I think I will open a restaurant with the cutting edge name of......"Restaurant".
Oh, I am so clever :-)

James Beard Awards

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2008-06-08-achatz-james-beard-chef_N.htm

In the Monday Morning Quarterbacking posts we're talking about a T3 about restaurant names, albeit it faux and stupid. Maybe we could include one-word names? Such as Gastroenteritis or Vlad - the home of Impale Ale.

Well, if Sepia were a seafood restaurant, it would be a relevant name. Sepia = cuttlefish in Italian. Otherwise, not so much.

I wonder how many restaurants opened in the past year, and how many of them were actually sampled by Food & Wine. I am always suspicious of nation-wide "ten best" lists because I doubt the decision makers could have sampled all contenders.

In this case, they probably judged from the wine lists, which I guess is more fair than judging the food. EL

WNAJ,

There is a restaurant called Restaurant in Germantown, NY. (Hudson Valley, Catskills region) The second homeowners from NYC love it. You might have to take my word on this because it's nearly impossible to Google.

I don't like this trend towards the one-word restaurant name. It does sound rather phony.

Hmm ... it appears we need to have a discussion about how many words are necessary, appropriate or whatever in restaurant names. A few days ago, EL "complained" about the verbiage contained in Ciao Pizza Bistro Italiano. Now, there are folks who dislike one-word names. (RobPCB: please explain what you mean by "phony.") Frankly, I don't consider one-word names a trend at all. I can recite any number of one-word-named restaurants that have been in business for years, starting with McDonald's. But seriously, when does a restaurant's name become unwieldy?

Good points. I wasn't really complaining about the number of words. (I was saying about Ciao that I can't remember the order of words in the name because they seem so random.) And of course, there are lots of one-word restaurant names that make sense.

The trend that bothers me is what seems to be just picking some vaguely food-related word because it sounds clever and edgy, not because it means anything to you as a restaurant owner. EL

Restaurant
2 Church Ave.
Germantown, NY 12526
518-537-2160

No other information provided.

I like the old standby one word name, "Eat".

Cheap Jim wrote: "I like the old standby one word name, "Eat"."

There's an old Gahan Wilson cartoon showing people cowering inside a diner with a large "EAT" on the outside sign. There are giant ants coming over the hill, and one patron is saying to another "I wonder if they can read?"

Saute fits this one word name, but in true Baltimore fashion, we beat it outright- how many one LETTER restaurant names do you think there are out there: b !!!

MOF, that place is a real estate listing. I saw the picture that says "Restaurant", but they may have photoshopped out the name. They do it all the time.

I got a press release recently about a new California, I think, restaurant called A Restaurant. Unfortunately I killed it out, and of course now I can't Google it. First one to find it for me wins a prize. EL

EL: This is what I have located so far.

http://www.restaurantrow.com/cra/search.cfm

Piano Rob,
By phony, I guess I meant pretentious. Or maybe its just me, but places with names like "Salt", and "Taste" just sound trendy.

In London we ate a place actually called Eat. It's a local chain, you walk and pick up pre-made sandwiches, salads, etc. Sort of a faster Panera. (There's a whole other name issue, where they changed the original descriptive one to something that sounds like a car.)

Rob in PCB FL, around here, Taste is no longer trendy--it's closed!

Dahlink said Taste is no longer trendy--it's closed!

Any update in status on the new place. And I can't remember if it was Christopher or Daniel that bought it.

Daniel. Nothing new yet. EL

All that matters is if the food, service, and drinks are good. Who cares if the name is clever, and if so, fantastic, easier to remember and it stands out from the pack of corporate eateries. If a name is going to influence whether you eat at a certain spot, maybe you should just stay at McDonalds.

I was always partial to
"The Casa de Maison House"

I'm sure I'm not the only Sandboxer to get an e-mail from Open Table with Best of lists for seafood, service and wine lists. With this post and the end of Crab Week, I was struck that the seafood places listed (okay, Crab Week looked at crab, but around here the two are almost synonyms) didn't get a lot (or any) mention in Crab Week and Cinghiale's wine list (whether you believe the national magazine or not) wasn't strong enough to be number one in a local compilation.

I'm thinking more advert buys are in play. (Payolay.)

RtSO, I think they are compiling these lists from the new feedback forms. If you book through Open Table you now get a follow-up email asking you to evaluate your experience. You can click on as many categories as you like.

With regards to the major hype made over one of my favorite restaurants, I asked the staff (and they asked the owner) what was up with this name. They said, "The name of the restaurant is Ciao!, being a friendly greeting in Italian. Pizza bistro is exactly that. The "Italiano", in this case, is an adjective placed last in a phrase as in the Italian or Spanish languages. Ciao! Pizza Bistro Italiano."

On the subject of names, one of my coworkers told me a story about when her father (who was French) visited Rome. He walked around the city and got thoroughly lost, but he confidently hailed a cab to take him back to his hotel. He had written down the name: "Albergo." That turned out to be a very expensive cab drive.