In the same cavernous space that held the inappropriately named English is Italian (turns out English is the New Failure), Jeffrey Chodorow's newest restaurant Wild Salmon opens to the public today, Good Friday. Last night, So-So Thursday, we tried it out. It seems to be a Chodorow signature these days to have weird whatnots hanging from the ceiling. Instead of Kobe Club's swords, Wild Salmon features a school of 249 copper injection-mold salmon hanging by fishing line from the ceiling. Caught in the wild race upstream, the mildly abstracted fish bring to mind gilded spermatazoa. One is surprised not to find a giant ovum on one end of the restaurant.

Restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow and Times food critic Frank Bruni have mad cow beef. Think of it as Suge Knight v. P. Diddy without guns or any sort of street cred. Ever since Bruni flayed Choad's Kobe Club, the two have been in a cat fight—well, mostly it's been Choad on Brundle, with the latter disdaining the former. But Chodorow is opening up Wild Salmon on April 6th, the latest avatar in the space where English is Italian died the death of a thousand cuts. There's a new (unheard of) chef from Seattle, Charles Ramseyer—and a chance for the feud to dissolve! On the other hand, there's the chance for it to escalate, something we would love to see. Bruni has three options: love it, hate it, ignore it. Each action has its own opposite and not at all equal reaction. Here's our quick flow chart explaining.

Via Publishers Marketplace:

It's hard to believe that New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni's ears didn't prick up and his tastebuds didn't start gushing when he opened his inbox today (while clad in a leopard-pattern robe, we hope!) and saw UrbanDaddy's write up of Cheetah's. It's a gentleman's club/sushi restaurant on 43rd street! (So handy for the Times-folk.) We are so going, because we just think raw fish and naked ladies goes good together and also constitutes the kind of lifestyle experience we want others to know that we crave.

New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni launched a fierce mortar attack at Keith McNally's mainstay Balthazar today on his Diner's Journal, citing inexcusable risotto, overcooked chicken, chaos (CHAOS!) and discomfort as casus belli.

Today's Dining section of the Times stars food critic Frank Bruni's review of room service during a week spent in hotels. There are questions, and there are answers. There are answers that look like questions. There are also significant references to Bruni-hating chef Jeffrey Chodorow, which remind us that the chef is implicated in the McNally-Gansevoort Meatpacking wars. We retreated into the warm confusion of a group IM chat to get to the bottom of it all.

Frank Bruni needs to get drunk more often. That's our only conclusion after reading today's two star review of uptown Italian Sfoglia. Usually you can feel Frank at least trying to restrain himself from overwriting, but get a few glasses into him and all caution is cast to the wind. Yes, he will have that last metaphor, thank you very much!

You know, it's only been a week since his vow to destroy Frank Bruni, but restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow has already proven that he can blog like the pros.

• The fake magazine inside GQ is sponsored by J.C. Penney. It's also called MANdatory. [AdRants]
  

Yes, yes, that Frank Bruni review. We admit to being flummoxed. We're like deer in the headlights, frozen with fear, unable to avert our gaze. Let's be honest, a piece that starts off with the lines "It may be laughable when someone says he gets Penthouse magazine for the articles. It's no joke when I say I went to the Penthouse Executive Club for the steaks," defies parody even as it begs for it. Bruni butches it up throughout the entire review, giving as much attention to the strippers as he does to the strips, although he winds up paying more mind to the meat (bone-in, rib-eye for two, porterhouse for two) than the, uh, fish.

In covering the recent Jeffrey Chodorow-Frank Bruni feud, The New Yorker's Lauren Collins reported that "Chodorow said that his next restaurant will have a Pacific Northwest theme, and added that he was offering a trip to Seattle to any employee who blocks Bruni from its premises." Today's Post ups the ante, as Braden Keil quotes the disgruntled restaurateur:"I'm telling my staff that the first person to recognize Bruni at any of my restaurants will be given a free trip for two to the Caribbean." Whether this change of prize is a result of confused reporting or merely bluster on Chodorow's part (calls to all parties involved were unmade as of our post time) we look forward to the inevitable moment when Jeffrey declares that "I will buy a villa in Tuscany for the first person who brings me Frank Bruni's giant midsection on a platter."

• Steven Johnson deconstructs David Brooks' insane, insane, insane Sunday Times column on hipster parents. (Insane!) He thinks Brooks has never listened to Sufjan Stevens. [StevenBerlinJohnson]
  

• Who will succeed Bill Keller as Times executive editor: Jill Abramson or Dean Baquet? Get set for the inevitable Hillary-Obama comparisons. Either way, oddly, the real job worth having seven years from now will be digital fella Jon Landman's. [WWD]
  

• The beef (sorry) between Jeffrey Chodorow and the NYT's Frank Bruni claims another victim, and gets even weirder. [Eater]
  

Two weeks ago Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni reviewed Kobe Club, the newest highly-contrived chowhouse from restaurateur/felon/Rocco DiSpirito co-star Jeffrey Chodorow. The Brunster did not find favor with the place, granting it zero stars and noting that "it presents too many insipid or insulting dishes at prices that draw blood from anyone without a trust fund or an expense account." Today Chodorow strikes back, taking out a full-page ad in the back of the Dining section (click to enlarge) that rambles on in crazy-person tiny type about how Bruni is out to get him and ends with this inevitable warning:

Restaurateur David Chang (mmm, asian burrito!) makes our hearts go pitter-pat. So we wanted to be right there with him as he anxiously awaits reviewage of his new-ish Ssam Bar by notorious Times touch-football tackler Frank Bruni. (See what we did there?) Luckily, Eater gave him the opportunity to share his feelings and predictions with us. Chang forsees a one-star review for Momofuku Ssam, however, if he gets a goose egg, he has a plan:

• Vanity Fair Germany goes with odd choice of actor Til Schweiger—could you forget his turn in "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo"?—with his eyes closed and holding a lamb for their first-ever cover. [Vanity Fair Germany]
  

• Wonder if Anna Wintour will use her clout for the forthcoming Jessica Joffe for Target line. [Fashionista]
  

Visitors to TV-hogging English celebu-chef Gordon Ramsay's restaurant in The London hotel on 54th Street yesterday found something missing from their New York Times—the Dining section.

Today's DI/DO shows the two diametrically-opposed facets of food critic Frank Bruni's personality: He's both the avenging angel of the high-end nibbles set, and the whimsical stylist with tongue in a cheek full of truffles. In Batman mode, Bruni decries the trend toward dictatorial dining experiences, where the cruel culinary overlords charge you a ridiculous (and often unspecified) amount of money to choke down tiny portions of whatever's on offer, whether you like it or not. Batman blames the huge publishing deals, the TV programs, the diners themselves ("It's largely our doing. Chefs and restaurants wouldn't behave the way they do if we penalized them for it, instead of readily demonstrating our fealty."), and finally dons the hairshirt and takes his own share of responsibility: