799: The Dream of the $50 Dinner in New York Is Alive and Canada's Wild Run at North America’s 50 Best with Luke Fortney

27:15I love that you put lovely day on here. I've been going there since probably 2002. it opened in 2002 there you go I love this restaurant the vibe is immaculate and it's still open which is incredible what did you find there? I couldn't believe that it was still open I swear it closed in 2018 sure right? what I found there was a really varied community of diners you have and as I was talking to the owner Kazusa she was like you know what it feels like every couple years Someone, a new generation is discovering this restaurant, which you see on TikTok. People are like, come with me to eat hobo noodles, which is clearly from 2002.

28:02Totally. Yeah, a little on BC. When I spoke to her, I think this is in the newsletter. She's like, yeah, we probably should have changed at least that, even if the price stays the same. But, you know, you have these young people, but then you have people who were young when they discovered it back in 2002. And the through line here is that people keep coming back to Lovely Day. Yeah. And it's like a Thai restaurant, right? Pretty much, you say. I remember Thai was the inspiration, at least when I last went there. No, you're totally right. It is a Thai restaurant, but the owner is Japanese. Yeah, yeah.

28:38Only recently did someone who is Thai come on to the team as sort of like a partner. Yeah, yeah. Um, as far as I can tell, not much really changed, but, um, I always thought that was a funny detail. Tell me about Johnny's in Williamsburg. Oh, Johnny's is so good. Johnny's is so good. I have no idea what I'd love to just spend an afternoon with their books. I have no idea how this business model works. The idea though is, um, this is, uh, chifa Peruvian, uh, Chinese, uh, food that goes so far back in the immigration timelines, it's not like really fusion in the way that we discussed last time. This is something that now has been baked into generations of eating and cooking.

29:25The greatest example at Johnny's and anywhere is the rotisserie chicken. This is something there you can get. And I think, you know, I haven't been to Johnny's in a couple of weeks now, but I think the price was right around$25 when I went. For two people, you throw in a side. I mean, this is truly a under 50 club where you can dine for$50 for two and probably sneak in two cocktails. Wow. On top of that, it's a really cute vibe. It's like a nice tiled space. They have frozen drinks swirling in the back. Fun. Yeah, it's awesome. It's awesome. I love the through line in the end is you're calling these peace of mind pricing, which I think is really nice when we dine out and we both do quite a bit.

30:13When you don't review the menu ahead of time, you can be kind of shocked, sticker shocked at the end. Completely. I thought it was peace of mind. I had a few readers write in and be like$50 per person. Of course, this is a newsletter read nationally, but they're like$50 per person. This is ridiculous. They're like, you got to bring that down to$25 per person this time. Whoa, whoa, whoa. We'll see what we can do. You got to call him. You got to follow up there. Right. I'm like, I don't know. I mean, yeah. But I have been hunting for it to see if it can be done. I think so. And I think our friend Robert Sitsima does a great job of going in that sub -$25 category.

30:55I should call Robert. I think Robert would have some thoughts on that. Got to have Robert back. Next story. Why don't more restaurants have memberships? By Gloria Dawson writing in Expedite. Great substat covering tech and the restaurant industry and the kind of cool convergence there. I know you said you like this piece. I did a great deal. It centers on Dave Willicks, the chef owner of The Baker's Table in Newport, Kentucky. And, you know, David has this really unique business model. He offers memberships to the restaurant. and there's a couple reasons why this is really working in Newport, Kentucky.

31:34First, it's just guaranteed cash flow and these memberships are kind of like Groupons essentially. You're paying$180 a month to get$200 in-house credit. So you're essentially just committing to a monthly visit to the restaurant. He's got auto payments set up and he's saying these members and there's like 78 of them now, they're giving the best service. They're given, you know, they're known, they're there every month or even more. And Dave can keep track of their likes and their preferences and maybe throw in some specials. There's a little bit of a tech angle. There's a company called The Third Place that offers technology to set up these recurring payments.

