This excerpt was originally published in Pre Shift, our newsletter for the hospitality industry. Subscribe for more first-person accounts, advice, and interviews.

Running independent bars and restaurants takes a special kind of passion. This is the first in a three-part series, in partnership with Verizon Business, sharing how the people behind some of our favorite small businesses make it work. From February 9-22, join Verizon for Small Business Days to see how they’re sharing the love.

This week, we’ve covered how one restaurant couple overcame a tumultuous opening day and what it’s like to run a small business with your spouse—in your own home.

For the final installment of this series, we gathered expert tips for effective partnership (in life and business) from some of our favorite restaurants across the country. Read on for that advice.

You have to divvy up the work

“They say if two people in any partnership agree all the time then one person is not needed. Our advice would be to find strength in your differences.” —Tiffani Ortiz and Andy Doubrava, chefs at The Catbird Seat in Nashville

“[My husband] Ulysses is the one who creates the magic in the kitchen. I am the creative force behind our online presence and the guest experience that keeps people coming back. I don’t pretend to be an expert in cooking or menu decisions, and Ulysses doesn’t interfere with my vision for how we want Campo to be seen.” —Adriana Alvarez, co-founder of Campo é Carbón in La Puenta, California

Similarly: “[My husband] Michael and I have two kids and a lot competing for our attention both personally and professionally. We’ve found things work best when responsibilities are divided based on strengths. For example, Michael leads on design and creative vision for KNEAD’s restaurants, while I focus more on operations and execution. This structure and clarity helps avoid overlap and makes decision making efficient, while still allowing us to collaborate with each other at the end of the day.” —Jason Berry, co-founder of Knead Hospitality + Design in Washington, D.C.

“I think the more you can avoid looking over your partner‘s shoulder and trying to micromanage, the healthier your relationship will be.” —Sam Wood, co-owner of Adventure Time Bar in Denver

“Our biggest tip is to treat each other as equals. Sure, we each have our own strengths, but trusting each other makes everything flow smoother and happier than if one person starts bossing the other around.” —Dani Gaede and Rowan Jetté Knox, owners of Understory in Toronto

It sounds cliche, but communication really is key

“Some things may be hard to say or hard to hear, but a constant line of honest communication ensures everybody is on the same page and resentment doesn’t build. You can always work on things when you say them out loud, but keeping things to yourself, especially in a work environment, always manifests itself in unhealthy ways.” —Ham El-Waylly, executive chef at Strange Delight in New York City

“Humor can fix just about anything, so we use it to move past potential arguments. Also, we never talk about work in bed. Protecting our home as a safe space for life and not work is a good way to keep our core friendship and love alive.” —Sarah Welch, co-owner of Mink in Detroit

On the flip side: “One thing we’ve learned is that saying ‘Don’t talk about business during quality time’ isn’t always realistic. Our work is our life—it’s what we’re passionate about, what excites us, and a huge part of how we connect with each other. Trying to separate it completely can feel forced and, honestly, unnecessary. A tip we’d instead share is: Don’t treat each other like business partners; treat each other like partners who happen to run a business together. Use the deep knowledge you have of one another—the way your partner communicates, what stresses them out, how they receive feedback, what motivates them—to navigate business situations. When challenges come up, approach them with the same care, empathy, and respect you bring to your relationship. That perspective changes everything.” —Sofía Ostos and Fidel Caballero, owners of Corima and Vato

“Apologize when you were in the wrong. Disagreements and mistakes happen, but how you own up to them will define how you grow from them.” —Alex Jump, co-owner of The Peach Crease Club in Denver

“Don’t waste time or energy talking about [issues] that happen less than 3 percent of the time.” —Kasie Curiel, co-owner of Fonda Fina Hospitality in Denver

Finally, take some time away

“Book a staycation every month or two. Take yourselves out for a meal on your days off and treat yourself while also supporting the industry. We treat our ‘weekend’ like it is a vacation so that we can continue to get to know each other, even [after] 17 years [of being together].” —Claire Wadsworth and Nikki Hill, owners of La Copine in Flamingo Heights, California

“Before we started Nixta, I told [my husband and co-owner] Edgar that a nonnegotiable for me is a long vacation. I’m not talking about a long weekend; I’m talking about a month. So, every January, we go abroad somewhere and daydream for a while. Taking this time allows you to actually rest, think outside the four walls of your business, get reinspired, give the management team the opportunity to navigate their way without us ‘coming to the rescue,’ and to also show your team that there’s more to life than just work.”—Sara Mardanbigi, co-owner of Nixta Taqueria in Austin

A version of this post originally appeared in Eater Today, which spotlights the freshest news and stories from across the food world every day. Subscribe now.

It’s in the bathroom at Smithereens, and it’s in rotation at Cervo’s, Eel Bar, Hart’s, and the Fly. It’s at June Wine Bar and Rhodora. I knew Schmuck smelled familiar — and then, yep, there it was. I swear I’ve sniffed it at Tatiana, though my email asking for confirmation went unanswered. An Eater colleague clocked it at Elsa, and immediately bought one of her own (and then received another as a Christmas gift).

Sophisticated but not overwhelming, recognizably branded but not flashy, it’s the Wood Cabin candle from Keap, and in New York City restaurants, it’s become a modern classic as far as bathroom candles go. 

Both Nick Tamburo of Smithereens and Moe Aljaff of Schmuck wanted Wood Cabin after smelling it at other restaurants. For Aljaff, that was, specifically, Cervo’s, he said in an email: “I remember walking into their bathroom and thinking it smelled unusually good, which is not a thought you normally have in a restaurant bathroom.” With notes of cedar, palo santo, and fireside embers, it offers a “romantic, transportive quality” that pairs well the “the small, cloistered, and intimate rooms” of his subterranean restaurant, according to Tamburo.

Wood Cabin, which was launched in 2015, is Keap’s most popular scent. The owners of June Wine Bar have been fans of the company since its days as a small, Brooklyn-founded brand (it’s now based in the Hudson Valley town of Kingston) and have used the candle since June opened. It’s the first restaurant where Keap owner Harry Doull smelled his candles in the wild. 

