#5 is Rachel Webber, the Chief Commercial and Brand Officer of 11:11, the media and entertainment company founded by Paris Hilton. Prior to joining forces with Paris, Rachel was the President & GM of Digital at Playboy, and before that, an Executive VP of Digital at National Geographic. She’s been shaping media and entertainment brands at the high level for almost two decades, and she’s also a dear friend and mentor. In other words: having her on The Angel is long overdue! Rachel lives between Los Angeles and New York, and, having grown up in Massachusetts, she’s been summering on the Cape for much of her life. Fittingly, the first time I went to Sal’s Place, that first year the idyllic Provincetown restaurant wintered in Los Angeles, was with Rachel. Here are her go-to spots for eating, drinking, shopping, culture-ing, and nature-ing in Cape Cod.

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I’ve been an unabashed fan of Two Rose, the MEHKO-certified backyard bakery run by former Hail Mary owner David Wilcox, since he first started selling breads to Proof last year. And I’m not the only one—Bill Addison, Tejal Rao, and Jessica Koslow are just a few high-profile fans, along with the hundreds of people who line up every weekend for a crack at Two Rose’s long-fermented whole grain pain de campagnes and experimental Pullman loaves, sweet corn and leek scones, and lamb sausage pizzas (among other things).

So when Wilcox announced on his Instagram Stories a few weeks ago that Two Rose will break its last bread on August 23rd, I was quietly devastated. But while details are scant at the moment, it’s reassuring that the legacy of Two Rose will continue on under a new name, as two of Wilcox’s current baking partners have bought much of his equipment and plan to relaunch in a new location in coming months (more details on this as I have ‘em). And after talking to the ever-thoughtful baker about why, why now, and what’s next, I have a deeper understanding of what my favorite Beatle has been saying: all things must pass.

Here’s Wilcox, in his own words:

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That said, this issue of ECS is free for all to read because it’s sponsored by Postcard, a smarter map for deciding where to go and what to do. You can save places from anywhere, find exactly what you need, and share your lists. Download Postcard here.

#4 is David Gruber, a brand and communications strategist who advises restaurants like Cove, Cotogna and Quince, and Altro Paradiso, plus big names like Nancy Silverton, Eli Zabar, and Grant Reynolds. Prior to founding Gruber Strategies, he was the head of brand at B&B Hospitality Group (Babbo, Lupa, Del Posto, etc). On a taste level, David is very discerning and almost never wrong, so I'm thrilled he agreed to share his Maine intel with us, especially since he's the one who sold me on taking a trip to Deer Isle, ME next month. Here are David’s go-to spots for eating, drinking, and shopping in Portland & Downeast Maine — and here’s his map on Postcard.

I went to college in Maine, which means I’ve been driving from New York to Vacationland at a regular clip for almost two decades. Emily asked me to write a guide to Downeast–the tony section of coastline that includes Camden, Rockland, Castine, Blue Hill, and the islands. I’ve spent a handful of summer weekends scouting that pocket, but my real area of expertise is the stretch of Maine from the New Hampshire border to Wiscasset. So I expanded the aperture a bit to also focus on Portland.

This list is far from exhaustive. These spots are scaffolding for a road trip itinerary from all points south. They’re listed in geographical order, from when you cross the Piscataqua River Bridge heading north.

The Palace Diner

The Palace Diner is a century-old, 15-seat railcar diner in a parking lot in a former mill town. About a decade ago, it was reborn as one of the country’s greatest versions of the form. A legendary retired New York restaurant critic recently told me that the Palace team has been tinkering with a BLT for years, obsessing over bread thickness and mayo quotient–with no end in sight. Every item on the menu is its nostalgic ideal: pancakes, tuna melt, chicken sandwich. I daydream about the fried smashed potatoes. The Palace hype is real, and it’s warranted.

Cong Tu Bot

If I have time for only one dinner in Portland, I pick Cong Tu Bot. I should be eating Vietnamese food more often. I always over-order, and I always consider the wisdom of keeping leftovers in a hotel minifridge.

Street and Co.

If you’re a Manhattan parent visiting your kids at Walden or Winnebago, you probably set a calendar reminder to book a reservation at Fore Street every year for visitors’ weekend. I prefer Fore Street’s sister restaurant, Street and Co. The menu has a section titled “over linguine.” Pick a protein from the sea (pick grilled lobster) that’s laid over a bed of noodles slicked in garlicky butter. I attempt to recreate it every summer, and I never use enough butter.

Tandem Coffee & Bakery

In my line of work, people talk a lot about “placemaking,” the supposed art of installing a colorfully branded coffee shop or marquee restaurant to anchor a neighborhood. The thinking goes that cultural signifiers boost residential appeal so that landlords can increase rental prices. Most of it is developer mumbojumbo. But in the ten years since Tandem hung a shingle in a former gas station on Congress Street, two boutique hotels have opened on the block. I’ve stayed at the Longfellow for its proximity to Tandem alone, so that I can start my day with yogurt with rhubarb compote and puffed rice granola. Suffer in line and fill a pink pastry box with cookies and scones to have on the counter at your rental house.

If you have more time in Portland, consider:

Rose Foods: a bagel shop where my brother worked as a line cook.

Smalls: a coffee shop in the West End for when I don’t have time to wait in line at Tandem.

Browne Trading Market: the go-to fishmonger.

Maine & Loire: the wine shop where I stock up en route to points north.

Rosemont Market: Portland’s answer to Bi-Rite, where I buy olive oil, vinegar, and salt en route to rental houses.

Friends & Family: a wine store that serves pizza and salads at biergarten tables.

Eventide Oyster Co: home of the brown butter lobster roll. The appeal diminished when Eventide expanded to Boston.

Bresca & the Honeybee

Sabbathday Lake, the last “active” Shaker village, is about half an hour north of Portland. Just down the road from the village–a Commerce Inn fantasyland with white clapboard buildings and cedar-shake roofs–is the titular lake. The chef from my beloved Purple House operates a seasonal ice cream shack on the beach there called Bresca & the Honeybee. As the website reminds you repeatedly (four times), the operation is WEATHER PERMITTING. On the three occasions when I’ve attempted to go, the weather has not permitted. But I am undeterred! [Editor’s note: I’ve been, and it is indeed fabulous.]

The Alna Store

Further north, everything is at least half an hour away. Even in that context, The Alna Store feels like an oasis. Part restaurant, part shoppy shop (with Afterglow ice cream sandwiches rather than Faire fare), The Alna Store is the local I wish I had in Park Slope. Breakfast bloody Marias are garnished with half of a boiled new potato.

Tinder Hearth

When I fantasize about moving to Maine and opening a restaurant, it looks a lot like Tinder Hearth. A bakery in a leaning old farmhouse that anchors a farm campus. There’s an open-air building with a pizza oven that spins out pies; and a hut with soft serve in just-pressed waffle cones. If you stand on a tree stump you can see the ocean in the distance. I’d make time for dinner on campus, but it’s not a mistake to order pizza and ice cream sandwiches to-go and eat on the beach just down the road. (A handful of coffee shops and bakeries in the area sell Tinder Hearth bread. If you see it, buy it.)

Chase’s Daily

My friends spent a recent summer in Belfast, a few blocks up from the main drag. If every town had its own Chase's Daily, there would be no war. Assuming you arrive at the right time of day on the right day of the week, the store is a Nancy Meyers fantasy of flowers, produce, muffins, and pizzas. Of course, hours are limited.

Much to the dismay of my friends and loved ones, I gladly drive half an hour for a latte in the morning, and an hour (plus) for the right farm stand or oyster farm. If you share my affliction, I’d recommend going out of your way to buy a week’s worth of cheese at Blue Hill Wine Shop. Endure a (scenic!) winding drive to the farmstand at Four Seasons Farm. And pick up a sack of oysters at Glidden Point Oyster Farm in Edgecomb to shuck on the porch. Every Maine town has a lobsterman who will sell you a few lobsters from the back of his boat. Oysters are destination fare.

I haven’t had much luck in Camden or Rockland. When I’m there this summer, I’ll be scouting The Place, Cafe Grazie, and Sammy’s Deluxe.

Because cooking opportunities are important, I always stay at a rental house. If I were to stay at a hotel north of Portland for a day or two, I’d consider The Brooklin Inn and The Ark.

