New York: The Pixel Ate My Lunch

FRANÇOIS SIMON ARTWORK BY SARAH SLAPPEY WRITER AND FRANCE’S BEST-KNOWN FOOD AUTHOR, FRANÇOIS SIMON, A FORMER JOURNALIST AT LE FIGARO AND LE MONDE, CONTRIBUTES TO MANY OTHER PUBLICATIONS, INCLUDING THE FINANCIAL TIMES. Yes, New York is unique, powerful, and untamable, but it’s still dominated by appearances and, like the world of fashion, submits to the tyranny of ostentation. Of course, New York food will always have its criminal side, the one that makes us roar in echo to that “huzzah” food that we tear into with our mandibles, sinking our gums and teeth in deep. That’s what we expect from New York, just as we seek soothing in Kyoto, paradox in Berlin, felicity in Rome. And New York will never say no. We expect Katz’s Delicatessen (since 1888) on the Lower East Side to be voluble all day, hollering on the edge of obscenity with its pastrami mega-sandwiches, the rat-a-tat-tat…