The West Village's storied Magnolia Bakery was shuttered by the Health Department Thursday due to a mouse infestation. Spokespeople predicted the Bleecker Street shop would reopen today, but a call to the bakery has confirmed that it remains closed.
• The new edition of the Michelin Guide is out and five spots earn a coveted three stars: Per Se, Masa, Le Bernardin, Jean Georges, and Daniel. [GS]
• Café Boulud reopens this Wednesday following a month-long refresh. [TONY]
• A roundup of restaurants opening in the next week or so. [TONY]
• Carnival, the amusement park/nightclub owned by (and located above) Bowlmor Lanes, soft opened this weekend. The grand opening this coming weekend will be hosted by none other than Paris Hilton. [NYP]
• A look back at Gourmet, which is shutting down after 68 years. [Gawker]
• Another sign o' the times: McDonald's is opening inside the Louvre. [NYDN]
• Not surprisingly, the prospect of a TGI Friday's opening across from the Greenmarket in Union Square has provoked all sorts of outrage. [Eater]
• On a related note (and notwithstanding the economic downturn), chain stores are rapidly expanding across the city, in case you haven't noticed. [NYT]
• Magnolia Bakery, coming off the heels of a minor scandal at its West Village location, reports that it's opening a Grand Central location this fall. [VV]
• Places to eat in the Hamptons should you happen to be on a budget. [Zagat]
• In his next-to-last review for the Times, Frank Bruni upgrades Danny Meyer's Eleven Madison Park from three stars to four, making it Bruni's sixth four-star review in five years and making Daniel Humm, Eleven Madison Park's 32-year-old chef, an extraordinarily happy man, suffice it to say. [NYT]
• Related: Over on Diner's Journal, Bruni explains the big decision. [NYT/DJ]
• Other reviews this week: Time Out's Jay Cheshes gives Aureole four out of five stars; Restaurant Girl comes away from the Standard Grill very impressed; the Post's Steve Cuozzo is thrilled with the Standard Grill, too; and Bloomberg News's Ryan Sutton gives two stars out of four to SHO Shaun Hergatt.
• As rumored a few months back, the Sant Ambroeus team is taking over the former Lever House space and turning it into Casa Lever. [NYT]
• Todd English has signed on to oversee the kitchen at the Great Jones Hotel, a 13-story hotel that is currently under construction. [Eater]
♦ 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]
Pictured are a pair of Faux-nolo Blahniks made from cake and icing by I Dream of Cake's Shinmin Li, size "33" in honor of Google VP Marissa Mayer's birthday at her Four Seasons penthouse. Mayer also flew in cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery, the Manhattan cupcakery featured in Sex and the City, a product placement which is largely considered to have kicked off the sticky-sweet treat trend amongst the Scary Sadshaws set. According to one cupcake connoisseur familiar with Magnolia, Mayer could have gotten better desserts in San Francisco: "It's not worth flying them out from New York." But that's just the kind of fanciful display of devil-may-care wealth that Mayer is becoming increasingly well-known for. (Photo by Rachel Lea Fisher)
Lazy uptown "Sex and the City" devotees will no longer have to pack little Charlotte and Gingerly into the double-wide stroller and head downtown for their Magnolia Bakery cupcakes, the aroma of which whisks them immediately back to what they believe were their carefree single days of the late 90s but were actually the most unhappy period of their lives—only they just can't remember, as the changing of diapers apparently obliterates all personal history and experience, leaving formerly interesting people as baby-serving shells of humanity. What were we talking about? Oh right: Cupcakes! 69th and Columbus, coming in a couple months!
Magnolia Bakery, the house of cupcakes and whatnots made famous by Sex and the City to the extent that lines of the lonely wrap around its corner most every night, has been closed down by the Department of Health. Would-be Mirandas and the like find their lives even more empty, if that's possible.
