Michael Lippman

Okay, so by now you've probably heard about the lawsuit. Wolfgang Puck suing Wolfgang Zweiner for opening a steakhouse in Beverly Hills called "Wolfgang's" -- just a couple of blocks away from Wolfgang Puck's steakhouse, "Cut". Hmmm. Eater L.A. reports: Puck claims Zwiener's products are inferior and that patrons will be injured when they seek a meal created by a "world famous and award winning chef, and instead, receive a pedestrian meal from an investment banke...

So my parents were in town this past week. God bless them, they’ve been visiting from NY every couple of months -- because I have a 2-year-old daughter, and my brother has a 2-month-old daughter, and so us flying to NY is not so easy. They arrived last Thursday afternoon and while we hadn't planned to see them until Friday, at the last minute everyone was free and we thought, let’s go for an early dinner tonight! I got right on the phone and called Anisette, Alain Giraud’s ...

Jean Georges Vongerichten: "Follow your cravings." Steve Raichlen (barbecue maven, TV personality), when asked about beef versus pork in the barbecue world: "I don't know, that's like missionary versus gal on top, it's a preference thing." So then I asked "which is missionary and which is gal on top?" He paused and said, "Good question." Richard Betts (winemaker, sommelier at The Little Nell): "It's not about the specific wine, it's about the spe...

It's Monday night, and I'm trolling around wondering what to eat. M Cafe for macrobiotic food? Wolfgang's Steakhouse in Beverly Hills? Clementine for a citrus arugula salad? Uh oh. I could be driving around for a long time, fantasizing about all the possibilities. My phone rings, it's David, the cook at Mozza, my new friend. He has a pitch. Gordon Ramsay at the London. Genius. I was in love with Gordon Ramsay for the first season of Hell's Kitchen. At first, I had no idea he was a 3 star Mic...

Axe is a controversial place. Some people love it, think it’s the best restaurant in Venice; others find it pretentious, uncomfortable, over-rated, loud, grating. I fall definitively into the first camp. I love it so much that I perversely love that others hate it; plus, I've found a way to rationalize its quirks into things I also love. You sit on benches with no backs -- I say, it’s very Zen, it’s forcing me to hold my posture. Occasionally, the service sucks, like the wai...

Hatfield's rules. Hatfield's rocks. We had 14 courses and almost every one was incredible. Yay Hatfield's. Hatfield's Hatfield's hip hip hooray. The lamb blew my mind. The chicken with foie gras was incredible. We had really good wine. The croque madame, genius. The halibut, the octopus salad, so good. I took pictures. Let me show them to you! While I could pretend that I know how to write about this meal intelligently and professionally, I don't. I haven't been blogging for that long, and I...