NEWSWORTHY
California restaurants will soon stop providing plastic straws unless customers explicitly ask for them under a new law signed on Thursday by the state's environment-friendly governor. Gov. Jerry Brown said he hoped the measure — which goes into effect next year and is the first ...
French restaurants look to asylum seekers to fill jobs but face bureaucratic delays
Restaurateurs in France want the government to speed up its asylum process and make it easier to identify suitable staff to help them fill thousands of jobs they say are increasingly snubbed by French workers. The hotel, cafe and restaurant union GNI-Synhorcat says some businesses ...
Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain wins posthumous Emmys for 'Parts Unknown'
U.S. celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, who committed suicide in June at age 61, posthumously earned a pair of Emmy Awards on Sunday for his work on the popular CNN food-and-travel show he hosted, "Parts Unknown." Bourdain was awarded one of the Emmys, the U.S. television ...
One of Australia's most well-known pubs, located in the remote Outback thousands of kilometers from major cities, is on the market for the first time in decades and attracting local and international interest. The 134-year-old Birdsville Hotel is the sole watering hole for the town ...
Sushi's balancing act: Tradition versus adaptation
For leading food critic Masuhiro Yamamoto, sushi is part food, part theater, a dining experience unique among Japanese culinary traditions. From the closed-off tuna auctions of Tsukiji to the chefs who meticulously craft morsels of fish for loyal customers, each player has a role ...
Dining out in Tokyo in the age of gastro-tourism
Tokyo: It's the world's greatest dining city. Twenty years ago this assertion — one I delighted in dropping into conversations whenever possible — would have been met with bemusement if not ridicule, especially among the gourmets of Paris or New York. These days, few ...
Social-media influencers exert formidable impact on sushi scene
Social-media influencers are quickly becoming one of the largest forces in Japan's sushi industry, driving customer traffic at some of the country's most renowned restaurants with the tap of a screen. Depending on who you ask, such influencers — users of platforms such as Facebook ...
Demand for precooked ingredients for use by supermarkets and restaurants on the rise in Japan
Demand for precooked ingredients for use by cooking staff at supermarkets and restaurants is increasing in Japan, with many such establishments facing difficulties securing experienced chefs amid an ongoing labor shortage. According to the Japan Ready-Made Meal Association, the country's market for nakashoku, or prepared ...
Japan's watered-down smoking ban clears Diet
Lighting up in public facilities prohibited for the first time as the nation scrambles to combat secondhand smoke in the lead-up to the 2020 Tokyo Games.
'Life or death': Tokyo pub owners fear impact of tougher smoking laws
Hiroshi Yoshida is facing a dilemma. Under an anti-smoking ordinance adopted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly last month, the 73-year-old owner of a small udon (wheat noodles) restaurant in the Takadanobaba district will soon have to make a choice: declare the entire interior nonsmoking or ...
Yuki Tatsumi was waiting tables at an izakaya pub in the city of Kyoto when something on the table caught his eye — a chopstick wrapper folded and fiddled into an abstract shape. It was the catalyst for the creation of a collection that now ...
Restaurant chains are taking the smoking ban into their own hands
Although the anti-smoking laws recently passed by Japan's national government have yet to go into effect, several popular restaurant chains have already gone completely smoke-free. But will that be enough to help make Japan a smoke-free country by 2020?