Some of my recent contributions to The T List: on gooseneck barnacles (percebes!), restaurants with house accounts, and sorghum. [T Mag, gift links]

Beautiful piece by : Nearly half of the restaurants included in Jonathan Gold’s Counter Intelligence have closed. What does that mean? [Lunch Box]

shopped the Union Square Greenmarket with (and he’s got tips!) [Shop Rat]

Pete Wells went on a tour of Bourdain’s Provincetown, in light of the new biopic, Tony, which I’m going to see this weekend. [NYT, gift link]

Ella Quittner with an entertaining profile of Carla Lalli, whose divorce memoir-slash-cookbook Food Is a Feeling, hits stands in early September. [Grub Street]

That said, this issue of ECS is free for all to read because it’s sponsored by Postcard, a smarter map for deciding where to go and what to do. You can save places from anywhere, find exactly what you need, and share your lists. Download Postcard here.

#3 is Lauren Schofield, a pastry chef whose resume includes Flora Bar, King, and Marlow & Sons, and whose intricate and rustic, fruit-forward cakes have starred in stylish brand events, private dinners, and weddings across the city and its surrounding regions. As for her connection to Litchfield County, CT—with its charming towns including Washington, Kent, and Cornwall—here’s Lauren in her own words: “I love Connecticut. I’ve been going up to my fiancé’s family’s place there since we started dating, and whenever we have a few days to escape the city, we’re there. What I love about Litchfield County, in particular, is that there are so many little towns, each with its own unique identity. We love cruising between towns, always taking the scenic route to see as many pretty roads and houses as we can, and stopping in at favorite shops, cafes, and restaurants along the way.” These are her go-to spots for eating, drinking, shopping, and nature-ing in the bucolic region of northwest Connecticut — and here’s her Litchfield, CT map on Postcard.

The shops of New Preston

New Preston is a little village in the greater town of Washington, and the main street is full of treasures — there’s a strip of homewares, clothing, and jewelry stores that are all worth visiting, even if you’re just window shopping. The move is to get lunch (or breakfast!) at my beloved Smithy Cafe and then take your time moseying in and out of the adjacent shops. Plain Goods, which sells gorgeous antiques and both vintage and new clothing, is one of the most beautifully merchandised stores I’ve ever been inside. I could spend hours in there.

Clamp’s

Go to Clamp’s if you’re eager to experience some real nostalgia. It’s a roadside stand in New Milford that’s only open in the summertime, where they dish out burgers, grilled cheeses, and other American Summer Fare. The lemonade is really sweet and really excellent. The burgers remind me of the ones from my youth — simple, with only the classic array of condiments and fixings available. This is a fun place to take a big group or kids. Tastes like summer.

Hollister House Garden

Gorgeous English garden in Washington surrounding several classic New England buildings. Beautiful hedges and reflecting pools, and just a lovely way to spend an afternoon. You can tell the people who take care of this garden really love it.

Swyft

Swyft is a restaurant in downtown Kent known for its pizza, but they also serve a lovely array of non-pizza dishes. This is a real go-to for us — we usually wind up here for dinner when we get into town on Friday evenings and sit at the bar. Love the Randy Savage pizza and the rigatoni. The smash burger is also fire.

R. Derwin

I love boutiques where you can see the owners’ vision! R. Derwin is a preppy and beautiful clothing store in the town of Litchfield, which has one of the larger downtowns in the county, and a lot of great shopping. The quality of everything here is excellent and luxe. Worth admiring even if you’re not there to purchase. I did buy a Madras bucket hat there earlier this summer, which has become my staple sunwear.

West Shore Seafood

I love Connecticut-style lobster rolls, and they have a very good one here (my mother-in-law makes the best ones, though). It’s a super casual spot off of Bantam Lake with a big menu, but it’s all about the lobster roll for me. Fun to sit at the picnic tables on the back lawn with a beer.

Community Table

This is a favorite special-occasion-y restaurant. The food is always delicious, and the menu changes seasonally. The dining rooms are lovely and really comfortable, the staff is so friendly, and they have great cocktails. Fun for a night out.

Arethusa a Mano

Arethusa Farm is a dairy farm that makes a bunch of different products, but they also have three spots in Bantam — a restaurant, an ice cream spot, and a cafe, Arethusa a Mano, which I like because they have a really good breakfast sandwich (egg and cheese on English muffin — very simple, I love an austere egg sandwich). I would describe this as a Connecticut spot for city slickers, and by that, I mean you can get Stumptown nitro cold brew here.

Bantam Bread Company

Next to Arethusa a Mano is Bantam Bread company, which is, in a word, charming. It’s a bakery that you enter through an ivy-covered door to the basement, and they sell delicious pastries in addition to bread. They don’t sell coffee, which I think is really cool. I love the fruit crostatas!

interviewed me for her Sweet City Roundtable series this week; you can read my dessert-related takes here. :) [Sweet City]

The paper of record tackled an all-important issue: ‘Welcome to West Village’? The ‘the’ Is Not Optional, Say Some New Yorkers. (When the “the” is dropped, my stomach curdles.) [NYT, gift link]

hit me up to help answer an epitome Bangers & Jams question: Where do hot people eat well? [Bangers & Jams]

I loved this investigation—and the idea behind the column—from Annie Armstrong: How Did That Joan Jonas Get There (the there being Houseman)? [Caper]

does Ojai (very well). [A Small & Simple Thing]

We’ve got some hot, hot heat in the forecast, for which the only cure is a giant, steaming bowl of spicy-ass soup. You heard me. More on that in a minute, but first, a few bits and bobs:

Food on Film: I was invited to an early screening of the new A24-produced Anthony Bourdain biopic Tony (out August 7) last week. I was initially hesitant, but the film was made with the full cooperation of Bourdain’s estate, which took some of the ick factor out for me. As for the movie itself, it’s a romp: director Matt Johnson (Blackberry) wisely narrows his focus to a single summer in 1976, when a cocky college-era Bourdain spends a pivotal summer at a chaotic seafood restaurant in Provincetown, Mass (a.k.a. the first chapter of Kitchen Confidential). It’s fundamentally a popcorn flick, anchored by strong performances by Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers), Leo Woodall, and a delightfully silver-tipped Antonio Banderas. IMO, it’s smart (and respectful) to zero in on a contained time period, rather than trying to capture the entire life of a man beloved by millions. I don’t think it will win any Oscars, but Tony is a fun way to spend 90 air-conditioned minutes during the dog days.

A Good Loaf: I have nothing but respect for a carb that contains another form of carb, and thus, have been chasing the city’s finest porridge breads. Tartine’s moist oat-infused loaf, which you can find at L.A. Grocery and Whole Foods in addition to the bakery itself, is the standard-bearer for a reason. But at Santa Monica national treasure Petitgrain Boulangerie, best known for their laminated pastries, owner Clémence de Lutz has been selling an exceptional wild rice-enhanced sourdough porridge loaf in recent weeks (and is gearing up for an expansion that may involve more breads—more on this soon). Two Rose bakery is always changing the menu, but I was lucky to snag a sweet corn-and-honey cornmeal Pullman before it sold out recently and was blown away. (I also saw owner David Wilcox tease via IG that he’s testing a wild rice loaf inspired by Petitgrain’s!) I’ve yet to try Jyan Isaac’s multigrain version, but it’s very much on my radar, and I’m curious if you know of others worth seeking out.

Not only does eating spicy food in spicy weather make you feel like a tough guy, it’s also a scientifically legit method for cooling your body down (TLDR: hot foods make you sweat, which regulates your body’s internal temperature). And as a certified all-seasons soup freak, I feel qualified to point you toward five of my favorite spicy soups across L.A.

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For those who don’t know him: David is a media veteran (The Awl, Wirecutter, Grantland, FiveThirtyEight) and creative director whose clients have included Nike, Apple, and Google. He’s also the founder of Postcard, a smarter map for deciding where to go and what to do. You can save places from anywhere, find exactly what you need, and share your lists, like David’s 13 Favorite Places in New York. You can download Postcard here.

Also, a quick travel update on my end before he gets into it: I was back in Paris last week, and have updated The Angel’s Paris guide accordingly. Now onto David.

I don’t want to undermine or disrespect The Angel, Emily Wilson, or any of her past contributors, but I am by no means a San Sebastián expert.

I’m just a person who went there a few weeks ago, who did a lot, a lot, a lot of research beforehand, and had a really nice few days in the Basque Country as a result.

The method was simple: I got a lot of lists from real experts and people who grew up there or currently live there, watched an absurd amount of reels and TikToks (once you watch one, they really hammer you with them), and opened approximately 38 tabs of editorial, Reddit, just everything, and then built out our agenda from there (below), which included one of my favorite meals/days of the year so far.

Think of this as a really nice way to spend a jam-packed four days in the area.

Some good general advice (some I received, some I learned):

• Your bigger meals should be lunch, which should serve as anchors for day trips outside of San Sebastián to see all of the other towns in the area. The smaller, surrounding towns are full of interesting character, and the evenings in San Sebastián proper are beautiful and a great way to close your day.