32:15And I think for an operator, it's obvious to have guaranteed cash flow every month. If you have 78 folks paying 180, it's basically you become a SaaS company in some ways. And that's kind of exciting for operators trying to make it through. And I could see myself loving a restaurant and saying, I'm going to give you$200 a month if I'm going to get some incentive. And I'm going to put it on the calendar. Then I'm going to head there every month. Yeah. I love this. I love this piece. I love this idea. As I was reading it, I kept waiting for that kidney punch to be like, man, this sucks. You know, because it's, you know, you hear members only in memberships and you're like, okay, they're in, I'm out, that's rich, I'm broke, you know, and I was just amazed.

33:01I don't know. I was like, this is so cool. I think you and I both would agree that there are probably like five to 10 restaurants we would go to once a month. Yes. I would totally throw down$200 a month to have, I don't know. They didn't mention like guaranteed reservations, but I imagine there's some sort of preference there around walking in. Or maybe it's New York is obviously different than Kentucky. But, you know, I was like, this is so cool. I would love to see this in New York. I would too. And I just think like from a budget standpoint, you've already budgeted one night out. You love the restaurant.

33:38You want to support. You've already paid. So it's like hitting your card at the first of the month, which is there's a little bit of a mental benefit there if you've already paid for it in advance. And I think it's like showing support for a restaurant and pledging essentially that I'm going to be your customer once a month for a year. I believe Blackbird is trying this. This is part of their mission. I know it's changing often their modes and their models and really Penn Leventhal should come back on. I owe him an email because I feel like I want to hear what's up in the world of Blackbird. But it's just this idea of patronage.

34:14And if you go a lot, you should get some benefit. And I think like 180 for 200 is a pretty good tradeoff. I would guess too. I don't think this is the point. But I would guess that most people when given$180 paying at the first of the month, maybe you go two weeks later, are probably spending$300. Yeah. Like something psychologically changes when it's like getting a concert ticket, you know, to see Olivia Rodrigo. And then you get there and you're like, I guess I'll also get$100 merch. Right. And so I think it's really a smart business move on top of just, you know, having the baked in, knowing how much money you're going to bring in every month.

34:53And I think people want a little bit of planning for them. And if you love a restaurant and you've already paid for it, you've like taken that chore of deciding where to dine out out of the equation. Yeah. Like we just don't think about restaurants. That's a big challenge. A lot of work you do is like helping people plan their nights out. So if you have that like one night a month already there, already set. Yeah. Is there a restaurant you would do it? You would pay? I was just going to ask you this. Yeah, totally. I think for me, living in Prospect Heights, the restaurant that I go to the most is The Fly.

35:25Yeah. Say what you want about their chicken. I think it's gotten better and worse over the years. But I just, I love that place. I went for the first time in like two months last week. And you know, they said the best thing ever to me. They're like, where have you been? Like, you're supposed to have been here. You know, you're like one of our people. and truly for a while there I was going every Monday with my with my friend John and we'd sit in the same seats and get the same drinks but in food basically yeah and there's nothing that's just there's nothing like that you know it's and I don't get to do that very much in my job because it's so much new new new yeah um also two hundred dollars at the fly would go pretty far I feel like that's like four visits yeah so maybe it's like 150 for some restaurants doesn't have to be 200 yeah make your pledge right away there's lots of models my my restaurants would probably be i i would say hearth in the east village i would i would love to have a date on the books once a month or if it rolls over i have a more splash out i would do that i would do her name is han i would love to have that on the books and up by me where i live uh blooming hill farm i love this restaurant i have no idea what that is blooming hill farm blooming hill farm is a cool restaurant it's like it's close to Monroe, New York it's a very it's a farm stand slash restaurant in the summer they host a lot of weddings so they don't really operate on the weekends it's a challenging place to book but I absolutely adore this restaurant it's very close to where I live and I just it's like this wonderful farmer runs it and he's got a great chef and the menu is absolutely razor sharp Italian with pizzas and flatbreads and great pastries and et cetera.

