This is a recent cover illustration for the New York Times Sunday Review. The opinion piece by Edward Frame recounts working inside top-end New York City restaurants and catering to the super-rich. The inspiration behind the first sketches below was to use light and shadow to represent the bright, poised ritual framed by the slightly noir, sinister goings on in the restaurant's shadows. The second interior spot below highlighted one of the undetectable hand signals "captains" used behind their backs while taking water orders. Thanks again to AD Alexandra Zsigmond.