• I’m very averse to lines and chaos, and eating in San Sebastián can feel like a lot of lines and chaos. It took me a second, but once you lean in, you’ll realize that all of the lines go pretty quickly, that the madness is in fact pretty efficient, and it’s all very doable.

• In terms of food, there are no real wrong answers in this region—besides filling up on bread (please don’t fill up on bread)—because everything is pretty great. I’m going to list a lot of dishes that we ordered (or were recommended to me) for each place, but you should get whatever speaks to you, because the floor is extremely high.

Day 1

Twist: We’re not even starting in San Sebastián, mainly because you can’t fly directly into the city, so you’re most likely landing in Bilbao. (Some people on the internet will try to tell you that flying into Santander is also an option, it’s not; it’s a three-hour, €300 car ride from San Sebastián.)

So, since you’re in Bilbao, it’s silly to not to take a 15-minute cab ride from the airport to the Guggenheim Museum. (There are barely any Ubers here, so plan to hit the taxi lines or have people at the hotel or restaurants order them for you.)

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
The massive Frank Gehry building gives you a cinematic “hello” as you drive up, which serves as a nice way to start your trip. They’ll also store your bags (if they’re carry-on size). Inside and out, there’s a lot of beautiful work that you should probably budget ~2-3 hours for.

There’s a huge—both in scale and quantity—collection of Richard Serras (great), a Louise Bourgeois spider (neutral), a big Jeff Koons dog made out of tulips (redacted), and a good mix of Spanish artists and greatest hits (there was a Jasper Johns exhibition when we were there) throughout the museum. All in all, it’s a great and chill place.

When you’re ready to leave, you’ll take another cab to the bus station. San Sebastián is a little over an hour away, and you can book (and modify) bus tickets via the website Omio.

As for where to stay in San Sebastián, I can’t give you any firsthand advice, because we booked our trip way too last-minute (and during peak season), so we had to settle, but these were the hotels most recommended:

• Lasala Plaza – pool on the roof, great views throughout, and aspires to look like a boat (take from that what you will), all while being reasonably priced.

• Hotel Maria Cristina – this is the “very nice” option; it’s on the water and designed by the same architect who did the Ritz Paris.

• Hotel Arbaso – slightly outside of where you want to be, but seems like the most interesting of the three.

The one thing I would recommend is to stay in Old Town. It puts you within a 10-minute walk from most of the things you want to do, both in the day (beach, food) and at night (food, drink). And, as I mentioned before, getting a cab is annoying and slow.

Onto the food (and some beaches).
Note: dishes with double asterisks indicate my favorites.

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#98 is Alex Tatusian, an editor, designer, and worker-owner of the revamped Gourmet 2.0, one of my favorite new food publications, which puts a delightfully subversive spin on the beloved magazine of the same name (where I, incidentally, interned in college). He is the man responsible for introducing me to an excellent Cuban restaurant in Pico-Union and a cocktail called the Tovarich, which he aptly describes as “a daiquiri from the other side of the planet.” Alex is a proud Orange County native who put in his time in New York before moving back to SoCal; his taste reflects a deep knowledge of the high-low pleasures of dining and drinking in L.A. Here are his Plugs.

Restaurant: Yerord Mas

We didn’t have Armenian food like this when I was growing up. Our family ate (happily!) at Carousel, Raffi’s, Skaf’s, Taron, and Sarkis Pastry. That was pretty much it. (The boomers thought it was cute when my cousin Tenny suggested we check out Mini Kabob and Monta House.) Food writers love to trot out the D-word when describing Yerord Mas, but the restaurant owns the word “diaspora” in Los Angeles, as far as I’m concerned. Where another proprietor might fold in an unexpected spice, yassify a family recipe, or go full fusion (IndiMex, we’ll meet one day!!), Arthur Grigoryan endeavors 1) to survey the food of a people that overwhelmingly live (and for generations have lived) outside their homeland and 2) to freak it. Dishes from Iraq and Iran not often seen outside Armenian homes coexist with tastes of Soviet and ancient Armenia on a tiny menu. Everything is handled carefully but unpretentiously, e.g., my favorite (literal) touch: their various kyuftahs (bulgur balls with assorted fillings) possess a strange, spiny seashell shape accomplished by squeezing the mixture inside a fist until it begins to poke between the cook’s fingers.

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#2 is Jake DeNicola, one of my oldest and dearest friends, a talented cinematographer, and the co-founder of the production company ANIMA Works. We grew up together in Greenwich Village, and now he’s DP’d an impressive roster of music videos, shorts, and documentaries, including Santacon (2025) and Class Action Park (2020). Jake has also spent summers and many weekends in Delaware County, NY, for his whole life, and has become deeply enmeshed in the community over the years, watching it change and grow (more on that below). As someone who has stayed with him upstate and given myself over to his guidance, I can promise you: Jake knows what’s up. Here are his go-to spots for eating, drinking, shopping, and swimming in the Western Catskills.

Good Cheap Food

Before the multitude of upscale general stores, hipster cideries, and farm-to-table restaurants in Delaware County, there was Good Cheap Food. When Fega, the owner and founder (who calls herself my surrogate godmother), started the health food store in 1976, it was just a tiny hole-in-the-wall. Now, it is smack dab in the middle of Main Street in Delhi, NY. It specializes in local produce, dry goods, a sprawling tea section, local beer, wine, and cider, and also has an impressively large Asian grocery section. Fega, a vegetarian herself, has now turned operation of the store over to her son Jonah, who has started the incredible Catskill Smokehouse Company. His frozen sausages, smoked trout, and many other cuts of meat can be found at GCF. I don’t think I’ve had a better Berkshire pork chop in my entire life.

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This summer promises rolling heat waves from Paris to L.A., and, naturally, New York (where we just survived one—or did we?—last week). It’s hard to drum up an appetite in this kind of weather. Unless it’s for ice cream: soft serve dunked in a chocolate shell, procured from a jingling truck; a pint of Cherry Garcia from the bodega; scoops of brambleberry crisp and black sesame from the fancy ice cream shop; and, best of all, restaurant ice cream, served in steel coupes or sundae glasses.

In restaurants, ice cream often plays a supporting role on the dessert menu, as a component that completes a plated dessert. But some pastry chefs give it room to shine on its own, offering a few scoops (or more) for diners to choose from at the end of a meal, with flavors that rotate by season and the whims of the pastry team. I’m here, today, to tell you that when you see ice cream centered on a dessert menu like this, you should order it—maybe even instead of the silky tiramisu or apricot tart—because ice cream made by ace pastry chefs at sit-down restaurants goes light years above the listless, over-processed dreck you’ll find lurking in the freezer aisle.

The other, more obvious case to be made for ordering ice cream in restaurants is that it’s somewhat light and definitively cold, and thus particularly refreshing on a hot summer day. As Quarter Sheets’ Hannah Ziskin, an ice cream lover and skilled practitioner of the form, once told me: “It’s just perfect. It’s not too heavy, you can eat the whole thing… It’s something that lightens instead of depresses your stomach at the end [of a restaurant meal].”

As a hobbyist ice cream maker myself, I know firsthand the pleasure of freshly churned ice cream made with organic local dairy, pastured eggs, and peak-season farmers’ market produce—a pleasure that, if you don’t make your own (fair, though I’d invite you to join the club), you can really only find in restaurants, not scoop shops, ice cream trucks, or freezer aisles. For this story, I spoke to a number of pros to prove why.

Ice cream is frozen, so it keeps, but that doesn’t mean month-old ice cream tastes like the freshly made stuff. Ed Cornell, a seasoned restaurant ice cream maker and co-owner of Café Tropical in L.A., told me that at scoop shops, he always orders the most popular flavors—the ones that move in volume, like cookies and cream or chocolate—since they’re less likely to have been sitting in a tub for months.

Commercially made ice cream also tends to contain stabilizers, such as guar or xanthan gums, to slow ice crystal growth, improve texture, and extend shelf life. Stabilizers aren’t inherently bad—they’re what let you eat a cone slowly without it melting down your arm—but they can mask flavor, affect texture, and cause digestive discomfort.

“The fact that [ice cream in restaurants] is usually churned the day of means that they don’t need as much stabilizer as commercially produced ice cream,” says Claudia Fleming, the executive culinary director of Union Square Hospitality Group’s Daily Provisions, and the author of the dessert-centric cookbooks The Last Course and Delectable. “Also, the freshness means the intensity of flavor is more pronounced, because when things freeze, flavor tends to dissipate.”

