Wine. Travel. Food.
No question about it: For 40 years, Jeremy King’s iconic LE CAPRICE restaurant was – by far – London’s most popular draw for celebrities and Royals alike. Not even STUDIO 54 in its heyday or EL MOROCCO at its peak could boast a comparable roster of notables. It sat on Arlington Street in St. James. […]
If there’s any possibility that you’ll be traveling to Paris or London soon, keep this post on file. As you probably know, Joanne and I have been fortunate enough to eat our way around the planet for years and years. Now that we are getting older, we tend to aim our travel to major markets […]
Recently the New York Times as well as Vogue magazine featured a piece about the iconic, old-school French restaurant, LE VEAU d’OR (golden calf), which opened in 1937 in New York City, remained in business for 54 years prior to closing during the pandemic, and in 2024 reopened under new ownership. At its height of […]
A few years ago, Joanne and I came upon a new restaurant concept in London. It was called BURGER & LOBSTER. The quirky premise was that you could order a burger…or lobster. That was it. I like the idea of doing a few things well…and they did. The LOBSTERS were around $30 and sweet tasting…being […]
Frequently, on Saturday afternoons, my Mom could be found hovering over the kitchen stove, crafting a simmering pot of “Eye-talian spaghetti sauce.” I marveled at the exoticness of it, especially since the smells coming from our kitchen were the same as those that wafted from the house of the mysterious and mystical Matroni family from […]
WIENERSCHNITZEL…what an inelegant-sounding German word, right up there with “ausfahrt” (off-ramp or exit). Yet despite its ugly moniker, wienerschnitzel is such a beautiful dish. In fact, it’s so delicious that, in one form or another, practically every country on the planet has a version. The word “schnitzel” roughly means cutlet – a thin slice of […]
It seems to me that people eat out for two main reasons. One: They’re hungry, require restoration, and need to fuel up. They have to eat. Two: They wish to dine. People aren’t dining to stave off vitamin D deficiency. John Bennett, editor and writer for the New Yorker magazine, once said, “While people would […]
Hard to believe it now, but Joanne and I visited Bangkok 25 years ago. It was a glorious trip – with wonderful people, amazing sights, and zesty, zippy, frisky, memorable food. But, wow: the heat. It was beastly…sweltering…sticky, steamy, muggy hot. I remember asking Joanne, “Do you have to sweat so much?” She said, “I […]
I don’t think I’ve ever addressed two more pompous and expensive topics. Last week I posted a lengthy piece on the luxury of Caviar. And here I am this week taking a deep dive into FOIE GRAS. They’re worth exploring because each epitomizes FRENCH GASTRONOMICAL EXCELLENCE. Each rewards the eater with a deep, sensual taste […]
During my food travels over the last couple of years since Covid, I’ve sensed a trend among higher-end, polished-casual restaurants toward luxurious offerings…e.g. FOIE GRAS and CAVIAR. I don’t know if they’re capitalizing on “revenge spending” by customers who are making up for lost after the COVID-related dining and travel shutdown. Maybe it’s what happens […]
