Eater Awards 2010 Gala Celebration at Public in NYC

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• Big winners Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone of Torrisi Italian Specialties took home NYC Restaurant of the Year and National Restaurant of the Year. The awards will look at home on the stocked shelves at Torrisi.
• Presented to the person whose show is best viewed at 140 characters long.
• Industry PR vet Karine Bakhoum, celebuchef Anne Burrell, Aldea chef George Mendes and friends.
• Eater Awards 2010 at Public Restaurant, NYC. Things be rocking.
• Big winner Michael White took home three cans of tomatoes, including NYC Chef of the Year.
• Ardesia owner Mandy Oser, the one and only Eric Ripert, and friend.
• Awards were distributed in customized 35oz cans of Italian peeled tomatoes. Suitable for sauce!
• The PDX crew represents in NYC! Eater PDX editor Erin DeJesus stands second from left.
• The party rocks on.
• Chef April Bloomfield with her Comeback of the Year award for The John Dory at the Ace Hotel in New York City.
• Venture capitalist Mo Koyfman, Joanne Wilson, and Eater co-founder Ben Leventhal share a guffaw.
• Team Momofuku Milk Bar (with Christina Tosi at left) get crazy with Food & Wine's Kate Krader (in green jacket).
• AvroKo lighting always photographs well, friends.
• Torrisi's Mario Carbone with wine wizard Joe Bastianich and assorted entourage.
• Matt Lightner, PDX Chef of the Year and Restaurant of the Year winner, went home with double hardware (and an Eater Shitshow t-shirt for good measure).
• Joseph Leonard's Gabe and Gina Stulman with Joanne Wilson.
• Wine guy Brandon Barton, Eater NY editor Amanda Kludt, and Eleven Madison Park svengali Will Guidara.
• Prime Meats' Frank Falcinelli dispenses the wisdom.
• Winner of the Jean-Georges Award for Quietly Killing it, Frank Falcinelli, with his Prime Meats partner Travis Kaufman. [Photo courtesy Metromix]
• Time Out New York restaurant editor Jordanna Rothman (in foreground to right of Anne Burrell's hair) enjoys the moment.
• Eater Awards 2010 presenting sponsor GREY GOOSE Vodka.
• The Ripper and chef Bill Telepan.
• Faustina general manager Jeffrey Tascarella, taking a break from running the Scarpetta empire.
• Convivio's testa, plated and ready for noshing.
• Porsena's Sebastian Jaramillo contemplates stealing one of Michael White's Eater Awards.
• Public's Brad Farmerie cooked up a storm on his home turf.
• Eater readers who won tickets to the Awards by sharing their best restaurant secrets. Shhh!
• Murderers' Row: White, Kludt, Krader, Pasore, Olivia.
• Pok Pok's famous chicken wings made the flight from Oregon with panache.
• Team Fat Radish picks up their Eater Award, the Daniel Boulud Award for Most Originally Named Restaurant of the Year, "named in honor of the best restaurant namer there ever was."
• Eater co-founder Lockhart Steele warns the crowd of imminent taco-bombing from the Korilla Truck that had just pulled up outside.
• GREY GOOSE speciality cocktails.
• Team Momo Milk Bar knows the program.
• Michael White and Eric Ripert.
• Former Racked NY editor Leslie Price and current Racked NY editor Izzy Grinspan show off their men.
• Curbed NY editor Joey Arak and Darin Bresnitz.
• Team Convivio, bottoms up!
• Eater's Lockhart Steele with Saveur's Gabriella Gershenson.
• Those guys.
• Team Eater Holiday Card 2010. (Front row: Greg Morabito NY, Erin DeJesus PDX, Kat Odell LA, Lockhart Steele, Rapahel Brion NAT’L; back row: Carolyn Alburger SF, Ari Bendersky CHI, Scott Solish NY, Paula Forbes ATX/NAT'L, Amanda Kludt NY. Roaring firepla
• Lure's John McDonald with Bon Appetit restaurant editor Andrew Knowlton and lovely wife.
• Francis Lam, George Mendes, and friends.
• Food & Wine home cooking star Sarah Simmons and friend.
• Eater intern and Bitters, Old Men founder Zachary Feldman and friend.
• Eater's Michelle Curb (far right) and friends.
• Awards that will be claimed... and Awards that probably won't.
• Eater co-founders Ben Leventhal and Lockhart Steele surround empire maven Chris Cannon.
• GREY GOOSE pour.
• Public treats.
• The Korilla taco truck was a late night arrival, here flanked by some of the crew from the French Culinary Institute that helped run the Eater Awards gala.
• GREY GOOSE behind the bar.
• Greg Denton (Chef of PDX ROY nominee Metrovino), Matt Lightner (dual PDX winner), and Todd Steele (Metrovino).
• Eater's Kelly Dobkin and friend. [Photo courtesy Guest of a Guest]
• Eater Chicago editor Ari Bendersky. [Photo courtesy Guest of a Guest]
• Gawker Media ad director Chris Batty and wife.
• Eater general manager Josh Albertson (left) surveys the scene.
• Eater LA editor Kat Odell (right) and friend.
• Eater's dapper Greg Morabito.
• Eater nightlife editor Scott Solish.
• Eater SF editor Carolyn Alburger. [Photo courtesy Guest of a Guest]
• Chef Timon Balloo of Miami Restaurant of the Year SUGARCANE Raw Bar Grill with Eater co-founder Lockhart Steele.
• Momofuku Milk Bar cookies for everyone!
• Gift bags closed out the night.

