Longtime restaurateur and media figure Graydon Carter thinks the end of outdoor dining is a travesty. His opinion is striking during the city’s first official week, with an over 80-percent drop in roadway outdoor dining since the pandemic rules were implemented. Only seven (yes, really!) of a mere 600 approved restaurants will serve alcohol outside, as New York City Comptroller (and mayoral candidate) Brad Lander noted.

Carter, founder and co-editor of Air Mail, compared the city’s pandemic-era outdoor dining to French dining culture, where it’s a given to enjoy leisurely restaurant meals outside. It was “a mistake to tear down the sheds,” he told Eater in an interview. Without the spirit of outdoor dining, the city’s restaurants “lose their beating heart,” a shame, since “restaurants are the soul of the city.”

Carter’s memoir When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines came out in late March, chronicling his arrival in New York, his founding Spy magazine, and his 25-year tenure at Vanity Fair. While the book focuses on his work connected to magazines, his influence transcends media to include his role as a restaurateur, helping to build hotspots where gossip is shared and deals are made.

At one point, he co-owned Monkey Bar with Ken Friedman and Jeff Klein (of the recently opened super-exclusive San Vicente) before they sold it to the 4 Charles Prime folks in 2022. He was also an investor of the Beatrice Inn pre-Angie Mar. And since 2006, he’s been an owner of the Waverly Inn (16 Bank Street, at Waverly Place) a spot famous for burgers and chicken pot pie — food that ranges from good to not a “complete disaster.” More recently, he opened a cafe in the Air Mail Newsstand in the West Village.

All these years later, the Waverly remains tough to get into — unless you’re with people like Robert De Niro, Gwyneth Paltrow, or Taylor Swift (which also makes it prime for people-watching). It’s a go-to for its excellent waitstaff and its fireplace during the winter. And it’s home to perhaps the city’s best restaurant mural.

Carter’s memoir is a page-turner for anyone who cares about New York publishing and the city’s culture when it comes to places of a certain era — many of which are long gone or have become classics. “Hurts me to say this,” says fellow restaurateur Keith McNally, who has his own memoir, I Regret Almost Everything, coming out next month. “But … it’s FANTASTIC.”

Whether you agree with all his takes, Carter’s taste has shaped restaurants. Here’s what to know, as told to Eater.

Tuscan East Village restaurant Il Cantinori

Keens in Midtown

Eric Ripert’s Le Bernardin in Midtown

The temporarily closed French bistro Claudette in Greenwich Village

Sibling to Odeon, Cafe Cluny, in the West Village

Sant Ambroeus on West Fourth

Twice a week “with friends and family.” And yes, he has a regular seat where he can see the whole restaurant (but he wouldn’t say which one).

“I was having dinner with Roberto Benabib at Elaine’s one night,” he told restaurateur John McDonald. Roberto’s a television showrunner and he was about to do Weeds, I think.” They saw a sign that it was for sale and they decided to buy it.

“I wouldn’t have put something on the menu if he said something nice,” said Carter about the quote from Trump at the top of the menu that reads, “Waverly Inn - worst food in the city.”

Maureen Dowd’s recent column on Carter’s book in the New York Times gives an overview of their relationship, starting with Carter’s 1984 profile of Trump for GQ. In the book, Carter calls Trump his regular nickname of “short-fingered vulgarian” and recalls that in 1986, Spy’s inaugural issue included the article, “Ten Most Embarrassing New Yorkers,” with Trump listed alongside Yankees then-owner George Steinbrenner. Over the years, Trump directly and through spokespeople has lobbed back insults with the third-grade-level nickname (“Dummy Graydon”) and via his White House press team.

Yet despite the animosity, Carter told Eater that Trump’s son Eric had recently been to the Waverly, and he was seated “in the best seats in the house. And I never heard any more of it.”

“I love restaurant people,” he told Eater. “I love the daily theater. Being involved in the Waverly Inn is one of my life’s great joys.”