snack

hotsnack: couples banned from restaurants on valentine's day!

As I've mentioned before, Valentine's Day is not the industry's favorite holiday. Today's New Zealand Herald (or tomorrow's actually as it is already Thursday down under) reports Tetsuya's and a few other restaurants in New Zealand and Australia have decided to combat couples and ban them from their restaurants on the 14th. I doubt that would work here, though it is an interesting strategy and a different story angle from the usual holiday fare.

A top Sydney restaurant, Tetsuya's, has refused to take bookings for tables for two tonight and will instead seat couples with at least four strangers.

Another reportedly considered a "couples ban".

Restaurateurs complain of a 30 per cent drop in takings because love-lorn couples stay for hours, drinking just a single bottle of wine or Champagne.

In Auckland, one of the country's top chefs, Simon Gault, sympathises with his Sydney counterparts.

"Valentine's Day is something restaurants have to deal with - it's like customers being late and customers being early," said Gault, executive chef at several leading eateries, including Euro on Princes Wharf.

Love is in the Air, NZ Herald

Related: Florist Refusing to Sell Valentine's Roses

snackology: get your snack on

A great accessory can turn the ordinary into the sublime n'est-ce pas? Perhaps you're in need of some bling for your blog? Thanks to the 1-2-3 technology over at widgetbox, I've transformed Snack into a blidget you can put on your website or myspace or facebook or where ever you might be. I put it up here, on the right column so you can see the flair. Then click the "Get Widget" button on the bottom. (Or go right to Snack at widgetbox.)It looks good on you.

snack60: top chef dave martin plans special gelato for valentine's day at his restaurant crave on 42nd

snackspot.chicago: c house

I penned a story for today's paper on Marcus Samuelsson's latest project Merkato 55, the African brasserie opening in New York City later this week. But it's not the only opening this year for the super Swedish toque. This April chitown will get a taste of his international stylings at C House in the Affina Hotel Hotel. It is envisioned as a seafood chop house, with an open kitchen and cool vibe designed by Brazilian architect Artur de Mattos Casas. The project comes under the umbrella of Marcus's Townhouse Restaurant Group, which will also oversea the all F&B at the hotel. That's industry-speak for Food & Beverage, which translates into room service, banquets, roof top bar, and everything else you eat when you're in a hotel.

papersnack: who reads that magazine?

While doing the demographic research on Gourmet Magazine for yesterday's post, I became curious about who reads all the other big food titles. So I clicked around and came up with a quick breakdown of magazine demographics. I am always amazed (and thrilled) at the information one can find online. I was going to include Cook's Illustrated as well, but because they have zero advertising in the magazine, they've no reason to post this kind of data on their website.

Gourmet Magazine: Median Age: 49.5, Median Household Income:$77,899.00, Male/Female: 26%/74%

Food & Wine: Median Age: 45.8, Median Household Income:$74,930.00, Male/Female: 37%/63%

Bon Appetit: Median Age: 50.5, Median Household Income:$81,278.00, Male/Female: 25%/75%

Saveur: Median Age: 51, Median Household Income:$152,666.00, Male/Female: 47%/53%

snackingaround: gourmet.com

You know a party is going to be good when you get emails a week out asking if you are attending. Such was the case for last Tuesday's fête at Bar Boulud for the launch of Gourmet.com. Ruth Reichl and Daniel Boulud are both excellent hosts independently, but combined the.effect was exponential.

A non-culinary reporter (who was trailing a well-know chef to research a big story) surveyed the packed house and queried "so who are all these people? magazine people?" Not exactly. Practically the entire Gourmet masthead was represented, along with other journalists. At one point I found myself in the middle of a NY-media vortex of Braden Keil, Steve Cuozzo, Richard Johnson, Ben Leventhal and Lockhart Steele. It was a moment I thought it best to smile and be silent, lest I say the unpublishable thing. The rest were the restaurant industry like (a partial and alphabetical list) April Bloomfield, Jean Francois Bruel, Cesare Casella, David Chang, Tom Colicchio, Ken Friedman, Rita Jammet, Daniel Johnnes, Gray Kunz, Mark Ladner, Zarela Martinez, Drew Nieporent, Francois Payard, Eric Ripert, Michael Romano, Michael Stillman, Bill Telepan, Fabio Trabocchi, Jonathan Waxman and Jody Williams. But I digress.

Previously Gourmet was embedded online at Epicurious and now they have a URL of their own. I've spent some time looking through the site, which has a nice clean look and is relatively easy to navigate. Most of the content is different from the print version, although you can find all that there too. The old Choptalk blog has morphed into articles under headings like food politics and ingredients. There are links to timely news stories, though sadly for Snack traffic the blog roll is no more.

They also have snazzy videos produced by Zero Point Zero, the same production house that does Tony Bourdain's No Reservations and Gourmet's own Diary of a Foodie. I discovered you can subscribe to Diary of a Foodie in iTunes for free.

Gourmet.com is almost a completely different experience from print, because of the au courant digital format and all of the original content. I'm curious to see how it will impact the magazine in a general sense. According to the advertising media-kit the median age of Gourmet readers is 49.5. My guess is the website will turn back time.