And so it came to pass that last evening, at the restaurant Public in the Nolita district of New York City, Team Eater joined its friends and acquaintances from the restaurant and nightlife industries to toast the nominees and winners of the Eater Awards 2010, presented by GREY GOOSE. On the upper level, restaurant ops squads from Convivio, Momofuku Milk Bar, Portland's Pok Pok and Public cooked and served astounding foodstuffs; on the lower bar level, The John Dory, Prime Meats, and the Forever Cheese teams did the same. On a nearby wall, party-goers perused the Eater Awards winners, emblazoned onto custom 35-ounce cans of Eater Awards-brand Italian Peeled Tomatoes. Throughout the night, the winners scooped up their cans; it can now be confirmed, to no one's surprise, that Eric Ripert still looks dapper as all get-out even when holding aloft a tomato can.

Peruse the party pictures in our gallery above, or, for even more variety, hop on over to Metromix and Guest of a Guest, which both sent their own photographers to document the mayhem.

· Michael White, whose Convivio team served amazing testa to the throngs, arrived to bask in the glow of his three awards. Later, much later, his partner Chris Cannon would wrestle away the Empire Builders of the Year award he shared with White, explaining, "He's got enough of these things." Cannon also took down the unofficial Eater Award for most sartorially superior party-goer.

· The night's big winners, Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi, arrived after service at their nearby restaurant, Torrisi Italian Specialties. (Anecdote: An FCI student working the event was at Torrisi having dinner earlier in the night, when the staff interrupted service to let everyone know that they'd just won best restaurant of the year, earning a standing ovation from the diners.) Carbone and GM Nicole Katz said they were in awe of winning two awards, and acknowledged that the shelves holding the Eater Awards cans was, indeed, Torrisi-esque.

· The always classy silver fox Eric Ripert found out about his Eater Award for TV Personality of the Year during a party at the Ace Hotel for his Avec Eric show. Ripert rolled down to Public, where he pretty much had a receiving line from the get-go. The gentleman was visibly excited to find out there were actual tomatoes inside his Eater Award, joking that they would be his dinner that night—and then promising on Twitter to offer a suitable recipe.

· Plenty of chefs from outside the New York City orbit showed up to share in the fun. The elite club of folks who got to carry home multiple cans of tomatoes included Matt Lightner of Portland Restaurant of the Year Castagna, who posted with Castagna's prize and his own PDX Chef of the Year tomato tin. Food & Wine wonderwoman Kate Krader took time out from cavorting with the Momofuku Milk team to call Lightner "my little brother."

· Has the Momofuku empire finally made peace with vegetarians? The unveiling of a veggie bun to accompany the pork buns seemed to indicate as much. The veggie bun's secret ingredient? Pork.

· Upper West Side chef extraordinaire Bill Telepan was overheard giving turkey tips. 'Tis the season. Other restaurant-world folks in the crowd: Little Wisco kingpin Gabriel Stulman; Pat LaFrieda meat man Mark Pastore; and the one, the only, Anne Burrell. (Approximate number of times the classic Anne Burrell joke, "Hey, It's Guy Fieri" was heard: 7.)

· Come to think of it, a question, Mark Pastore. The tinted glasses at 10pm in Nolita. Really necessary?

· Zach Chodorow (son of Jeffrey) accepted the Spectacle of the Year award on behalf of Josh Ozersky. The award, you see, honored Ozersky's Wedding, which went down at one of Chodorow's properties. Fair deal, yes? Yes.

· A gracious Joe Bastianich made an appearance even though Del Posto lost out the NYC Restaurant of the Year award. His team at Del Posto did scoop an award for Video Interlude of the Year, however, though Bastianich forgot to scoop the award himself. Check your mail, Joe.

· Eleven Madison Park GM Will Guidara, looking as calm and collected as ever, explained to party-goers that if EMP had to lose out to someone, he's glad they lost out to Torrisi. EMP chef Daniel Humm is a huge fan of the Nolita boys' program.

· A number of attendees asked to take home Kenmare's Shitshow of the Year award. No dice, friends. That's going in the Eater trophy case, assuming the messenger delivery to Kenmare is rejected.

· The folks from So Hot Right Now nominee M. Wells in Queens chatted about introducing both deep dish pizzas and foie gras tamales to the menu.

· Dovetail's John Fraser and emerging Thai food rockstar Harold Dieterle showed up just as the party was winding down. Such are the perils of working chefs.

: Another last-minute arrival: Miami chef Timon Balloo of multiple-Eater Award winner SUGARCANE Raw Bar Grill. When an Eater operative pointed out that he couldn't just take the awards, he pointed out that he won them. Ah, yes then. Carry on.

· Those still standing at midnight made their way west along Houston Street to the official afterparty at Burger & Barrel. Chef Josh Capon served up alcohol-soaking nibbles, while Eater Intern extraordinaire Zach sampled from his bespoke line of bitters, Bitters, Old Men.

Thanks to all who came, played, and triumphed.

· The Eater Awards 2010 Winners, from Coast to Coast [Eater National]