What: Spaghetti & Sweet Sausage with rapini, tomato, and shiitake mushrooms Where: Flatiron location of 'wichcraft, the most mellow of Tom Colicchio's Craft eateries in a two block radius. Ideal meal: The super laid back upstairs dining area makes 'wichcraft the perfect suppertime setting for a non-fussy meal. It's small and relatively quiet, so great for catching up and getting to know your date (if that's your intention). Because: Like most items on the dinner menu, the spaghetti is understated and executed with relative perfection. The rapini doesn't overpower the savory flavor of the sausage, and the shiitake mushrooms are of the melt-in-your-mouth variety. Tastes like: A delicately-balanced combo of sweet and salty over buttery spaghetti noodles. Bottom line: The plates aren't gigantic, but they're enough food to be filling if paired with breads and sides. At $11, you can't really complain much. Especially if you've paid $9+ for a lunch sammie here.

Every day without fail Senior Editor Nick Haramis comes over to Assistant Editor Ben Barna's desk and debates lunch. They aren't necessarily arguing about where to go, they're arguing about logistics, how quickly they want to eat, type of food and, most importantly, the length of walk, since the selection of good eating around Union Square is sprinkled throughout the Flatiron, Gramercy and even Greenwich Village. Here, a list of what is getting Seamless Webbed, called in and brought back to the BlackBook offices during the workday lunch.

Even a humble sandwich shop is, in Manhattan, prone to the haute treatment. Since 2003, ’wichcraft has been laying out gourmet takes on what goes between two slices of bread. Of course, that’s only the beginning. This year, founders Tom Colicchio and Sisha Ortuzar published a book on the subject, 'wichcraft: Craft a Sandwich into a Meal -- And a Meal into a Sandwich. And Ortuzar has turned the upstairs of the Flatiron ‘wichcraft into a destination dining spot. The menu is market-driven and the combinations are creative, like short rib with romesco and grilled scallions, or a trippy fluke ceviche with green mango and watermelon. In that spirit, Ortuzar passes along a side dish that’ll class up any Thanksgiving spread.

As vice president of operations and new business development of Craft Restaurant Group, Katie Grieco works shoulder-to-shoulder with famed chef and Bravo's most recognizable Top Chef personality, Tom Colicchio. Overseeing the Craft, Craftbar, Craftsteak and 'wichcraft locations nationwide (New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Las Vegas) Grieco often has her hands full. She gets the job done one restaurant at a time.

Lately, dining out in Manhattan has been feeling a lot like dining in a high school cafeteria. The seats at the popular table are filled with everyone who is anyone, and unless you have Daddy’s Porsche or are cheer captain, you’ll never get to sit. Which is why it has been so difficult to round up my friends for a proper meal in this city. Suggest a reservation, and you’ll receive reservations. “What a headache,” one friend, a spunky PR princess purported. “It’s too expensive to eat anywhere these days, if you can even get a reservation at a good place ... it’s like a fucking aristocracy.” No doubt the economic downturn has affected many of my comrades' fun-funds, making the all-important New York dinner an endangered species. Our "industry" has peer-pressured us into thinking that the only bite worth eating is one we can barely afford, so how do you convince the industry folk that cheap eats can be chic eats?

Beer Table's Justin Philips on expensive brews, his favorite spot in Paris, and what not to call him.

Stephanie Izard might be bragging to all her friends that she's some kind of a top chef, but everyone knows the real top chefs are the top-earning ones. Forbes, pathological ranker of wealth, has listed the top ten best-paid chefs. It used to be that Wolfgang Puck was the only celeb chef around (Spago is the tits), but with the rise of the Food Network and shows like Iron Chef, what you do with duck confit can get you just as noticed as the famous mouths you feed.