“Our work with restaurants started organically and that’s still the case for the most part,” wrote Doull in an email. Hospitality clients, including restaurants, make up just shy of 10 percent of the company’s sales, though for some businesses “we offer bulk pricing and have developed ways to be better partners over time,” he explained. Doull, who grew up in a restaurant family, thinks the places that use Keap tend to share similar values around hospitality, artisanal production, and sustainability; restaurants can send back their empty glass vessels for Keap to reuse.

In NYC, there’s a referential quality to stocking your bathroom with a candle as commonplace as Wood Cabin; for some people, that’s actually part of the draw. “I’m skeptical of originality,” Aljaff wrote. “Most places that claim to be original are usually just louder about it. What we do is create a room made by what we’ve been inspired by and various details we like — from restaurants, bars, films, music, art, conversations, bathrooms — and put them together in a way that feels coherent.”

Keap calls its candles “natural luxury.” At $54.50 for a single candle, that luxury is a little easier to stomach than even bougier options like, say, Le Labo or Diptyque — especially when, as June continues to experience, diners still occasionally steal the candle.

Keap Wood Cabin candle

Where to Buy:

• $54.5 at Keap

If woody’s not your thing, here’s some candle inspiration from other NYC restaurants:

• Take some notes from the bathroom at the chic new wine bar Stars with its Le Feau de L’eau’s Violet candle, which has notes of pink grapefruit, tobacco leaves, and white pepper.
• Burger destination Red Hook Tavern burns Trudon’s Abd El Kader, inspired by Moroccan mint tea.
• Remind yourself of the now-closed Olmsted with the goth-y Apotheke Charcoal candle.
• Or, evoke Tokyo after dark: Takamichi’s Daidō is the go-to at seafood spot Penny.

This excerpt was originally published in Pre Shift, our newsletter for the hospitality industry. Subscribe for more first-person accounts, advice, and interviews.

Running independent bars and restaurants takes a special kind of passion. This is the first in a three-part series, in partnership with Verizon Business, sharing how the people behind some of our favorite small businesses make it work. From February 9-22, join Verizon for Small Business Days to see how they’re sharing the love.

In early January, Sydney Wayser and Isaac Watters—partners in both business and life—opened one of Los Angeles’s buzziest new coffee shops, Granada. What makes Granada so unconventional is the fact that it’s located on the lower level of their actual home, a situation enabled by LA County’s relatively new Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation (also known as MEHKO) permit. The permit allows Wayser and Watters to legally serve coffee and food out of their house, with limitations on the number of staff and total annual earnings. In their Angelino Heights backyard, eager visitors sip cortados and eat pastries sourced from baker Sasha Piligian—and it’s been a quick hit. Here, Wayser explains how she and Watters make the setup work.

On opening the cafe

[We were] feeling isolated for so long, post-COVID, and then we had a daughter right after. There was a big chunk of time when we felt we were really missing community and we watched some of our favorite bars, restaurants, and coffee shops close. When we heard about the MEHKO permit, it felt like maybe we could make a community space. Having someone come over and have tea and a pastry in your house—that’s the coziest entry point to community space.

It’s about bringing people together and sharing art, ideas, and culture, like the older idea of a salon—to get together and to be people, not even in a networking capacity. My husband and I were feeling this so strongly, but everyone that walks in the door is feeling it, and they’re just like, I’ve been looking for this.

On creative and life partnership

I’m a musician and Isaac is as well. He also works in film and TV in set design, production design, and architecture. We do some interior design together; we built and designed our house that we live in. We’ve been a creative couple, collaborating since we started dating to being married to having a child, so [Granada] feels like another version of the same thing. 

On operating out of a home

When we designed our [house], we knew we wanted to have parties and events here, so we designed it—not knowing then—to be a perfect coffee shop, with a big, open floor plan and indoor-outdoor space with the garden. We made the public space downstairs, private space upstairs. 

But this is the house that we live in; the big thing that we have to do all the time is clean and maintain it so that it’s ready for people to come in. We have a 3-year-old, so she comes home after the coffee shop closes, runs around the house, and makes a pillow fort out of all the cushions on the sofa. We reset it in the morning before anyone comes in. Our hours are limited: When we decided to do this, we felt that if we’re going to share our home, we need to do it in a way that doesn’t disrupt our family time, so we’re only open when our daughter’s at school.

On managing disagreements

We agree most of the time and disagree sometimes, too, but we manage to really talk through [disagreements] and be mindful of each other. We try to lean into the idea that there’s no wrong answer; it’s just picking an avenue of how we want to proceed. It’s finding compromise and being open about feelings in the process. 

We love and respect each other so much that if I were to say “Let’s do this” and Isaac said “I don’t know about that,” I would also feel like, Well, I really like his ideas, so I’m sure what he’s saying is [right, too]. We both feel seen by the other person and like we can do what we think we are good at. Isaac gets to shine in some things, and I get to shine in others, and then together, we make a strong team.

This conversation has been edited and condensed.

This excerpt was originally published in Pre Shift, our newsletter for the hospitality industry. Subscribe for more first-person accounts, advice, and interviews. 

In March, Molly Irani, co-founder of the James Beard Award-winning restaurant Chai Pani, is releasing Service Ready: A Story of Love, Restaurants, and the Power of Hospitality. 

In 2009, Irani and her husband Meherwan left their jobs to start an Indian street food restaurant, building the business from scratch. Through candid vignettes, Irani discusses the challenges she faced along the way, what it’s like to build a business with a partner, and how she incorporates parts of her own culture and traditions into her work.

Service Ready is a helpful peek behind the scenes for anyone in the industry charting a similar path. Here, Irani has shared an excerpt with us from Chai Pani’s opening day.

The Art of Jugaad
Excerpted from Service Ready: A Story of Love, Restaurants, and the Power of Hospitality. Copyright © 2026, Molly Irani. Reproduced by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved.

Meherwan and I had been married for 15 years, so we knew how to work through challenges together. 

One thing I discovered early on about a strong partnership is knowing when the other person has reached their point of overwhelm. A gift that our long, shared history brought to our business partnership is the ability to read the signs and know each other’s tipping points so that we can step in when help is most needed. We relied on not falling apart at the same time. This helped our marriage as well as our business, and it prevented our staff from seeing us fight. There were countless times that we missed the mark, but we always tried to catch each other.

