In 2001, Paul Liebrandt—whose story is told in A Matter of Taste: Serving Paul Liebrandt, on now at the TIFF Bell Lightbox—was one of New York’s most promising chefs. At 24, after working in some of Europe’s most accomplished kitchens, the British expat moved to New York to make a name for himself. He practised a high-concept, experimental style of cooking—chocolate-covered scallops, crystallized violets—that was lauded by critics but commercially unviable during the ascendancy of comfort food. Soon enough, Liebrandt found himself flipping burgers and making seven different kinds of french fries, just to keep his restless mind occupied.

A Matter of Taste follows the chef through 10 turbulent years as he struggles to maintain his artistic integrity (and a steady job) in New York’s cutthroat restaurant scene. The documentary kicks into high gear when, in 2008, Liebrandt partners with Drew Nieporent, the restaurateur behind Nobu, to build Corton, which has since become one of New York’s most distinguished fine dining restaurants. Director Sally Rowe gives Leibrandt an antagonist in Frank Bruni, the New York Times’ chief restaurant critic until 2009, who was known for favouring simple, rustic food. She intercuts scenes of Liebrandt, desperate for a three-star rating, speculating on Bruni’s taste (“My food is over his head”) with Bruni describing his critical process, which boils down to one surprisingly unscientific question: how much joy does this restaurant bring for the price?

Liebrandt’s peculiarly magnetic personality makes A Matter of Taste more than merely a foodie film. In the early footage, he’s as awkward and gangly as Mark Zuckerberg. He can also be as self-mythologizing as David Brent, confronting the camera with quips like “I’m not a nutcase, I’m an artist.” He even reveals a touch of Gordon Ramsay volatility when he threatens to smash his sous-chefs’ heads into a wall for overcooking steaks. Yet he’s generous with encouragement and praise, and soft-heartedly admits his chihuahua makes him want to be a better man.

There’s also plenty of lingering close-ups on expressionistically smeared white plates and glistening sous-vide pouches worthy of Modernist Cuisine—and the $12 price of admission.

Details: To Oct. 6. TIFF Bell Lightbox. 350 King St. W., 416-599-8433, tiff.net

Happy International Bacon Day to all (Image by Mandy Jouan)

• Why wait until September 5 when you can start International Bacon Day shopping now? Bacon-flavoured lip gloss and bacon-scented soap make excellent stocking stuffers, and bacon cupcakes from Yummy Stuff (topped with bacon ice cream, of course) make the perfect holiday dessert. The Globe’s Sarah Boesveld highlights these and other perks of the bacon craze, just in time for the pig day. [Globe and Mail]

• Restaurant traffic in the U.S., France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the U.K. fell significantly in the first quarter. Canada was the only country in the NPD Group study to see a rise in the number of meals consumed. It was only a 0.1 per cent rise, and the fastest growing sector is the “evening snack.” Good show, Taco Bell; good luck, everyone else. [NDP Group]

• The true diet of the food critic is questions, writes Frank Bruni in his last Times column—and for his final meal, he’s answered a few. Which sushi restaurant does he prefer? The $400-a-plate Masa. Which appetizers should we avoid? The ones that appear on every menu. Where can a hungry New Yorker find the best value? The prix fixe menus of the priciest rooms should do the trick. Thanks, Frank. Now let’s hope his successor, Sam Sifton, will tell us something we don’t already know. [New York Times]

• Irate parents in the U.S. are fighting the “predatory practices” of ice cream truck vendors. Children’s health advocates have been lobbying New York principals to ban the ice cream man from school grounds; a ward in Chicago has already nixed mobile soft-serve. And who is leading the charge against the goop and slush that are making kids fat? Vicki Sell, the owner of a fish and chips shop. [Gothamist]

• Following the lead of Wolfgang Puck, Masayoshi Takayama and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Michelin three-star chef Pierre Gagnaire is gambling on Sin City’s new $8.5-billion CityCenter. His new restaurant Twist will be located at the Mandarin Oriental, and it will feature the same gastro-scientific delights that made the Parisian famous. His Saint-Jacques “farady” is an emulsion of scallops, orange oil, smoked tea and gelatin. Sounds more daring (and palatable) than Cirque du Soleil’s new show. [L.A. Times]

