I guess everyone has to eat, even in a recession. When the light appears at the end of the tunnel, though, appetites get bigger ... and more discriminating. In London, upscale eateries are seeing the investment banking crowd come back, and the wine is once again flowing. The cities top chefs are still worried about what will happen after Christmas, but for now, they're happy to see their creations gobbled up by the city's financial sector.

Marcus Wareing has had what he calls "a fabulous year." The waiting list keeps getting longer, and he says, "There's a good vibe." Tristan Welch's Launceston Place is seeing more wine flow, and demand is picking up. Pearl's Jun Tanaka remains cautious, "We'll really know in the first quarter 2010 if business has returned ... I don't know if it's a trend or a hiccup."

Across the city, there's a mix of optimism and trepidation. Le Gavroche, Wahaca and Le Café Anglais, for example, offer some variation of "Business is good" or "Business is booming, and Gordon Ramsay tells Bloomberg News, "There's an increasing air of confidence, which has been particularly apparent since the beginning of September." Michelle McGuire of The Palm said the restaurant had its busiest week three weeks ago since its opening in May, "with record takings." Sam Hart, of Fino, Barrafino and Quo Vadis, on the other hand, calls the improvement "fragile."

Nonetheless, this is a far cry from the angst that characterized the fine dining world a year ago. When people start to eat well, you know that things are turning for the better.

Water's Edge, the iconic eatery on New York's East River with incredible panoramic views of Manhattan, recently reopened after a $1 million renovation with a brand new menu. Established in 1981 in Long Island City, with the recent revamp the restaurant is entering its third decade in real style. For patrons from Manhattan the Water's Edge dining experience begins with a cruise across the East River on the restaurant's private ferry departing from the East 23rd Street Pier/Skyport Marina. In addition to the elegant main dining room and bar, the restaurant offers riverside outdoor seating, a plush lounge with a fireplace, floor-to-ceiling windows and a private balcony with breathtaking views of the Manhattan skyline and the Queensboro Bridge.

There's also a private event space as well as a 90-ft. luxury yacht docked in front of the restaurant available for cocktail parties and private functions. Highlights of the Eclectic American cuisine include Panko Crusted Oysters with Guacamole and a Red Pepper Reduction; Baby Artichoke Crusted Salmon with Baby Turnips, Spaghetti Squash and Saffron Broth; and Mushroom-Miso Crusted Rack of Lamb with Braised Bok Choy and Whipped Potatoes. The bar features signature drinks such as the Water's Edge Sunset Cocktail, made with Grey Goose vodka, Grand Marnier and fruit juice. In addition they host regular wine tastings and wine pairing dinners.

Red-haired chef Mario Batali recently closed his seafood restaurant, The John Dory, but the bills linger on. The NY Daily News reports that Batali and his business partner Joe Bastianich (son of TV chef Lidia Bastianich) are on the hook for nearly $75,000. A lawsuit says that they owe $45,000 in rent as well as other expenses including $15,000 for chilled water. The John Dory was located next to Batali's NYC restaurant Del Posto but it closed on August 29 after only being in business for nine months. Bastianich has said that the bills will be paid soon. This appears to be an isolated episode and not an indication of cracks in the Batali empire which includes Babbo and other restaurants in New York City as well as outposts in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

One of London's most expensive restaurants has closed its doors in the fallout from the recession. Tatsuso served high-end sushi and was famous for its exorbitant prices. Wealth Bulletin says that the restaurant went into liquidation in May with liabilities of more than £338,000. The restaurant was located in the Broadgate development and catered to London's financial types. Mehmet Arkin, the appointed liquidator, blamed the restaurant's woes on the collapse in corporate expense accounts and noted that several London institutions had closed their credit accounts with the restaurant at the start of this year. Arkin said the restaurant is not planning to reopen.

Famous chef Heston Blumenthal will be opening his first London restaurant in 2010. Blumenthal, who runs the three Michelin-starred The Fat Duck and a gastropub, The Hind's Head, both in Bray, England, will be opening a new restaurant in the Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge. Blumenthal's new restaurant will explore his passion for the history of British gastronomy, and the restaurant will be three times the size of The Fat Duck. While it's great to see Blumenthal moving into a more central location we hope he doesn't spread himself too thin a la Gordon Ramsay.

