• Taavo Somer and the team from Freemans are opening a "classic American diner" in the old Kelley & Ping space on the Bowery. [VV]
• Ryan Skeen and his team have been ousted from Allen & Delancey. [GS]
• Midtown Italian eatery Bice won't be forced to close, after all. [Crain's]
• Donatella Arpaia's revamped, Psilakis-less Mia Dona has reopened. [GS]
• Does Michael "Bao" Huynh have yet another spot in the works? [TONY]
• Rooftop lounge 230 Fifth will be handing out Snuggies to its patrons. [Eater]
• ABC News treated the Heene family (of Balloon Boy fame, yes) to a "fabulous sushi dinner" at Ocean Grill last night, just so you know. [TMZ]

• Following a brief makeover, Café Boulud has reopened its doors. [W&D]
• Donatella Arpaia's Mia Dona, however, is now closed for renovations. [GS]
• Despite the recession, food festivals remain a hot ticket. [WSJ]
• High-end sushi, however, is totally over. Make a note of it. [GS]
• Eric Ripert's Le Bernardin has jumped on the wine club bandwagon. [Eater]
• Incoming Times food critic Sam Sifton has an uphill battle ahead of him, clearly. He was immediately spotted when he walked into Daniel last week. [P6]

• Openings: Gansevoort 69 opened today in the meatpacking space formerly occupied by Florent. And Motorino's first Manhattan outpost is now open in was once Una Pizza Napoletana. A few more openings today are here.
• Also open, but just for private parties for the time being: The Boom Boom Room, the new bar on the 18th-floor of Andre Balazs' Standard Hotel, which will open to the public on September 22. [DBTH, UrbanDaddy]
• Michael Psilakis and Donatella Arpaia are parting ways at Mia Dona. [Eater]
• Times Square's era of sleeze may soon make a return. The Box, the club co-owned by Simon Hammerstein, takes over China Club for two weeks next month to create Club Purgatorio, a "multi-level world of macabre fantasy." [GS]
• Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had lunch today at Il Mulino. In case you're wondering, the duo dined on "fish, pasta and salad." [NYT]
• Last night wasn't a great one for John Mayer. It seems he was forced to flee GoldBar after a guy at the bar was stabbed in stomach. [Page Six]

• Danny Meyer will open a new restaurant in the Gramercy Park Hotel this November. Now it has a name. It will be called Maialino, or "little pig" in Italian, which was Meyer's nickname when he lived in Rome. [GS]
• Today in restaurant reviews: Frank Bruni issues his final review for the Times this week, giving the decidedly DIY eatery The Redhead a star; Time Out's Jay Cheshes hands out four out of five stars to Daniel Boulud's DBGB; the Daily News' Danyelle Freeman is pretty disappointed with Civetta; Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton samples the $100 platter of fried chicken at David Chang's Momofuku; and Alan Richman of GQ files a report on Sorella on the Lower East Side.
• Will Goldfarb and Kevin Pomplun's barbecue food truck, Picnick Smoked, has only been open a few days, but it's already totally overwhelmed. [GS]

Frank Bruni's list of the 10 Best New Restaurants of 2008 is online. Here they are: 1. David Chang's Momofuku Ko, 2. Drew Nieporent and chef Paul Liebrandt's Corton; 3. (tie) Scott Conant's Scarpetta; 3. (tie) L'Impero; 5. Dovetail; 6. Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Matsugen; 7. Adour Alain Ducasse; 8. Daniel Boulud's Bar Boulud; 9. Allegretti; 10. Mia Dona. [NYT]

• A former employee at Wakiya, the restaurant locatede in Ian Schrager's Gramercy Park Hotel, has filed a $5 million suit against the restaurant, the hotel, and Schrager's company. She claims she was assaulted by a co-worker and fired because she spoke Spanish. [NYS]