• Rumor has it Iacopo Falai is in "early talks" to open up a space inside Andre Balazs's new Standard Hotel in the meatpacking district. [Eater]
• Chocolate Bar will reopen in a new West Village location on April 28. [NYO]
• The price of certain French cheeses quadruples on March 22. Ouch! [TONY]
• Tim and Nina Zagat are launching a new food website. And The Atlantic is launching a new food "channel" tomorrow. [GS, AdAge]
• Korean food is taking over America, apparently. [WSJ]
• Sign 'o the times: Arby's first Brooklyn outpost is opening in the landmarked space formerly occupied by steakhouse Gage & Tollner. [NYDN]
• Chefs Daniel Boulud, Floyd Cardoz, and Marco Canora discuss the biz. [GS]
• Matt Oliver, doorman at M2 and brunch at Merkato 55, chats nightlife. [BB]
• Bourdain on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares: "It's a circus of cruelty, like shooting fish in a barrel with a cut-down 12-gauge shotgun. There's no cooking. It's just a bunch of dimwits—the lame, the halt and the delusional." [EMD]

He's called her a "bobble-head" and a "freakazoid," and has accused her of "peddling crack to kids" with her Dunkin' Donuts commercials, but if Anthony Bourdain's comments about Rachael Ray in the past have caused her any psychic pain, she isn't saying so. In an interview with Nightline airing tonight, Ray tells interviewer Cynthia McFadden that she "absolutely loves" Bourdain and has "an enormous amount of respect" for him. We're not convinced the feeling is mutual, but we have a feeling we'll find out for sure soon enough. [ABC News]

Could stress and anxiety over the state of the economy explain why so many celebrity chefs are getting a bit belligerent as of late? Anthony Bourdain went out of his way to launch a verbal assault on Alice Waters recently. And the war between Mario Batali and Gordon Ramsay has been heating up in recent days, too. Apparently, Batali made some critical comments about the Hell's Kitchen star more than a year ago, a move that prompted Ramsay to start calling Batali "fanta pants" in honor of the orange shorts he's long been fond of.

• You can't afford to eat there any more, but you'll be pleased to hear that Daniel is still a four-star restaurant, according to Frank Bruni, who says Adam Tihany's recent redesign is "genuinely gorgeous." [NYT]
• Jason Pomeranc's Thompson LES is opening a rooftop bar. [GS]
• Gramercy Tavern gives away free $24.07 gift cards, chaos ensues. [GS]
• Chocolate Bar is re-opening at a new location in the West Village. [NYO]
• Kevin Adey is taking over as chef at Park Slope's Bussaco. [TONY]
• Your Tony Bourdain rant o' the day: "Alice Waters annoys the living shit out of me... There's something very Khmer Rouge about [her]." [DCist via Eater]
• Spotted: Adam Platt's photo appears in Conde Nast Traveler. [Eater]

♦ The NYC Wine & Food Festival came to town this past weekend and just about every chef, foodie, and critic was on hand. Among the highlights: Rachael Ray hosted a Burger Bash on Friday (Katie Lee Joel took first prize); Tom Colicchio broke out his guitar and later chatted with Eater about his upcoming plans; Ferran Adria took the stage with Anthony Bourdain and Eric Asimov; Gordon Ramsay vented; Rocco DiSpirito showed off his dancing skills; Bobby Flay mentioned his plans to re-open Bolo; Scott Conant talked about his upcoming eatery in Miami; Marco Maccioni gave details on the restaurant he has planned for the Beekman Hotel; and everyone in attendance generally ate and drank way too much. More here and here.

♦ The 2009 Michelin guide will hit bookstores tomorrow. Masa has moved up to three stars, joining Per Se, Jean Georges and Le Bernardin. And Momofuku Ko, Adour Alain Ducasse, and Gilt were all added to the two-star list. [NYT]
♦ David Burke is opening up a fish bar called Fishtail David Burke on East 62nd Street. He's also changing the name of restaurant he co-owned with Donatella Arpaia, david burke & donatella, to david burke townhouse. [Zagat]
♦ Anthony Bourdain's two favorite dive bars? Holland Bar and the Distinguished Wakamba Lounge, in case you feel stalking him. [Page Six Mag]

♦ And some have suggested that no one wants to ring the closing bell these days? Bobby Flay turned up at the NASDAQ this afternoon to handle the honors as part of the promo campaign for the New York City Wine & Food Festival. [Eater]
♦ A first look at Chloe on Ludlow Street. [GS]
♦ Recession special! The five-course game dinner at Daniel is $495 per person. [Zagat]
♦ Comfort food: It's what's for dinner. [NYDN]
♦ Anthony Bourdain's fantasy party? A barbie with Marco Pierre White and Keith Richards, among others. [P6]
♦ A look inside the new Magnolia Bakery in Rockefeller Center. [Eater]