Diners in New York City's Greenwich Village got a surprise Saturday night when the President and First Lady joined them for dinner. The First Couple ate at the Blue Hill restaurant before seeing a Broadway show "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" at the Belasco Theater. The NY Daily News reports that when the couple left the restaurant the other diners stood up and applauded them. Diners were searched before going into the restaurant and the entire block was closed off.

The menu at Blue Hill New York focuses on local food sourced mostly from Blue Hill Farm in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. Guests can choose from the regular menu or opt for the "Farmer's Feast," a five-course tasting menu. Entrees including Hudson Valley chicken pot au feu and Berkshire pig stew are in the $30-$40 range. The President and First Lady have expressed an interest in gardening, farming and healthy food options so this restaurant, which showcases fresh fruit and vegetables and simple preparations was a natural choice.

The weather is getting warmer, and restaurants in cities across the United States are stretching out onto sidewalks. Why not bring a touch of Europe across the Atlantic and enjoy the fresh air? Well, for some, fresh air is what's at issue. Smokers, after spending a winter enduring the elements, are happy to enjoy a bit of comfort. With most cities passing smoking bans, outside has become the last option for a lot of us, and outdoor dining almost always leads to ill will.

I was out on my front stoop a few nights ago, cigar in hand – as I've done for the past two years at this location. Customers at Bistro Cassis, a few doors down, complained loudly and in shrill voices, "You can't do that! It's blowing right at us!" Well, I reminded her, it's a public place, and I can do what I want. I continued to enjoy my cigar, though I moved back a little bit, so the building would provide some cover. Routinely, staff at the restaurant has been unnecessarily rude, perhaps in an attempt to show some advocacy for guests. Routinely, the staff fails.

Had she asked nicely, of course, I would have gladly relocated to the benches on Central Park West, a block away. Most cigar smokers seem to share this attitude. Ask nicely, and we'll accommodate the best we can. Demands and rude tones tend not to yield the desired results.

Smoking bans are an easy target for cigar smokers (and, for that matter cigarette smokers), and I admit, our community gripes about them a bit too much. We're past the point of being productive, and dwelling on the injustice feels like a waste of time. The fight for outdoor spaces, however, is a very real outcome of the prohibition on indoor smoking. Without locations where we can partake of our chosen luxury, we're forced outside. Though the laws vary, most do not prohibit smoking on sidewalks. So, that's where we go, disrupting dining experiences as a result.

Race car drivers often do a variety of things to promote a race but handsome racer and Dancing with the Stars Helio Castroneves can now add sous chef to his resume. This week saw him cooking with chef Stephan Pyles of Stephan Pyles Restaurant in Dallas as part of his promotion for the upcoming Bombardier Learjet 550k at Texas Motor Speedway on June 6. Wearing a chef's coat, Castroneves cooked up several meals and was served a chocolate cake in honor of his recent birthday. Castroneves is feeling good after a jury acquitted him on six counts of tax evasion and hung on the conspiracy charge.

Stephan Pyles serves food that he terms New Millenium Southwestern Cuisine, a fusion repertoire that mixes Tex-Mex cuisine with touches of other global flavors. His restaurant includes a tapas-ceviche bar and dinner entrees include housemade boar sausage and pickled peaches, beef tenderloin with sweet potato chilaquiles and pineapple mole, spit-roasted chicken Paneer-Peruvian potato salad and young coconut Madras curry, and seared red snapper with aji-creamed corn and crab ceviche.

Bad news for the restaurant world, eating out has topped the list of a survey of what people are willing to give up during a recession. The survey, conducted by New York marketing firm GfK Custom Research last fall found that 82 percent of those surveyed could easily forgo restaurant time as their first cutback in a difficult economy. Forbes reports that the National Restaurant Association in Washington, D.C., predicts that Americans will spend $566 billion eating out in 2009 which is a small 2.5 percent increase over 2008. The good news for those still interested in dining is that the deals abound. All across the restaurant spectrum, from casual dining to some of the best restaurants in the U.S., discounts and special offers provide an incentive to let someone else do the cooking.