Staring at the cash register on Chai Pani’s opening day, I quickly realized we had no choice but to jugaad it.

“Jugaad” is a term used throughout India to describe the reliance on ingenuity to make something happen with what you have, instead of waiting to have all the right parts or pieces. Sometimes it means bending the rules, or getting inventive with your resources. Meherwan says it’s like figuring out how to make chai with a Zamboni (the ice-resurfacing vehicles at skating rinks) because that’s all you have, and why waste a perfectly good machine?

On opening day, with bloodshot eyes, Meherwan said, “I’ve tried everything; the register won’t print tickets in the kitchen. It won’t print tickets any fucking place at all.”

I didn’t think our brand-new food runners would be capable of getting the food to tables (and clearing them) as well as the tickets delivered to the kitchen—we needed more hands to pull it off. The only solution I could think of was to beg our beloved band of friends (who that day were finishing painting the restaurant) to put on clean Chai Pani T-shirts and spend the day carrying tickets from the register to the kitchen. Being the rock-star human beings that they are, they agreed to help run tickets. They were tired to the core, unshaven, unbathed, and spattered in paint—but they did it. If I’d had time I would have cried with gratitude.

We scrambled to set up for our first service. I had five minutes to learn how to work the ludicrous-non-printing register, we gathered the freshly hired, barely trained employees, and before we could blink there were fifteen minutes left until opening.

A line had begun to form outside as we buzzed around like bees on speed. Last-minute issues were resolved at breakneck speed. Ruby called from behind the bar, “Does anyone know how to make a lime rickey? It’s on the menu, but I don’t have a recipe.” James, ever calm, emerged from the kitchen wearing a crisp white chef’s coat and said, “None of us know how to make an uttapam. Can anyone help?” Angi realized we didn’t have any change for the register. Food runners looked like deer in the headlights trying to identify the endless array of dishes they didn’t know how to pronounce correctly. The “sound system” (Pandora played off my cell phone) wouldn’t play.

Then in the middle of the mayhem, Meherwan’s mother announced that we couldn’t open without having a Pooja ceremony. A Pooja is an Indian tradition that marks important events. It differs in detail depending on family background, but the practice stretches across religions and cultures. The common threads woven through most Poojas are: making an offering to God, blessing the space and/or people, and taking a moment for gratitude and prayer. I had no idea how to stop the frantic last-minute preparations for a prayer ceremony with customers staring at us from the other side of the door, but I wasn’t about to argue with my mother-in-law.

Fifteen minutes past the planned opening time, we gathered our crew into the front of the house. The already exhausted cooks, the increasingly terrified young food runners, the whole team paused the last moments of preparation and came together for a Pooja ceremony to bless the space. Meherwan’s mother assembled the ceremonial items; I’m pretty sure a coconut was cracked, a sacred photo was placed in a spot of honor, a bell was rung, and we held hands in a big circle, closed our eyes, and had a moment of silence—while the line of customers watched from the sidewalk.

This moment would never come again, and my mother-in-law knew it. She made us stop and give thanks, and ask God, or Grace, or each other for help. I’m deeply grateful for her guidance in that moment. The pause for centering that she made happen that day helped set us on a course that is uniquely our own and became an essential part of the scaffolding behind Chai Pani’s success. It helped us focus on what really matters. I’m sure some new employees were deeply moved, while others wondered what the hell they’d gotten themselves into—but together we took a collective breath and opened the doors to a line up the block. That line never went away.

This excerpt has been lightly edited from Service Ready. To read the full book, preorder it here.

The same ostrich has been popping up in my Instagram feed over and over lately. It’s a taxidermied beast that holds court in what I initially thought was someone’s house in Europe:

The bird I’ve been seeing in so many birthday social media stories, however, isn’t from an apartment in the Marais quarter of Paris; its residence is New York City’s Brass restaurant and Tusk Bar, which opened two years ago inside Manhattan’s Evelyn Hotel, and is designed to make you feel like you’re entering the opulent home of, say, a European art collector with great taste and, I imagine, an enviable 1stDibs wishlist. The space was designed by Islyn Studio, which says it’s “a love letter to the Parisian apartments of the 1920s.” As the studio’s founder and creative director Ashley Wilkins tells me, “We imagined it as a kind of French salon, an intimate antechamber and natural prelude to dinner at Brass. During our research, we came across the story of a Parisian apartment discovered untouched after decades, its rooms sealed in time until the passing of Madame de Florian at [age] 91.”

There are plush gold settees and ottomans, and parlor palms huddled over an oval coffee table and carpeted floors. Red curtains blur the divide between the oyster bar and the restaurant, helmed by chefs Jeremiah Stone and Fabián Von Hauske Valtierra of Contra and Wildair fame. It’s the kind of environment, the Studio says, where “the air hums with an unhurried energy.” 

As with purse hooks and not horrible chairs, a restaurant that feels like a living room is never a requirement for me, but it’s always a plus. Something happens to me in spaces designed with this level of conviviality: when seated on one of their spacious sofas, my shoulders relax, my appetite grows, and, even if I’m dining solo, I feel less like a diner on a timer and more like a cozy person breaking bread with other cozy people. 

The years following COVID lockdowns has led to more and more bars and restaurants with this “home”-inspired design ethos, from the aspirational, like The Tusk Bar, to more casual, tchotchke-inflected spaces. During peak social distancing, many of us took a long, hard look at ourselves in those DIY foam mirrors and discovered a new appreciation for both community (RIP Zoom happy hours) and comfort (ah, the soft life of the WFH glory days). Folks turned inward, quite literally, to the creative catharsis of decorating their own houses; sofas got deeper, “performance velvet” achieved immense popularity, and Pinterest boards popped off with shag rug conversation pits. As restaurant doors reopened, the lounge that felt like a retro house party had potent appeal. Carousel in Bushwick opened in January 2024 with ’70s-style conversation pits that encouraged intermingling; Pearl Box, which opened the same year as Brass and Tusk, became an instant SoHo darling thanks to its retro-attic-like ceiling, red carpeting, and gummy candy-filled crystal dishes. These were places that felt like stepping into an Architectural Digest house tour — like entering a home we wished was our own (or, at least, that of a friend who included us on their invite list). 

