Around the World in 30 Steaks: The Best From Las Vegas to Tokyo: Restaurant food doesn't get much simpler than a properly cooked chunk of beef—and rarely delivers so much pleasure. The smoky sweetness of the char, with its hint of crispness. The soft flesh releasing the deep and earthy flavors of the meat. It's the stuff of  meaty dreams and enjoyed worldwide. Yet it's easy to ruin a steak. No amount of sauce or mustard can fix bad beef. Overcooked meat will be dry and chewy. Walk into a random steakhouse when traveling and you may suffer more disappointment than joy. The Team Behind The ‘World’s Best Restaurant’ Tackle Fast-Casual: Dinner at Eleven Madison Park, Will Guidara and chef Daniel Humm’s vaunted haute cuisine hangout — which closes June 9 for renovations and a summer Hamptons pop-up — costs a lofty $295 per person. For many, that kind of expense would rightly raise eyebrows and prompt double takes. Even a meal at the NoMad — the partners’ clubby hotel restaurant that … [Read more...]

Massimo Bottura and his global movement to feed the hungry: Massimo Bottura is running late. You imagine this is probably a perennial condition. In the previous week, as I know from various emails, the man who was in 2016 voted the number one chef in the world, has been in Tokyo, Melbourne and London, returning between each trip to cook at Osteria Francescana, his three Michelin-starred restaurant in the northern Italian city of Modena. See how he's disrupting fine dining - and he isn't even a chef: The clean lines and chilled vibes of the dining area at Nahm, one of Bangkok’s most renowned restaurants, are what you’d expect from a joint with an acclaimed, history-driven menu that has set it apart as one of the best in the city. But behind the scenes, back in the kitchen, you encounter the clatter of pans, bursts of flames, staccato knocks on chopping boards and shouts of “Yes, chef!” and “Service!” It works, this careful chaos, thanks to a delicate balance of trust between the … [Read more...]

An ode to offal: Romans are proud of their city’s unique cuisine and borderline obsessed with their historic dishes. It’s one of the reasons local dishes dominate the city’s tables and other Italian regional cooking is treated as exotic and distinct. Many of Rome’s recipes were developed over the past 150 years as the city grew from a hungry rural village into a booming European capital of over 4 million. While the city’s economy has improved significantly, Romans continue to celebrate their humble and historic cucina povera(dishes fashioned from poor cuts of meat and offal) as a way to stay connected to the past. Today trattoria menus, butcher shops, supermarkets, and even fast food joints proudly showcase these ingredients. Thomas Keller, an Exacting Chef at a Crossroads: In the tight confines of a New York cab, Thomas Keller leaned against his interviewer’s shoulder. It was an intimate move for a chef whose hallmarks are precision, decorum and control. Mr. Keller wanted to talk … [Read more...]

Champagne - losing its fizz? For years champagne ran the most sophisticated and effective public relations machine in the world of wine. Consumers were convinced that champagne and only champagne was the socially acceptable lubricant for celebrations and smart dinner parties. Food 3.0: It's Time For A Food Revolution: Picture this. You’re born into a family of immense wealth. The family business is one of the most well-liked and popular companies in America. You’re the heir to the throne. All you need to do is take the keys and you’ll enjoy unbounded success and admiration. You’d probably take that gig, right? You wouldn’t dedicate your life to helping people avoid the very thing your family is known for. That would be crazy. The Next Great Age of Peruvian Cuisine: Trinidad Huamani and Francisco Quico are making an oven out of the earth. They collect stones and chunks of clay from the farmland around them, then form a small dome, held together by the shear force of gravity, with … [Read more...]

A job for life: the ‘new economy’ and the rise of the artisan career: Whatever you think of the gig economy, it does throw up some amusingly bizarre jobs. Set Sar, of Providence, Rhode Island, told this paper in 2015 that he earns a crust by looking at videos and web pages on his computer while having his eyeball movements tracked via webcam. The information this provides is valuable to advertisers — and earns him a dollar every few minutes. In its higher echelons, the gig economy has led to an array of jobs with “consultant” in their title, as people find ingenious ways to peddle niche services to the rich. In New York, for example, “play date consultants” charge up to $400 an hour to teach the progeny of millionaires to share their toys. The Real Cost and Benefit of (Temporarily) Moving an Entire Restaurant to the Other Side of the Globe: In less than a year, the restaurant Olmsted has become something of a fixture in its Prospect Heights neighborhood, with the dining experience … [Read more...]

