The Beard Awards, a.k.a. the "food Oscars," were awarded tonight, and most went to big NYC food names like Tom Colicchio and Shake Shack's Danny Meyer. KFC, despite the revolutionary Double Down, was shut out. Click through for the list.

• The new edition of the Michelin Guide is out and five spots earn a coveted three stars: Per Se, Masa, Le Bernardin, Jean Georges, and Daniel. [GS]
• Café Boulud reopens this Wednesday following a month-long refresh. [TONY]
• A roundup of restaurants opening in the next week or so. [TONY]
• Carnival, the amusement park/nightclub owned by (and located above) Bowlmor Lanes, soft opened this weekend. The grand opening this coming weekend will be hosted by none other than Paris Hilton. [NYP]
• A look back at Gourmet, which is shutting down after 68 years. [Gawker]
• Another sign o' the times: McDonald's is opening inside the Louvre. [NYDN]

[Submit your own Gawker Stalker sightings to stalker@gawker.com] Jan. 26 @ 1pm Rod Blagojevich waving hello to Ed Koch, to no response in Jean Georges. He still needs a haircut, badly.

• Graydon Carter has backed out of hosting Vanity Fair's next Oscar party at Tom Colicchio's LA iteration of Craft because he doesn't like the Century City complex spot's "corporate feel." Laurent Tourondel's BLT on Sunset Strip will probably host the celeb-glutted affair instead. [P6]

The newest economic indicator: the Jean-Georges Index. How full is the restaurant at 2 PM on a weekday? The fabled three-martini lunch died a long time ago, but restaurant owners are reporting that business lunching in general appears to be declining. Businesses want to spend less money in bear markets and business people are simply discovering that they can do the same amount of business in 20 minutes on the phone as over a two hour lunch.
For power lunchers, an entree of malaise [NYT]

The NYT documents the progress of the new AOL/Time Warner building at Columbus Circle which, thanks to a building department loophole, was originally considered an "alteration" because it preserves some of the foundations from a parking garage that previously existed in the space. The 2.8 million square-foot "alteration" will include a Whole Foods Market, a restaraunt by Jean Georges, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and AOL/Time Warner, if hasn't managed to further self-destruct by the time of completion.
A vertical neighborhood takes shape [NYT]

· Jean-Georges does fancy Chinese at 66; Wylie Dufresne (finally) opens WD-50; and Mario Batali opens Otto. [Daily Candy]
· The 12th Annual New York Jewish Film Festival Starts [NYT]
· New York Metro's "Hot List": literary New York walking tour, the Burns Supper at the Bowery Poetry Club, and the George A. Romero retrospective. [NY Magazine]