• Danny Meyer will open a new restaurant in the Gramercy Park Hotel this November. Now it has a name. It will be called Maialino, or "little pig" in Italian, which was Meyer's nickname when he lived in Rome. [GS]
• Today in restaurant reviews: Frank Bruni issues his final review for the Times this week, giving the decidedly DIY eatery The Redhead a star; Time Out's Jay Cheshes hands out four out of five stars to Daniel Boulud's DBGB; the Daily News' Danyelle Freeman is pretty disappointed with Civetta; Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton samples the $100 platter of fried chicken at David Chang's Momofuku; and Alan Richman of GQ files a report on Sorella on the Lower East Side.
• Will Goldfarb and Kevin Pomplun's barbecue food truck, Picnick Smoked, has only been open a few days, but it's already totally overwhelmed. [GS]

• Jeffrey Chodorow says he plans to turn his failed steakhouse, Center Cut, into a seafood shack-style spot called Ed's Chowder House. Ed Brown, the chef and owner of Eighty One, will be his partner in the venture. [NYT]
• Like father, like son, apparently: The new chef at Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Perry Street is JGV's eldest son, Cedric Vongerichten. [TFB]
• John Fraser says he's planning to expand his UWS eatery, Dovetail. [VV]
• Butchers are the new food world rock stars, in case you haven't heard. [ABC]
• Bed-Stuy gets its first speakeasy, SarahJames, this weekend. [GS]
• The guy who owns most of the Burger Kings in Brooklyn and Queens has gone bankrupt, just in case you happen to be interested in that tidbit. [Crain's]
• Make of this what you will: Sales of bottled water have been going down while at the same time whiskey sales have been on the rise.