Want a taste of the sea without ever leaving land? Harbour, a restaurant located on 290 Hudson Street in West Soho in New York City opened today. The restaurant is being run by restaurateur Richard Schaeffer, former chairman of NYMEX Holdings, Inc., and Michelin star chef Joe Isidori. The 80-seat restaurant has a nautical look that isn't lobster traps and buoys, instead the dining room looks like the interior of a luxury yacht with porthole windows and gleaming wood.

As you might expect, the menu is heavy on the seafood with items like ceviche, mussels, butter clams and Artic char. Eater reveals that the set lunch is $25 and a set four-course dinner is $45. During the first month of service, 10% of proceeds from select seafood dishes will be donated to Monterey Bay Aquarium, Chefs Collaborative, and Blue Ocean Institute.

World renowned restaurant The Oak Room at New York City's Plaza Hotel is reopening March 18th with a brand new chef, Eric Hara (right).

The legendary Oak Room has an all new menu planned, featuring classic and modern American cuisine at "prices that are appropriate for today's economy." Entrees will run from just $22 - $35.

Eric Hara was most recently executive chef of David Burke Townhouse and Fishtail.

The Oak Room and adjacent Oak Bar have been redesigned by architect Annabelle Selldorf, bringing contemporary flourishes to the historic space which first opened in 1907. Be sure and visit the new Oak Room next time you are in New York!

Last week we learned that celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay had sold his restaurants in West Hollywood and Prague, now the Telegraph says that Ramsay is set to sell his restaurant in France. Like the West Hollywood restaurant, Gordon Ramsay au Trianon opened just last year with the usual Ramsay mixture of fanfare and braggadocio. Ramsay promised the French he would bring the best of British cuisine to their country.

The ten-table restaurant, which earned two Michelin stars, will be owned by the Trianon Palace Hotel in Versailles. As with the West Hollywood restaurant, Ramsay's name stays on the door and he will still be participating in menu development and other creative decisions. There have been many rumors about the potential fragility of the financial state of affairs at Gordon Ramsay Holdings, Ramsay's company. Perhaps these sales will help Ramsay's empire gain firmer footing.

We all define the term discount differently. At Masa, Manhattan's ultra-pricey temple of sushi, the cost of dining has dropped from $450 to $400 for the set menu. This may not seem significant but it may be the first time that the Michelin-starred restaurant at Time Warner Center has ever dropped prices. Masa's business manager Veda Nishikawa told Blomberg's Ryan Sutton that the recession had nothing to do with the price drop. A reduction in the cost of freight to fly in Masa's fresh fish daily inspired the restaurant to pass on its savings to the consumer. As oil prices drop the cost of global air shipping is reduced. Of course if Masa really wanted to impress diners they could roll the prices back to the $300 the set menu cost back in 2004 when the restaurant opened.

Like many other couples, the President and First Lady went out to dinner on Valentine's Day. The pair dined at a Chicago restaurant which is owned by Oprah's former personal chef, Art Smith. Table Fifty-Two specializes in high-end versions of classic southern food like shrimp and grits, crab cakes, pan-seared catfish, jambalaya with sides of macaroni and cheese and collard greens. According to the Chicago Tribune, Smith, who was Oprah Winfrey's chef for ten years, greeted the couple and whisked them away to a private dining room. The dinner destination apparently surprised some local foodies who were guessing that the Obamas might end up at Spiaggia for Italian food or at Topolobampo for Rick Bayless's Mexican/Southwestern fare.Table Fifity-Two is known for its generous portions, is Mrs. Obama toting home the leftovers in the picture above?

Fiery chef Gordon Ramsay may have expanded too quickly for his own good. In addition to having books, television shows and appearances, Ramsay also has a global restaurant empire to manage. But The Mirror reports that bookings at his restaurants are down and some are saying he's been spending too much time in the spotlight and not enough in the kitchen. A former manager says that Ramsay's is too overextended to keep a close eye on his properties.

It has been claimed that a £10million loan to Gordon Ramsay Holdings is being called in by the troubled Royal Bank of Scotland and Ramsay may have to use some of his own money to prop up the company.

The Mirror called some of Ramsay's restaurants and found that you could book a same day table at them, a bad sign for considering Ramsay reservations were once some of the hardest tables to get. A spokesman for Gordon Ramsay Holdings says all is well and that customers can often get a table if they phone on the day because of last minute cancellations.