37:12It's a great restaurant. If you're heading back from the Catskills or even Kingston, I think the big move for the New Yorkers is to catch brunch there. Yeah. It's a great place. Okay, cool. All right, our last story is a good one. Oh, Canada by Ivy Knight writing in Caper. This rocked. Rocked, totally rocked. And I love to see, I want to highlight Caper. Absolutely crushing it, guys. You're doing a great job. I really like that this is a feature, So this isn't one of the three columnists. This is the features. They're doing one or two features a week, which I love to see them ramp that up. Really terrific work there.

37:48And this is a cool piece live from World's 50 Best, North America. It was in New Orleans. And I had some friends who were there. I was getting texts and getting a vibe check. and for the last two years and this award has been in existence for two years Canada has kind of ruled zooming out a little bit to remind folks this is part of the world's 50 best this is the North America edition and really it's a challenging list for some because of this imbalance towards Canada and I think Ivy taps into some of the pride from the Canada side which I think is the interesting part I think Americans are like why are there so many Canadian restaurants I could go over the list.

38:29There's lots of cool restaurants. There's Restaurant Pearl, Morissette in Ontario, Vaumont-La-Pont in Montreal, Quetzal in Toronto. I wish I've been to any of these restaurants. I haven't been to Canada in a minute. But I think the big restaurant is eight in Calgary. It was number two both in 2025 and 2026. We're talking about all the restaurants in North America. Only eight seats. It's in Calgary. Interesting choice. I think that the big kind of topic covered in this that's interesting is why Canada I think the cool part about this piece is that Ivy is arguing that this is not a fluke Canada has a high immigrant population especially in Toronto's multicultural restaurant scene great native ingredients we're talking about Malpac oysters, BC spot prawns Quebec maple syrup, Alberta beef and it gives chefs a lot to work with and I think as somebody who has Canadian relatives I'm very excited personally that Canada is getting recognition.

39:28I'm sorry for the sad North American chefs who are questioning these merits of these lists. But I think that this is definitely a great piece about this trend towards Canada. What did you think of the piece? I mean, Canada is on the up. Let's not forget this is the place that gave us Keanu Reeves, that one guy fictitiously from Heated Rivalry, I think. Tim Hortons. These are banger after banger. Bag milk. Milk that comes in a bag. Oh, my God. We grew up with those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, anyways, another time. Yeah, Canada's on the up, I think. There's Drake, but then, yeah, for every Drake, you have, I don't know, Justin Bieber, I guess?

40:16The New Pornographer is a great band from the early 2000s. Yeah. We have Sloan. Okay. We could just go into Canadian indie rock all day. Just name drop band for band Canadian stars. Stars, Canadian band. You can say it. There's so many great Canadian bands. This is so nice when we get together. It's kind of like a war of the generational reference. Anyways, you know, I haven't dined in Canada as a food writer, I have to say. um but what's funny is that uh multiple people in my orbit in the last year have started to talk about toronto specifically in the same way that i heard them talk about mexico city talk about uh tokyo a couple years ago um the way they're talking about south korea now like it's clear this is a food destination i don't know if it's um some sort of like uh like there's an industry plant or something or if there's like a sleeper cell of canadian somethings that just activated um but uh no it really seems like this is something people are are taking note of yeah um also i just should add this is like a master class in food writing this was such a good piece um i don't know ivy um but i was like this this is one of my favorite pieces of food writing i read this year just uh the setup of the history of the 50 best which i did not know at all yeah um which is basically just that it's a life it was a lifeline um to save of the magazine and um into like the canada redemption arc and how canada has been friend zoned by the states and awards i was like this is so good and smart yeah yeah it's the kind of piece you're reading you're just so jealous of yeah totally agree uh he's a great great journalist uh and i'm happy to see this in caper um i feel like canada this sleeper cell idea that they have people like you know working for i mean it's the government probably supporting these restaurants a little bit better than other places perhaps i don't know like i mean tourism boards are doing great work um i think it's so close to america i think air canada is offer offers like relative affordable airfare there so folks from like you know new york the east coast can get to toronto quickly yeah um i know Of course, Toronto is legendary for the Chinese population and the Chinatown there, which I've yet to experience myself.

