Salt Bae is close to opening in NYC

Viral sensation Salt Bae — aka Nusret Gökçe — must be super close to opening the Midtown location of his steakhouse Nusr-et. The restaurant posted a Craigslist ad seeking staff for the 60 West 53rd Street, near Sixth Avenue, restaurant, seeking servers, grill cooks, and butchers. The requirement? They are “looking for talent burning with desire to flare it up.” The chef already has locations around the world, and the first U.S. outpost will open further south in Miami.

Post critic finds Pasta Flyer worth trying

Steve Cuozzo at the Post gave the new fast food restaurant from Mark Ladner a spin, and he found that Pasta Flyer’s al dente bowls are worth the five-minute wait. Cuozzo enjoyed the meat ragu, the marinara, and the pesto sauces, though the Alfredo option “left me cold,” he writes. Ladner also noted that about 40 percent of people take their pasta to go, taking sauce on the side to warm up at home.

Taiwanese restaurant will join Columbus Circle transit food hall

Food market vendor Zai Lai will plant roots in the Turnstyle Underground Market later this month, the first time chef Edward Huang’s Taiwanese pop-up will be in a brick-and-mortar space. The new location will serve dishes like rice bowls with lion’s head meatballs, beef noodle soup. and steamed pork buns. It will open on November 27, near the stairs at 57th Street and Eighth Avenue.

Longtime Woodside bar will be in Jennifer Lopez film

Queens bar Donovan’s Pub, open since 1966 in Woodside, closed up shop on Tuesday so that it could be the set for a new Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy called Second Act. In the movie, which also stars Vanessa Hudgens and Milo Ventimiglia, Lopez plays a big box store employee who “reinvents her life and her life story and shows Madison Avenue what street smarts can do.” Donovan’s got decked out in Christmas decorations for the all-day shoot.

Coffeemania changes its name to L’Adresse

A Moscow-based group’s upscale all-day Bryant Park restaurant Coffeemania is now called L’Adresse American Bistro. The Russian chain wanted to have the same name here, but apparently Americans didn’t understand it. “We soon realized that many people found it misleading and assumed we were just a coffee shop,” the company said. It’s actually a full-service restaurant. The new name reflects how the group wants the restaurant to be a meeting point for people, including “power breakfasts, social or business lunches, after-work drinks, and dinner,” according to a statement.

Legendary food writer battles to finish memoir after cancer diagnosis

Molly O’Neill, who had a long-running Times magazine food column and was a towering figure in food journalism for decades, is battling cancer after more than a year of liver health issues. She’s in the midst of “writing the book of my life” and needs help funding the medical expenses to recover from chemotherapy and surgery. Her friends launched a GoFundMe to assist O’Neill. Donate here.

Try some pupusas this week