With its “green, rolling hills” and “patchwork of pinot noir and chardonnay vineyards”, Oregon’s Willamette Valley has been compared to Burgundy, said National Geographic.

The valley is home to 11 designated grape-growing regions with diverse terroirs, spanning all the way from Portland to Eugene. In recent years, the “cool nights and warm summer days” here have provided the perfect conditions for some “top-notch sparkling wines”. Grape varieties used in champagne like pinot meunier have been “thriving” here.

Method Oregon is a non-profit established by a coalition of producers to ensure high standards and help place their wines on the map. Bottles carrying the stamp must be “100% fermented, bottled, riddled, and disgorged in Oregon”, use the traditional method that requires sparkling wines to go through a “natural secondary fermentation in a bottle”, said National Geographic, and be aged for no less than 24 months en tirage (“the crucial stage where wines are aged on yeast”) to develop a complex flavour.

Gran Moraine’s sparkling brut rosé is “exquisite, rich and lovely”, said Clive Pursehouse on Decanter. The delicate wine spent six years en tirage and is bursting with “floral notes of apple blossom, sweet lemon cream, and ripe, fleshy pears”.

But chardonnay remains the “king of Oregon white wines”, said Mike Desimone on Robb Report. For a special occasion, consider splashing out on a bottle from Eyrie Vineyard where winemaker Jim Maresh makes “small-batch, high-quality wines from estate-grown grapes under his family label”.

Or, you can’t go wrong with a Résonance chardonnay, said Vine Pair. When renowned French winemakers come to Oregon “you know to pay attention”. That’s exactly what happened when Thibault Gagey and Jacques Lardière embarked on their “first project outside of Burgundy” in the Willamette Valley – and this bottle is an “excellent example” of how the chardonnay grape variety is flourishing in the cool climate. Expect refreshing mineral notes, hints of “ripe pear and crisp apples”, with a “wonderfully balanced” palate.

Welcome to the icons-only edition of where to drink this spring. Half of the bars in this compilation are the kind of place where the drinking is simply a means to an end. The rest are bars where cocktail-making is revered. All have been around for a spell, achieving venerable notoriety in their respective cities. All hail the longtimers.

Barret Bar & Grill, Louisville

If the Barret Bar “were a person, it would be an old Hollywood character actor with stories about getting drunk with Errol Flynn and Betty Davis,” said the Louisville Courier Journal. Barret began its life as a shotgun bar in 1947 and has since expanded to three times the size with a handful of pool tables. The bar is no frills and all welcoming camaraderie. The “place has a heart and soul of its own,” said a former general manager, John Campbell, to the outlet.

Clermont Lounge, Atlanta

It is unjust to call the Clermont Lounge a strip club. Let’s call it a bar with strippers. Or a lounge, like its name connotes. A “core group of women” have worked there for more than 25 years, said Dana Hazels Seith in The Bitter Southerner. The Clermont, which debuted in 1965, is a rip-roaring good time; it is also a ravishing snapshot of what it means to be alive, to be human. “Every person who spent time there — from bartender to customer to dancer — told me the same thing,” said Seith. “You can be yourself at the Clermont Lounge.”

The Cloak Room, Austin

The Cloak Room’s location within spitting distance of the Texas capitol building might suggest there is some fanciness afoot here. Wrong! The lounge’s “lack of a hoity-toity menu” means that drinking here is “decidedly unfussy,” said Anthony Head at Austin Monthly about the bar that opened in 1979. You might encounter a politician taking a breather, sure. You will also assuredly find an “aged wooden countertop” and a “great neighborhood spot that prefers to fly a little under the radar.”

Cure, New Orleans

Cure, which opened in 2009, is both record-keeper and innovator, an admirable endeavor in a city that is the birthplace of the cocktail. Ask for any classic, and the bar will make it even if the drink is not listed on the regular menu. The bartenders are that adept. They are also ever-forward-thinking: Four times a year, the crew overhauls the seasonal drink menu. Fixed and fresh, Cure does it all.

