From Steve Fishman's chat with Vanity Fair editor-in-chief (and restaurateur) Graydon Carter in this week's issue of New York:

• Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show debuted last night. The reviews were mixed, although he did very well in the ratings, not surprisingly. [Variety, THR]
• Playboy Enterprises named Scott Flanders as its CEO yesterday. [NYP]
• Lawyers for author J.D. Salinger have filed suit against an author who is publishing a book billed as a sequel to The Catcher in the Rye. [NYT]
• Five magazines—Popular Photography, Flying, Boating, Sound & Vision and American Photo—have been sold to Bonnier Corp. by Hachette. [Crain's]
• Paris Hilton and producer Michael Hirschorn have teamed up to bring a version of Paris Hilton's My New BFF to Dubai. Yes, Dubai. No joke. [Variety]

Longtime New York Observer editor-in-chief Peter Kaplan's 15-year tenure ended yesterday; last night, Jesse Oxfeld compiled a great, 2,000 word piece of quotes and anecdotes on Kaplan, which Daily Intel ran. It is, as one commenter noted, perfect. My three favorite quotes, after the jump:

Ron Perelman already has a hand in the restaurant business: He's an investor in Graydon Carter's Monkey Bar and he also happens to own the building that houses Carter's Waverly Inn. But he has a new venture in the works! He's reopening the Blue Parrot, the margarita bar/restaurant in East Hampton that's been closed since 2006. Ralph Lauren had originally planned to take over the space; when his plans fell through, Perelman swooped in. And he's assembled quite the team to give the venue another lease on life.

So, the trial of the dastardly family member accused of swindling old NYC high society queen Brooke Astor is underway, and guess who took the stand yesterday? Our old friend, Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter! He had a sad tale to tell (with a silver lining!):

Graydon Carter appeared as a witness yesterday at the trial of Anthony Marshall, the son of Brooke Astor who stands accused of swindling his mother when she was suffering from Alzheimer's. The Vanity Fair editor recalled the three articles he asked her to write for the magazine in the late '90s (she was paid $1,000 for her efforts). And he described their regular lunches at the Knickerbocker Club and the Four Seasons, and the time when he even managed to convince her to travel downtown to dine at Da Silvano.

• Daniel Boulud unveiled his new DBGB to the press on Saturday. A menu devoted to 14 different kinds of sausage, two dozen beers on tap, and more is coming your way in early June. [Zagat, TONY, Metromix, Eater, TFB]
• A roundup of restaurants scheduled to open this week. [TONY]
• Thomas Keller confirms Jonathan Benno is parting ways with Per Se. [GS]
• Danny Meyer confirms he's out of the race for Tavern on the Green. [NYO]
• Robert De Niro chats about his Locanda Verde, opening this week. [NYM]
• Warren 77, the new bar/restaurant by the Beatrice Inn's Matt Abramcyk, Chris Miller, and hockey star Sean Avery opened on Friday eve. [NYO, GS]
• Adam Platt gives high marks (and three stars) to Seasonal this week. [NYM]

"Has anyone else noticed that Anish Kapoor looks like an Indian Graydon Carter?" asks a reader. (Kapoor, in case you were unaware, is a famous sculptor and lives in Bombay.) To be perfectly honest, the thought never dawned on us! But looking at the photos side by side, we have to admit it: The reader has a point. Naturally, we have no idea if Kapoor set out to resemble the Vanity Fair editor. But if he really wants to make the similarity stick, he's probably going to have to make an investment in some hairspray. The South Asian climate is no friend of the seagull haircut, that's for sure.

Author Michael Gross suggested over the weekend that the Costume Institute Gala, hosted by Anna Wintour, represents the Vogue editor's attempt to compete with Graydon Carter's equally star-studded Vanity Fair Oscar bash every February. "Graydon and Anna are competing for the social crown. It's the social-status factor that defines those magazines," explained Gross. So did Graydon deign to stop off at last night's celeb-fest at the Met?

Just in case you want to know what you'll be reading in the September or October issue of Vanity Fair, two writers from the magazine are supposedly in Palm Beach today working on a story about the mysterious deaths of 21 polo horses a couple of weeks ago. [Page2Live]

Cartier celebrated its 100th anniversary in New York last night with a big bash inside its Fifth Avenue store. The celeb-heavy crowd included Elton John, Kate Hudson, Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake, Anne Hathaway, Rachel Weisz, Demi Moore, Eva Mendez, Ashley Olsen, Zac Posen, Martha Stewart, Graydon Carter, Jeff Zucker, Robbie Myers, Patti Smith, Russell Simmons and Julie Henderson, Tory Burch, Thakoon Panichgul, Erin Fetherston, Nanette Lepore, Phillip Lim, Coco Rocha, Hilary Rhoda, Daniel Boulud, Eli Weisel, Bruce Weber, Henrik Lundqvist, Ingrid Sischy, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Cornelia Guest, Susan Fales-Hill, Marjorie Gubelmann, Thora Birch, Chiara Clemente, Alexis Bryan, Dylan Lauren, Kelly Klein, and Cartier chief Frederic De Narp. [PMc, Wireimage, WWD]