Pastry chefs, with their access to high-quality ingredients and their obsession with maximizing flavor, tend to produce highly potent ice creams.

Stephanie Prida, the pastry chef at Bar Chimera in Midtown (formerly The Grill, Manresa), makes a vanilla that goes far beyond a typical scoop: “I use a shit ton of vanilla beans, way more than I should, and I also marinate sugar in vanilla beans, then pulverize the beans afterwards, and let them sit overnight [in the ice cream base], so there’s so many different layers of vanilla,” she says.

For Clodagh Manning, the pastry chef at Zimmi’s in the West Village (formerly Lyle’s, in London), distilled, specific flavor is the cornerstone of her approach. “I really like ice creams that taste like the thing that they’re based on, rather than just a faint suggestion,” she says, adding that a restaurant setting is conducive to this style: “Because you’re eating [ice cream] in smaller volumes, they can be more charged with flavor.” At Zimmi’s, she regularly offers a trio of ice creams; her favorite, on the menu last fall, paired Concord grape with a boozy vanilla made with an excess of beans and a toasty hazelnut tossed with chunks of chocolate. “It read as a really luxurious PB and J combo,” Manning says.

Fleming crafted the opening dessert menu at Ci Siamo (a Union Square Hospitality Group restaurant), channeling the Italian ethos of ingredient-quality fanaticism and concentrated flavor. The resulting scoop menu features a satiny dark chocolate sorbet and a deeply buttery pistachio gelato. “I remember having this epiphany while eating cheapo roadside soft serve, nothing special,” she says. “I kept eating it and I kept eating it and I kept eating it, waiting to get satisfied, and it never happened. It was just a lot of air, and not very good flavoring… I find that when you have a richer ice cream, you just need a small amount to satisfy.”

The odds of finding greengage ice cream or Tristar strawberry sorbet at an ice cream parlor are slim to none, except at certain cheffily-minded scoop shops. At restaurants, especially those with hyper-seasonal ambitions, they’re good. “You can put a dish on for a little bit, then take it off,” says Manning. “And instead of selling a pint or a giant scoop on a cone, you’re selling a [smaller portion], so that unlocks more potential of interesting or rare flavors, where you get one batch of, say, mulberries, and make ice cream out of that.”

Come late summer, she’s looking forward to making damson ice cream from the tiny, tannic plums commonly used in the UK but harder to find in New York (she sources hers from the Union Square Greenmarket).

Finally, many of the pastry chefs I know are technique-driven brainiacs who love to go the extra mile. At Zimmi’s, Manning has been making ice cream with cherry pits, infusing the dairy with the kernels to extract their almondy flavor, then pairing it with a cherry dessert. “Those kinds of flavor pairings are so satisfying to me: the fruit with the flavor of the seed from the fruit. It’s like whole animal cooking, but the dessert version,” she says.

One of Prida’s staples is a zero-waste frozen yogurt that takes four days to make: “I make my own yogurt, put it in the oven overnight, then cool it down and press it. The next day I turn the whey into a whey caramel, and churn the fresh yogurt into frozen yogurt,” she says.

Meanwhile, David Lebovitz, author of the ice cream bible The Perfect Scoop and the former longtime pastry chef at Chez Panisse (who now lives in Paris), recently made a Chartreuse ice cream studded with vegan chocolate marshmallows, “which blew a few French minds,” he says — “But everyone ate it.”

As a bonus, I asked a handful of my favorite ice cream makers—David Lebovitz, Kitty Travers, Claudia Fleming, and more!—for the single most memorable scoop they’ve ever had. Here’s what they said:

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#1 is Emily Wilson, yours truly, founder of The Angel and a food writer with bylines in T Magazine, Bon Appétit, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and New York Magazine, among other outlets. Switching to first person now: my family has been summering in Amagansett, on the east end of Long Island (aka the Hamptons), since 1999. I’m biased, but I also know it’s the coolest Hampton. That said, we pretty much never eat out, except for lunch, and only at the few spots we truly love. Otherwise, we cook, we go to the beach, and it’s all very beautiful—mostly because we skirt the horrendously behaved crowds and the overpriced, subpar food. (One casualty this year: Amagansett Seafood, our go-to fishmonger, where Mike O’Rourke sells exceptional tuna salad, smoked mussels, and local fish, is closed for the summer. Support Mike if you can. I’m leaving them off this list as a result.) Here are my go-to spots to eat, shop (for bagels, cheese, produce, and clothes), and exercise.

Bonus: I shared this link last month, but I’ve also got a more in-depth guide to the Eastern East End on Rec League. It includes everything below, plus more in East Hampton, Napeague, Montauk, and the Springs. A few of the recs are free, but most are only unlocked when you buy the guide; paid subscribers get a discount code at the bottom of this letter.

Doubles

Full transparency: My brother is an owner of this Caribbean-inspired eatery in Amagansett Square. But ask anyone else who spends time in the area (or in Sag Harbor, where there’s another outpost), and they’ll tell you that Doubles rocks. Crowd favorites include the breakfast roti, the Island Blue smoothie, the Freddie bowl, and the Mahi cutter; my order is market crunchy greens with grilled jerk chicken, plus a side of sweet plantains (or a roti wrap). Don’t sleep on the house hot sauce, charged with scotch bonnet peppers. In exciting news (a scoop!): Doubles is opening in Brooklyn Heights soon, hopefully later this year…

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Hi, angels. It’s nice to write to you again!

I’ve had summer brain, been traveling, and planning more: Paris next week, Maine in August, and Japan in late September. (If you have burning, extra-special Tokyo recs, food and otherwise, hit my line.) But this weekend is America’s 250th birthday, and that’s… something. If anything, it’s a fitting time to talk about taverns, a category of restaurant-slash-bar that comprises our nation’s earliest public eating-and-drinking establishments. Perhaps this year’s milestone is why taverns are trending right now.

As per Grub Street editor Alan Sytsma, in an “Eating New York” newsletter from last month (subject line: Everything’s a ‘Tavern’), newcomers include Red Hook Tavern’s Tavern Next Door, Trudie’s Tavern (Carroll Gardens), Grimm Tavern (Prospect Heights), and Wainwright’s Tavern (UES).

For me, however, the truest taverns are not bona fide restaurants like Gramercy Tavern or Minetta Tavern, with dark interiors and best-in-the-city burgers, but casual neighborhood mainstays where drinking/gathering is the primary event, and the food is unfussily American (regular burgers, buffalo wings, familiar beers). Also, they are places that have been around for quite a while.

Taverns are the closest thing we have to Mexico’s cantinas and England’s pubs, where friends can get together and shoot the shit, groups growing and shrinking over the course of a night, food orders being placed if and when anyone gets hungry. They’re always there, being exactly what you need them to be. Fanelli’s was a foundational stomping ground for me, among high school friends when home from college, and then among coworkers, as an after-hours hang when I worked in SoHo. They’d give you a table even if you were just drinking, knowing you’d probably eventually get something to eat. Other taverns listed below played smaller roles at various points in my adult life.

It wasn’t until I moved to L.A., a city devoid of taverns (save for HMS Bounty, which fully counts—although parking is miserable—and The Prince, which is kind of the most perfectly L.A. version of this), that I realized how central they were to my social existence. I often longed for a place to enjoy rounds of cold beers and share properly crispy fries in an easygoing environment, surrounded by friends. I missed the East Coast, then. Now, I miss L.A. for all sorts of reasons, but at least we have taverns (plus the New York friggin’ Knicks :)).

These are my favorites. What are yours? Sound off in the comments, as they say…

The Ear Inn, purportedly New York’s oldest bar—although FiDi’s Fraunces Tavern says they are—in the neighborhood now known as Hudson Square. Est. 1817.

Old Town Bar in Flatiron, complete with a tin ceiling and tasty giant pretzels. In operation since 1892; renamed Old Town Bar in 1933.

Fanelli Café, aka Fanelli’s, my beloved SoHo watering hole for Stellas and fries, once a well-kept secret among downtowners in the know, now less appealing since it was taken over by Gen Z. Est. 1874; called Fanelli since 1922.

White Horse Tavern in the West Village, not really my scene, despite being located in the neighborhood where I was raised. I prefer Corner Bistro, which, I’d argue, counts—even if some people are there for a burger first and a beer second. Est. 1880 and 1961, respectively.

Pete’s Tavern of Gramercy, adored for its Christmas decorations and chicken pot pie. Est. 1864; called Pete’s since 1922.

Walker’s, which pours a solid Guinness in Tribeca. Newer to the game, with a founding date of 1987.

