This post originally appeared on September 7, 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.

It may not technically be fall for a few more weeks, but the spirit of the season is already here. I spotted Halloween candy in Walgreens this week, saw the school crossing guard this morning, wore a light jacket last night, and have been scrolling past a seemingly infinite stream of first-day-of-school photos on Instagram. Most importantly, I’ve been devouring our fall preview package highlighting the books, TV shows, and restaurants we can look forward to this season. I encourage you to dive in, but will call out a few favorites:

Restaurants: In New York, I’m most anxious to check out Rangoon, a Burmese spot in Crown Heights; Silver Apricot, a Chinese-American restaurant from the owner of sweet little noodle restaurant Little Tong; and First Sunday, an experimental vegan restaurant that will combine art, music, food, and drink from one of this year’s Eater Young Guns, Francesca Chaney.

I most often travel to Los Angeles, where I’m looking forward to the Jessica Koslow (Sqirl) and Gabriela Cámara (Contramar) collab called Onda. I’ll also need to beeline to the French restaurant from Margarita and Walter Manzke (Republique), as they are so reliably excellent at what they do.

I’m also in D.C. a lot these days, so I’m going to have to try Pom Pom, the rebranded version of lauded Himitsu, and Erik Bruner-Yang’s ‘80s- and ‘90s-themed all-day cafe, ABC Pony.

Otherwise I may just have to rearrange my travel to make sure I get to Guard and Grace in Houston, not for the food but to just luxuriate in this Brutalist space with blue-velvet cushions and a knockoff of the chandelier at the Four Seasons/the Grill; the revamped Tosca in SF; and the myriad tropical bars opening in Portland.

Books: I don’t buy a lot of cookbooks, but I am going to have to get my hands on Alison Roman’s sophomore effort and Questlove’s new book version of his celeb-packed food salons.

On Eater

• Intel: Seattle now has a hard seltzer “taproom”; Amazon might someday let customers check out by scanning their hands instead of swiping a card; famous British chef Marco Pierre White said that men are better at controlling their emotions in the kitchen than women (disproven by this cache of videos of White being extremely emotional in the kitchen); Houston has a chic new Italian spot called Rosie Cannonball; Bricia Lopez, the talent behind LA’s beloved Guelaguetza, opened her Vegas Oaxacan spot Mama Rabbit and it looks freakin’ awesome; Venice has a sexy new steakhouse called American Beauty; chef Victoria Blamey is looking to shake up the staid, old Gotham Bar & Grill in Manhattan; controversial food-world celeb Paula Deen aims to open a restaurant in Nashville; Gordon Ramsay’s over-the-top and not-that-old Vegas restaurant is getting a $1.2 million renovation; the craze for Popeyes’s temporarily discontinued chicken sandwich led to a surge in sales of an indie D.C. chicken sandwich shop; a 43,000-square-foot (!) Starbucks will open in Chicago; and a stylish luncheonette just opened inside a very cool hotel project in Detroit.
• Just a reminder that José Andrés is a true American hero. A scroll through his Twitter feed is honestly and truly inspiring.
• An investigation of/slash ode to Starbucks’s egg bites.
• Spoiler alert: a $15 minimum wage isn’t what’s going to ruin the restaurant industry (it’s everything else).
• Design trend: Matisse-inspired colorful blobs are everywhere in restaurants.
• The right way to bring a baby to a bar.
• How food plays a role in Mary H.K. Choi’s new book, Permanent Record.
• Review: Keith McNally and Stephen Starr’s Pastis 2.0 is a time warp to the early aughts.
• Why San Mateo is still the best place to eat Japanese food in the Bay Area.
• This week I learned that the woman behind Annie’s mac ‘n’ cheese is also the inventor of my favorite childhood snack SmartFood.

This week on the podcast

This week on Eater’s Digest, I spoke to Eater’s Hillary Dixler Canavan, Greg Morabito, and Ellie Krupnick to discuss what this fall has in store for new restaurants, cookbooks, and TV shows.

Off Eater

• Another force behind the spiked seltzer craze: low-ABV malt beverages are taxed lower than liquor. [NYM]
• Why yes, I would like to live in this concrete house in Merida, Mexico. [Curbed]
• The gig economy but for line cooks. [NYT]
• Google’s new “Order Online” button bypasses restaurant websites, going directly to Postmates, DoorDash, and their ilk, which all take a cut. [New Food Economy]
• Will fast food be the canary in the coal mine of workforce automation? [Gizmodo]