Pok Pok Adopts OpenTable Alternative; Gourmet Pastaworks to Open Chicken Shack

SOUTHEAST —Thomas Keller, Wylie Dufresne, and now, Pok Pok are all using Tock: Do you need to care? Tock is a new way to make a restaurant reservation, and among its investors, it counts Thomas Keller (The French Laundry, Per Se) and Twitter CEO Dick Costolo. The general idea is this: To reserve a table, you no longer give your name and a date and time only; now, you pay some or all of your bill up front. It's sort of like buying tickets to a sporting event, or a pop-up.

KERNS — Pastaworks is one of the most iconic gourmet grocers in a city of iconic gourmet grocers, and this winter, it's opening an Italian-style rotisserie chicken spot called Arrosto as part of its forthcoming Providore Fine Foods marketplace. It's been 17 years in the making, says Pastaworks.

SOUTHEAST — After making a musky splash at last year's Negroni Social, mixilogist Douglas Derrick's amphora-aged negroni is back and currently available at Ava Gene's. Even if you'd thought you'd heard it all when Clyde Common's barrel-aged negroni came out in 2010, you may want to give Ava Gene's Aged Negroni a shot. Derrick fills each amphora with a negroni cocktail (equal parts Beefeater Gin, Cinzano, and Campari) and buries it for six weeks.