ITN wanted to expand its online presence from a website that had been largely unchanged since the late 1990s. The project began with a WordPress site and custom theme, with a lot of data entry to add the magazine’s archives.

Five years later, the project has ballooned in scope to a full Drupal installation on a Linux VPS with subscriber management and eight years of the magazine’s archives.

The publication prides itself as a no-nonsense source of unbiased travel information, so the design is structured to fade into the background as much as possible to let the writing and photography stand out.

The magazine’s readership is mainly in the 60+ age range, so readability was a big concern in the current design. Headings and body text are in easy-to-read Proxima Nova, with a large default size. The navigation menu was created image sprites for optimum legibility on multiple platforms.

Opening night at Film Forum, introduced by a friend of the director

Diners wary of kitsch would do well to avoid Paul Sevigny’s newest Midtown eatery, Collations et Roues, known to the faithful as “Snacks ‘n’ Wheels.” The space, which is only accessible via a series of escalators inside a massive four-story building that spans 41st Street, seems to be a living monument to the maxim “Downtown is over.” The massive brutalist building, bearing stainless steel signs ironically advertising The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, seems a postmodern nod to the eponymous Beaux-Arts building thirty blocks down 8th Avenue, a hop, skip, and a jump from the former culinary capital of the Meatpacking District.

Much like Damien Hirst’s short-lived hospital-themed restaurant in Berlin, Snacks attempts staying power by insulting and assaulting the diner’s senses with all manner of unappetizing stimuli. The sprawling complex spanning forty-first street, which exists solely to titillate Mr. Sevigny’s customers, is jam-packed with odious smells. In my exploration, I was exposed to the entire gamut of human odors, artfully crafted by the French perfumer Giverny Garçes. It’s hard to imagine Garçes’ horror at deploying his talents as a master perfumer to simulate the bouquet of a ripe highway restroom. Still, the effect isn’t lost on the Theater District crowds that peripitate inside the building, probably waiting for their allotted time to dine. The invitation to descend to one’s table is delivered via text message and is invalidated upon arriving early, so it’s not unusual to see yesterday’s late-night patrons sleeping sprawled under the banks of imitation public telephones in the sprawling edifice.

Upon descending the final escalator, the sticky, human odor reaches its crescendo. To drive the message home, the concourse outside the restaurant features a prominent, massive restroom entrance that reeks of an overflowing latrine. The dining level of the complex was built to resemble a 1970s Greyhound terminal. Savvy diners would do well to make early reservations, as Snacks has extremely limited seating. Here, perhaps, Paul has gone too far in his quest for a kitschy sort of “realism” by employing unkempt actors to simulate homeless travelers.

Unfortunately, the upscale-downscale craze, which crowds Upper East Side anterooms with accounts of black tie prix fixe dinners served cafeteria-style, reaches its apex at Snacks. Despite reserving a table two months in advance, we were forced to wait in a line staffed with actors as they, in full Method, pondered ordering a withered (non-organic!) apple or a (non-artisan!) bagel wrapped in plastic. The maitre’d, in a calculatedly stained smock, responded in a thick Hackensack brogue when asked about seating. “Whereva’ ya’ want.”

We took a seat next to a particularly convincing actress (totally Strasberg) simulating raucous snores while slumped over a shopping cart filled with carefully selected clutter. My wife and I applauded the artfully choreographed mise en scéne. It’s easy to get distracted by the sheer audacity of the décor, but the savvy diner must remind oneself that the cuisine is the sole reason Snacks was anointed upon opening with three Michelin stars. The amuse-bouche course, which consisted of tender fennel rubbed foie gras strips served on imitation urinal cakes, gave us an indication of the blend of elegance and panache typical of the first stages of a Sevigny endeavor.

Some of the appetizers, truth be told, can step into the realm of the truly bizarre. One such dish, served on a square of faux-dirty tile, was a serpentine spray of ginger-infused butter served leaking, drop by drop, from a porcelain urinal. This was to be mopped up by sponge-shaped rectangles of toasted sourdough. The simulated act of cleaning up a river of urine and eating the result was too much for one diner, who ran to the fetid-smelling bathroom entrance before discovering it was, in fact, the disguised entrance to the kitchen.

Entrées, which in the hands of a less delicate proprietor might fall into the artless trap of roast duck outfitted to resemble raccoon, truly shine. Sevigny, and his main chef poached from L’Ecole, has clearly outshone the competition with his selection of group entrées, which Snacks’ actors will gladly finish for diners who order too much. Don’t miss the duck flambé. Served on an obsidian platter, two whole roast ducks are arranged in the driver and passenger seats inside an edible imitation of the front half of a crashed Crown Victoria cab, which belches flames from the accordion-compressed hood. The passenger duck is even outfitted with a shredded and charred Hermés bag crafted from pear skins. In a final touch, a stuffed Cornish hen is imbedded in the hood, the ostensible cause of the accident. The entire assemblage is doused in incarnadine gooseberry glaze, giving the diners the enviable task of disassembling and consuming the bloody wreck.

The wine selection, as is to be expected, is also top-notch. One might wonder at the scale of the two-city-block complex’s size, but Sevigny’s conceit is that such a vast wine selection necessitates many climate-controlled cellars. In the environs of the restaurant, each ’70s style bus gate opens into what Wine Enthusiast Magazine once called “an Ankor Wat-scale temple to viticulture.” One must ignore the lines of sommeliers cleverly disguised as unkempt tourists in tattered t-shirts waiting in front of gates labeled “Atlantic City” and “Philadelphia.” Bottles are removed from the climate-controlled cellars (cleverly integrated into the luggage compartments of the prop buses) and delivered to tables by, in our case, a rickety-looking man dragging a threadbare suitcase behind him. “Xanax Xanax Xanax Xanax,” he droned, rummaging between the Burger King wrappers and black plastic bags in his suitcase before producing a bottle of 1947 Gran Cru.

The dessert course is one that the chefs take especially seriously, and one that lends itself to ultimate flights of whimsy. At the conclusion of our meal, the chefs brought us out an incredible delight: a custard-filled chocolate cake turned into a scale model of an A train, one of the lines that has an underground connection directly into the restaurant. Wedged under the front of the chocolate subway car was the succulent pomegranate-filled corpse of an ostensibly homeless man. The chefs, masters of pastry, had created a rumpled, soiled trenchcoat in pastry, its creases resembling the folds of a sfogliatelle. My wife dug into the expanding pool of cherry-red pomegranate juice with one of our plastic sporks as the waiter began to ask each diner in turn for one dollar and 55 cents to get back to somewhere called “Ho-Ho-Kus.” I could only assume that this waiter was self-promoting a Midtown gallery opening, as where else could be close enough to be only $1.40 in cab fare?

After our whole group devoured most of the cake (and the eatery’s actors finished up the rest unprompted, mopping up the pomegranate conserve entrails with cake in their faux-filthy hands) we realized that our culinary voyage was over. As for the cost of such an experience, the checks often reach into the four figures even for solo dining. Hats off to Paul Sevigny and his expert team of chefs and actors for producing a cunning hit. Make sure to book that reservation now, as there have been rumblings in the Bloomberg administration that this restaurant is a grave waste of space. One especially insulting proposal was that the entire edifice be turned into some sort of “bus terminal” to connect with hitherto unknown parts of America, ones which our interns tell me have names like “Wichita” and “Milwaukee.” The verdict is in: move over, Meatpacking. Midtown is back.