Times Like These: Laurent Manrique OUT at Aqua

Financial District: The BauerBlog, making its second post today (!), breaks the news that Laurent Manrique has left Aqua. Given the current, trainwrecky state of Aqua and Manrique's recent exits from both Urban Tavern and Fifth Floor, the writing was on the wall for this for weeks, and the further tales of Aqua's financial troubles don't bode well for the restaurant's future at all (tick tock). Still, the end of Manrique's six-year stint at the two-star Michelin restaurant is a somber one and the latest blow to fine dining, or what Josh Sens pretty much dubbed the extinction of the dinosaurs.
· Rumormongering: Aqua Kitchen Staff's Mass Exodus [~ESF~]
· Signs of the Times: Aqua Cuts Lunchtime Service [~ESF~]