Has fine dining turned the corner and begun to put some distance between
itself and the malignant grip of the recession?


Restaurant and food writer John Mariani thinks so. 


Mariani visits 15 to 20 different cities around the country each year in his capacity as food and travel correspondent for Esquire magazine and editor and chief scribe of Mariani’s Virtual Gourmet Newsletter. As such, he dines at some 80 to 85 different restaurants each year, which gives him a boots-on-the-ground vantage point from which to monitor trends in the high-end sector.


For Edie Ames, a 30-year foodservice veteran and incoming chief operating officer for Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group, the secret to success is simple: It’s the people.