At Lynn Crawford’s new restaurant, customers eat whatever she feels like cooking that day. The concept is bold and bossy, but the celeb chef has the talent and swagger to pull it off
I had to admire their cool. With only four hours to go before the grand opening of Ruby Watchco, the restaurant’s three owners—chef Lynn Crawford, designer Cherie Stinson and her husband, front-of-house veteran Joey Skeir—were showing no sign of nerves. They were just sitting around the lunch table at the back of the restaurant, laughing and swapping renovation stories over a bottle of pinot grigio and an excellent chicken cobb salad made by head chef Lora Kirk. If this were an episode of Restaurant Makeover, the TV show that made Crawford and Stinson celebrities, there would be cussing and tears and all sorts of last-minute nail-biting melodramas to negotiate. But everything was pretty much ready, or would be once the last of the green masking tape was peeled off the front window. Even the tall boughs of quince blossom in a vase on the bar co-operated: all the buds popped open that morning, precisely on cue.
Lynn Crawford (left) and head chef Lora Kirk at their new restaurant, Ruby Watchco, on Queen East (Image: Ryan Szulc)
• Honey-loving New Yorkers are abuzz with the news that the city’s health department plans to lift a 10-year-old ban on keeping rooftop beehives. Bees are currently prohibited along with such other “wild animals” as crocodiles and lions; however, health officials have determined that honeybees, unlike their man-eating counterparts, are rarely harmful. This is good news for the over 500 New Yorkers who already keep hives despite the ban, claiming they do so not just for the honey haul, but also because beekeeping helps pollinate garden flowers and is just a plain old relaxing hobby. [
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