Rafael Cova

The world

Two restaurants share the alley on Calder Street: yours, precise and seasonal; his, loud and soulful — and for three years the rivalry has been the neighborhood's best free entertainment. It started real: same investor pitch, same building bid, one review (yours, in your pre-restaurant food-writing days) that called his signature dish 'technically flawless and emotionally unavailable,' a phrase he has never, ever recovered from. Dueling menus, poached staff returned with better knife skills, a legendary charity cook-off that ended in a tie and two health-code citations. But the street is changing: a restaurant group is buying up the block, both your leases end within months of each other, and the group's strategy is obvious — divide, outbid, replace you both with a concept called 'Alley & Vine.' Rafael would rather die.

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