The weekend before last, David and I drove up to Montreal, stopping in Vermont for a wondrous creemee at a rural sugar shack (more on that below), and spending a night in the Berkshires at the lovely Inn at Kenmore Hall on the way back. It’s well-known that Montreal has a stellar food scene. Part of what makes it so compelling, for me, is the level of hospitality provided at some of its best restaurants. Because it’s both a smaller city than New York and a much more affordable, favorable environment in which to operate a restaurant, there’s not the same pressure to turn tables. Furthermore, you can feel real warmth and passion from the people working in establishments like Vin Mon Lapin and Le Violon. I think we tackled 48 hours there quite well; this was our dining itinerary. Here it is on Rec League, too, with some leisure recs included, such as a requisite visit to the grave of Leonard Cohen. (Paid subscribers get 50% off; code below the paywall.)

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#15 is Flynn McGarry, the chef-owner of the fine dining Cove and everyone’s favorite downtown cafe-meets-shop, Gem Home. Flynn is an L.A. native with a penchant for peak-season produce. At Cove, California is the throughline of the always-evolving menu, offered as a set of four courses or à la carte. And at Gem Home, where my favorites include the sweet potato sandwich and the cardamom bun, SoCal kombucha (Balo!) and olive oil (Inez!) are available for purchase. Yet despite this enduring tie to the West Coast (which I really, really get), Flynn has been cooking and creating in New York City for over a decade. He’s long been a fixture at the Union Square Greenmarket, and recently, he’s been posting market reports and writing about the latest happenings at his restaurants on Substack. Here’s Flynn with his Plugs.

Restaurant — Torishin

Torishin holds a very special spot in my restaurant rotation. The amount of chicken I eat there in one seating usually satisfies my craving for a few weeks at a time, but when the craving returns, it’s the only place I think of for the crunchy knee cartilage. Sit at the counter, do the set menu, drink many cold Suntory Premium Malts, and watch the chefs grill skewers in front of the bamboo garden in the back.

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June Gloom is almost in the rearview, which is excellent news for the beachhounds among us. I take my beach-going seriously—I am a beach-all-day person, ideally on the road by 9 a.m. to stake my claim and enjoy a few hours of relative quietude before the hordes descend. I’m partial to secluded beaches with a dash of epic nature, like La Piedra in Malibu (my always and forever go-to), RAT (Right After Torrance) in the South Bay, or Crystal Cove State Park in Newport.

All serious beach people know the importance of a proper Beach Sandwich. Structural integrity is key: ingredients must be carefully layered to avoid soggage, wet fillings like raw tomatoes or pickles should be applied judiciously, and crusty breads (i.e., ciabatta, baguette, focaccia) make for the sturdiest base. Obviously, Beach Sandwiches should be able to withstand a few hours between procurement and consumption, which is where a small insulated cooler/lunchbox comes in handy. That said, even with a cooler, certain fillings give me the ick: tuna or other mayo-heavy salads, for example (although plenty of you seem to disagree), or anything with an abundance of soft cheese (mozzarella, burrata, etc.).

I have my go-tos (more on them in a minute), but as beach season kicks into high gear, I sought inspiration. So I polled friends and notable L.A. food folks for their Beach Sandwich and corresponding beach of choice. For the purposes of this survey, I expanded the definition of Beach Sandwiches to include other handheld, carb-wrapped eats, such as burritos, wraps, and—sure!—onigiri. While I have always considered acquiring the Beach Sandwich part of the beachgoing experience, ideally performed near the beach itself, plenty of respondents are happy transporting their sandwiches across town.

I’m publishing the highlights of this extremely unscientific survey below, and the full results in a painstakingly compiled Beach Sando Map that you should bookmark for future trips (link below), but I’d also love to hear from you—what other Beach Sandwiches are worth seeking out? Take it to the comments!

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#97 is Tasbeeh Herwees, the writer behind No Bad Days, “a newsletter about Los Angeles,” which has quickly become one of my immediate opens when it hits my inbox. Tasbeeh is a native Angeleno, proud political activist, and possessor of a true gimlet eye when it comes to reporting on all of the things that make this city so alluring (and occasionally infuriating). Her bylines have appeared the Los Angeles Times, GQ, Teen Vogue, The Fader, VICE, Bon Appétit, Vulture, and more, and you can rest assured that whatever she writes will be sharp and incisive. From her home base in East Hollywood, here are Tasbeeh’s Plugs.

Restaurant: Flavors From Afar

Some people may remember Flavors from Afar from when it was located in Little Ethiopia, and it operated on a “chef-of-the-month” model, where all the chefs represented different refugee communities. It quietly closed down a couple of years ago, after it earned nationwide recognition for its incredible dining program.

And just as quietly as it disappeared, it reappeared—this time in East Hollywood, on a stretch of the boulevard that is overpopulated with smoke shops and was desperately in need of a restaurant like this one. Flavors from Afar remains an extension of the Tiyya Foundation, an organization co-founded by owner Meymuna Hussein-Cattan to support refugee families in the states with employment opportunities, professional training, and community resources.

Flavors from Afar is also one of the few places in L.A. where you can get koshari, a carb-heavy pauper’s dish from Egypt that I crave often but rarely have the energy to make myself. Though they no longer have a chef-of-the-month program, they continue to offer a global menu, highlighting lesser known cuisines. On the weekends, you can even catch a live jazz show inside the restaurant.

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#14 is Michael Robinov, the co-founder and CEO of Farm To People, my favorite (online) grocery store in New York. Through Farm To People, you can buy produce, meat, and dairy from some of the finest local farmers in the broader New York region; bakery items a la She Wolf, Knead Love, and Sobre Masa; and artisanal pantry items like fresh La Trafila pastas and Yesfolk kombucha vinegar alongside thoughtfully sourced ingredients from further afield, including California citrus and Spanish olive oil. I'm very bullish on what Michael and his team are building, particularly because the curation is top-notch—they've put me onto some of my current favorite groceries, from FLX Farm Fresh organic rolled oats to Pequea Valley Farm grass-fed yogurt. Michael and I are kindred spirits, and here he is with his Plugs.

P.S. If you haven’t tried Farm To People yet, you’re missing out. Use my code EMILYW22 for a free farm box! (I tend to order a la carte, but the farm boxes are a nice way to dip your toes in.)

Restaurant — Stissing House

My partner and co-founder, Anina, and I cook a lot when we're home in Brooklyn… It sort of comes with the territory. But whenever we get the chance, we love to get away and visit her family and farms upstate, and eat out. Stissing House in Pine Plains is our favorite dinner spot and always such a treat. Clare de Boer turned the 1782 house into a destination restaurant, with a wood-burning oven and grill. Get the artichoke, the coal-roasted dayboat scallops, and save room for dessert.

BONUS — Cafe Mutton

This tiny neighborhood restaurant on a sunny corner is our go-to for brunch. While the menu might scare off a few less adventurous eaters on first look: pigs’ ears, blood sausage, offal, etc, everything is made in-house and hits the spot every time. Each visit we adjust our order to try new things, which is easy to do since the menu rotates daily, and we always end our meal with a plate of the crepes! Thank me later.

OFF-MENU BONUS — The steak at Misi

This is my sleeper pick. Misi in Williamsburg is known as a pasta restaurant, but IMHO the off-menu dry-aged steak topped with fennel pollen is the dish to order.

TAKEOUT BONUS — Samurai Mama

I also have to shout out my go-to takeout in Williamsburg. The sushi taco set is the move, plus the seaweed salad, miso soup loaded with mushrooms, and a hamachi roll. It's one of those orders I've been placing for years.

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It’s summertime on the East Coast, precisely the season I moved back to New York for. The farmers’ markets are beginning to pop, the mood is sultry, and, hopefully, many of you, like me, have plans to get out of the city over the next few months and spend time in places like Maine, Long Island, Vermont, Connecticut, the Catskills, and the Cape.

In case you’ll be in the Hamptons at any point, I’ve got a guide for you on Rec League: The Eastern East End, my 24 favorite spots in Amagansett—where my family has summered for 25+ years—and the neighboring towns of East Hampton, Montauk, Napeague, and the Springs.

I’m hoping to grill a ton (or rather, be grilled for), make dozens of ice cream flavors, and spend quality time with my husband, my family, and my friends. I’m also carving out time to focus on some new creative projects, which means you can expect to hear a bit less from me here on The Angel, for now.

Still, I’ve got stories in the mix throughout the summer, including two features (one sweet, the other juicy) from yours truly, L.A. dispatches from , and weekend Plugs. Come fall, we’ve got some exciting plans in the works, so stay tuned...

Thank you, as always, for your readership. Happy summering!