• More trouble at Condé Nast: Ad pages at Vogue are down 31 percent this year and Vanity Fair experienced a 52 percent drop in May alone. The silver lining: Graydon Carter's lavish expense account remains unaffected. [NYP]
• The Sun really may be returning after all. As a website, that is. Seth Lipsky says "there's a business plan for the site in the formative stages." [Politico]
• This certainly isn't a good sign: It seems NBC is exploring the possibility of leasing out part of its headquarters in Washington D.C. [NYO]
• More desperate: NBC will air another season of Celebrity Apprentice. [THR]
• The Portfolio names/logos that never were (and more on its closing). [NYO]
• Al Roker will co-host a Weather Channel show called Wake Up With Al from 6 to 7 a.m. Because waking up with Al is what you've always dreamed of. [NYT]
• Oprah Winfrey's Twitter usage is way down. So much for that! [AdAge]

Tom Hanks was honored with the Chaplin Award at the at the 36th annual Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tribute last night, where he was joined by an A-list crowd including Julia Roberts, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Charlize Theron, Sally Field, Glenn Close, Adrien Brody, Mike Nichols, Graydon Carter, Sam Mendes, Christopher Walken, Christy Turlington and Ed Burns, Christie Brinkley, Lorne Michaels, Jeff Zucker, Nora Ephron and Nick Pileggi, David Gregory, Joy and Regis Philbin, John Patrick Shanley, Bruce Springsteen, Ninah and Michael Lynne, Leslie and Robert Zemeckis, Roger Waters, Jonathan Demme, Jeremy Irons, Abby McGrew and Eli Manning, Ken Burns, Nigel Barker, Rob Wiesenthal, and Gillian and Sylvester Miniter, along with Tom's wife Rita Wilson and son Colin Hanks. [PMc, Wireimage, FWD, USA Today, People]

• Frank Bruni takes on La Fonda del Sol and Txikito in the Times, giving the former two stars for Josh DeChellis' "less forced and more exuberant" cuisine, and the latter a single star for its "complicated" cooking. [NYT]
• The Post's Steve Cuozzo likes the murals, mirrors and lighting at Monkey Bar. But he thinks Graydon Carter could be doing a better job with the food. [NYP]
• Bradford Thompson, formerly the chef at the late Lever House in Midtown, is now behind the stove at Terrance Brennan's Bar Artisanal in Tribeca. [TFB]
• More on the Gates, the over-the-top lounge "with the attitude of Soho House, Rose Bar and GoldBar rolled into one marble-encrusted crazybox." [UD]

Graydon Carter, Robert De Niro, and Ron Perelman hosted a Vanity Fair-sponsored dinner at the State Supreme Court House last night to celebrate the opening of the Tribeca Film Festival. They were joined by Carter and De Niro's wives (Anna Scott Carter and Grace Hightower) and Tribeca Film Fest co-founders Craig Hatkoff and Jane Rosenthal, as well as a long list of guests, including Bono and Ali Hewson, Kanye West, Diane von Furstenberg, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Tory Burch and Lyor Cohen, André Leon Talley, Fran Lebowitz, Spike Lee ... (continued)

• "If there's a restaurant out there that you love, visit it. Eat there. Especially if it's in the two-star or three-star category, where I sense some of the greatest vulnerability of all," advises a very sensible Frank Bruni today. [NYT]
• On a less serious (and more creative) note, Bruni manages to slap Charles with a zero-star review and poke fun at Graydon Carter in today's Times. [NYT]
• Mayahuel, the new tequila bar by Death & Co's Phil Ward, opens in May. [UD]
• Gordon Ramsay at the London may not be around for much longer. [TFB]
• Todd English's rep has confirmed he's out at the Libertine. [GS]
• It's Pera that is planning to take over the Bar Martignetti space. [Eater]
• Fast food has reinvented itself and is now cool again, just so you know. [NYP]

It was Drew Barrymore's big night at the Ziegfeld yesterday when the new HBO movie, Grey Gardens, had its premiere. On hand for the occasion and afterparty at the Pierre: Drew's co-stars Jessica Lange and Jeanne Tripplehorn, as well as guests like Justin Long (left), Jimmy Fallon, Rudy and Judi Giuliani, Stanley Tucci, Steve Buscemi, Gay Talese, Arthur Sulzberger, Dan Abrams, Roger Friedman, Hilary Rhoda, Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone, Peter Som, Jason Wu, Erin Fetherston, Kristin Wiig, Tony Sirico, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Aerin Lauder, Albert Maysles, Ashleigh Banfield and Howard Gould, Monet Mazur, Debbie Harry, Selita Eubanks, the Beastie Boys' Mike D, Ad-Roc, and MCA, Aleksandra Baryshnikov, BD Wong, and the film's director, Michael Sucsy. [PMc, Wireimage, Getty, LAT, FWD]

• The Four Seasons may be having its moment as it celebrates its 50th, but things aren't so cheery across the street. John McDonald and Josh Picard's Lever House closes on Friday, supposedly for "renovations." [TFB]
• Jim Lahey's Co. gets a one-star from Frank Bruni in today's Times. [NYT]
• The Post's Steve Cuozzo isn't blown away by Per Se's à la carte menu. [NYP]
• Restaurants & Institutions list of the 100 top-grossing restaurants is online. Tavern on the Green, Smith & Wollensky, Tao, Buddakan, and Sparks Steak House round out New York City's top five. [R&I]
• A roundup of what's opened this week, and what's coming soon. [NYT]

While the other Inn, the Beatrice, faces an uncertain future, and Graydon Carter is getting ready to open his approachable Monkey Bar, his Waverly Inn restaurant sounds easier to get into than Marc Jacobs' pants.

A more cocksure man might have played along, but Graydon Carter's tenure atop Vanity Fair has apparently taught him the danger of hype and high expectations, so he's denied a flattering sex story.