Before we tell you who was there from what women's mag, we'll share a bit of really hot gossip. The main woman at Michael's, the uber power player--Loreal--has just given birth (well, last Friday, to be exact). Loreal, for those of you who don't notice such things, is the person who heeds your last-minute pleas (a 1 pm seating is better than nothing), accedes (sometimes) to your demands and sweetly finesses you into just the right table. She gave birth on Friday, August 12th, to a 5 pound 6 ounce firecracker named Sophia Grace Hazel Sherman. We urge you to heed our call and send cards, gifts, flowers, swag and what-not to: Michael's Restaurant, 24 West 55th Street, New York, NY, 10036. Phone: 212-767-0555. Be generous. Or wee Sophia Grace will be the next person to seat you--in her sand box.

Tables in no particular order. Feel free to correct us if we are wrong on anything by writing LaurelT AT mediabistro Dot Com.

Table 1: The Sun's Myrna Blyth, with Court TV President and CEO Henry Schleiff.

2: Lesley Jane Seymour, editor in chief of Marie Claire, looking jazzy in a new shorter hairstyle. She was wearing a Narciso knit twin set (bone) and chic Chanel knit skirt. She and her cover photographer, Matthew Rolston, were celebrating the latest cover (shhhhh...it's got electric pink and green type). He was in all white, wearing a Marc Jacobs jacket, Prada shirt and Diesel jeans.

4: Glamour's Cindi Leive was in a Chanel sweater-bolero over a Prada dress, sporting "150-year old" Gucci shoes (they looked brand new to me) and that punky Dior bag we've been eyeing. She was catching up with Good Housekeeping's executive editor, Judy Coyne (they worked together at Glamour under Ruth), in a pea-green flower-patterned Ann Taylor jacket and Stuart Weitzman shoes.

Table 5: Two Johns. One John Sykes, the other John Tisch.

7: Clothing designer Jon McCoy with others.

8: David Patrick Columbia, New York Social Diary, with NO socialites today. Joining him instead were actress Elizabeth Irene and Novelist Greg Williams.

11: Dashing Jonathan Capehart, former anchor of Bloomberg, now at Hill & Knowlton, was wearing a sweet suit and blue-checked shirt with yellow-brick striped tie. Daring, but it worked! He was with his assistant, a dirty blonde (we don't mean it that way). Don't know her name.

14: Alice Mayhew, editor at Simon & Schuster, was with someone we don't know named Tom, we think.

3: Barbara Cirvka, Executive Vice President, Chanel Inc., was with Jim Gold.

12: Robbie Myers, Elle's eic, in a little black dress (or was it just a black top?) was with Dana Buchman and Jaqui Lividini, former senior vice-president of fashion and merchandising for Saks Fifth. She is currently a marketing
and branding consultant, partnering with Jason Weisenfeld, formerly of Versace. They were very serious the entire time. Buchman paid the bill, too.

Table 16 (Janice Min's table): A considerably more relaxed gathering. Headed up by Janice Min, eic of Us Weekly (she looked totally cool and unruffled even though her second in command Lori Majewski just announced she was leaving to take the top job at Teen People). Min was accompanied by senior editor Caroline Schaefer (in a beautiful chiffon-y pale acqua blouse, with sequin accents) and two guests, a mystery flack from Rubenstein Associates..."Don't mention me, just mention him," she said demurely pointing to her client. Her client was South Beach Diet GOD Dr. Agatston. He was appropriately picking at the Roast Chicken (skin ON), with spinach, no fries, as was mystery flack. Janice and Caroline were tucking into the chicken as well, but with irreverently huge mounds of fries. You go, girls!

19: Our table. We were with Ann Shoket, the quickly rising Number 2 at CosmoGirl. Ann also has the distinction of having come up with the idea for the original mediabistro.com web site way back in 1997. We owe you a heap of thanks, Ann. And a guy. We will get you a guy. You're too smart, gorgeous and talented not to be happily hooked up.

15: Hunky Michael Caruso, wearing beige long-sleeved shirt and a broad smile, sat with equally attractive Jeffrey O'Brien, a senior editor at Wired. O'Brien was wearing a green striped shirt, no tie and a slate suit. Could another Wired guy be tiring of SF? Adam Fisher just moved from there to NY (twice literally), why not O'Brien.... Well, they both ordered white wine (and O'Brien ordered what appeared to be the same main course as Caruso, Pompano), a sure sign of some kind of celebration. After all, no one drinks at lunch anymore, do they?

18: Two gents, one in a pink shirt, the other in a striped shirt. Know them? Report in.

17: Jim Janowitz (sp?), with a guest in matching eye-wear.

22: Blonde woman in dark short-sleeved print blouse (knows Sellers. see #26), with two guys in suits.

23: Nancy Murray, of Polo Ralph Lauren, in a striped beige suit with others.

24: Miramax's Don Chaffey with a guy and a gal we don't recognize.

25: Daily News Gossipista Joanna Molloy and Ed Hayes (Court TV).

26: Patty Sellers, of Fortune, in a brown jacket with someone we don't know. Overheard, as Sellers was introducing her guest to Amanda (?) from Table 22: "This is [name garbled]. He used to be head of PR for Philip Morris. I haven't seen him in ten years!" By the way, he was eating steak. He takes it very very rare.

27: (Reese's regular table): Food Network exec (also the first pres of CNN!) Reese Schonfeld with someone we don't know.

Second Seating Sightings:

Table 3, two guys. One was Derek Johnson, of Time Warner.

Table 5, after 1 pm. Maureen Dowd, in blue jeans and a short sleeved knit top with gold sequins, sitting with a very distinguished looking white-haired man in a black suit and stark white shirt and glasses. We later discovered he is Bill Carter, also of the Times. They seemed to be having a very serious discussion, at least Dowd looked very serious.

IF you were at Michael's today (or any day) and would like to report in, or correct the record, please email LaurelT AT mediabistro.com

Map of Michael's (yay! it's complete)