In 2026, after a decade-plus of white-walled millennial minimalism, diners are increasingly gravitating toward a more personal aesthetic perspective. At Honeysuckle in Philadelphia (Cybille St. Aude-Tate and Omar Tate’s second coming of their restaurant Honeysuckle Provisions), the restaurant has a “free-flowing” living room feel with “comfy cognac-colored couches coaxing people to chill and chat,” as Eater reported last year. Then there’s Schmuck, from co-owners and bartenders Moe Aljaff and Juliette Larrouy, which opened in NYC’s East Village in January 2025 with a self-described living room space and curl-up-in-me Togo sofas.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, you can find Kissaten Corazon, with its mismatched armchairs and “Grandpa’s study” vibe, and chef Miles Thompson’s Baby Bistro, which serves its seasonal cuisine in a cozy Craftsman house (to critical acclaim). In San Francisco, chef Paul Toxqui’s Left Door (opened in 2023) embraces the appeal of being tucked inside the second floor of a Marina district Victorian house (the sumptuous living room begs for Hercule Poirot to mansplain a murder there). Finally, and perhaps in the most literal take on the trend, there was the dramatic rise and fall of Upstairs in spring of 2025, an Oakland cafe that was, indeed, located in an apartment upstairs from Snail Bar — until it was shut down for being a little too homey (the space didn’t have the proper commercial permits). 

On the heels of a year filled with third-space discourse, restaurateurs and customers clearly yearn for the level of intimacy and personality that the living-room-as-restaurant masters; it either taps in to our own, lived nostalgic experiences, or those that feel escapist, as is the case with Brass and Tusk. The desire for this immersiveness only seems to be growing in 2026. The goal, Wilkins tells me, is for “Spaces like this [to] shape the experience […] before a word is spoken or a drink is poured. They place guests inside a story, where atmosphere, texture, and light quietly guide how the evening feels and is remembered.”

There really is no place like home — all the better if the home comes with a great cocktail menu. 

I drive a Tesla. I bought it in 2022, when I knew a bit about CEO Elon Musk’s questionable character, but could never have foreseen his reprehensible antics in the years following. I wish I could sell the car, but I’m underwater on my loan by some $10,000 since its resale value cratered. I won’t be buying another.

I’m not the only one who regrets their purchase in LA. As Musk aligned himself with Donald Trump, erratically laid off scores of government workers, and promoted an AI chatbot that has praised Adolf Hitler and fueled revenge porn, much of the city has turned against the notorious carmaker. 

Nowhere is this clearer than the highly controversial Tesla Diner, which serves classic burgers, fries, and sandwiches to customers waiting for their Teslas to charge outside. The opening in mid-2025 was one of the most talked-about events in recent Los Angeles history. As protestors and Cybertruck diehards thronged to the diner seeking a cultural battleground, I was there covering the diner’s food from the beginning. My colleagues and I were initially fans of some dishes; less so of others.

Last month, as the Tesla Diner passed its first half-birthday, I revisited the restaurant to see how things were going. I regret to inform you that the food was — pretty dang good, maybe even better than when it opened.

I paid a Friday lunch visit with a restaurant publicist friend, Khuong Phan, who lives nearby. Phan (who does not represent Tesla Diner) passes by the diner often and says it’s usually mostly empty. The protests have faded away, as has the rabid Tesla fanbase. Tour buses occasionally drop off curious visitors in search of something to photograph. There was barely a wait for a charging spot or food. (When asked about the performance of the business, Tesla Diner didn’t respond to a request for comment.) 

I plugged in and ordered away on a screen. After about 20 minutes (a bit long for fast food), a server brought our order: Egg bites with kale and chopped mushrooms were nearly silken, and the fries were utterly crispy. The tuna melt was adequate, if uninteresting, but the well-toasted bread was light as air. The sloppy smash burger featured a profoundly beefy patty. The “epic” bacon was limp, though it was encrusted with an appealing blend of herbs and sugar. The cinnamon roll was a tad better than gas station-level, but the strawberry matcha shake, tinted with pandan syrup, was absolutely stellar. 

When the diner first opened, seasoned LA restaurateur Bill Chait led operations while chef Eric Greenspan ran the kitchen. A few weeks later, I returned to find the sizable menu greatly diminished, reduced to a few savory and sweet items, which I tried and found worse than at opening. When I wrote about it, Greenspan and Chait weren’t too happy about the article and told me as much over text. Greenspan left the restaurant after four months, but Chait still seems to be in charge (though the restaurant didn’t respond to confirm that). 

I didn’t have high expectations going into my meal this month, especially after reading a six-month retrospective in Autoblog. Other publications have picked up that story and piled on to the narrative of Tesla Diner’s “demise.”

The food, featuring sustainably sourced ingredients from nearby farms and ranches, would be celebrated in any other venue. But because this is Elon Musk’s Tesla Diner, every bit of food, served in absurd Cybertruck-shaped boxes, comes weighted down with cultural baggage. Sure, $98 (after tax and tip) was a lot of dough for our meal, but Phan and I ordered way more than necessary. An average meal might be $25-30, certainly not exorbitant for well-sourced fast food — and definitely less than a meal at Phil Rosenthal’s hyped-up LA diner Max & Helen’s. 

I don’t really ever need to go back to the Tesla Diner. The food isn’t revelatory or exciting. Musk once planned for the restaurant to act as a model for diners and charging stations across the world, but I don’t see that happening. Tesla just lost its title as the top EV carmaker. If the comments on Instagram and TikTok are any evidence, the diner, which was intended as a halo product to boost the company’s image, can’t escape the pull of the cultural black hole created by its erratic billionaire CEO.

The restaurant has gone into a strange purgatory, becoming something that feels wrong to like. There was a world where the Tesla Diner could’ve been great. It’s making decent fast food, at attainable prices, with farm-fresh ingredients that chefs could appreciate. It operates next to more than 70 EV charging stations that are hugely needed if America wants to wean the auto industry off fossil fuels. But after millions of dollars in buildout and thousands of negative comments on social media posts, the Tesla Diner barely has any voltage left.

