This Midtown restaurant is stuck in 1989. Thank god.

Plus: Cat Marnell's downtown media novel, a $600k upstate New York inn is for sale, and Justin Smith is hiring an assistant.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I’m spending this weekend and the foreseeable future at the beach on Long Island. In the city tonight and have no plans? Head to Secret Ballot’s Secret Agent reading (featuring Catherine Shannon and Audrey Horne) at Night Club 101, wake up early tomorrow for Radio Bakery’s corn and pecorino focaccia, and then head to Rockaway Beach. By the way, can anyone get me a copy of Life of M?

Today’s newsletter includes: Thoughts on Cat Marnell’s novel about a downtown writer in 2012, a guide to New York’s best tomato season BLT’s, a prediction that LA’s Eastside creative class in going to start moving to the Westside, buy a nine-bedroom nine-bathroom Upstate New York inn for under $600k, J Lee finally reviews Michael’s, and Justin Smith is hiring an assistant.

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A review of Michael’s, 37 years in the making. 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. Today he goes back to his roots, reviewing a Business Guy Restaurant — the type of place that is best rationalized with the involvement of a corporate card. I’d like to know how much cocaine (if any) has been snorted in the Michael’s bathroom.

They serve your Voss water in a wine glass. There’s a marble floor in the men’s room, Dennis Hopper photographs, and neatseat disposable toilet seat covers. They’re playing smooth jazz. The dining room is big and carpeted, and there’s a fiber board drop ceiling that makes the whole place feel like a Marriott conference room. The walls are covered in ‘80s art by the likes of Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, and David Hockney. The martinis are gigantic. The burger is $38 and totally fine. It’s Monday night at Michael’s on West 55th Street, and this is what Expense Account is all about.

Michael’s in Midtown opened in 1989, 10 years after its older brother, Michael’s in Santa Monica (former home to Nancy Silverton, Jonathan Waxman, and a number of other prominent California chefs), and helped introduce “California cuisine” to New York City diners. I’m not sure that I’d describe what Michael’s has as aura. I think it’s better described as swagger. Swagger is confidence plus charisma. The swagger to never change. The swagger to open in 1989, and stay stuck in 1989. If you want to know what the world was like the year Taylor Swift was born, then visit Michael’s. In 1989, it was radical for a white boy to get a little funky with it, JFK Jr. in his backwards Kangol, avocados were an exotic ingredient. It’s nice to be reminded of how far food has come in the last 40 years.

“A lettuce cup might feel trite in the year 2026, but I can only imagine how fun and flirty it must have been to eat a lettuce cup way back then. Is it a taco? Is it a salad? So you just pick it up and eat it? With your hands? Really no fork? The first P.F. Chang’s opened in 1993.”