This is an excellent article on Epicurious on the hot topic of tipping your way into fine restaurants. Try it sometime, it works!
I am nervous, truly nervous. As the taxi bounces southward through the trendier neighborhoods of Manhattan — Flatiron, the Village, SoHo — I keep imagining the possible retorts of some incensed maître d’:
“What kind of establishment do you think this is?”
“How dare you insult me!”
“You think you can get in with that?”
It’s just after 8 p.m. on a balmy summer Saturday and I’m heading toward one of New York’s most overbooked restaurants, Balthazar, where celebrities regularly go to be celebrated and where lay diners like me call a month in advance to try and secure a reservation. I don’t have a reservation. I don’t have a connection. I don’t have a secret phone number. The only things I have are a $20, a $50, and a $100 bill, neatly folded in my pocket.
Andrew Baber is a
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