Dining Briefs | Recently Opened: Calyer — NYC — Restaurant Review

Lady Gaga’s parents will open Joanne Trattoria next Wednesday.

THE women made a pilgrimage to West 68th Street, 450 miles from home, squinting in the rain on Monday as they peered through the restaurant’s front windows. The place was closed, they were told.

Not a problem, they said. They had come only to glimpse the Mother Gaga.

“That guy’s so lucky,” said Michele

Parm tweaks Italian-American classics. More Photos »

IF the meatball parmigiana hero were a Southern dish, scholars from Chapel Hill, N.C., to Tallahassee, Fla., would hold academic conferences every six months just to talk about it.

If it were a Florentine dish, the Four Seasons would have it on the menu for $95, or $55 without white truffles.

But it is an Italian-American dish.

A couple of years ago, a friend told me that a vegan Japanese restaurant called Kajitsu was doing “the best food in the city.” I ignored him. (Typical: I ignored him when he told me about Noma, and I at first ignored friends who told me about Momofuku, El Bulli and, in 1987, the young chefs Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Thomas Keller. So much for the vision thing.) After this friend called me stupid