• American specialty channel the Food Network is celebrating a 20 per cent rise in ratings this July over last. Real estate shows have tanked since the bubble burst, while food shows have become more popular because they “take away the pain,” says TV analyst Shari Anne Brill. The Food Network’s audience was growing long before the recent uptick, with a total increase of 55 per cent since 2004. [Bloomberg]

• New York’s parks commissioner says only one can stay after at least eight disabled vets wheeled their food carts over to the plaza outside the Metropolitan Museum. A 19th-century state law allows disabled veterans to sell without a permit, but the squad has become a safety hazard, according to commissioner Adrian Benepe. Safety is clearly not the only issue; other carts pay roughly $500,000 to sell hot dogs at prime locations. [New York Times]

• The economy may be slowing down, but enrolment at George Brown College’s culinary school is strong; 2,800 full-time and 7,000 continuing education students are expected to enroll in cooking, chocolatier and sommelier programs this fall. Dean John Walker says it’s an exciting time for the restaurant business, but we can’t help but wonder how excited these students will be when they graduate and start looking for jobs. [Toronto Star]

• Loblaws plans to label more of its food as “grown close to home.” In an effort to increase its local-food cred, the grocer also plans to display the name of the farm above bins of local fruit and veggies. The company says about 40 per cent of its produce comes from local farms during August and September. [National Post]

• The rainy summer hasn’t just sucked for cottagers—it’s been bad for tomatoes, too. Many plants in the province have developed a fungus that flourishes in soggy fields. The blight, known as the Black Death, the same one that caused the Irish potato famine, has made tomatoes scarce across the province. [Globe and Mail]

• An invitation to dine out as a guest of the New York Times restaurant critic may sound like a good reason to grovel. But Frank Bruni, his last-ever review now behind him, dishes on how crazy invitees can get: food hoarding, pouting, and giving up the host’s true identity to the maître d’ are just a few common antics. [New York Times]

• Food lovers without the good luck of having a couple of hedge fund–managing friends can still become restaurateurs—on Facebook, that is, where the app Restaurant City has been rapidly gaining followers. Users choose the decor (including turrets and indoor rivers) and then buy and trade ingredients to make a menu. Just like at el Bulli. [LA Times]

• Visitors to the legendary Alain Ducasse’s new cooking school in Paris expected instructions on first-class, Michelin-star cooking. But they didn’t expect tips on what to do with leftovers, like turning fish trimmings into the much more spectacular-sounding sea bass tartare. Even top chefs appreciate the one-pot, five-minute meal. [Telegraph]

Hot commodity: vegetable oil makes a biofuel good enough to steal (Photo by schrislloyd)

• A man was arrested in Britain after allegedly stealing 8,200 gallons of vegetable oil from restaurants all over the city of York, including the chip stand and the Dairy Queen. The grease is a valuable biofuel that can power any car engine. We have to wonder if he’s a Simpsons fan. [Seacost]

• Sam Sifton will be replacing legendary New York Times food critic Frank Bruni. Sifton, who starts the job in October, established his gourmet cred through editing the Dining section, writing a food column for the New York Press and making meatloaf for Nora Ephron. Also changing at the Times is the tradition of concealing the appearance of food critics. The Observer illustrates this today by publishing an enormous photo of Mr. Sifton. [New York Observer] • A cold July and the lingering recession have put a dent in sales at Molson Coors, makers of popular beers Canadian and Coors Light. And they’re not the only brewer having a rough summer: worldwide beer sales are down 3.2 per cent. Yet Molson also reports that despite the drop in business, people are drinking more beer—they are just favouring cheaper stuff. [Canadian Press] • Fast food restaurants in the western U.S. are now selling wine. Burgerville, a 39-store chain, is successfully marketing merlot at its Vancouver, Washington store. In downtown Seattle, the once-mighty Starbucks plans to rebrand one of its locations as 15th Street Café, which will sell wine. And in Napa Valley, Taylor’s Automatic Refresher pairs burgers and fries with half-bottles from local vineyards. While the latter has potential, we think most people will stick to milkshakes at Burgerville. [Fox News] • New restaurants that open in New York may not be able to offer their patrons any booze until January. New York State is facing an intractable financial crisis, so understaffing at the State Liquor Authority is likely to blame for the six-month wait for licenses. But cheer up, New York; Boston licenses traditionally take a year. Lucky for Torontonians, the Ontario Alcohol and Gaming Commission takes just 10 to 12 weeks. [New York Times]

