significant increase in the federal minimum wage. Even President Bush has indicated that he’ll have to seriously consider a number...
The food police have surfaced again, this time in New York City where a proposed ban would require all 20,000 restaurants there to remove most artificial trans fats from menu items. This recent announcement follows a...
At a time when too many kids coming out of culinary school expect to be celebrity chefs, the really talented cooks simply get down to business. Consider the case of Ryan DePersio, who toils mightily at his restaurant...
Several weeks back, an investigation of tuna served in Chicago restaurants found that 70 percent of tuna sushi samples tested were contaminated with mercury. One in seven samples contained levels of mercury so...
No matter how much time, effort and money you throw at a restaurant, it's nothing more than an inanimate object until you and your staff breathe life into it. If you've got no game, neither does your restaurant. But...
Most economic industry forecasts in January predicted a solid year ahead. But as I write this column in late August, the sweet spot of the restaurant industry is experiencing its worst slump since 1991. How quickly...
