Todayâs newsletter is free because itâs sponsored by Walmart.
Good morning, everyone.
Last night, I attended Melissa Clarkâs cookbook party (The Big Book of Dinner is out next week) at Christine Muhlkeâs apartment. I got to catch up with the lovely Elissa Suh, and after talking with her about DOCNYC (which is going on for another two weeks), I decided Iâll watch Mall Country tonight. Surfaces of Christineâs kitchen were covered with bowls of lemony tahini dip, plates of just-baked focaccia, and One Bowl Lemony Olive Oil Yogurt Cake â all from the book. Party hack: There was a stack of to-go boxes so you could take a slice of chocolate cake home for dessert.
Todayâs newsletter includes: A recap of Feed Meâs first pie contest, Williamsburg is getting a waterfront music venue, your favorite restaurants are turning into event spaces, a case for investing in a $7k embroidery machine, a round-the-clock Robert Caro reading marathon in Gowanus, Alison Romanâs new podcast, Justin Bieber is becoming a case study for X, the magazine charging $100/year for a pen pal experiment, and J Leeâs first time at Sant Ambroeus.
This week on the Feed Me Job Board: Co-Star Astrology, Almost Summer (whose clients include CaffĂš Panna and Isla Beauty), and Maxwell Social.
You should plan a pie competition before the end of apple season.
Last week, I hosted Feed Meâs inaugural pie competition on an unseasonably warm evening at Montague Diner. Despite Kacey and Lanaâs cover of âIâll Be Home for Christmasâ on the speakers, and the continuous parade of pies through the dinerâs front door, the weather hadnât gotten the memo that the holiday season had begun. Fast forward a week to today, and the temperature has dropped ten degrees. Which makes it a great day to tell you how this event came together.
Over the summer, after a re-watch of Christopher Guestâs Best in Show, I emailed my team: âI want to host a baking contest this fall.â Feed Me had never hosted a competition of any kind. A pie contest seemed to offer everything one wants from an evening out: comedy, drama, suspense, and butter. The team at Walmart â who Feed Me has worked with before â got word about the idea, and, after a few conversations, they came on board as our partner for the event.
Montague Diner was the only venue I ever considered. They serve the best Shirley Temple in the borough, and could reliably feed contest onlookers with plates of pickles and grilled cheeses.
When it came to contestants, I asked a variety of experts in both the sweet and savory categories of pie. Entries were as follows:
Jamie Rothenberg co-baked with Tess McNamara (pastry chef at Dinner Party and a recipe developer). They brought a Smoked Honey Kabocha Pie with a graham cracker crust and espresso whipped cream.
Ella Quittner (who wrote one of my favorite cookbooks, Obsessed With The Best). She baked a Malted Passionfruit Creamsicle Pie with graham cracker and Saltine crust, passionfruit curd, malted whipped cream, salted vanilla bean meringue, candied lemon peel and a malted saltine streusel.
Stacey Mei Yan Fong (author and baker, 50 Pies, 50 States). She brought a gorgeous apple pie with a cheddar cheese crust. đ§
Mikey Deegan (Mikeyâs Pies) brought a savory Steak au Poivre pie, served warm.
Mo Scariano (who runs Primo, and has hosted many a dinner party for me). He brought an Italian-style torta della nonna with meticulously arranged pine nuts.
Katie Kaplan (Founder and CEO of Fillings, which just opened a store in New York City). She brought an apple pie, which New York Magazine recently included on their list of best pies to order for Thanksgiving.
As for the judges, I wanted a group with developed palates and a showman attitude to guide us through our evening. The lineup was:
Bart Hutchins, chef and co-owner of Butterworthâs, who came up from Washington for the night.
Abena Anim-Somuah a James Beard Award-winning writer and podcaster, who describes herself as âyour friend in food.â
Zach Schiffman of New York magazine, a stand-up comic on the side and, as I learned last week, the Simon Cowell of pie.
J Lee , Feed Meâs own columnist and host of Expense Account.
Lauren Schofield, a pastry chef who recently baked this insane Tom Wolfe cake for an Air Mail party.
The pies were scored out of 50 points: appearance, taste, and crust were 10 points each; originality, aroma, slice integrity, and mouthfeel were 5 points each. After much debating, tallying, calculator app addition, and re-tallying, Jamie and Tess took home the trophy for their kabocha pie.
My partnership with Walmart last year focused on entrepreneurship, and how CPG founders get their products on store shelves. This year, we discussed hosting during the holiday season and how it connects to their priority of helping families save in every aisle, including the baking aisle. For decades, Walmart has been known for keeping prices low for 150 million Americans every week.
The timing of early November was deliberate. By the second week of December, everyone in New York is sick of sugar and small talk and open bars, so I wanted to get them while they were still excited about the idea of trying three slices of pie in a single night. I also hoped a few people would go home and try baking a pie of their own before the season ends.
Feed Meâs Inaugural Pie Competition was presented by Walmart. Alongside sponsoring the competition, Walmart matched a Feed Me donation to City Harvest, which provides tens of millions of meals to hungry New Yorkers every year.
