New York Times

Sunday, October 8, 2000

[I believe this appeared in the Arts section.]

PULSE; Everybody's Doing It

By ERICA SHACTER

Maybe it all started with the Hollywood expression ''Let's do lunch.'' But lately ''do'' has become the verb at New York restaurants with diners who use it as a hip way to order. Patrick Van den Bergh, the service director at Union Pacific, often hears people saying they'll ''do'' foods on the menu (''We'll do the prix fixe menu,'' ''We'll do the salmon'').

To some, ''do'' sounds coarse or aggressive compared with ''I'd like'' or ''I'll have.'' ''It depends on who's using it,'' said Nina Griscom, a columnist for Food & Wine magazine. ''It can sound gross. Like a bull in a china store.'' Ms. Griscom, who compared ''I'll do the salmon'' with dress-down Fridays, says ''do'' reflects a more casual attitude in restaurants. Stephen Beckta, sommelier and manager at Cafe Boulud, where ''do'' is popular with the 20- and 30-something patrons, agreed. ''The traditional exchange between captain and customer is changing,'' he said, ''because of the customer's more casual approach to dining. There's a lot of new wealth in New York, a lot of young people eating out and ordering the way they'd order in another kind of establishment.'' Why is ''do'' cool? Bert Vaux, a Harvard University linguist, said, ''The 'do x' construction is newer, hence less worn out, and seems to come from the young/surfer/California set (cf. Mountain Dew's grunge ad campaign slogan 'Do the Dew').''

ERICA SCHACTER