Food media is fun again.
"We wanted to bring some drama back to the media industry."
Good morning everyone. I’m finishing up today’s letter from a corner booth at Balthazar where I had a breakfast meeting over maple crème fraîche-topped oatmeal. (Dessert).
Today’s letter includes: Beauty brands getting into the bathhouse business, the most surprising food media story of the year has to do a lapsed renewal on a Condé Nast trademark, restaurants are having fun on Substack, and husband-hunting in the JPMorgan cafeteria.
This week on the Feed Me Job Board: Marketing at Barstool, Influencer and Community at Realisation Par, and Growth at Zenith Health. Posting and browsing on the Feed Me Job Board is free.
Mitchell Jackson, who NYT dubbed “the publicist on call for controversy,” emailed me yesterday that he’s looking for a summer intern — but “no boring PR girlies.” His firm BCC Communications represents Adam Friedland and Candace Owens. “BCC is looking for a college student or recent graduate for a summer internship,” he writes. “The intern should be a media obsessive who reads as much as possible. BCC is seeking writers and thinkers, not AI bots, and applicants must be okay with controversy. Outsider artist types or weirdos are preferred over wannabe PR girlies who dream of holding iPads outside Soho clubs.” Email mitchell@BCCcommunications.com if you’re interested.
Red Hook Tavern’s Bill Durney is backing a new Cambodian restaurant from one of his chefs.
And beloved Clinton Hill Cambodian restaurant Lula Mae is opening a ‘70s style cocktail lounge in its back room speakeasy. The new spot, called The Tiger Den, opens today and will have “disco energy,” according to one of the restaurant’s partners.
Beauty brands are getting into the sauna boom. Aesop developed a bathhouse with Montreal’s Recess Thermal Station. The experience is a 75-minute circuit between cold and hot saunas and plunges, with Aesop cleanses built in. Meanwhile, Imaginary Ventures-backed Bathhouse is opening in Philadelphia. And I really want to visit Saint, a new quieter sauna in Chelsea (the site says their products are from Frama) that opened this week.