Wednesday’s Food and Wine reader

Grub Street presents the Grub Report, a survey snapshot of the restaurant world in summer 2009. They polled eleven prolific eaters from around the country and in various parts of the restaurant business on ten questions, ranging from Most Important Chef to Most Overhyped Trend. What did we learn? Dave Chang is both one of the most important and most overrated chefs cooking today. Fine dining will return, but in different forms. Portland, Oregon, could be the model for how we’ll all eat one day. And, if these people have anything to say about it, the end of the burger craze, and of chalkboard menus, may be nigh.

Danny Myer’s Gramercy Tavern turns 15 this month. Happy Birthday to New York’s favorite restaurant.

Cafe des Artistes has closed. “If ever a restaurant had fine, aristocratic bone structure it is Café des Artistes,” William Grimes wrote in a review of the restaurant for The New York Times in 2003. “Diners have only to take one step inside, and the tumultuous New York world outside disappears in a flash, replaced by lush floral displays, flattering lighting and Howard Chandler Christy’s pastel murals of naked beauties prancing through romantic landscapes.”

A three-star review (I was fortunate to accompany my new crush Laura Reiley on one of her outings) of Queen’s Head: Lost mountain dwarf saved by Chihuahua. Or so it says on the wall at the Grand Central District’s new Queens Head men’s room. Both restrooms are lavishly festooned with collages of British tabloid clippings that range from the profound to the profane (and thus, perfect lavatory reading). The work of Darren Conner and Paul Smith, Queens Head is an adorable, cheeky and emphatically stylish addition to St. Petersburg.