Why are young people eating so much jam?

LVMH-backed L Catterton led an $18 million investment in a jam company. 🍓🫐

Good morning, everyone.

I’ll be spending most of August on Long Island. If you’ll be in the Hamptons next month, fill out this form so I can keep you updated on Feed Me events. If you have any stories you think would be interesting to Feed Me readers or you want to kick it, shoot me an email.

Today’s newsletter includes: The Carbone team is building a “giant campus of indulgence and fun” in Miami, someone made a Clandestino video game, L Catterton invested in the Gen Z jam boom, J Lee on a New-England-seafood-shack-slash-izakaya, the parent company behind several influencer clothing brands, and Vogue is hiring someone to take care of their ultra-high-net-worth Vogue100 members.

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Smithereens is a New-England-seafood-shack-slash-izakaya. 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 wrote about a lobster roll with a little pirate flag sticking out the top.

It’s taken me a while to get to Smithereens. It’s one of those things. Sometimes you miss the moment (or you feel like you’ve missed the moment), and then it’s hard to go back. Smithereens opened on 9th between 1st and A all the way back in 2024. By now, the reviews have been written, they’re all glowing, it’s #18 on the Times list for godsake, what more could I add to this discourse? Well, I finally made it to Smithereens. I went there as a civilian, I didn’t take notes, my photos are bad, I had no plans to write about it. Yet here we are. Sometimes you eat a meal that makes you want to write.

Smithereens is an American seafood restaurant. It’s lovely to go to Smithereens with that as your mindset, in the same way that it’s lovely to watch The Sixth Sense knowing only that it’s about a boy who sees ghosts and he has a therapist who is not a ghost, and is Bruce Willis. It’s nice to be surprised, and it’s rare these days. At least for me. A new restaurant opens every day in New York City, but I rarely eat food that feels new. Smithereens is making food that feels new, but never too new, there is always a whiff of familiarity. New can be scary. It’s hot outside, but Smithereens is wearing a jacket; they’ve got tricks up their sleeves.

“ You can taste the ocean in every dish at Smithereens, often in ways that you’d never expect. You finish with a celery soda float with Luxardo cherries bobbing like buoys. It tastes like seafoam and Italian cookies.”