Here’s what you might have missed

The service is so good because the restaurant is spying on you: The San Francisco Chronicle’s Tara Duggan reported on the use of cameras at very high-end restaurants in the Bay Area. At Enclos, which earned three Michelin stars this summer, executive chef Brian Limoges installed two cameras that allow him to watch diners from an iPad to see exactly when servers place food on each table. At Californios, which also has three Michelin stars, the chef-owner monitors nine cameras throughout its space to make service “more seamless.” As Duggan notes, California allows businesses to record video in areas where customers don’t expect privacy (i.e., not in bathrooms); it’s only if audio is included that they need to ask for permission.
D Magazine alleges that the Michelin Guide used AI on its new entries for Texas: This week, the organization announced its new selections for Texas, giving one star to Fabrik and Kappo Kappo in Austin and Goldee’s in Forth Worth. A new report by dining critic Brian Reinhart claims that the organization used AI. Reinhart ran the text from the guide’s new write-ups through Pangram, an AI detector, which “identified AI’s work in 25 out of 31 sentences (80 percent).” Further analysis by two researchers (one of whom is Reinhart’s brother) identified the text as having telltale signs of GPT-4o, a model that has since been phased out. Michelin declined an interview with Reinhart and denied having used AI in its reviews. The guide’s continued presence in Texas remains unclear: Its contract with the organizations that brought it to Texas recently ended.
Kelly Clarkson picked a fight with the author of a children’s book about tacos: Perhaps you’ve heard about the ongoing messy situation between the singer and the Brooklyn store Art of Play, which sells games. Basically, the shop has an animatronic bird on its wall that apparently features in its magic shows. The singer tried to buy the bird, which was not for sale, and was turned down, leading her to crash out on X, where she compared the situation to Pretty Woman. Well, it turns out that the store’s owner, Adam Rubin, is also behind Dragons Love Tacos, an extremely successful children’s book franchise about dragons having a taco party. Book Riot called it one of the “best children’s books of the century (so far),” but the reviews among Eater parents are mixed. The writer Emily Gould called it “evil.”
A fire destroyed the oldest covered food market in Paris: Nothing remains of Marché des Enfants Rouges, which opened in 1615, following a huge fire on Monday, according to the New York Times. Frequently appearing in travel guides, the market was a “center of Marais life,” where both tourists and locals shopped from a wide variety of vendors. France24 described the market as offering a “small taste of what the historic Les Halles, the city’s sprawling central market, was like before it was gutted and turned into a giant mall in the 1970s.” In the 1990s, the market was saved from demolition by a local campaign to preserve it, thus also making it a “symbol of resistance,” as one local told the news network.
More “best restaurant” lists dropped, but they’re more personalized this time: Grub Street’s Matthew Schneier and the Washington Post’s Elazar Sontag shared their annual selections this week. Borgo, the esteemed Brooklyn restaurateur Andrew Tarlow’s new-ish Manhattan debut, earns Schneier’s endorsement as New York City’s “best all-around restaurant” right now, but Schneier’s list is otherwise unranked, instead classifying his 43 picks by use-case, like “Penny is where I go on my own dime.” Sontag, a former Eater staffer, meanwhile, goes all-in on rankings in his latest assessment of the D.C. scene, with 40 selections in all. His #1? Albi, the fine-dining Palestinian restaurant by Michael Rafidi, who has a total of three restaurants on the list. (Personally, I prefer Schneier’s vibes-forward approach — it feels more useful to me in deciding where I might go and when.)
We got a few exciting book reveals: Molly Baz unveiled the cover of her next cookbook, Less Is More, which features “dialed back” recipes that reflect on her experience rebuilding her kitchen after losing her house to the Los Angeles wildfires in early 2025; it’ll hit shelves in April. New York Times contributor Eric Kim shared more information about Spaghetti Junction, his essay collection and memoir that’s due in May. Its premise is the “moments of tension, collision, and transformation in [his] life” and how he made it past them, and includes a recipe with every chapter. Chuck Cruz, the cook beloved on social media for the way he merges restaurant-honed techniques with very chill vibes (and partner of cookbook author Hailee Catalano), showed off his forthcoming debut, With Rice, out in April.
Major Food Group is now investing in the fancy grocery niche: The high-profile restaurant group — best known for its flagship, Carbone — has signed on as a founding investor in Wilder, a new grocery store set to open in Miami later this year. It promises Whole Foods-esque sourcing, which it calls the “Wilder Standard,” plus prepared food from Grassfed Culture Hospitality, which is behind the Michelin-starred Miami restaurant Los Félix. Its founder, Danielle Axman, helped start Babe Wine. This concept continues the creep of luxe grocery stores nationwide.
Cake Zine co-founder and pastry chef Tanya Bush has a new column for Bon Appétit: The first edition features a 40,000-step jaunt to New Jersey, where she eats ugly-delicious cookies from Jersey City’s Bread & Salt. As with all of Bush’s writing, it’s a delightful read, and a thoughtful take on her participation in the Little Treat Industrial Complex.
And the award for Bleakest Headline of the Week goes to: “Why a retired teacher has cut back on food, trips, and electricity” from the Washington Post. It’s part of a new series about voters who cite affordability as a top concern in the upcoming midterm elections.