HOTCAKES
An independent publication about food, culture, and design for people whose curiosity follows them home from dinner.
Restaurants are one of the best ways to get to know a city. They're creative hubs, neighborhood institutions, and unofficial town halls. Ask the right person and you'll hear about the ordinance everyone's arguing over, the play opening down the street, or the band to catch before everyone else does. The people working and gathering there know what's happening, and they usually have an opinion about it. We want a seat near them.
We're as interested in the server who's watched a neighborhood change as the chef who just opened in it. We want to talk to the dishwasher, the designer, the bartender, and the regular who remembers what this place used to be. We want the poetry scribbled on guest check pads and the argument that starts over dessert.
Restaurant reviews sit alongside personal essays, interviews, and investigations in Reservations & Ruminations, our home for the questions we can't stop thinking about.
- Why is food so seductive?
- What does a dining room tell us about who belongs?
- Why are so many chefs opening restaurants in their homes?
- And why won't they seat you until your whole party arrives?
Call it the anthropology of dining, with room for big opinions. We follow the backstories, rituals, politics, and creative impulses that shape what happens around a table, to give you something to think about and somewhere to go.
Hotcakes is a space for writers with hot takes to follow their obsessions and readers to discover a few of their own.