♦ Does the financial meltdown mean the end of bottle service in New York? [DBTH, Gawker, GNML]
♦ A new study shows that Food Network hosts are pretty lousy at following food safety guidelines; Paula Deen, FYI, is the worst. [Super Chef via Eater]
♦ Death & Co.'s David Kaplan has gone to court to stop his building's landlord from evicting the bar over noise violations. [NYO]
♦ Anthony Bourdain enjoys eating "bootleg foods" like "illegal cheese." [Gothamist]
♦ Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern eats rancid cheese and fermented animal parts for a living and yet says he's never gotten sick on the job. [amNY]
♦ A new food magazine called Swallow is launching next month. [GS]
♦ Trader Joe's is opening its first Brooklyn outpost next Friday. [BP]

• Jean-Georges Vongerichten is a partner in a new pizza venture by Sullivan Street Bakery's Jim Leahey. [Gail Greene]

Lauren Bush, the niece of the president and girlfriend of fashion scion David Lauren, is 24 today. Hope David got you something nice, hon! Warm birthday wishes to Desiree Gruber, uber-publicist, Project Runway exec producer, wife of Kyle MacLachlan, and dog fanatic. She's 41 today. Television chef Anthony Bourdain is 52. Director Sidney Lumet is 84. Gay activist Larry Kramer turns 73. And hedge fund manager Julian Robertson is 76.

We didn't think there were many things that would make us want to replace our 60-inch LCD flat screen with an old-timey radio, but as Copyranter points out, this ad for celebrity chef-venturer and Top Chef guest-asshole Anthony Bourdain is probably one of them. We're not exactly sure what the context is for this particular nightmare, though we like to imagine Bourdain is affecting his best Gollum impression for the HD cameras as he pokes his head out of the world's largest vat of Shark's Fin Soup on the southern coast of Borneo. We only hope he's just peeling a celery stalk beneath that savory surface, and not taking a 1080p.

One of the food world's most prominent figures, alternately thought of as a tells-it-like-it-is iconoclast or a bombastic douchebag, Jersey native Bourdain attended Vassar before dropping out and washing ashore at the Culinary Institute of America. The '80s weren't very productive years for Bourdain: he eventually sobered up and went on to run the kitchens of a handful of mid-range Manhattan restaurants in the '90s.

Celebrity chef and "bad boy" Anthony Bourdain dishes about his life: he travels so much, it "never stops." He has no time to cook anymore. Sometimes he wakes up in a bland hotel and doesn't know where the hell he is. He's an absentee father. Does he plan on taking time off to spend time with his infant daughter? "I don't know." But he brought her to a shoot! He avoids endorsements and thinks those other people who endorse Dunkin Donuts or the Olive Garden are "silly and degrading...Of course it's for the money! Why can't I get that through my head, and why am I having such a problem doing that myself?" We wonder that every day as well. [Onion AV Club]

Potheaded and alluringly cicatricial television personality Padma Lakshmi has finally ended things with her hubby, the apparently very famous author Salman Rushdie. "Salman Rushdie has agreed to divorce his wife, Padma Lakshmi, because of her desire to end their marriage," spokeswoman Jin Auh said in a statement issued to Reuters. Weirdly put, right? As if it's so big of him to condescend to divorce her! As you've decided by means of this scientific poll, she is now purportedly dating Anthony Bourdain. Ooh good call, we'd bone him in a heartbeat.

"Kitchen Confidential fans will want to read Kitchen Con by Irish resto critic Trevor White when it's published here next month," writes Manhattan User's Guide—but we're willing to bet fans of Kitchen Confidential will probably just want to re-read Kitchen Confidential again. White's first book looks to be a Bourdain "homage," a foul-mouthed free wheeling rampage through the culinary world. But whereas Bourdain actually worked in restaurants, all White ever did was write about them. Don't get us wrong, White certainly knows how to service a gentleman. One gentleman in particular.

The 2007 James Beard Awards, as the NYT's food reporter Florence Fabricant noted in the Times, are taking place at Lincoln Center on May 7th. Yup, that Lincoln Center, the one without a kitchen. This, clearly, presents a quandary for an awards ceremony ostensibly honoring the nation's top chefs by inviting them to cook. Chef-turned-reality star Anthony Bourdain, one of this year's non-honorees, really no like.