42:37So I'm really excited to go. I'm really happy to see this. I mean, we could snark all about it and be funny, but I think it's really important that World's 50 is actually recognizing Canada in this significant way. And I just want to see more of these chefs get press in America. Yeah. When was the last time you ate in Canada? Or went to Canada? I had a wonderful trip to Victoria and British Columbia and Vancouver. Super cool. And I loved it out there. And I think I really divorced it from Toronto and Montreal. It's very different. Yeah. Victoria is amazing, by the way. That's a great place to visit.

43:16The food there is really underrated. And we did a great Taste Travels episode there. I haven't been to like Ontario. And I grew up in Michigan. I had a lot of family in like Whitby and like around Toronto. and listen, I have not been there in decades. And then Montreal is such a short drive from New York. Yeah. And that's a very popular destination. I think we should go to Canada. Yeah, man. I think we should go to Canada. I think we said something, some other destination last time I was on here, but let's go to Canada. Reach out, Tourism Canada. We can definitely take this show on the road. Luke's going to ride shotgun.

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44:25Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at rula.com slash taste. That's r-u-l-a dot com slash taste. This episode is brought to you by Goodr. Okay, I want to talk about sunglasses for a second. The market is completely oversaturated with overpriced, over-engineered pairs that slide off your face the moment you start sweating. Goodr, that's g-o-o-d-r, built their whole brand around fixing exactly that. And I know this firsthand. They sent me a couple pairs, and I really love them. For real, they fit on my face perfectly and have a really nice look. Gooder's sunglasses include polarized lenses, UV 400 protection, and a grip-coated frame that does not move.

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45:58Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college PC. Well, that's the five stories this week. You know, typically we end with, you know, taste check and like our cool green card question. But because you were just here, and in general, I just want to like switch this up a bit. because I love talking about food writing and it's a popular. Thanks for reaching out. Everyone loves this segment. You're great, Luke. Oh, thanks. I want to throw a little wrinkle here. I want to close this episode with something that, you know what? I feel like we all have it in food writing in our journalism career.

46:33We're going to call it deleted scene. Have you had an editor or somebody in your life who's looking at your copy, you know, cut something? It could be some lines. It could be a full story idea that you just want to you want to air here. You want to you want to bring back this deleted scene. Oh, my God. I do. I do. I do. I like as soon as I as soon as I heard this, I was like, I know exactly what it's great. This is stupid. I really want to write a story about the tater tot. Maybe I've mentioned this to you at some point. I definitely have mentioned it to every single editor I have. And they're all like, no.

47:14I just think there's something underexplored about the tater tot. I know histories have been written about this manufactured microplastic filled food. But I think there's more to it. I think we're taking this freezer aisle thing for granted. And, you know, it all started a couple months ago. I was at this Irish restaurant in Astoria writing a piece about pubs. And I saw they had homemade tater tots on the menu. Three words I had never seen together in the same menu item line. I didn't know anyone in the United States was making their own tater tots. So I find out there's this tater tot festival every year in Idaho where the tater tot was invented.

47:57And I think this year I'm going to go out there and see if I can find a story. But that one has been killed like a half dozen times now. You've pitched this visit to the tater tot fest to multiple publications. Yeah. Well, my editors at the Times, I've been like, you know, and if they're listening, they'll know all about this. This won't be a surprise. But I just I feel like there's something something about like why has this thing endured other than as a place to put our potato scraps? I don't know. But it's so beloved in like so many formats of dining. But it's so American, too, at the same time.

48:35I mean, look at like from Maine down to like the Key West. Yeah. And that's just on the East Coast. They're doing a version of tater tots at roadside stands and at diners. And obviously, poutine is kind of a close cousin to the tater tot. But I think when you have a great industrial tater tot, and of course, the fry is right, and they've got a great basket fry and clean oil. Dude, you can add a lot of cool things to it. You could add kimchi dust. You could add MSG. You could add some kind of hot chili flakes. I mean, there's like lots of cool ways to mess with the tater tot. Totally. It's a vessel at the end of the day.