If you’re a European, your body requires more vegetables and grains: A new study of hundreds of human genomes has revealed that groups in various regions of the world have evolved for diets with different amounts of meat and vegetables. People from Europe, particularly its southern regions, are optimized for a high-plant diet. But people from other areas, such as the Inuit of Greenland, have a biochemistry that is better able to process lots of meat fat. We can learn a lot from how the French do lunch: For many of us, a work lunch means clearing space between your keyboard and mouse for some hastily-eaten snacks. One 2014 study found that of those who did manage to get a lunch break, half ate at their desks. But, while it may seem more productive to catch up on emails while you eat, there’s plenty of research that suggests the opposite. Rene Redzepi on the new Noma: It’s a fair bet that come summer 2017, the eyes of the food world—always ready for the next, the new, and the … [Read more...]

Escape to Valletta: Culinary delights in the next European Capital of Culture: Valletta is one of Europe’s most diminutive cities. Bang in the middle of the Mediterranean, ravaged by extremes of weather and world war, Malta’s small jewel of a capital is also the furthest south – a historical comeback kid that continues to punch above its weight, as it has done for centuries. Le Cinq Paris: Restaurant Review: There is only one thing worse than being served a terrible meal: being served a terrible meal by earnest waiters who have no idea just how awful the things they are doing to you are. And so, to the flagship Michelin three-star restaurant of the George V Hotel in Paris, or the scene of the crime as I now like to call it. In terms of value for money and expectation Le Cinq supplied by far the worst restaurant experience I have endured in my 18 years in this job. This, it must be said, is an achievement of sorts. Food has replaced music as culturally central, at least for … [Read more...]

How Shipwrecked Champagne Is Changing Winemaking: In 2010 Dominique Demarville, cellar master for the champagne house Veuve Clicquot, got what he thought was a joke call: 168 bottles of likely the world’s oldest champagne had been found in a shipwreck beneath the Baltic Sea. Soon Demarville was sniffing and sipping the 170-year-old champagne, which he found sweet and fresh, although some tasters described its initial scent as “wet hair.” The dark, cool sea had preserved it in what researchers called “close to perfect” conditions. Four years later Veuve Clicquot launched Cellar in the Sea. Some 350 bottles were submerged in the Baltic, to be retrieved and analyzed periodically over 40 years. Why Lucky Peach Is More Than Just a Magazine for Food Geeks: In 2012, Lucky Peach published a story, purportedly based on a series of emails from a writer named Sydney Finch, who claimed to have found evidence that the Chinese invented spaghetti with tomato sauce. It was an amusing, irreverent … [Read more...]

Dan Barber sets the trend for ethical eating at Selfridges pop-up wastED: Dan Barber is worried. Earlier today, his team has been scavenging the Selfridges Food Hall for leftover and damaged foodstuffs to use at the wastED dining series on the rooftop of the iconic London department store. Barber has taken a sack of salt-beef ends from the 50-year-old heritage salt beef bar The Brass Rail and he’s concerned the owners will find out how good it tastes and take it back. “It’s the best bit,” he says, as he places carrot-stick-shaped ends of juicy meat into taco-sized crepes made from pig’s blood and off-grade bran for his Salt Beef Ends Burrito. “I’m scared they’ll find out.” Restaurateur Danny Meyer: 'Hospitality is a dialogue; service is a monologue': 1. Congratulations on the 10th anniversary of Union Square Tokyo. How have things changed at the restaurant in the past decade? There’s been a lot of development. I think the food is better (laughs), but the restaurant has also become … [Read more...]

Denmark reduces food waste by 25% in five years with the help of one woman - Selina Juul: Never underestimate the power of one dedicated individual. A woman has been credited by the Danish Government for single-handedly helping the country reduce its food waste by 25 per cent in just five years. Selina Juul, who moved from Russian to Denmark when she was 13 years old, was shocked by the amount of food available and wasted at supermarkets. Claude Bosi at Bibendum to serve up affordable fine dining: French chef Claude Bosi is aiming to offer an affordable take on fine dining when he relaunches South Kensington restaurant Bibendum at the end of March. One of the World’s Best Restaurants Now Makes Staff Attend Therapy: Restaurant-industry jobs routinely get ranked among the most stressful occupations, whether that’s because you’re making minimum wage while trying to evade workplace sexual harassment, or you’re going insane working 70-hour weeks in a Michelin-starred kitchen. The … [Read more...]