<3,
Emily

#5 is John McDonald, the restaurateur and entrepreneur known for iconic establishments like Lure Fishbar, for co-founding the food media site Tasting Table, and for writing on Substack. As the founder and CEO of Mercer Street Hospitality, John is also behind Bar Mercer, Bowery Meat Company, Cha Cha Tang, Smyth Tavern, and, most recently, Seahorse in Union Square. He’s lived in SoHo for 20 years and has worked there even longer, since opening MercBar in 1993—which he ran in a garage rented from the Mercer Hotel for two decades (until the building was demolished). Eight years ago, John gave up his office; now, on any given weekday, you’ll find him working from one of his restaurants or the lobby of the Mercer Hotel. Here he is with his five go-to SoHo spots.

M&O Market & Deli

This has been a go-to spot for some of the best sandwiches in the city. In the back of the market is their deli counter, and they have a carving board that features either roast beef, turkey, or pork each day, fresh Portuguese rolls, and amazing empanadas. No frills, just excellent.

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“Just look at the bend halfway down the handle!” I’ll exclaim to myself, admiring the patina, which I proudly inflicted on it myself, over seven years of daily use.

Erosion of any kind is an affecting thing to behold, and in the culinary world, it’s ever-present. The erosion on my perfect wooden spoon that dutifully stands at attention in a utensil crock to the right of my home stove; the erosion of pots, pans, and knives that live on the line in the millions of restaurant kitchens across the globe; and the erosion of the body seen in burns, cuts, swelling, and aches of those who farm and prepare the food we eat.

I’ve developed my share of joint issues from working in kitchens, few more pernicious than the ache of my lower back. Which, somewhat ironically, dramatically affects my experience of dining out, especially if the restaurant in question has uncomfortable dining chairs. It started like this—my fascination with restaurant seating—from a purely practical perspective. What seat is the most supportive for a drawn-out dinner? Can I determine cushion thickness from a Google Maps user-submitted photo alone? Why would any restaurateur opt for a Lancaster Alloy Set if they could possibly help it? “Seating can make or break a meal, especially one meant to last for more than 30 minutes,” says food writer Khushbu Shah. “If you are uncomfortable because your hips are jutting into the arm rests, or the back of the chair is so stiff you start to feel your lower back cramp, or the stool is so slippery you keep sliding off, you’re not fully present.”

Most of our time spent in restaurants is spent sitting down (unless you’re at a pintxos bar in San Sebastián). Crafting a space that works with the contours of the bodies that flow through it is an art, with comfort being the obvious first box to check. But what else is to be considered? Think of how many suited Hollywood rear ends have brushed up against the thick red leather of the studded seats at Musso & Frank Grill. Or how many cumulative hours have been clocked on the cushioned banquet chairs at Atlantic Seafood, listening to the clickity clack of dim sum carts circle the room. Think of how many New Yorkers on dates have uncomfortably shifted their weight from side to side in an austere Shaker banquette while pondering another round at The Commerce Inn. The wear we leave on these living pieces of furniture, and the wear they leave on us, is significant, as should be the thought process behind their selection.

In my quest to investigate the very consequential matter of restaurant seating, I spoke with a handful of restaurant owners, as well as other experts, whose choices I’ve admired over my years of dining in New York and Los Angeles. I’ve broken down their insights (and mine) by chair type.

Fit for a king; seating so special and considered that it becomes a highlight, rather than a facet of the dining experience.

“We wanted the interior to look like your classic chophouse but with a feminine feel to it,” says Suzanne Tracht, chef-owner of Jar Restaurant in Beverly Grove. “Like somewhere your dad would take you when you were little. But I didn’t want those big old red booths, I wanted to think outside the box.” Her answer came during her collaboration with the late Bret Witke, interior designer to the stars: big, plush, deep armchairs…on wheels. Perhaps Witke’s memories of visiting Disneyland with his theme park designer mother and background as a storied club proprietor led to a design choice so equally luxe and whimsical. But no matter the inspiration, the wheeled chairs at Jar (opened in 2001) remain iconic. Their existence compromises neither comfort nor functionality, and should the restaurant book out for a private party or a film shoot, they need only be corralled to the side like a herd of sheep. “Jar is the type of place where customers know one another, so sometimes, yeah, they do roll over to another table. And I always joke that if they’re too full, I’ll wheel them out!” says Tracht.

At Bistro Na’s in Temple City, a different type of throne welcomes diners eager to experience the restaurant’s dedicated interpretation of imperial Manchu cuisine. The seating, carved from dark cherry rosewood in a Qing-style design with satin cushions, matches the rest of the dining room, which is spacious and ornate. The room takes on a museum-like feel, with traditional musical instruments and intricately engraved wooden beams lining the perimeter. Here, the seating is a reminder that the food you’re eating has its origins in royal banquet halls; the chairs follow suit, deeming every guest a member of the court.

Seating built for two or more, cushioned or otherwise (I’m looking at you, banquettes).

Draw a map tracing the red leather booths in and around L.A. and you’d wind up with something that looks like a beating heart, veins and all. New York City’s map would be less veiny, but similar. While few booths are as renowned as Musso & Frank Grill’s red leather hideaways, many named for their corresponding starlet (Charlie Chaplin’s booth faced the street so he could allegedly keep an eye on his horse), the list of storied red seating is long and cuisine agnostic. One can dine on spaghetti and meatballs at Colombo’s or La Dolce Vita, jap chae at The Prince, walnut shrimp at Formosa Cafe, and chile rellenos at Casa Vega—all from the comfort of a red leather booth.

A booth, if not at a diner, tacitly admits your establishment is, at the very least, trying to be sexy. Sometimes that admission grows to a yell. You’d think spherical space age booths would have been enough for the Westin Bonaventure’s rooftop Bonavista Lounge in 1977, but—call it pre-Olympic jitters or a downtown revitalization effort—the whole floor was hooked up to a motor and set to rotate over the then-growing Los Angeles skyline. The Dresden’s back dining room sports a series of witchy white leather booths and chairs embossed with a massive “DR” monogram—very ‘80s, although the restaurant and cocktail lounge has been a fixture of Hillhurst Ave since 1954.

“I like a really tight little booth where knees are all folding together uncomfortably at first, and then you stop really noticing,” says Andy Schwartz of Baby Bistro, whose interior couldn’t be anything further from classic kitsch, down to the wood banquettes. “I’m specifically thinking about HMS Bounty’s corner pocket,” he adds, referring to the booth in the back left corner of the nautical-themed Koreatown dive bar, a favorite haunt of the late Anthony Bourdain. At Schwartz’s own restaurant, the interior design was largely dictated by the original structure, a Victorian house constructed in the early 1900s. “When we got the space, it was just white walls and this old Doug fir subfloor, and we wanted to honor that as much as possible, so we sourced a bunch of old-growth wood and milled it down, then [artist and designer] Grayson Revoir went about laying the floor and building tables, shelves, speakers, window frames, baseboards, and banquettes.”

Could a banquette be the booth’s perfect foil? Or maybe its sophisticated older cousin? The two nurture the same type of closeness with varying levels of restraint.

Chairs built from wood, from the deepest depths of an old oak forest to the farthest reaches of the Webstaurant website.

The Vienna Chair, found in restaurants like Cafe Mogador (East Village) and Sam’s Place (Highland Park), may be the king of this category; anything that maintains design relevance after 167 years deserves such a title. You’ve seen Vienna chairs in bistros and on back patios—they’re lightweight, easily stackable, and reasonably comfortable for prolonged gathering. Other less dominant examples of wooden restaurant chairs include splay-legged Windsor Chairs, midcentury-style with their low curved backs, and clunky Shaker schoolchairs a la Ukrainian East Village Restaurant or Philippe The Original—an obvious choice for operators looking to invoke a sense of American nostalgia.

Otherwise known as… plastic chairs. As ubiquitous as they are necessary.

I’m no Bryan Ropar, but I know my way around a plastic chair. I like folding chairs specifically, no armrests, who needs them? If you’re sitting in a plastic chair, your arms should be occupied with something handheld and delicious. It would seem that this chair archetype reigns supreme in Los Angeles. They dot the sidewalks beside taco trucks and pupusa stands, and stay propped up in the backyards of MEHKOs, such as Comedor Tenchita and Mariscos El Chito. It’s not unlikely to find chairs with price tags and stickers still on them plopped next to a spit or a flame. The plastic chair represents ingenuity and hustle. In the case of Angel’s Tijuana Tacos, these chairs turn into hot commodities, quadrupling in value during the busy hours as customers search for somewhere to prop their plate; at the Eagle Rock location specifically, tables are fashioned out of just about anything in the busy neighboring Target parking lot. Then, at midnight, much like a carriage into a pumpkin, they return to their original form.

