Introducing On the House

Or OTH for short. Welcome back is in order.

I came into media sideways, out of the bar-and-restaurant business. From 1999 to 2008, I launched and ran CITY, a boutique design magazine; that’s how I started working with Christene Barberich, who became my editor-in-chief there. After that, I founded Tasting Table, a title that attracted a devoted community — close to a million of you — and was part of the first generation of culinary newsletters (that eventually became about so much more than food).

Many of you from that time are still here. When the company was sold, I brought that audience here to Substack, where I sent off newsletters on restaurants that shaped the city and conversations with legendary New Yorkers like Graydon Carter under the name Broken Palate. You loved reading those stories…and we loved making them. But, earlier this year, we decided it was time to do it more thoughtfully, more often, and with more focus.

And so, together with Christene and Erin Cunningham, we are officially relaunching as On the House with a new look and a new perspective.

The longer I worked across both publishing and food, the more the two industries started to look the same. A restaurant and a magazine run on a point of view. You decide what you stand for, you set that standard, and you hold to it. If you do that, people start to trust you: A reader trusts what you put in front of them, a guest trusts what shows up on the table. And that trust is the Whole Thing. It’s why they come back, over issues, years, changes, and many more meals to come.

That trust is central to On the House, too.

Artwork by Jake Hollings.

Our weekly dispatch of good taste — on our plates and in our lives — will deliver a steady distillation of that trust, with fresh resources, tips, secret gems, New York City nostalgia, and, of course, style, all from New Yorkers who know where to find the best stuff. The kind that gets shared, swapped, tabbed, and revisited when you’re truly a regular somewhere, when you take the time to know a place, its gifts, its (occasional) foibles, its comforts...

And it knows you back.

A heads-up: This newsletter will be free through the summer season as we take the next few months to get OTH into a groove and listen and learn more about what you love and crave, while creating a series of smart, absorbing stories that mean something to our readers, old and new. After Labor Day, we’ll share more about what our Paid tier will look like, including special content series, fun seasonal pop-ups, merch, and more.

Until then, cozy up to our table. We’ve got some great stuff in the works to share.

John McDonald
Founder

Erin Cunningham
Editor

Christene Barberich
Editor-at-Large