• Is the restaurant business rebounding? That's what some are saying, even though the summer isn't typically a busy time: "Restaurants are fuller than they have been since the recession touched down last October." [Crain's]
• Da Silvano's sister spot, Scuderia, has moved on to its third chef. [GS]
• Guss' Pickles is leaving the Lower East Side for Brooklyn. [Lo-Down]
• A report from Permanent Brunch's first day in business. [Zagat]
• Commerce in the West Village is only accepting credit cards from now on, either for environmental reasons or to prevent robberies. You decide. [GS]
• The second annual NY Craft Beer Week arrives this September. [NYCBW]
• Tracy Westmoreland, owner of the late dive bar Siberia and current owner of Manhattans in Prospect Heights, is on the hunt for investors. [VV]
• FreshDirect is cutting back on cardboard boxes, just so you're aware. [NYT]
• Were you looking to dine on yak meat? You're in luck. [NYT]

• Silvano Marchetto is opening Scuderia across the street from Da Silvano on Sixth Avenue off Downing St. on March 9. It's a trattoria, naturally. [GS]
• Doug Psaltis is Danny Abrams' new partner at Smith's on Macdougal. [Eater]
• Starbucks' latest effort to to reinvent itself as an affordable brand? The chain's new value meal (or "breakfast pairings"), which run $3.95. [NYT]
• The News gives Josh DeChellis' La Fonda del Sol four stars this week. [NYDN]
• Bamn, the Automat-themed spot on St. Mark's, appears to have closed. [GS]
• Tribeca's Dennis Foy has closed, too. [Zagat]
• The yellow waffle truck known as Wafels & Dinges is on its last legs. [Eater]
• Bar Veloce, which became Bar Tonno and then turned into Room4Dessert, before reopening as Bar Veloce, is now named Veloce Club. Got that? [GS]

♦ New York's Adam Platt hands out four stars to Drew Nieporent's Corton this week, praising chef Paul Liebrandt's cuisine as "technically complex without being exhibitionist." [NYM]
♦ David Chang's Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar opened on Saturday. Grub Street has rounded up the public reception. [GS]
♦ A handful of spots including Marquee and the Tribeca Grand have been denied permits by the State Liquor Authority to stay open late on New Year's Eve. [NYP]
♦ A detailed history of the epic battle between Da Silvano's Silvano Marchetto and Bar Pitti's Giovanni Tognozzi. [Page Six Magazine]

• George Gurley's brilliant survey of the social scenesters you'll find hanging out at the Beatrice Inn. [Gawker]

• Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi will be tying the knot in California tomorrow. Portia is expected to wear a Zac Posen gown in front of their 20 guests. [Us, P6]

Pierce Brosnan waving to fans on his way out of Da Silvano ... Agyness Deyn taking her puppies for a walk, iced coffee in hand ... Lourdes Leon checking out her manicure outside Madonna's Upper West Side apartment ... Kirsten Dunst carrying a stack of magazines and a cup of lemonade through SoHo ... John Mayer leaving his apartment downtown, en route to a gig on Long Island ... Carolyn Murphy, Gwyneth Paltrow and Elizabeth Hurley outside the Waverly Inn.

• Times' dining critic Frank Bruni weighs in on old-fashioned restaurant dress codes. [Diner's Journal]

Graydon Carter may have been wasting his time launching and editing magazines all these years. The 58-year-old's true calling is restaurant promoter. Carter's Vanity Fair is doing fine, at least among the middle-aged middle-American women who make up the core of its readership: the glossy title is a carefully-disguised supermarket tabloid. But Carter has had greater success recently with the restaurant the Canadian bon vivant opened up just a few doors from his house. The Vanity Fair editor was a regular at Da Silvano's on Sixth Avenue; he and his friends lent the Italian restaurant an allure, which brought a celebrity clientele, and press mentions. But look at this chart of mentions of the restaurants in the Nexis press database: Carter's new restaurant, which drew Lindsay Lohan and Cameron Diaz last Friday, has eclipsed his old haunt.

Tonight at Da Silvano, there's a dinner for Michael Kirkland, the director of the design firm Groupe Halleon. We were forwarded the invitation to the dinner—and at the bottom, we noticed something curious! Attached was a handy document that provided concise yet colorful sketches of those attending. Let's learn some "Friendly facts on my friends at da salvino [sic] this thursday"!