Often backless seating with little to no arm support. Sometimes up high, sometimes down low, rarely in the middle.

Bar seating is polarizing, and for good reason. Bad bar seats, of which there are many, can feel like balancing on the head of a pin. But when mastered, they are the most intimate in the house, offering an eye to the action. Shah loves the bar seats at Hermon’s, Last Word Hospitality’s latest edition to the Eastside heatmap: “Foot rest on the stool, foot rests under the bar, backing on the stool, easy to climb in and out of, and they are plush.”

Further noteworthy classic and comfortable bar seats include The Apple Pan’s red leather variety with a short supportive back panel and a hook underneath the bar to hang your belongings; Grand Central Oyster Bar’s high-backed swivel seats, mounted to the floor on a circular silver column and boasting a front row view of the perpetual shuck; and El Colmao’s forest green stools that barely levitate off the ground.

But bar seating does not make up the entire category of stools. Take the plastic, brightly colored Vietnamese variety, an ultra-recognizable symbol of the country’s hospitality. In the late 1800s, when French colonization led to an influx of paved roads, stools and benches became more popular than woven mats due to their comfort and practicality. To this day, they are the preferred vehicle for eating low to the ground and close together, ideal for sharing and talking throughout mealtime. In the late ‘80s, during a surge in plastic production, lightweight, waterproof versions of these stools emerged en masse. Easily stackable for transport or potential street ordinances, these stools can be found far and wide in Vietnam and on a small section of Forsyth Street at Mắm, where hungry New Yorkers adopt a new posture, eagerly munching on crispy blocks of housemade fried tofu and elegant stuffed snails.

These seats are novel, exciting, and sometimes the sole reason to eat out (RIP Myrtle Ave Burger King Taxi-shaped booth).

At Cafe Lily in Bensonhurst, the best seat in the house is in the back garden. There, under a wooden canopy, sits an Uzbek tapchan, draped in jewel-toned, patterned textiles. A tapchan is a multipurpose piece of raised furniture, part table, part bed, dressed with a thin mattress (or thick blanket) known as a kurpacha and comfortable pillows. Cafe Lily serves dishes that are Koryo-saram, ethnically Korean but from Uzbekistan. As you recline into your lunch, new patterns emerge on the tapchan’s surface, composed of plates of food: plov, kimchi, the tangy carrot salad known as morkovcha, and manti the size of the pillows propping you up.

For a flicker of childhood nostalgia, or just a moment of respite from New York’s Chinatown bustle, duck into Lucky King off Grand Street and pop a squat in one of their dining chairs, each shaped, sized, and colored like M&Ms. They are as delightful as they are uncomfortable, but the good news is you need only to sit in one for the few minutes it will take you to devour a flaky egg tart or chewy sesame ball. Unfortunately, these chairs are welded to the tables in front of them. The owners must’ve gotten word of my plan to make off with a few for my own home and decided to make the necessary arrangements.

#13 is , a food writer, podcast host, and entrepreneur. Born in Ghana, raised in Canada, and now firmly rooted in New York City, Abena has made quite the name for herself in both the local and national food scene. She hosted The Future of Food is You on Cherry Bombe's podcast network, earning the James Beard Award for Broadcast Media Emerging Voice in 2023, and last year took home IACP's prestigious Toni Tipton-Martin Award. She's the founder of The Eden Place, a community-based dinner experience company, and currently works on special projects for the comms agency Daly. On Substack, she writes Your Friend in Food, and she has bylines in Vogue Mexico, Synonym, and Resy. Here's Abena with her Plugs.

Restaurant — Dean's

Someone recently told me that NYC has 25,000 restaurants and counting, so that made responding to this prompt even more challenging. Dean’s is my current pick because it’s a beautiful representation of NYC dining vibes. Annie and Jess have blessed us with such incredible establishments as King and Jupiter, which focus on elevated expressions of seasonal produce. And while Dean’s is an English pub, a restaurant format known for menus that can feel bland, this powerful restaurateur duo has managed to make it delightful and not lose the grungy charm of pub fare.

It’s hard to even decide what dish is the star of the show. Sure, you’re coming for the classics like the fish and chips with the mushy peas, the quail scotch egg, and the boiled ham. As a child of the commonwealth, they manage to feed the nostalgia with authentic presentations. And as a cosmopolitan who has a high bar when it comes to being dazzled, they knock it out of the park with dishes like pork scratchings served in a silver cup, akin to long breadsticks, and the gin-cured, drunk salmon. And when it comes to beverages, I feel like it’s Pavlovian to reach for a pint of Guinness but the carrot margarita is inching its way up to the top spot.

Also, I would consider Dean’s to be a multimodal restaurant. It doesn’t matter if you’re going for a quick pint before another dinner or staying for a two-hour adventure that trails wee into the night, you can still get the full experience and be doted on by their incredible staff.

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Guest chef series, pop-ups, takeovers, collabs—call them what you will, but they’re absolutely everywhere right now. I can’t open my inbox or Instagram without being bombarded with flyers for restaurants hosting other restaurants, always for a limited time only. Bell’s Los Alamos welcomes Henrietta Red from Nashville! London’s Rochelle Canteen takes over Sailor in Brooklyn! SingleThread x Kato x Harbor House: one night only! The pop-ups keep popping up, coast to coast, with pairings that can feel either intuitive or random, or anywhere in between.

Sometimes I’m tempted, often I am not. As a diner, I can appreciate the chance to try a visiting chef’s food, especially if they’re someone I either know and love from elsewhere, or have admired from afar. But I’ve also been burned by chaotic services, disjointed menus, and overwhelming crowds at poorly planned collabs. If dining out is like live theater, pop-ups are the improv of the genre—exciting when executed well; deeply cringe-inducing when not.

Although pop-ups have existed in various forms for at least the past decade (i.e. cookbook tours, guest chef residencies, bars partnering with chefs), Covid was the undeniable turning point in pop-up history. With restaurants shuttered, out-of-work chefs got creative, cooking in unexpected places and advertising via social media.

The current moment—of restaurant-on-restaurant pop-up saturation—is a relatively recent phenomenon. Is it an outgrowth of the pandemic-era spirit of collaboration, or a shrewd marketing opportunity in an increasingly crowded restaurant (and food media) landscape? A bit of both, I’d posit, along with the simple truth that chefs like hanging out with other chefs, and this is a formal route to doing so that also enables them to drum up a little attention along the way. The fact that reservation platforms, credit card companies, and deep-pocketed brands are now competing to subsidize these events? Icing on the cake.

Still, I have questions: How do these events come together? Who’s organizing them (Chef-owners? Publicists? Brands with $$$?), and how do they ensure things run smoothly for all parties? Even with corporate sponsorship, is anyone making money off this equation? And, more existentially: Why do chefs continue perpetuating pop-ups, and have we reached the point of no return?

I, as merely one part of the equation (the occasional guest), don’t have all the answers. So I assembled a panel of experts—chefs and restaurateurs in Los Angeles and New York who have been on all sides of the setup, to unpack why we’re living in this moment of peak pop-up, and where we go from here.

Brooks Headley, owner, Superiority Burger in New York, who has popped up at several restaurants in L.A.: Chi Spacca, the erstwhile Cafe 2001, and a few weeks ago, at Salazar in Frogtown, where he teamed up for a supercharged collaboration with Quarter Sheets, Diego Argoti (Estrano Things), and pastry chef Lo Hoang (Largwa). He’s also hosted several visiting chefs at SB, including Lion Dance Cafe (Oakland) and Salty Lunch Lady’s Little Luncheonette (Queens).

Nancy Silverton, owner, Mozza Restaurant Group, whose collected restaurants have hosted dozens of visiting chefs, ranging from Headley, above, to L’Industrie Pizzeria (New York) to Masala y Maiz (Mexico City) to The Publican (Chicago).

Mackenzie Hoffman, co-owner, Stir Crazy, which has hosted local L.A. restaurants including Baby Bistro, below, and Yess, along with visitors like Rita’s (London); and recently traveled to Ojai to pop up at Pinyon.

Nick Tamburo, owner, Smithereens in New York, who recently popped up at Troubadour Bread & Bistro in Healdsburg and Baby Bistro in L.A.; and has hosted restaurants including Oyster Oyster (DC), Pickerel (Providence), and Locust (Nashville), among others.

Brian Bornemann, owner, Crudo e Nudo, which started as a roving pop-up before finding a permanent home in Santa Monica. The restaurant recently celebrated its 5th anniversary by hosting a weeklong pop-up series with visiting chefs and winemakers, including the teams from Little Fish (L.A.), Betsy (Altadena), and Scribe Winery (Sonoma), among others.

