This post originally appeared on June 16, 2018, in Amanda Kludt’s newsletter “From the Editor,” a roundup of the most vital news and stories in the food world each week. Read the archives and subscribe now.

When news broke last week that restaurant world icon Gabrielle Hamilton and her Prune partner and wife Ashley Merriman aim to team up with accused sexual harasser Ken Friedman on his beleaguered (but still thriving!) restaurant the Spotted Pig, I figured there must be a reasonable explanation or a wrinkle I wasn’t seeing.

I thought maybe they would come out and say, “Listen, he’s not going to sell or close the restaurant, and it continues to be busy, so this is a way for us to build a great culture for the staff and GET PAID. We need money, and we’re going to GET PAID.” Depending on the deal, it could mean more money for deserving women, and less for an alleged predator. I still wouldn’t go there, but I would understand it.

Or I thought they could say, “We are longtime friends with Ken, and we’re working toward a path of forgiveness based on his serious remorse and communication with his alleged victims.” I thought maybe Ken would join in the conversation, to apologize, to explain, to assert publicly that what happened at his restaurant wasn’t okay.

Instead, his new prospective partners said they like to party just like Ken, but without the harassment. They said he’ll be like a reformed spouse on his second marriage (better behaved this time around). They said he shouldn’t be deprived of money, comparing the calls for him to divest from his restaurant to capital punishment, and accusing his detractors of sharing a bloodlust. They said they should be lauded a la humanitarian chef José Andrés for cleaning up a “disaster.” They talked about a man’s redemption, they talked about “truth and reconciliation” without mentioning his remorse (or his victims). They spoke of the Pig as if it’s an entity bigger than us all that needs to be saved.

I know it shouldn’t necessarily matter how you sell it or spin it or explain it to the public when the decision and the outcome are the same. But it’s hard to have the nuanced conversation they claim to desire, the paradigm shift they claim to embody, without centering the victims over the bad actor, without grappling with what contrition and forgiveness and reconciliation should look like here.

Opening of the week: Tacocina

Alex Staniloff

Who’s behind it: New York empire builder Danny Meyer.

What is it: A taco stand in a new public park, overseen by chef Barbara Garcia.

Where is it: Domino Park, a new development on the waterfront of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

When did it open: Last weekend.

Why should I care: I personally care because I have lived in this part of New York (although not at the waterfront) for 12 years and used to go to bars and house parties and shows near this new park back when I was fun and this looked more like an industrial wasteland. That was a different Williamsburg. In 2005, our former mayor and his administration re-zoned 175 blocks of the waterfront area, leading to the current Miami-esque skyline and an ensuing influx of bankers and yuppies, hotels and sleek nightclubs, and mainstream brands like J.Crew, Chipotle, Whole Foods, and SoulCycle.

The completion of this park, at the site of the landmark Domino Sugar Factory, and the arrival of a mass market taco stand from a Midwestern-born restaurant magnate, is, to me, the coup de grace for the ‘90s and early aughts iteration of this neighborhood.

I’ve lived in and studied New York long enough to accept that change is part of the game here, and this isn’t the first once-artsy enclave to become unaffordable and sanitized. I can’t get too sad about it.

I appreciate the new trend (often, as here, mandated by zoning) of private developers building public parks instead of locked-off private courtyards as part of their mega projects, as well as the slow and gradual process of opening up the waterfront to New Yorkers. It’s an amenity that urban planners (Robert Moses, most notably) have historically underutilized, and that the Bloomberg administration, for all its faults, appreciated as an asset.

As for the food, a Los Tacos No. 1 might have been a cooler choice, but Meyer, with restaurants in parks and stadiums and train stations up and down the East Coast, was the obvious choice. I’m happy he installed Garcia, a Mexico native, to plan the whole thing.

On Eater

• Intel: Nancy Silverton wants to bring Mozza to New York and London; famed dim sum chain Din Tai Fung will open two locations in London; the owners of Montreal’s very wonderful Maison Publique and Joe Beef are teaming up to open a luncheonette; chef Pim Techamuanvivit will open a second SF restaurant; the new owner of Les Halles will keep part of the makeshift Bourdain memorial that’s grown since his death; New York chef Einat Admony opens her couscous restaurant Kish Kash next week; London delivery behemoth Deliveroo continues to grow; chef Dave Chang’s midtown NYC restaurant Ma Peche closed, as did Keith McNally’s second try on the Bowery Cherche Midi; the chef behind popular Indianapolis breakfast and lunch spot Milktooth just debuted his follow up, Beholder; London might ban foie gras after Brexit; all Texas In-N-Out locations had to close earlier this week because of a bun issue; San Francisco is getting a six-story dining cathedral; a shipping container food hall will open in Detroit next month; a wholesale bread supplier in Denver shuttered his retail location because of the labor shortage; Chicago’s The Girl & The Goat will expand to LA; and the owners of Ramen Tatsu-ya in Austin will open a tiki bar.
• Behind the scenes of Bao, the first Pixar short directed by a woman.
• Robert Sietsema’s favorite restaurants of the year so far.
• Why IHOP’s name change stunt was so annoying to everyone.
• The steak omakase at NYC Korean barbecue restaurant Cote looks pretty insane.
• Everything you need to know about visiting Nashville.
• On the latest episode of his podcast, Dave Chang opened up about his struggles with mental health, discussing his daily calls with his therapist, and how his creative drive during the early days of Momofuku came from an inner suspicion that he wouldn’t live to see the next decade.

On the Upsell

Last week, Dan and I talked to Rodney Scott, the James Beard award-winning pitmaster, about his life mastering whole hog, how one festival in 2010 opened his eyes up to a whole world of barbecue and new opportunities, and how he’d like to expand to New York and beyond. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.

Off Eater

• On the plastic straws beat, A&W is the first fast-food chain in North America to ban them, and McDonald’s is moving to ban them in the UK. [Daily Hive / BBC]
• Curbed critic Alexandra Lange wrote a book about the design of childhood. [Curbed]
• The food lab manager responsible for all kinds of food items, from cultishly loved ice cream brand Salt & Straw, to Portland chef Vitaly Paley’s energy bar, to Bob’s Red Mill oatmeal cups. [NYT]
• Dominique Crenn and Nancy Silverton on the path forward for women in restaurants. [WaPo]
• The difference between Keanu Reeves and Jake Gyllenhaal being asked about their sandwiches. [@ikra via @meat_and_rice)
• It’s a wrap but a bagel. [@cushac]
• Finally:

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