Tipple over tipping: Robert Pattinson leaves a meagre 14 per cent (Photo by twilight foxdie)

• Twilight star Robert Pattinson has outraged New York waiters by leaving a 14 per cent tip. The English actor munched on caprese salad while downing chianti and beer until well past midnight this week, and when he offered just $50 on his $350 bill, the aghast wait staff at Il Cantinori felt compelled to leak his penny-pinching to the media. Fans defended Pattinson’s faux pas as a simple cultural misunderstanding (tipping isn’t customary in Britain), but no one seems to have asked if the service was bad. [New York Daily News]

• The British are buying half as many knives as forks, according to a study by Debenham’s department store. Marketers have come to the conclusion that more meals than ever–like burgers, fries and salad–don’t require cutting. In bustling London, full of time-strapped urbanites wolfing down their dinner, the fork-to-knife gap is even wider (three forks sold per knife). [Independent]

• Eminent food writer Frank Bruni is entertaining (and disgusting) his readers with stories about his “life as a full-time eater.” At the age of two, he expelled his first two burgers just to make room for a third. At age seven, when most kids are discovering Dunkaroos, Bruni discovered quiche lorraine. This excerpt from his food memoir shows how eating for a living was his destiny, and how memory is often linked to food. [New York Times]

• The good news for New York restaurateurs: they have 430 fewer competitors this summer. The bad news: more restaurants are expected to close. The number of restaurants in the global food capital is 1 per cent lower in the second quarter of 2009 than it was in the same period last year. That’s a big change for a city with 35,000 eateries. High-end restaurants are faring the worst. Even the famous Rainbow Room at the Rockefeller Center has been killed by the recession. [New York Post]

• The Baltimore Sun is helping its readers define when it’s fair to call a restaurant pretentious. Correcting your French pronunciation: pretentious. A waiter giving you attitude for asking for ranch dressing: OK, that one’s justified. If the Internet is going to allow everyone to be a restaurant critic, it looks like critics are going to have to expand their vocabulary. [Baltimore Sun]

Two weeks only: Susur's back on King Street (Photo by aser)

After making news—some good, some bad—with his new restaurant, Shang, over the past four months, Susur Lee is bringing the menu of his Manhattan venture to Toronto for a brief cameo. The celebrity chef will offer his newest creations at both of his satellite restaurants, Lee and Madeline’s, with a special prix fixe menu. For the first two weeks in April, Torontonians will be able to sample a three-course Shang offering from Monday to Wednesday for $35 and $1 corkage, as well as a five-course Shang menu from Monday to Saturday for $60.

The chef headed down to get his bite of the Big Apple last fall, closing his legendary restaurant and leaving smaller operations Lee and Madeline’s (along with a slew of former apprentices) as his legacy to Toronto. But since Shang’s December opening, the much-hyped venture has garnered mixed reviews from NYC critics Adam Platt and Frank Bruni. Now Toronto will get to weigh in on the debate, and as the media release states, “opinions welcome!!!!”

Lee’s hallmark Singapore slaw—which is commended and condemned equally for its arm-long list of ingredients—is always available at Lee, but other items are making their Toronto debut. Specialties of the Shang lineup, including turnip cake and garlic shrimp, will be guest stars of the Toronto visit. New York may have spoken, but nobody knows Susur like Toronto. It’s time to put the expat to a test even tougher than the New York Times: his fans on the homefront.

