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Belvedere has followed its “Keys to the City” ads (where the likes of Ken Friedman and Daniel Boulud looked back on their careers and recommended their favorite spots) with new installments featuring David Sarner of the Pink Elephant (he brags of bringing bottle service to the city), Kyky and Unik of Merkato 55 (Kyky recommends you “keep it real” by going to Whole Foods where “there’s beautiful girls”), our own Nur Khan of Rose Bar (“I have a passion for Morrissey Night at Sway,” he admits), and Mark Baker of Mansion, who talks about his (um, fetish?) for “fun and crazy” Russians. The must-watch ad, however, is Jeffrey Chodorow, who goes on again about Bruni’s Kobe Club number.

This particular last battle where I took out a full page ad to sort of protest what the critic for the New York Times wrote about Kobe Club. The editor of that section does not go to the restaurant to see whether the critic is correct or not — they just accept what they say at face value. I spent $58,000 to take out a full page ad… they made me change what I wrote, I had to go through five or six censorship reviews of my ad before they would take it. But as I travel around the country, and even in Europe, chefs and restaurateurs come up to me all the time and thank me for taking a stand.

Ok, so that’s in the past— what about the future? According to Chodorow, his current “pet project” is “a 50,000 sq. ft. food and beverage facility at 28th St. and Sixth Avenue: “I don’t want to use the word ‘food court’ because food court doesn’t describe it correctly. It’s more in the nature of Harrods Food Hall but in a modern sense. We’re working with technology— hopefully you’ll be able to charge a meal on your cell phone.”

Keys to the City [Urbandaddy/Belvedere]