There is an art to a proper meat pie, according to the Seattle chef and butcher Kevin Smith. The American pot pie frustrates him because it lets the pot do the heavy lifting. “The real way of doing it, for me, is to make a freestanding pie,” Smith says. The pastry should hold itself up, a technique cooks in England have honed over centuries. “That is so much more theatrical.”

Those meat pies — densely packed with beef shank in Guinness gravy, or chile tinged-lamb korma — anchor the menu at Little Beast, Smith’s new English pub. For Smith, who also runs the butcher shop Beast and Cleaver and the restaurants the Peasant and the Beastro inside it, the venture marks a return to his South London upbringing. “It’s very, very classic English food,” he says. Both London and Seattle can be cold, gray, and gloomy. In both cities, one needs food that “warms the bones,” he says, and coziness is the impulse of the moment.  

Smith’s goal is to truly recreate a quintessential English pub. This, to him, meant rustic, a little dark, not at all fancy — just the kind of place where people can “come in and sling their coat over the back of a chair,” Smith says. So far, his homey pub has been a hit: Eater Seattle named Little Beast its Restaurant of the Year in 2025. 

It’s no longer time to speculate whether the British are coming; they’re very much here. Like Little Beast, British-style pubs and country restaurants are cropping up across the United States, with hotspots including Wilde’s in Los Angeles, Dingles Public House in San Francisco, the Bell in New Orleans (“an easygoing neighborhood joint with an English accent”), and the Chumley House in Fort Worth, Texas. In Chicago, the new Piccadilly Pub fashions itself as a “neighborhood chippy,” and in Philadelphia, the chef Ange Branca, whose Malaysian restaurant Kampar has been closed since last February due to a fire, recently ran Mod Spuds, a pop-up that served loaded English “jacket potatoes.” 

In New York City, chef Ed Szymanski has built some of the city’s most solid new restaurants around his own homesickness, including the English seafood restaurant Dame and the meatier “English bistro” Lord’s; chef Jess Shadbolt will soon unveil Dean’s, a British seafood restaurant inspired by her seaside hometown. And recently, sticky toffee pudding, one of England’s most popular desserts, has also served as a major source of inspiration for pastry chefs across the country.

It’s natural for any cuisine that’s been maligned in the global sphere to want a redemption arc, and for so long, British food has been the butt of jokes: mushy, beige, brown, bland — the kind of sadness that writer Aisling McCrea once ascribed to British people being “too repressed to cook food correctly.” For rising star NYC pastry chef Lilli Maren, who grew up in London, the goal of her work is updating British pastry classics “so that they’re actually good,” as she puts it on her Substack publication The Buttery. “I think the [bad] reputation comes from the pure fact that British food has to be tasted: It’s food that’s meant to be eaten, not to be looked at,” Maren says. Beige and brown mush is “bad PR” for its “beautiful flavors.”

Now, young chefs like herself, Maren says, are having a “similar journey” of realizing the “trove” of delicious food in their history and wanting to show it off with personality, a sense of humor, and, yes, better visuals, too.

Follow a few young British chefs on social media and you’ll quickly start to wonder why the cuisine has a bad name. Through short-form videos, places like Manchester’s Onda Pasta Bar (of viral “tiramisu drawer” fame) and London’s Fallow have become as much media brands as they are restaurants. From chefs-turned-creators, you’ll find bangers and mash that look undeniably delicious, roasted chickens swimming in luxurious drippings, and gravy-filled meat pies laden with so much butter that there’s no way they could be bad — lest we forget that butter formed the foundation of London chef Thomas Straker’s global ascent. 

“These people are generally broadcasting to a British audience,” says the London-based restaurant critic Jonathan Nunn, who runs the publication Vittles. Particularly, that’s “an East London, South London audience who are very plugged into what is going on in food culture internationally and what is going on in London restaurants, and wants to replicate those things in their homes in a way that doesn’t really look like dishes their parents made but are still recognizably British dishes.” 

According to Nunn, this social media moment is British people hyping up British food for British people. That this might influence the perception of British food to non-British people “is just a byproduct of that.” As “strange” as it is to think of British food as “exotic,” he says, “I think Americans are fascinated by [British food] in the same way anyone would be fascinated by anything ‘exotic.’”

Perhaps part of the appeal of British food in the U.S. right now is simply that it’s just different enough to be newly compelling. Fish sticks aren’t particularly en vogue, but good fish and chips? That pulls in an “overwhelming” demand, as Szymanski learned during his pandemic pop-up. Lending an air of intrigue, it’s on the menu at Wilde’s as “battered skate & mint.”

In recent years, American dining culture has largely been filtered through the lens of the French bistro, so maybe the rising English pub moment is an indicator that we’ve become bistro-ed out. The “new American” restaurant, the French bistro, and the modern English pub — these don’t offer wildly different food so much as they offer a sense of a change of environs. As concepts, they’re familiar enough to be easy, different enough to be destinations. “I think it’s very relatable [food],” Smith says, adding that “the food that people think is bad over here, as in English food, is actually what a lot of American food is based on.” Making British food for American audiences requires some concessions though: That’s why Lord’s also serves a Welsh rarebit burger and sticky toffee pudding pancakes.

All this recent Anglophilia has yet to even touch on the incoming British imports. Straker, who runs the London restaurants Straker’s and Acre, is set to open a spot in NYC soon, where London chefs keep hosting residencies (recently, Jeremy King and Emily Dobbs).

Iranian restaurant Berenjak came to the U.S. via LA this fall, and Indian restaurant Dishoom is planning a NYC expansion, following a wildly successful pop-up at Pastis last summer. Gymkhana, which is inspired by the “elite clubs” of India, opened in Las Vegas late last year, and the lavish Punjabi restaurant Ambassadors Clubhouse is set to open soon in NYC. “These are not small, quirky British restaurants coming in,” Szymanski notes. “This is like Coke and Pepsi.” 

It’s promising, though, that these specific establishments make up London’s new big-name exports, according to Nunn, as they help create a more well-rounded image of the British food scene. While London’s contributions to the U.S. have historically centered around the kind of St. John-inflected nose-to-tail gastropub, as reflected in stateside openings Little Beast and Lord’s, Dishoom and Gymkhana represent the essential nature of British Indian food.

