New Yorkers are typically not very impressed with celebrity sightings. But that was certainly not the case Thursday night at Morandi, Keith McNally's latest establishment. While dining with a friend at the trendy Italian trattoria, the one and only Madonna graced us—and the entire restaurant—with her presence. Dressed in a slinky dark dress and sporting her signature wavy tresses, Madge was seated right next to us in the back alcove. Joined by a large entourage (sans Guy Ritchie) that included fifteen stylish friends and two bodyguards, the ultimate queen of reinvention appeared to be having a private celebration: She toasted, sipped wine, nibbled on tomatoes and mozzarella, and seemed generally unfazed by the chaotic fanfare surrounding her. One enraptured diner in particular, who was sitting nowhere nearby, actually made several laps around the area, eventually stopping at the superstar's table in a silent stare, prompting a hostess to tell him to "sit down or leave." Obviously unable to contain himself, he chose the latter option.

It's not every Saturday that you glance up from your brunch menu to see an enraged Julian Schnabel charging your table. But that's exactly happened to me and a friend at the restaurant Wallsé this past weekend.

As we were busy persusing the menu, we were suddenly rushed by a bearlike man wearing a blazer and a bright blue knee-length caftan. He gestured towards my companion's dining chair, which had, unbeknownst to us, been scratching up against a wall-sized, monochromatic painting hanging behind it.

"That's ruining my painting!" he bellowed, as we rose and dutifully shifted our table away from the artwork. "It's not your fault," the aging enfant terrible continued, "it's this restaurant's!" Then he threatened to remove his paintings if they didn't get more respect.

Our shaken server told us later that Schnabel, who lives just a block away, loans Wallsé much of its art—he's friends with its chef and owner, Kurt Gutenbrunner. The painting in question was not actually painted by Schnabel, although the artist's own canvases also adorn the restaurant. While Schnabs was visibly perturbed about his painting, at least he got VIP treatment: he and his companion were served long before the spatzle and bratwurst made it to our table.

Another Schnabel Encounter

Photo: Jim Spellman/WireImage.com

Akiko, left, and Kiwon

The other night my friend Kiwon Standen from Bar Blanc asked me if I wanted to meet and dine with her friend Akiko Katayama. For those of you who don't know Akiko, she is a food writer and regular judge on Iron Chef America. The chefs fear her for famously saying, "this is a bit too greasy for my palate!"

I'm no dummy, a chance to eat out with Food Network royalty? I immediately said "Yes!"

Akiko is based in New York but she had just flown in from a three-week trip in Japan. Despite her professed jetlag, she arrived at The Monday Room looking fresh as a daisy, dressed in a black turtleneck, wool shorts, tights and a killer pair of boots. The place was her pick, as she's good friends with its chef, Brad Farmerie. We started with some wine, of course. To the befuddlement of our Ernie Kovacs-looking sommelier, Akiko and another member of our party both rejected the first bottle of Pinot Noir that was poured, declaring it corked. Ouch! Fortunately, the second bottle met with approval, and we were off and running.

The menu of The Monday Room is made up of small plates, ideal for sharing. I thought I'd be able to get away with eating some of the less ambitious items but Akiko guided me through the world of game and entrails with a firm hand. She ordered the miso-baked bone marrow, the "Old-school" pig's terrine (scary!), the grilled Kobe beef tongue with babaganoush and the lamb empanada with tequila ketchup.

Akiko ate everything, declaring it all delicious. And for the record, she did not think anything was too greasy.

Until recently, the quaint market town of Tetbury in England's Cotswolds district was best known for the antique shops lining its narrow, cobble-stone streets. Now there's another reason for visitors to flock to the Gloucestershire town. Last month, the area's starriest resident, Prince Charles—whose rambling country pad Highgrove is just outside Tetbury—set up shop there.

The store—Highgrove Shop—stocks a cornucopia of organic fruit and vegetables sourced from Highgrove's own Home Farm. There's also china decorated with images of hens, designed by Samantha Buckley, an alumna of Charles's Traditional Arts School in London, and soaps infused with hypericum plucked from his gardens.