49:13It's a vessel. But I think it's also more than that. Yeah. You want to go to Idaho. You want to do some reporting. Or maybe it was Oregon. I'm trying to remember now. It's like the Ora Ida, you know? I feel like it's - It might be Oregon, actually. Yeah, yeah. Those are a great potato. It's in the Ora or the Ida. Anyways, maybe there's a tater tot story. I love it. And maybe it's hiding in Toronto, Canada. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure there's some great tots there. All right. Well, the last thing I want to say is, and we call this the final word, is I wanted each of us to think about a food writer. We wanted to spotlight somebody who maybe hasn't been mentioned on the show yet.

49:50Possibly future we can feature their work on food writers talking about food writing. Do you want to start? Yeah, I do. I have no idea what this person's name is. But there's this Instagram account I follow called Only Star Left. You can look this up. It's kind of like an archival Instagram account where they post. It's kind of like a museum when you look at the grid. And it's pretty new. Lasts like a year or two. And very recently, the creator who lives in New York started posting food reviews of places like Gnocchi on 9th. Which I think is, well, I won't say it on the show. But, you know, it's kind of funny.

50:38It's like there is no platform like Substack or anything. This all lives on Instagram. And this is someone with no prior food writing experience. And that's always my favorite thing is, like, just showing anyone can do this. And the writing is crisp. It's a cool take. I think it's getting there. I mean, they're in the first, like, 100 of their 10 ,000 hours. But they're, you know, posting every week. And I think someone who has another job, it's like, I don't know. It made me think honestly of like Jason Lee, who I know has been on the show and like, you know, him getting his start really like posting on Instagram.

51:17And it's something with the class of students now. I tell them, I'm like, just produce. You have this amazing place to just dump your words. Dude, I say the same when I speak to students. I started my free writing career literally writing Yelps. I literally started Yelp. This was like 2004. Yeah. I just wanted to write, and you just have to produce. Yeah. You just have to produce. It's totally great advice. Yeah. How about you? So I have a writer who I don't know personally, but I've been following a bit. His name is Bodhi Landa. Cool. Bodhi writes the Thirst Behavior Substack and wrote a terrific piece about wine influences for caper.

51:59And I just I love the this industry experiencing Bodhi's wine professional and and writes like really colorfully. And I think wine is is a topic that is very important to cover and bring fresh energy and voice to to wine is is needed is always needed. And I just love thirst behavior. I don't drink myself, but I find myself compelled to actually read some of these these pieces about wine culture. Yeah. You know this writer at all? You know, I actually don't. But I remember this piece in, you said it was in Caper? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember reading this piece. I've totally been influenced by this generation of wine professionals online, especially the Super Vino Bros.

52:39I feel like any time I travel abroad, I'm messaging them like, where should I drink in Madrid? And I don't know, for someone who doesn't know that much about wine, I find it kind of charming. Yeah. I hear the other end of it of wine professionals being like, huh. Yeah. But you know what? Again, it's kind of like I'm into as many people as possible being in this industry, which is shrinking so fast. Yeah. And, you know, as long as there's passion and a willingness and intent to like get things right and do your best, here for it. I'm here for it too. That's a great point about getting things right and having passion.

53:17Those are two very important tenets to journalism. And I think we see so much of that in the five stories, plus the writers we talked about, even the Instagram. I think they both strive for those elements in their work. Yeah. I'm thinking, I'm talking this way because I just said, gave this spiel to a group of high school students. Oh, yeah? You know, journalism's alive. It's a lot. Yada, yada. And it is, if any of you are listening. Yeah. Well, Luke, this has been a ton of fun. Thank you so much for joining us. This is Taste. Thanks so much for having me.

53:48This is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Abarbanal and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Episode portraits by Louise Zergon Pomeroy. Logo design by Ellie Skirzat and Ian Dingham. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.

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