“That’s as part of modern British food culture as anything else,” Nunn says. “That kind of hybridity being accepted as part of British cuisine on a global level, and being recognized as such, is a good thing.” 

We both came to France in our 20s, one of us (John) for work at Activision and the other (Mashama) for a cooking school, and we both fell in love with Paris in our own ways. After we got the Grey in Savannah off the ground, we talked about opening a restaurant in Paris. We came to France to revise our book, Black, White, and The Grey, and after a couple of months eating out here, we were decided and started looking for space.

Now, we just opened L’Arrêt in the 7th arrondissement. We’re still in that beginning stage of trying to get a team together. We also opened in a very old building — there’s been a restaurant here for a hundred years — and we had to do a lot of renovations, since the last time it was renovated was in the early ’70s. We tried to keep a lot of the spirit of the old place, preserving and restoring the furniture, the lighting, and the bar face. We’re also bringing American culture and hospitality to Paris, and getting folks who grew up here to buy into that. There’s a relationship between Parisian food, French food, rural French cooking, and American Southern cooking. It’s not a small undertaking, even though it’s a small restaurant.

As Parisians have been getting to know us, we’ve been getting to know our local dining community even better and returning to old favorites. Below are some of the restaurants we love — some that we eat at all the time and some that inspire our work at L’Arrêt.

Chez Marcel

We love the owner, Pierre Cheucle, at this little place on the Rue de Stanislas in the 6th arrondissement. He’s a character and makes you feel so at home. It’s a traditional, French, old-school-style bistro and showcases food from Lyon. The best things on the menu are the kidneys and the mustard sauce. The old-school French bistros love a lot of offal, so there’s some history there. When kidneys are done wrong, they’re very metallic and kind of make the filings in your teeth hurt. But when they’re done right, they’re delicious, and Cheucle’s are delicious.

7 Rue Stanislas. Open from noon to 2 p.m. and 7:30 to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday; closed Saturday and Sunday

Brasserie Lipp

This is becoming like our bar from Cheers. We know all the waiters, and they’re happy to have us because we’re in the same business. They know we really respect how hard everybody works. It’s the camaraderie. We’ll go there after service, late at night, and order green salads, roast chicken, and steak frites. And then we’ll just sit there until 2 a.m., until we’re the last people in as they break down around us. After a couple of glasses of wine, you’re kissing everybody on the cheek goodbye. We love having regulars-status here.

Pro tip: It’s always the same guys serving. When you get a job there, you never leave. It’s one of the most coveted jobs in Paris.

151 Boulevard Saint-Germain; noon to midnight daily

Marché Raspail

On Sunday mornings, we go to the market and just buy stuff for the fridge for the week. It’s great getting to know the vendors, and after a few weeks you start to see the same people. Everybody loves the dogs and they get handouts as we walk through the market.

Boulevard Raspail; Open Friday and Tuesday 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.; closed Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Thursday

Ravi

This place is just around the corner from L’Arrêt. We try to eat in the neighborhood because we’re part of the neighborhood now, especially places where we have relationships with the ownership. Ravi does traditional Indian, including lamb saag, which is bomb. The owner is always there, so it’s one of those places where you always feel at home. 

Pro tip: The chef makes big, fat, meaty drumsticks that are just to die for.

50 Rue de Verneuil; Open from noon to 2 p.m. and 7 to 11 p.m. Monday – Saturday; 7 to 11 p.m. Sundays

La Grande Épicerie de Paris

Le Bon Marché is a five-story shopping mall with high-end stores and boutiques. It’s connected by an airbridge across the Rue du Bac to the La Grande Épicerie de Paris, which is a food hall and super high-quality supermarket. It has a counter where you can get oysters and charcuterie, a section dedicated to foie gras, a fish section, and a cheese section. It’s the ultimate shopping experience, and it has everything you need for your life in Paris all in one place. Two or three nights a week, dinner is cans of spicy sardines from La Grande Épicerie (buy them by the dozen), half a baguette from L’Arrêt on the way home after working late, a few hunks of cheese, and some olives.

38 Rue de Sèvres; 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Saturday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays

La Tour Montlhéry – Chez Denise

This place is over in the 1st arrondissement by the Rue Saint-Denis, which is the red-light district. The myth goes that the eponymous Denise was a madam, and when she decided to leave the life, she opened this restaurant in the neighborhood. It was open 24 hours a day, Monday to Friday, and working girls could eat for free. 

Going there 40 years ago, you could go at 3 a.m. after a night out at the bars to eat haricot de mouton, which is this mutton and white bean cassoulet, and swill the house Brouilly, which they poured from big casks at the front into big liter bottles. Eat until 5 a.m. on a Saturday night, go home, and wake up on a Sunday to read the New York Times on the roof and nurse a hangover. The mutton is the old haggard lamb. It’s really gamey and unctuous, and they cook it forever on the bone. As Jerry Seinfeld says, “Salad’s got nothing on my mutton.”

Pro tip: Pick the mutton up with your hands, and dip the bread in the beans and the sauce.

Editor’s note: The restaurant’s hours have since changed.

5 Rue des Prouvaires; noon to midnight daily

Brasserie des Prés

This brasserie is on an old street just off of Boulevard Saint-Germain. It’s cool and hip, and you can slip in there for sausage and lentils, or something like that.

6 Cour du Commerce Saint-André. Open from noon to midnight daily

Piero 

This Pierre Gagnaire restaurant is a local pop-in for a bowl of pasta. There are 11 Michelin stars between his restaurants. Piero is this place on the Rue de Bac, and it’s his take on an Italian restaurant. The menu is very seasonal, including the pastas, which are always great. Right now, he’s got this super thin spaghetti with a spicy tomato sauce. The French don’t really like spice as a general rule — and this shit is genuinely hot — but he’s getting away with it. He just puts together a really good bowl of pasta.

His team is great; it’s all Italian guys. We’ll poke our heads in on a Saturday afternoon and ask to grab a few seats at the bar at 8 p.m. The bar’s only three or four seats, but they’re always welcoming to us. It’s an interesting dichotomy to have access to a chef with multiple Michelin-starred restaurants in a neighborhood place. They’re always packed and always kind. That’s hospitality in a really good way — and then you get really excellent food on top of it.

