A collection of food-related stories from across the web.
• Chain eaters are hitting every segment of the restaurant world except one: casual dining. Joe’s Crab Shack is down, Bonefish Grill is down and many others. [Nation’s Restaurant News]
• For the first time, Michelin awarded a star to a ramen restaurant in its new 2016 Tokyo guide. [Eater]
• Winemakers in the region of Israel are seeking to recreate wine possibly drank by Biblical figures like Jesus or King David. “The new crisp, acidic and mineral white from a high-end Israeli winery was aged for eight months — or, depending on how you look at it, at least 1,800 years.” [New York Times]
• The Paris restaurant where 15 people were murdered by Daesh terrorists, called Le Petit Cambodge, will reopen. [Quartz]
• “A mainstay of economic thought — that higher wages for [restaurant] workers will quickly translate into higher prices for consumers — may not apply as strongly as traditional economic theory suggests.” [New York Times]
•Big Food is retooling ingredient lists in order to incorporate more natural foods. (Pop-Tarts still comes with its normal allowance of Red 40 and Yellow 6.) [Wall Street Journal]
• China will open a commercial animal cloning center in Tianjin to produce dogs, racehorses and beef cattle, with the goal of producing up to a million of the latter annually. “Chinese farmers are struggling to produce enough beef cattle to meet market demand, Xu said.” [Press release]
• DineEquity, which owns Applebee’s and IHOP, will remove soda from kids’ menus, joining McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and Dairy Queen. [Science in the Public Interest]
• A lawsuit filed against Yelp alleging it manipulated reviews for pay has been dismissed. “The judge said only 11 of the complaints accused Yelp of offering to manipulate reviews in exchange for fees, a small number ‘especially when compared to the tens of millions of reviews hosted by Yelp.'” [Reuters]
• Starbucks’ $200 gift card covered in Swarovski crystals — and holding just $50 in cash — are sold out. [Eater]
• The National Restaurant Association is planning to sue New York City over a new rule requiring restaurants to post salt warnings. [Bloomberg]