PIE FACTS FROM OUR PLACEMATS đ„§
19% of Americans say apple is their favorite pie flavor, according to a Crisco and American Pie Council survey. Pumpkin comes second.
6 million American men ages 35â54 have eaten the last slice of pie and denied it.
Walmart has saved families over $350 million on holiday meals since 2022. This applies to every aisle, with a full 2026 Holiday Meal Basket for 10 at just $3.50 per person.
In the 19th century, fruit pies were a common breakfast eaten before a long day.
1 in 5 people admit to eating an entire pie by themselves.
75% of Americans prefer homemade pie, 13% prefer a bakery, and only 1% go to the diner for their favorite slice. (Iâm open to your diner pie suggestions.)
Walmartâs 2026 holiday survey found that 42% of shoppers expect to host or attend three to four holiday gatherings this season. Weâre going to need more pies.
Butter sales rise every November and December.
In 1902, a New York Times article called pie an âunmoral foodâ and âan American evil.â
Sant Ambroeus is a chain built by and for expense accounts. By J Lee.
Expense Account is a series on Feed Me by semi-anonymous restaurant critic J Lee. He hosts a podcast with the same name. This week, he visited the mecca of the downtown power lunch: Sant Ambroeus Brookfield Place.
Brookfield Place is the backrooms for upwardly mobile millennials. Itâs a glossy liminal space, a giant office complex, thatâs also a mall full of tasteful brands, and tasteful food, in the shadow of what was once the World Trade Center. Thereâs an Alo Store, a Bonobos, and an Arcâteryx. Thereâs a Dig Inn, of course thereâs a Dig Inn, and thereâs Chopt, and you already know thereâs a Dos Toros. Itâs Anywhere USA, full of people with high-paying jobs. Itâs like an airport without the planes. Itâs made of glass and steel, it almost feels like a biodome, a self-contained ecosystem, a business casual terrarium. Maybe they make the world go round, or maybe theyâre destroying it, whoâs to say? Whatâs the difference? But for all of the fast-casual dining options and luxury clothing shops, the French version of Eataly, called Le District, and even an indoor palm tree garden, there are not so many places in Brookfield where one can sit down for a proper business lunch. When those within the ecosystem that is Brookfield Place need to make a deal, or have a meeting, there is only one obvious choice: Sant Ambroeus.
Sant Ambroeus got its start in Milan 90 years ago. A chic little ristorante/pasticceria, it opened in New York in the 1980s and is now a mini chain with four full-service restaurants in the city and four coffee bars. Youâve either been to Sant Ambroeus or youâre too poor to eat at Sant Ambroeus. I fall into the latter camp, but this is a chain built by and for expense accounts. At the Brookfield Place location, surrounded by office buildings, including Goldman Sachs HQ and One World Trade Center, I doubt anyone is paying with their personal card.
The power lunch is alive and well at Sant Ambroeus Brookfield Place, and so is the power breakfast. From 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. the restaurant is impressively buzzy, almost shockingly buzzy. The front room is for pastries and puffer vests, and the dining room is suits and salads. At 9 a.m. on a Wednesday there were no available tables in the dining room, and they were already sold out of their green juice and their pretzel cornetto (croissant). I sat in the front, sans puffer vest, eating my tiny perfect mortadella sandwich and my Halloween-inspired black cornetto filled with orange goo, chocolate, and pumpkin, which was tastier than it looked. It was very much a pleasant enough meal, I saw one of the chicest old men Iâve seen on this side of the Atlantic, but I needed more. I needed to know what goes on in that dining room. How could it be so popping on a Wednesday morning? Could the dining room of Brookfield Place be the hottest weekday seat in New York City?
I came back the next day, with the earliest available dining room lunch reservation, 1:30; you need to book a few days in advance for a noon reservation. I imagine there are many standing reservations, and regular lunch meetings. Even with a reservation, I had to wait 15 minutes, the room was packed. Walking into the dining room of Sant Ambroeus Brookfield Place feels like stepping onto a movie set. Or into an amusement park. Itâs Milan with a fresh American paint job. Itâs carpeted, pink red and yellow, and maybe this is me exposing myself a bit, but itâs surprisingly chic. The people in the room look legitimately rich, I mean Goldman Sachs has an office here, Jane Street has their office here. This might very well be the highest revenue dining room in New York City, or maybe Iâm just a sucker for a suit. I mean at the very least they do a good job of making it feel like youâre not in a mall. It feels more like youâre in the Italian section of Tokyo Disney, in that itâs clean, well designed, and efficient. Jackets are not required, but nearly every man in the room is wearing a jacket, and nearly every person in the room is a man. There are some glasses of wine, a few Bloody Marys, but notably not martinis. Weekday lunch at Sant Ambroeus Brookfield Place, itâs not for couples, itâs not for tourists, itâs for business. (There is also the more casual patio, but thatâs for junior associates, and thereâs more private seating upstairs. I imagine thatâs where the real action is. I bet thatâs where Robert Granieri sits, when he eats lunch in a mall.)
