Sublime

In a prime spot just across the yellow-tape road from the lemon trees, he tended his own dark grove of bookshelves, and beside them a field of legal boxes, which held thousands of menus from restaurants famous and obscure. Whenever I passed Horace’s collection, there was someone flipping through the menus with the furious intensity of a DJ digging

And now I finally had the chance to ask Brian Biel in person if there’s some secret formula behind Hillstone’s powerful allure—besides trying to avoid press, of course. Is it the napkins with buttonholes, just in case you need to affix one to your shirt like a spaghetti-eating character in  Goodfellas ? Is it the fact that every location has a

• An August of ideas: my Cali­fornia origin story


• The slow lift: a discovery


• Links and recommendations: not toooo many


• Checking in: what’s Robin doing?