 Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up. The Great GoogaMooga festival hits Brooklyn this weekend, which means it’s the unofficial start of Foodie Music Festival season. (Also on the list: Lollapalooza, Outside Lands, Austin City Limits, the recent Jazz Fest and the just announced Music City Eats in Nashville in September, which - full disclosure - Food & Wine will sponsor.) Coincidentally or not, a lot of restaurants seem to be in a kind of sound system arms race to see who can be the noisiest. When the hot new restaurant app is a decibel reader, you know places are getting loud. Those spots that look like they just stopped being a warehouse yesterday - concrete everywhere, tablecloths nowhere - mean that the sound level could well approximate a construction site. Since it’s not hard to find a noisy restaurant, let’s focus on the ones that are doing something interesting with their outsize sound. 
 This is the twelfth installment of "Eat This List" - a regularly recurring list of things chefs, farmers, writers and other food experts think you ought to know about. Today's contributor is the pseudonymous blogger The Bitchy Waiter. He lives and works in New York City, and has appeared as a guest on Dr. Phil and a guest commentator on CBS Sunday Morning and in a previous Eat This List. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter @bitchywaiter - and don't forget to tip. When customers go to a restaurant, many variables can affect their dining experience. The server is in charge of some of these things, but many of them are beyond his or her control. This does not, however, keep some people from punishing their poor, defenseless server in the form of a lower than average tip. I would like to apologize in advance for some of the things my customers might be unsatisfied with the next time they sit in my section.  This is the eleventh installment of "Eat This List" - a regularly recurring list of things chefs, farmers, writers and other food experts think you ought to know about. Today's contributor is John Winterman, maitre d' at Daniel restaurant in New York City. I can be as casual as the next guy. I'm from Indiana, so I don't have much choice. The only known Hoosier engaged in high snobbery was Bill Blass, otherwise no one ever got beyond “local boy done good” status – even James Dean. I have ripped this joint and raised some hell. I've been to enduros and hydroplane races and at least one tractor pull. I drank my first PBR at age five and I still have a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. But I also know the tragedy that is a grown-up wearing shorts in public. I know the difference between the ballpark and the opera house, between a dive bar and The French Laundry. As the maitre d' at Daniel I get to work in one of the finest fine dining establishments in the world. The restaurant exudes charm and flair, a hybrid of modern French-American style be it on the plate or in the service, a place that requires jackets and frowns on jeans. That being said, it is a balancing act. We defend a standard of dining in a time where a chef can earn three Michelin stars while eschewing silver, crystal and a jacket policy. Upholding a standard is ever more critical as you try to justify separating people from their money on a nightly basis. Herein, a dollop of wisdom on why fine dining still matters. On Monday, Restaurant magazine revealed its annual "World's 50 Best Restaurants" list in London - and it ended up being a family affair. Three brothers - Joan, Jordi and Josep Roca – returned the top title to Spain by way of their restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca, in northern Catalonia. The last Spanish restaurant to hold the top spot was Ferran Adrià's elBulli restaurant in 2009, which has since closed and been converted into the elBulliFoundation. For the past three years, the highest ranking belonged to Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up. It’s an awesome time to be on a high-gluten diet. (It’s also a great time to be gluten-free, but I’ll leave that celebration to someone who actually is.) Recently, Starbucks turned every one of its 430 (!) San Francisco locations into a mini bakery when it introduced La Boulange breads and pastries like open-face ham and cheese croissants and mini chocolate marble loaf cakes to its stores. Those products haven’t hit my local Starbucks yet (they arrive in New York in September), but here are nine great new places for me to get my gluten fix on, plus one where I can experiment with a gluten-free diet.
 Chefs with Issues is a platform for chefs and farmers we love, fired up for causes about which they're passionate. Jason Bond is the chef at Bondir in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Follow him on Twitter @jwadebond. The day started with the Boston Marathon and a state holiday. It ended in tragedy and left residents, like me, with so many unanswered questions. Why would someone attack an event that was about celebration, one where many of the thousands of participants were raising money for over two thousand charities? Why would they use such a ferocious method as bombs packed with ball bearings and nails? In the span of 15 seconds, three people lost their lives. Hundreds of others, from the injured and their families to those who witnessed the blast firsthand, were cruelly ripped from the lives they'd always known and forced into a darker view of the world. The residents of Boston were shocked, sickened and even pissed off. Most of us felt helpless, but wanted to be of use. The city and its people quickly mobilized to help each other. Boston is tight and takes care of its own. We realized that we each help by doing what we do; medics medicate, journalists report, the police protect. As a restaurateur I did what I do, which is care for people and provide sustenance and healing.  The identity of a second victim of the Boston terror attack was revealed Tuesday. Krystle Campbell, an employee of Jimmy's Steer House in Arlington Heights, died in the bombings, Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn said. Campbell, 29, recently left her position as general manager of Summer Shack restaurant's now-shuttered Hingham location, and her former employer paid tribute to her in a Facebook post, which read in part:
"She was a fun, outgoing person," said her grandmother Lillian Campbell, told CNN. "She was always there to help somebody. And she was just beautiful."  Feeling a bit cash-strapped this Tax Day? These food and drink freebies and discounts from restaurants, stores and snack vendors just might take a bite out of your financial fretting. - AMC Theatres - Arby's  When the first toilet-themed restaurant, Modern Toilet, opened in Taipei in 2004, public reaction was mixed. Was it weird, funny or just plain unsavory? Whatever the answer, the concept’s popularity quickly became obvious - the chain now has successful franchises across Asia. London, however, has put a new spin on the business. Read the full story - London's dash to 'toilet restaurants' – on CNN Travel. |
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