It’s the kind of restaurant we want L’Arrêt to be: a place people want to go, but there are always spots for the regulars. That’s a cultural thing you build. 

Pro tip: The tuna and seafood crudos are always interesting. Gagnaire’s got this langoustine and beet crudo in beet jus that’s just phenomenal. It sounds weird, and when it hits the table, it looks weird, but it’s damn delicious.

44 Rue du Bac; noon to 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; closed Sunday and Monday

This article is drawn from an interview. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.

The capital of my home country, and the location of my new restaurant, Marcus Addis Restaurant & Sky Bar, is both the center of Ethiopia and a core component of our nation’s culture. Restaurants and artistic institutions go hand and hand in Addis. Here, galleries, museums, and markets come together to create a steady, electric rhythm that comes alive in the city’s restaurants and kitchens. 

You can taste it in berbere, the gateway to Ethiopian cuisine. The earthen, reddish pepper spice mixture is omnipresent in Addis Ababa’s restaurants and homes. It’s essential in doro wot, a celebratory chicken stew poked with a boiled egg; and in beef tibs, strips and hunks of meat stir-fried with onion and spiced with fenugreek and aromatic berbere. Go in hand-first.

Addis Ababa is also changing. Ethiopia has an incredibly young population, so there’s a vibrancy — and construction — everywhere you look. You’ll find teff, an ancient crop native to the Ethiopian highlands, reinvented as tagliatelle pasta, and kitfo, the nation’s iconic raw meat dish, marinated in inventive spice mixtures. And you now have a true variety between traditional restaurants, street food, and fine dining, when you didn’t have these layers in dining before.

Everywhere you go, you’re walking between the old and new world. There are new things happening in terms of food, podcasts, galleries, museums, and music — and they all intersect. It feels like the country’s capital is just getting started.

Kategna

I don’t think you should be in Addis and not go to a place like Kategna. There’s a show up front, and you’re eating traditional Ethiopian food. It’s a cultural experience where there’s dance, there’s music, and there’s all the things you want to see from an Ethiopian restaurant all at once. 

Pro tip: There’s always a celebration, like a homecoming, a wedding, or a birthday. It’s very festive.  

Cameroon Street, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Open daily from 7 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.

Trattoria Gusto

Trattoria Gusto is a little bit more of a Western-style restaurant, where you find a blend of Ethiopian and Italian food. Young chefs are trying to do new things with teff, like create different types of pasta. Maybe they went to school in Ethiopia, and then traveled abroad, and they came back with that added knowledge. 

Pro tip: You’ll see people posting on Instagram at Gusto. It’s very cool to see this back and forth between Ethiopian and Western cuisine.

572 Guinea Conakry Street, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Open daily from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Merkato

Markets are the heartbeat of the cities in Africa. They’re shopping malls, so to speak, but with long traditions. There’s an enormous amount of traffic in these places.

Merkato, the biggest outdoor market in the city, is one of the largest markets on the continent. Thousands of people live and work within the space. This is where people truly commerce at. 

Going to buy spices here is one of the most exciting things. There are markets for live animals too. Whether you’re buying coffee, berbere, curries, or lentils, the ingredients are laid out in traditional piles that are weighed. And then the bargaining starts. 

Merkato is divided into districts. The live animals might be next to the spices, but not next to the cotton or fabric. There is a structure within these markets that an outsider might not see. You have to know what you’re specifically looking for before going, so your taxi driver can drop you off in the right place, but it’s very well-organized within.

Pro tip: Understanding and getting comfortable with bargaining is essential. Don’t stop at the first price that a vendor tells you and walk away. You have to negotiate. Bargaining is part of the shopping experience, and you shouldn’t feel awkward doing it.

Open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily

Marcus Addis Restaurant & Sky Bar

At my restaurant, we really meet traditional Ethiopian culture with modern Ethiopian culture. The food is a blend of Ethiopian traditions, my journey in the States, and my journey in Sweden. You can see it in the design too. 

Then there’s the things that you can’t see, but will be able to five years from now. We take a lot of pride in working with several schools to train young staff, and there are a lot of young students working in the restaurant. Five to 10 years from now, they’re going to be the foundation of the next generation of modern Ethiopian food and hospitality. We want this to be an experience where you can see all of Ethiopia and you can see where this is heading.  

Pro tip: Being on top of the tallest building in East Africa, you have an amazing view. You see the construction. You see it all. It’s a visual experience that begins from getting up there in the elevator. 

572 Guinea Conakry Street, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Monday through Wednesday; 11 a.m. to 2 a.m., Thursday through Saturday; 12 to 5 p.m. and 7 to 11 p.m., Sunday

This article is drawn from an interview. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.

After a decade in the restaurant industry, teaching myself how to make Taiwanese food and cooking in the pressure cooker that is New York City, I’ve learned that the most powerful ingredient in many recipes is nostalgia. It often makes you assume the food you were raised on is the best way to eat — the only way — and makes you consistently return to your childhood favorites without a second thought. But just because you grew up with a certain dish or a certain restaurant doesn’t mean it’s good. 

I make trips to my hometown of Taipei a few times a year, and with each one, I try to shake off my nostalgia bias. Sometimes I eat at one of my regular spots and realize, This is kind of ass. Sometimes I stumble into a random food stall and end up finding my new go-to. Those experiences got me thinking: Where would I bring my staff from New York to try Taiwanese breakfast for the first time? Or someone who has never been to Taipei and has no idea about the incredible craft beer scene here? 

That’s how this list came about. It shows how I maneuver around Taipei in a day — it’s a joy ride through everything that makes this city an international destination. There are old-school spots, like the Taiwanese stir-fry restaurant I always come back to (even though I technically run a Taiwanese stir-fry restaurant of my own), and a temple to beef noodle soup that honors the working man’s meal. Drinking is a massive part of Taiwanese culture, so there’s a taproom featuring brews tailored to our very particular palate, plus the pinnacle of Taiwanese breakfast, ideal for travelers up early from jet lag. 

