This just in from the Department of Cold Emails. We knew that Joseph Mahon had left Joe Pytka's Melrose Place restaurant (attach his name to the roster of former chefs, a list that reads like a Michelin inspector's Post-it jigsaw: Alain Giraud, Ludo Lefevbre, Walter Manzke and Paul Shoemaker), but just to confirm the news, this arrived in our in-box this afternoon:

Hi, just want to let you know that Chef Joseph Mahon quit and moved on, he could not keep up with Bastide's standards, let us know if you have any questions.

Staff Bastide

So much for pleasantries. We'll let you know when we know who's replacing him. Or if the restaurant is now morphing into something else entirely, like from a restaurant-slash-high-end-bookstore into, say, a dry-cleaners. Or maybe a department store with one of those revolving doors, since they already have one.

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