Actor-musician Jared Leto and his certified-platinum band 30 Seconds to Mars have been keeping busy, readying their third album, This is War, for release on December 8th. But not so busy they can’t play with Manhattan’s punks and paparazzi. It’s all in a day’s work for the hardcore heartthrob. (Also check out our behind-the-scenes report.)

2012 week continues as we celebrate the coming apocalypse with a series of interviews with its survivors. Yesterday we ran an interview with a fiending Amanda Peet, and today we get to the bottom of what a respected stage actor like Chiwetel Ejiefor is doing in a Roland Emmerich disaster movie. After wowing audiences on stages across London, Ejefor made his big screen splash in the grimy thriller Dirty Pretty Things opposite Audrey Tatou. Since then, he's churned out reliably stellar work in films like Inside Man, Love Actually, Children of Men, and American Gangster. In 2012, Ejiofor plays Adrian Helmsley, a government geologist who is among the first to discover the Earth's core heating up to a potentially catastrophic level. Here he is trying to explain the popularity of disaster porn, interracial relationships on film, and working with Angelina in the upcoming Salt.

If we start making a list of excellent career choices, Eva Ziegler may have to play role model right at the top. The Austrian-born marketing mastermind is the "Global Brand Leader" for W Hotels and head of the global launch for Le Méridien Hotels as part of parent company Starwood Hotels & Resorts. From her home base in New York, Ziegler spends her 9 to 5 working on strategic planning (establishing the Starwood brand, scope, marketing strategies, implementing design) for hotels across the globe. Arguably, the biggest perk is that her job also includes traveling to all of these hotels (from Istanbul to Bali). In a smooth Austrian accent, the charming power player makes it all look and sound effortless, in between jet-setting to exotic locations to conduct business, of course.

At the New York Film Festival premiere of Broken Embraces:

● PENELOPE CRUZ - Favorite restaurant in New York? "Oh, I have many because I love food so much!" And in Madrid? "I go to many that are out in the countryside, but whoever goes there for the first time should go to Botin. It's the oldest restaurant in the world." What did you like about it? "Everything!"

● PEDRO ALMODOVAR - Favorite restaurant in New York? "Mr. Chow's -- we had dinner there the other day, and it was really very impressive." And in Madrid? "In Madrid, there are many. Casa Lucio is one of my favorites."

They are not your average married couple. The dynamic and outspoken duo that call themselves House of Diehl has a daughter, a party-filled life in New York City, and an avant-garde fashion company. Roman and Mary Jo have redefined the American dream and cultivated their own cutting-edge vision of what life and fashion mean. To them, life is fashion, especially when it's deconstructed and made into something revolutionary. Roman and MJ have taken their high-energy, one-of-a-kind show, Style Wars, on the road, dazzling fashionistas, style mavens, celebs and plain old party people across four continents. Style Wars kicks off with a whole new season of Scotch Tape binding, safety pin fastening, and jewel bedazzling this November. After watching the duo give a lecture on “how to cheapen your couture” at an event they call Glambulance at 92YTribeca in downtown Manhattan, they sat down with me for a vibrantly colorful chat.

In his book Eat Me, notable flapjack flipper Kenny Shopsin writes of pancakes: “They are flour and milk drowned in butter and some form of sugar. They’re crap.” We love crap!

● Clinton Street Baking Company (Lower East Side) - Even fashion x-rays throw carb-rexia to the wind for these scrumptious slapjacks. Blueberry buttermilk ‘cakes are the fairest of them all. Fluffy pillows of the nutritionally void. Unlike socks-n-sandals or back hair, it is totally acceptable to order a supper stack.
● Tom’s Restaurant (Prospect Heights) - Born back in ’36 and still rolling with the whippersnappers. Harvest pancakes studded with tryptophan BFFs cranberries and sweet corn -- b.y.o. turkey gristle. Lemon ricotta with lime butter, famous banana walnut, boy. Free coffee, cookies, and lollipops while you wait. Old but spry.
● Public (Nolita) - Nerdy library gimmick can’t obfuscate simple beauty of coconut plus ricotta plus mango plus pancake. Pour out some ginger lime sizzurp. Books are for wussies and tropical fruit is for men. Save some room for kangaroo too.

“I’m a product of the city. I learned this business and hopefully I’m going to stay here until I retire,” says Murat Akninci, manager and maître d’ of Keith McNally's Pastis and Morandi restaurants. The hospitality pro has worked in venues all around New York, starting when he arrived from Istanbul in his college years. With this experience under his belt, he has high expectations for the forecast of the business. “There was an inflation of restaurants that just opened up without smart planning. We’re seeing them actually disappear from the scene, opening up space and opportunities. In the next year and a half to two years, there’s going to be a new generation of restaurateurs in New York City.”

Larry Poston officially opened the West Village resto Hotel Griffou with business partner Johnny Swet on July 1. Poston made his name in New York restaurant circles as a manager at Pastis and the Waverly Inn, and Swet gained his hospitality know-how at Balthazar and Freemans. Most recently occupying the 9th Street space was notorious speakeasy Marylou’s, but the name of the new joint is after the original, French 1870s occupants. The modern dining rooms are themed as a salon, library, and artist's studio with a French-inspired classic cuisine menu. Poston gives us an inside look at the new spot.

I think it was sometime on the cab ride home from Minetta Tavern that the question hit me, like a velvet rope's brass clasp to the face: are restaurants the new nightlife? Are clubs -- once a standard for much of what simultaneously cultivated, codified, and confirmed what could be considered "culture" in New York -- incapable of doing that anymore? And are restaurants doing it in their place?

Patrick Grant is the dapper proprietor of bespoke tailors, Norton & Sons on Savile Row in London. In 2008 alone, he landed on both the UK Esquire and GQ magazines’ best dressed lists. Suffice to say he knows what looks smart, not only on himself, but to his legion of natty clientele at Norton & Sons who seek perfectly tailored suits. Since 1821, the shop has created garments for likes of royalty and beyond, with Grant taking over the reigns in 2005 and also spearheading a resurgence of E. Tauz & Sons, a cousin-label, yet for the ready-to-wear set. E. Tauz & Sons is set to debut this autumn within stores in London and Japan. Blackbook caught up with Grant over morning coffee in New York City at the Thompson LES Hotel.

Why are you in New York City right now? Three times a year we do this trip with Norton & Sons where we take appointments with our private clients based in the United States. We take the top floor suite at Lafayette House on East 4th Street.