John Mariani wears a tie and jacket when he goes to dinner. Every dinner. The restaurant columnist for Esquire is a one-man barricade against the onslaught of informality in 21^st century dining.

Case in point: When I met him at a media conference in Pittsburgh in 2009, he told me he was planning a trip to Philly to review several restaurants for his annual 20 Best New Restaurants feature. He invited me, then an aspiring food writer, to meet him not by way of the usual “Do you want to join me?” but instead, “Would you care to dine with me?” It’s perhaps the most regal question I’ve ever answered yes to.

We had dinner at the defunct Maia in Villanova (thumbs down) then lunched the following day at Table 31, where Georges hugged him warmly and gave us a tour through the kitchen. It’s a good thing Georges left before our waiter carelessly poured red wine into a glass that was already 1/3 full of white, or Philadelphia might have witnessed its first public execution in modern history. Neither Maia nor Table 31 made the list that year but Zahav and Distrito, where he “dined” after we bid adieu, did.

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