Taiwanese food is so hard to define. It’s an amalgamation of foods from many different groups — Indigenous Taiwanese tribes, Chinese families escaping the Civil War, Japanese and Dutch colonists, Fujian and Burmese immigrants, and American troops — which have come together to form a very specific local point of view. As I return again and again — even more so as I work on my first cookbook, Taiwanese?, which hits shelves this coming fall — I love how Taipei is embracing itself. I see how chefs and restaurateurs are making stars out of dishes that were once only sold at mom-and-pop stalls, and fully owning culinary influences once seen as impositions by foreign powers. That’s the Taiwanese mindset. 

This guide is very doable — you could crush it in a day — but it also shows the range, depth, and versatility of Taipei’s food and drink culture. 

Fuhang Soy Milk 

Every Taiwanese person has a breakfast spot they love. This is mine. Fuhang is a bustling stall on the second level of Huashan Market, but with its large crowd, it’s basically taken over the whole food court. The spread is very Chinese — shaobing (flaky flatbreads), scallion pancakes, soy milk — but Taiwan had the brilliant idea of bringing them together to make the Avengers of breakfast. Fuhang, which has been in operation for three generations, is the best of the best. It consistently cranks out savory soy milk with the ideal amount of vinegary curdle and nutty richness, thick shaobing that are like a hybrid between a bagel and a pepper bun, and fan tuan: perfectly steamed glutinous rice balls bursting with pork floss, sauteed sun-dried turnips, and double-fried youtiao (doughnut sticks). The move is to dip your shaobing, still hot, in the savory soy milk. It’s perfection. 

Pro tip: Fuhang always has a long line, snaking from the food court down a couple flights of stairs, but don’t sweat it. It moves fast. Plus, it’s a testament to Fuhang’s quality: It’s busy because it’s good and good because it’s busy. 

108 E. Zhongxiao Road, Section 1, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City. Open 5:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Dadaocheng Luroufan

During my last trip to Taiwan, I plowed through more than 60 bowls of lu rou fan in the name of cookbook research, and the one that I can’t stop thinking about is at this nook inside Jiancheng Market. Lu rou fan is pork braised in shallots, soy sauce, some kind of sweetness, and lots of spices, and served with rice. Each lu rou fan cook applies their own tweaks to this classic template, and I love what the owner is doing at Dadaocheng Luroufan. He learned how to cook the dish from his uncle and slowly made it his own by opting for fattier meat (as opposed to the usual skin) and adding extra pork skin to the braise for a gelatinous smack. Don’t skip the mustard greens, a tribute to his hometown of Taichung and the perfect side to balance all that richness. 

Pro tip: Finish your meal at Mu Zi Li Ice Cream & Beverage Shop, a shaved ice shop around the corner opened by the owner of Dadaocheng Luroufan. Get whatever fruit is in season, especially ripe mango in summer. 

17 W. Chang’an Road, Lane 220, Datong District, Taipei City. Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Neverland Noodle Bar

Beef noodle soup is an everyman’s meal, beloved by construction workers and white-collar workers, consumed in karaoke bars and on the street. But this sleek restaurant, located a little further out in Nangang, represents an evolution of the everyday stall. The format is the same as usual — you choose your broth, meat, and noodles — but every little detail is dialed in. The first time I went was as an adult with my dad, an eternal skeptic with high standards, and we both freaked out. He tried to convince the chef to let him buy some of the restaurant’s raw noodles to bring home. What I get depends on my mood, but lately that’s been the clear broth (a super clean version of the iconic red braise) with thin noodles, tender beef shanks, and tendon that’s got some bite. 

Pro tip: Order some mozzarella sticks to dip into your beef noodle soup. It’s sacrilegious but delicious. 

265 Nangang Road, Section 1, Nangang District, Taipei City. Open 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Xiao Lin Seafood Restaurant

The first restaurant I opened in New York, 886, is directly inspired by this kind of Taiwanese stir-fry spot.The restaurants, powered by woks and Taiwan Beer, are generally low-key and packed. The best ones are as busy as Taiwanese breakfast spots, have huge menus, and can easily and swiftly accommodate groups big and small. I first heard about Xiao Lin Seafood Restaurant in Da’an from friends in the industry in Taiwan, and I keep coming back — with more people each time. Xiao Lin serves the absolute best fried squid beaks (known as dragonballs), which can be a hard sell for the uninitiated, but they’re so delicious. They tend to clump up in the fryer and get gummy, but Xiao Lin turns out specimens that are distinct and crunchy. Round out an order with chicken soup, seasoned with marinated long hots, and fresh bamboo served with sweet Taiwanese salad sauce. 

Pro tip: Come with a lot of people — a party of eight is ideal — so you can order a lot of food and beer to share. On the latter, get Taiwan Beer 18 Days, which is fresher than regular Taiwan Beer (“18 Days” refers to its shelf life) and complements all the heavily seasoned dishes. 

574-1 Guangfu South Road, Da’an District, Taipei City. Open 5 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Taihu Da’an

A loyal 886 customer told me about this craft brewery in Taiwan years ago. The next time I was in town, I stopped by the taproom in Da’an and was wowed by everything the place offered. The beer caters to the Taiwanese palate: a little sweet, not too hoppy, with very punny names. There’s a noodle boiler behind the bar and bar snacks you can’t get anywhere else, like lu rou fan and Sichuan-style dumplings. Taihu is so uniquely Taiwanese yet also American, and you can only execute that well if you’re fluent in both cultures. You’ll see a local Taiwanese couple who just dropped their kid off at day care sitting adjacent to an American expat moonlighting as a school teacher — and everyone’s at ease. 

Pro tip: I crush the lager every time, as well as the chicken cartilage. If you go the same route, charm your server into handing over some of the salted egg yolk aioli. It technically comes with the chips, but it goes so well with the cartilage.

34 Ren’ai Road, Lane 27, Section 4, Da’an District, Taipei City. Open 4 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 12 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Friday and Saturday, 12 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Sunday.

Elyse Inamine is a writer and editor based in New York City, with bylines in the New York Times, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Taste, and more. Previously she was the restaurant editor at BA and is now the co-author of Eric Sze’s cookbook Taiwanese?.