So far, the store's royal connections have been drawing in the tourist crowds. "We've even had people from America signing the vistors' book," says Sally Jarrett, the shop's manager. But it's not only those eager to experience a slice of royal life who are turning up. Local residents are regulars too, snapping up chutneys, honey and leeks. The store's Champagne and red and white wines have also proved popular, perhaps because they're the very same as those served at official functions in the Orchard Room at Highgrove.

Even the usually cynical British press has nodded approvingly at the store, both for its relatively competitive pricing and the fact that all the store's profits go towards the Prince's various charities and projects. And for those who can't make the trip across the pond to visit the royal corner shop, not to worry. Later this year, the store will launch its own Web site, and the goods will ship worldwide.

With so many charity benefits, store openings and brand-sponsored evenings clogging up the New York social calendar, it's rare to celebrate an actual person for doing nothing more than existing. But such was the case this past Thursday night when man-about-town Euan Rellie celebrated his 40th birthday at Bar Milano, the soon-to-be opened restaurant from Lupa owner Jason Denton and his brother Joe. (For more on the Denton brothers, check out the upcoming May issue of W). The event, of course, did have a host: The Supper Club New York, a dinner and social club run by Brit transplant Tamsin Lonsdale.

After downing cocktails in the bar (where the windows were still covered with brown paper), the crowd, including Rellie's wife, designer Lucy Sykes, Thom Browne, Rufus Albemarle, Luigi Tadini and Kelly Bensimon, moved into the dining room. According to etiquette, couples had been seated separately, which led to a fair amount of surreptitious place-card swapping and table hopping. "Please, Euan asks that everyone being seated," chirped the ubiquitous 17-year-old actress Leven Rambin, jumping up and down on the banquette and giggling at her garbled grammar.

Soon after, the exuberant birthday boy stood up on the banquette himself. "Listen, I could have invited my closest friends," Rellie announced. "But instead, I chose to invite all you fashion journalists." The crowd, which did include a fair number of industry types, took the ribbing well, perhaps because they were feasting on the restaurant's Northern Italian fare, including seared scallops with celery root and caviar, trout with potatoes and chard, pork chops with escarole and borsetti alla pizzocheri (whole wheat raviolis shaped liked little sacks). For dessert, the waiters wheeled out a giant cake, out of which popped a girl who warbled "Happy Birthday" before Rellie covered her with kisses. "Lucy, don't look," he shouted.

These days, if you're anybody in the media or fashion mafia, you're probably dining at Bar Blanc, the uber chic, all-white West Village eaterie that opened in December. Aside from our own W core group of devotees—Dennis Freedman, Eddie Leida and Jim Reginato—recent diners have included Jeffrey Steingarten, Mary Alice Haney, Andrew Essex, Jamie Pallot, Alan Richman, Carlos Mota, the KCD gang, Brian Reyes, Bronson Van Wyck, the crew from Stella McCartney and Style.com editor-in-chief Dirk Standen (who also happens to be the brother-in-law of Kiwon Standen, one of the three partners in the restaurant). We also hear that Elle magazine is hosting a 60-person dinner there in a few weeks.

Bar Blanc
142 W. 10th St bet Waverly Pl. and Greenwich Ave.
(212) 255-2330

Photo by Thomas Schauer

Blaring rock metal music, shabby painted black walls, the pervading smell of garlic. It doesn't exactly ring chic, or even shabby chic for that matter. Nevertheless the Garlic & Shots, a bar situated on a quiet Soho back street, has suddenly become a haven for London's fashion packers.

Don't try to order a trendy cocktail at "The Garlic," as it's known. For drinks, the choices are only beer, garlic-infused vodka shots and wine (served in half-pint glasses.) Then there's the food: garlic burgers, garlic steak, garlic nachos... you get the picture.

A fashion stylist friend of mine brought me by for my first visit a few weeks ago. I was struggling to figure out the appeal when I first walked in, but I had to agree, it does have a charming speakeasy-meets-biker-bar vibe. And it's not trying to impress anyone. People asking for receipts for their expense accounts are greeted with disdain. As are people asking for ketchup.

