This post originally appeared on June 15, 2019, 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.

I was going to start the newsletter this week with a take on the closing of the revamped (and $40 million!) Four Seasons half a year after co-owner Julian Niccolini was pushed out, but I found my own schadenfreude a little unbearable. So instead I’ll just say some nice things and get right into it.

- I finally finished Kwame Onwuachi’s memoir, and it is as good as I expected, especially the second half when we get into the thick of the restaurant drama.

- I am obsessively watching wackadoo animated series Tuca and Bertie on Netflix and recommend you do the same. If it’s not your thing, try Dead to Me.

- If you live in New York, please go to Crown Shy and order all the desserts.

- This podcast about horniess from The Cut is fantastic.

- I went to a lovely fundraiser for Housing Works this week, and it reminded me they do great work. So throw some money their way. (It also reminded me Ovenly’s black out chocolate cake is best-in-class.)

P.S.: I’m going to Cannes for a work trip on Sunday, so if you have any recs, please send them my way.

P.P.S.: I now live in an apartment with a very large garden and am desperately trying to keep it alive. Luckily, pruning rose bushes is very zen. If you have any books or YouTube channels or podcasts(?) about gardening, I’m here for it.

On Eater

• Intel: Texas’s favorite family-owned burger chain Whataburger sold a majority stake to a private equity firm; New York’s 80 year-old pizza destination L&B Spumoni Gardens is expanding to Dumbo; the owners of LA mini empire Superba Food + Bread took over April Bloomfield’s beleaguered Hearth + Hound space; Portland has a new Indonesian restaurant called Wajan; LA’s wildly popular hot chicken spot Howlin’ Ray’s will open a second storefront in Pasadena; D.C. has a sleek new roof bar; the new Nordstrom flagship in New York will include restaurants from Seattle’s Ethan Stowell and Tom Douglas; the former chef de cuisine at D.C.’s tony Fiola Mare has a new Italian restaurant in the expensively renovated Hamilton Hotel; one of New Orleans’ favorite sno-ball stands will be closed for the 2019 season; Beyond Meat’s new fake meat patty is allegedly even better at impersonating meat; Dave Chang’s fried chicken chain Fuku will expand to LA this summer; lauded Brooklyn bar Maison Premiere filed for bankruptcy; a gay couple was asked to leave Langer’s Delicatessen in LA for kissing publicly; Texas chef Paul Qui is suing his former consultants and business partners for allegedly tricking him out of money and sabotaging his relationships; Jon Shook, Vinny Dotolo, and Ludo Lefebvre are replacing Trois Familia with a new restaurant; Kind Bar and Clif Bar are having an epic fight; and a kind of global fusion place from one of the city’s top bartenders opened in Chicago.
• Protest food, ranked.
• In which a cocktail expert visits San Francisco’s pop-up rat bar.
• An appreciation of regional grocery chain Stew Leonard’s.
• How an Oakland Puerto Rican restaurant fueled the Warriors during playoff season.
• Skip a colander and buy a fine mesh sieve.
• I am so ashamed that I’m from Massachusetts and have spent so much time in New Hampshire and yet just learned about “beach pizza” this week. It looks hilariously bad (the cheese! the to-go box alignment! that crust!) and I’m desperate to try it now.
• Matt Buchanan, Eater’s resident coffee obsessive, on Sawada, a Tokyo-style cafe in New York that is pushing our coffee scene to the next level (with lattes!).
• Just put on Chopped.
• New Yorkers: please take a look at this wonderful guide to summertime eating and drinking in the city, including maps of roof bars, ice cream shops, and patios, an Arthur Avenue crawl, this look at at typical Friday night on riverside stalwart The Frying Pan, and so much more.

This Week on the Podcast

This week on the Eater Upsell, Daniel and I discuss the Michelin California guide, the Burger King that sent out beef Whoppers instead of Impossible Whoppers, the new cafe from dating app Bumble, what it means to have a restaurant pact, and so much more. Plus, pop culture writer Greg Morabito tells us about the latest in food TV and movies.

Off Eater

• An oldie but a goodie: Can tiny houses save Detroit? [Curbed]
• Kind of love this Hot Ones cameo on The Tonight Show. [The Tonight Show]
• Reminder during the World Cup that the U.S. women’s national soccer team is better than the men’s and brings in more money. And they are paid less (around 38 cents on the dollar).
• I can confirm that kids shirts marketed to girls always have ice cream and shirts marketed to boys have pizza.
• Love this recent Rebecca Traiser’s keynote speech about raising hell. [Texas Observer]
• The surprising artistry of fruit stickers. [Atlas Obscura]