The Naked Chef outsells Harry Potter (Photo by Really Short)

• Though he’s been in Britain’s bad books often over the past decade, Naked Chef Jamie Oliver is back. He became the country’s best-selling author when his latest cookbook, Ministry of Food, sold a record 11.7 million copies, surpassing the sales of even J.K. Rowling. [The Guardian]

• Some Toronto restaurants are now charging $1 for the city’s piped water. This is not the next trend in water snobbery: funds raised go to a UNICEF project that provides clean drinking water to children in developing countries. [Toronto Star]

• Things got heated in the kitchen when New York Times foodies staged a dinner duel. Critics Kim Severson and Julia Moskin each cooked up a lavish meal on the shoestring budget of $8.50 a head. Heavyweight critic Frank Bruni settled the score. [New York Times]

• After failed breakfast sandwiches, ATM-style coffee is the newest Starbucks scheme. Cashless, credit card–friendly coffee machines will be popping up in Canada and the U.S. But who will yell “extra-hot-no-foam-non-fat-decaf-venti-macchiato”? [Paypers]

• Baseball just got a little more exciting, at least for fans of the minor-league West Michigan Whitecaps. The mammoth five-patty burger that can be found at their games is the latest This Is Why You’re Fat competitor. The beef, chili and cheese concoction is so colossal that it requires a 20-centimetre bun (and costs $20). [Globe and Mail]

Thanks for the tip (Photo by Wade from Oklahoma)

What to tip at recession time? This is the latest question in the never-ending gratuity debate; and since the market went south, it appears to be striking a nerve in Toronto and elsewhere. The New York Times‘ etiquette authority, Frank Bruni, wrote about it on his blog recently, sparking chatter about servers getting stiffed during hard times. Apparently diners are not just ordering less food, but they are then dialling down the percentage of their cheques left for gratuity. The recession effect—Bruni calls it a “double whammy”—is being felt closer to home, too. Toronto servers have been reporting paltry pourboire during the downturn. “Before the crisis, money was getting thrown around, but now people are more careful,” says France Salmon, who has been serving for over 10 years at celeb sanctuary Bistro 990. It seems even stars can be guilty of skimpy tipping (we’re looking at you, Madonna). With everyone else getting their bonuses trimmed and salaries frozen, is it all right to be less generous with the gratuity?

Unlike in Manhattan—where the standard is generally understood to be 20 per cent—Toronto’s case is somewhat complicated, since the so-called tipping point was already in flux before the bubble burst. Over the past decade, the accepted amount of 15 per cent had been edging up. Now servers increasingly expect 20 per cent, explains Oddfellows manager Jenny-Orenda Smith. While 15 per cent is still in the mix, it represents the low end of a new range in which 20 is the new 15. Kerry Grove of Pangaea has been serving almost 30 years, and he’s witnessed the shift: “It’s a trickle-down from New York’s influence that’s reached major cities. I know that it hasn’t reached Winnipeg yet, though.”

For Smith, the impetus comes from below. She calls it the “trickle-up” effect, whereby an increasing number of people eating out have ties to the industry and feel compelled to tip liberally. The upward trend is confirmed on menus: many of the city’s restaurants now advertise an inflated gratuity for groups. King West’s Brassaii asks 17 per cent, while organic eatery Globe Bistro and upmarket Bymark are among many to calculate at 18 per cent.

The verdict appears to be that the higher percentages are here to stay and should remain unaffected by the TSX. True to Smith’s trickle-up theory, the servers we spoke to all agreed: whatever the times, it’s never cool to skimp on the tip. One tray toter at Rodney’s Oyster House summarized the issue simply: “If you can’t afford to tip properly, don’t eat out.”

While Bruni was taken with the curry lobster bisque and lamb chops served with carrot-cardamom chutney, he found the food “busy and unfocused.” The long climb to the second-floor space was also a problem:

“The staircase was the first befuddlement and miscalculation I encountered—and a clue that the evening and restaurant might not be all I’d hope for. It’s a long, drab, foreboding rise of steps from the sidewalk to the host station, an entrance less inviting than aerobic. I’ve gone on runs that didn’t leave me as winded.”

In the end, Bruni awarded Shang one star (out of five), a decision he expands upon on-line in an audio slide show.

• It’s Chinese, rather loosely translated [New York Times]