We spotted Amy Winehouse, who was there with friends, as well as socialites Alice Dellal and Laura Fraser, fresh from a Donna Karan cocktail party in Mayfair. At another table, Burberry model Ben Grimes was drinking with a gaggle of fashion magazine editors.

Garlic breath has never been so on-trend.

Getty Images/Stockfood

Two of my favorite holiday-season-in-New-York restaurant traditions are dining at 21 Club to the caroling sounds of the Salvation Army Band and enjoying a calorie-laden lunch at Le Cirque. Today I indulged in the latter. The Christmas tree in the Bloomberg building courtyard, from which one enters the restaurant, was all aglow, as was the slightly smaller but equally festive one inside the bar area. Christmas spirit was in full effect. Ivanka Trump was there (apparently for the second day in a row) dining with mom Ivana, whose hair was as impressively bouffant as ever. Sirio Maccioni, the venerable owner, sat at the bar slurping soup and kissing the regulars hello. And I finally got the chance to ask Mario Maccioni, one of Sirio's three handsome sons, the question I've long wondered about Le Cirque: Does Ruth Reichl dine there today, nearly 15 years after her now legendary side-by-side reviews of the restaurant in The New York Times—one written from the perspective of a VIP restaurant critic, and one from the critic in a disguise that rendered her unrecognizable. "Yes, Ruth comes often now," Mario cheerfully told me today. "She was just here yesterday. We are all friendly now—her, my father, me. Back then," he pauses here, rolling his eyes back to that past review, "well, not so much. But now we are all friends!"

When I first heard about Gastronomades, a foodie festival in southwest France that showcases a new wave of young, hip and actually cute Gallic chefs, I knew I had to clear my calendar. And indeed, the event, held in late November, offered proof that this crop of upstarts—part of a group that calls itself Generation C—is out to liven up France's often stuffy restaurant scene. In contrast to the stereotypical chef de cuisine—grumpy, potbellied and dressed in baggy white pants and clogs—the cooks in this crowd are likely to wear slim-cut dark shirts over their svelte torsos (sometimes along with an earring or two) and are eager to share their know-how and put on a fun show. Fortunately they're a truly talented bunch.

In front of an excited audience of food nerds, Eric Guerin, 35, whose restaurant in Brittany has one Michelin star, faced off against Corsican Rouald Boyer in a culinary joust: Guerin was the clear winner, with his oysters in shallot sauce and veal roast served with ginger and pear puree. In less than an hour he also managed to whip up a white chocolate mouse seasoned with thyme. Besides demonstrating his superb technique, Guerin entertained by throwing spices over his veal roast like confetti, from several feet away, and slicing his rutabaga at full speed while having a good laugh with the crowd—without once looking at his fingers.

Patrick Jeffroy, a two-star Breton chef who's a big fan of Japanese cuisine, was another one of the event's stars. While he was unfailing with explanations about the use of various Asian products, he was at his best while running around excitedly and offering everyone samples of top-grade fresh wasabi that had just arrived from Japan. I took a taste, and the root was perfectly emblematic of the weekend as a whole: spicy, provocative and delicious.

Fraiche in Culver City

The LA food scene is hot right now, which more or less means you are constantly hearing about great new restaurants you can't possibly get into. The solution, it turns out, is easy: Dine on Spanish hours. L.A. is an early town, but most of the trendiest new joints are open late. After 10 p.m., during the week at least, you can actually drive to the restaurant of your choice, toss the keys to the valet and stroll inside to tell the hostess, "Table for two, please—no reservation." The odds of success are good, especially if you're willing to eat at the bar (which, in any case, is always the most foodie-cool spot to be). In the past week, this technique has worked perfectly at Mozza (the toughest 8 o'clock reservation in town) as well as at the brand-new Comme Ca (a baby Balthazar from Sona chef David Myers) and critic's favorite Fraiche in Culver City, which is worth a special trip just to bargain shop from the fetching wine list. Ask co-owner Keith Fox for a suggestion. The other night he produced a delicious 2004 Burgundy—it was so good that I hesitate to reveal which one—for $39.