Iâd estimate that at least half of the room is eating a salad. Most seem to get the Centocolori Salad, a mixed salad with lettuces, avocado, radishes, cherry tomatoes, carrots, mozzarella, and olives. Italianish. It costs $31. And most people seem to add grilled chicken or salmon for an extra $16. $47 plus tax and tip for a salad. THISBOWL is right across the street. I get it, though, this is a cute food to eat when youâre having a meeting. Itâs a little underdressed, but you wonât get anything on your face, or on your tie, your breath wonât smell bad and it wonât make you sleepy. Itâs clean and efficient, and youâre not paying for it. A little less clean, but equally efficient, is the Paccheri Rosa. Exactly 15 pieces of paccheri pasta, in a creamy tomato sauce, all orange and red, it matches the room. For people who love the spicy vodka rigatoni at Carbone, this is a fine enough dupe. And although I was not paying, I couldnât justify ordering the $71 Cotoletta alla Milanese for lunch. I got a taste of it in panini form, which came wrapped in a napkin like a present. Itâs not deep but itâs tasty. I would say thatâs the thing about the food at Sant Ambroeus: Itâs for people with money, and, for the most part, people with some amount of taste, and itâs definitely for people who have better things to do than eat. I wish I had better things to do.
The funny thing about Sant Ambroeus Brookfield Place being the hottest lunch in New York City is that come 2/2:15 p.m., it empties out. By 3, itâs a ghost town. The deals have been made, there are emails to be sent, Zooms to be attended, itâs time to go back to the office, sell some stocks or whatever it is people do in offices. But not for me. I have nowhere else to go. This is my entire life. So I order their perfect little princess cake, and I get an affogato just for the plot. This is truly la dolce vita. A little slice of the Old Country, right here in our very own little slice of Dubai. Ciao!
A new Williamsburg music venue is opening in the ground floor of the Domino Sugar Factory. The founders of the project are London-based tvg Hospitality (founded by Mumford & Sons keyboardist Ben Lovett) and Emerson Hospitality (which I last wrote about in January when covering their new luxury hospitality project in the Hudson Valley). The 20,000-square-foot lease will be for a 750-seat venue called Domino.
Alison Roman is launching a new podcast.
Is Wild Cherry a restaurant or an events space? Yesterday, a friend tipped me off that while looking to make a reservation at the buzzy restaurant in the Cherry Lane Theater, she noticed that the restaurant is booked for events for over a third of the remainder of the month.
In December 2025, I wrote in this very newsletter: âWhen young people ask for career advice, my first suggestion is usually to learn how to use embroidery machines and start a merch business.â (My husband says this isnât practical or economical advice, but I am not a career counselor.) This morning, Business of Fashion wrote about the growing business of personalization and monograms, calling the business opportunity of adding this function to brand offerings âenormous.â Longchamp has added customization pop-ups to their Bloomingdaleâs kiosks, Alex Millâs hand-painted monogram totes have become the most popular bag on the subway in Brooklyn Heights, and Todâs now has customizable charms for their loafers. When I was at Cannes Lions in June, many media companies splashed out on custom monogram stations â Voxâs house had embroidered towels, Cosmo had embroidered silk scarves. Both came home in my suitcase.
A four-day reading marathon of Robert Caroâs The Power Broker started last night in Gowanus. Readers include transport journalist Bernie Wagenblast, Brooklyn Borough Historian Asad Dandia, and more Robert Moses enthusiasts. The schedule is bananas â there is reading occurring 24 hours a day.
Having a third child is now considered a status symbol â and not just in New York City. Former White House economist Mike Konczal found that 49% of top-1% earners have three or more children, compared with about 40% of the rest of the top 10%. A study published earlier this year by LendingTree found that a two-child household needs to earn $400,000 a year for childcare to be affordable. In 2025, The New York Times wrote that daycare for three young children in New York City can run some families $50,000-$100,000 a year. One Clinton Hill mom told The Times, âWe go to the playground for birthday parties, and we make the cake. Iâm OK with that, but if I wasnât, Iâd be miserable.â
Justin Bieberâs recent post on X has become the prototype for the platformâs new 20-photo carousel feature. Both Benji Taylor (Head of Design at X) and Elon Musk (Xâs owner) retweeted the post.
McSweeneyâs has launched a new $100/year snail mail subscription. The Letters Club is a new monthly physical letters-based periodical from McSweeneyâs, where subscribers will receive a hand-stuffed letter, written by writers from all different schools of thought (Avery Trufelman, Hanif Abdurraqib, Jesse Eisenberg, etc.). Topics of the letters will vary â some will be love letters, others will be comics, but âall will explore the epistolary form and what that means in an increasingly artificial and digital world.â Subscribers will also get a postcard to continue the chain and write a letter to a friend. I think this project is brilliant.
Keith McNally and his breakfast date got booted from their table at Colbert in London and now they know they messed with the wrong restaurateur. âI hate to criticize another restaurant but considering how appalling the service was at Londonâs Colbert restaurant three mornings ago Iâm now praying the place burns to the fucking ground before Christmas.â Go onâŠ
"Itâs like an airport without the planes" is the most accurate description of Brookfield Place I've ever heard
Our own little slice of Dubai đ