Andy Schwartz, co-owner, Baby Bistro, which began life as a pop-up at L.A. restaurants including Normandie Club and Dudley Market before opening in Victor Heights last year. Since opening, they have hosted visiting chefs like Tamburo, above, and Elijah DeLeon of Rustic Canyon (L.A.), and have popped up at other venues such as Snail Bar (San Francisco).

These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.

The Angel: Pop-ups sure seem like a lot of work. What’s the appeal?

Brooks Headley: Well, first thing is, I despise the word ‘pop-up’ [mimics vomiting noise]. I just call them events. And I like to do them because I learn a lot. Whether people come to SB or I go to other places—if you don’t learn something, like one really good thing, then what’s the point?

Nancy Silverton: Strictly from a business perspective, all of us in the struggling restaurant world are constantly trying to figure out ways of bringing business or attention to our restaurants. Whether it’s just business or it’s just attention, pop-ups are something to talk about.

Some collaborations will involve situations where I get so excited about eating the food at a restaurant and I have this unquenchable thirst to share these discoveries. I taste a bite at Masala y Maiz and I’m like, I need to bring that to L.A. And what that trickles down to is: an opportunity for our staff to learn and get excited by somebody else’s food, for our customers to be able to share in those flavors, and for more marketing opportunities. There’s really no end to the benefit.

Mackenzie Hoffman: The benefit first and foremost is staff retention and excitement. The joy and pride that the team gets by hosting is really cool—I quite literally see them showing up with their laces a little bit tighter, they’re buttoned up a little bit more, and they want to show off. They want to host, and make sure that they’re providing the visiting team the utmost respect and support.

Each one of these pop-ups turns into this convivial, communal party of sorts…I think it generates excitement, generates community, generates trust, and just makes our community a little bit bigger, and smaller at the same time. More friends, if you will.

Nick Tamburo: The main thing is just being able to connect with these people and learn from each other. When you’re a younger cook, you can stage in someone else’s kitchen to keep learning, or go work somewhere else. But when you’re later in your career, pop-ups are basically another opportunity to either travel somewhere and learn in someone else’s kitchen or bring someone to yours. There are definitely techniques or ideas on our menus that are inspired by some of these visiting chefs.

I mean, this is, you know, why we get out of bed in the morning—to do stuff like this.

How do you decide who to collaborate with? Is it born from organic, mutual desire, or is there a matchmaker component from an external party?

Brian Bornemann: [For the birthday pop-ups], I had a bunch of chef friends already in mind to reach out to, who were already connected to the space so it felt organic and not forced... In general, I find, if it’s another chef who has a restaurant, and you can collaborate on a menu for a day and you guys get along enough to communicate well, [pop-ups] are a good way to lighten the load, and just hang out and drink wine and talk shop, which is really half the point.

Tamburo: There are a million different ways these things come together. Sometimes I reach out cold to a chef I’ve always admired but never met [which was the case with Dylan Watson Brawn of Ernst, who recently visited from Berlin]. Others are more organic—the one we did with this ramen shop in Providence called Pickerel happened because their owner, Scott, came in to dine at Smithereens a bunch of times. We got to talking, he’s a cool dude, a great guest, so we decided to invite him down… What we’re really looking for is someone who’s going to complement what we already do, or someone that we’re inspired by and want to learn from.

Headley: We make sure we only invite people that we either love as people or we love their food. We don’t do anything in between. I wouldn’t do it for somebody who I didn’t know, or somebody whose food I don’t love. We’ve done it for a lot of people whose food I love, and sometimes we’ll do it for people I love even if I’m not that crazy about their food, but that’s rare.

Let’s talk about the logistics of pulling off a pop-up: you have one restaurant essentially invading another one’s space, bringing unfamiliar people, ingredients, and ways of working, for a meal you only get one chance to pull off. How do you ensure things don’t go off the rails?

Andy Schwartz: We have a tiny space. We really only have room for one other person on the line, and no one else in the front of house. And we cannot do something where the guest suffers. So now we have a system, a format. One chef comes, they collaborate with [chef and co-owner] Miles [Thompson], they get to represent their restaurant and their food, and we fold it into our exact style of operation… If we had to remake the restaurant and service in order to give the level of service that we want to give, it would not be worth it.

Hoffman: I approach it like I do any sort of private event, which is a lot of planning, so that execution is very seamless. There’s a lot of information exchanged in the beginning… I appreciate a lot of collaboration beforehand to get on the same page, because everyone is so invested in this, and neither person really comes out winning financially [Editor’s note: more on this in a minute]. We do a lot up front to make sure everyone feels super confident and very comfortable when the actual day comes, because there’s nothing worse than you having one shot and it going off the rails.

Tamburo: We usually split the menu. We’ll ask the guest chef to contribute four to six dishes, then we’ll plan our dishes around that to make a balanced menu. And we’ll give them first pick of ingredients, so we don’t have, like, multiple asparagus dishes.

I think both parties have to go into it with the right spirit, or it can be a little trying. When Locust came, it was so fun and celebratory. They brought almost their entire team, and a lot of their equipment, plus costumes and masks to wear during service… To make one of these happen, logistically, it does involve a lot of work on both parties. But if the excitement is there, then it makes it a lot easier.

If you’re hosting the pop-up, is there anything you can do to make it easier on the visiting restaurant?

Headley: I make sure that if a restaurant is coming in from out of town, we take fucking care of them. We make sure any help they need, we do it. You want us to make all your food? We’ll make it. Do you want us to make part of your food? We’ll do it. I want them to come and have an excellent time. I don’t want them to have to work the line—I want them to work the room, have fun, and make sure it’s a great experience, because I’ve had many experiences where I’m doing events elsewhere and they couldn’t care less.

Silverton: I do feel responsible to be in town when these collaborations go on, so I never schedule them when I’m not and I never make plans when I know somebody is coming. I think it’s so important to be a host. I am with them to make sure that their experience is as positive as possible, with all the support that they need. I love to curate food from around the city that they might be interested in tasting, whether it’s a Langer’s pastrami sandwich or a burrito from Burritos Las Palmas. Whatever we can to make the experience memorable on their end and make them feel that they’re not just here to work hard.

I want to understand if there’s a financial benefit to either side for a pop-up. Who’s paying for it, and is anyone making money off of it? Who’s covering travel, food costs, and labor? And how do you divvy up the revenue from your event?

Silverton: There’s a phenomenon happening in the restaurant world right now, in which credit card companies and reservation platforms are very competitive [...] and they’re offering all sorts of opportunities to attract and retain customers. They’re offering huge dollar amounts to join them, but they’re also offering to support events such as bringing in restaurant tours from around the world. So we’re using those available dollars to help market our restaurant.

The visiting chef does not make money, and they know it, but they’re there to market their restaurant, or they want the excuse to come to L.A. They get their travel paid for, they visit a new city, and we always give a food stipend, so they’re not leaving poorer than when they arrived.

Bornemann: There are a million ways to split it up, but here are the main two: As the visiting chef, you show up with everything and manage your own food costs and do all of your own purchasing and labor. You get the place that’s hosting to give you a check for all of the food sales minus sales tax, and then you do the math. I spent 900 bucks on product, I made $2,000 in sales, easy. Another way is: you work with the hosting restaurant and say, Hey guys, I don’t want to lug anything. Let’s order these ingredients. Let’s put together this prep list, and when I show up, I’ll expect these things to be here in this condition, and I’ll do this part and we’ll do that part together. In that case, the host orders all the product, and keeps all of the revenue, but they might agree to pay you a chef fee.

[For the anniversary pop-ups] I was lucky enough to get Resy/AmEx to help cover the chef fees… I think if you’re a credit card company, if you’re able to make some good noise for your cardholders with an event, and all it takes is, here’s a few thousand bucks, that definitely helps.

Hoffman: For us, basically, all food sales go to the visiting team, and we keep all of the beverage sales. If we have to do some heavy lifting with ordering beforehand, I might take away the cost of goods. And based on a couple of other variables, I have charged a small “operational fee,” which accounts for things like credit card processing fees, linens, water, and insurance. But for the most part, they get 100% of the net food sales and we keep beverage.

Tamburo: The most traditional format I’ve seen is that the host restaurant covers the traveling costs for the visiting chef, and all the food costs, and might be able to provide a small stipend for the chef. Then they keep all of the sales. So the visiting chef kind of just gets a free trip out of it.

Headley: The point is not to make money. I mean, maybe some people make some money on them. I usually don’t. It is nice to get paid back for them. But I am also totally willing to do a pop-up where I get no financial reward from it. It’s just another kind of reward.