Julius’, New York City

At once a raunchy dive bar and an LGBTQ+ icon, Julius’ has been open since the 1860s in Manhattan’s West Village neighborhood. And, yes, Julius’ is option D: all of the above. It is a place to meet the man of your dreams for a night, as well as one of the centerpieces of the queer civil rights movement. And as of 2022, Julius’ is an officially designated New York City landmark. For as long as there are people on planet Earth, may Julius’ reign.

The Normandie Club, Los Angeles

Whether you seek an “excellent first stop before a night out in Koreatown” or a “great nightcap destination after a dinner date,” The Normandie Club is an optimal choice, said The Infatuation. The swank, welcoming bar opened in 2015 and covers its bases. Margaritas, palomas and a whiskey-Aperol spritz are on draft for streamlined serving. On the flip side, the bar has reconsidered classic cocktails such as the gimlet and old-fashioned, the latter built with coconut-washed bourbon and spiced almond demerara syrup.

Smuggler’s Cove, San Francisco

The Tiki heyday, the story goes, occurred during the middle of the 20th century, with Americans pining for exotic locales and fruity cocktails. All true. You could instead argue, though, that the finest incarnation of Tiki-dom launched when Smuggler’s Cove opened in San Francisco in 2009. Fresh juices, quality rums, pristine drinkmaking technique — the Cove stupefied with its faultless approach. Yes, a Zombie from the Cove will render you lifeless. But it will taste so good before your demise begins.

Sweet Liberty Drinks & Supply Co., Miami

Sweet Liberty was a hit from the moment it opened in 2015. More than a decade on and endless accolades later, the “bar isn’t letting all that praise go to its head,” said Jennifer M. Wood at Condé Nast Traveler. Situated alongside the Bass Art Museum, Sweet Liberty is both a home base for locals and a destination for tourists. The cocktail list knows its mission: South Miami crowd-pleasers, thoughtfully considered, like a frothy Midori sour with green Chartreuse and an apple martini with apple brandy and dry vermouth.

Hot dogs are quintessentially American. Initially the food of immigrants, the humble combination of a frank wrapped in a bun became part of the country’s cultural fabric, a staple at picnics, baseball stadiums, barbecues and fairs. Regional styles vary — get yours topped with coleslaw in the Carolinas, cream cheese in Seattle and sauerkraut in Birmingham — but they all honor traditions while showcasing local flavors.

A quick history lesson

German immigrants who came to the United States during the mid-19th century brought along a love for sausages. During the 1860s, carts began to pop up in New York City, with peddlers selling bun-wrapped thin sausages that had a “special Old World snap,” said Smithsonian Magazine. They were both “portable and tantalizingly inexpensive,” and it wasn’t long before these “handy treats” made their way to Coney Island, where seaside revelers enjoyed them while strolling the boardwalk.

Millions more were introduced to the dish at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, when a pair of “entrepreneurial” Austrian Hungarian immigrants, brothers-in-law Emil Reichel and Samuel Ladany, set up a Vienna sausage stand in the Austrian Village section of the expo, said the Chicago History Museum. Their sausages, topped with mustard and onions, sold for 10 cents each and were such a hit that after the fair the pair opened Vienna Beef Inc., which remains “arguably the hot dog king of Chicago.”

By 1900, vendors were slinging sausages at race tracks and baseball fields, and people began referring to the portable meal as a hot dog. There are a few theories on how the name came to be, with some saying it’s because the meat was often called a “dachshund sausage” and others claiming a connection to the slang term “hot dog,” which meant a “swaggering young man who loitered with other flashy dandies,” said Smithsonian Magazine.

Chicago-style hot dog

What is it? An all-beef frankfurter in a poppy seed bun, topped with yellow mustard, relish, chopped onion, tomato slices, sport peppers, celery salt and a pickle spear.

This hot dog is all about the toppings, and “each component has a specific role to play,” said Mashed. Sport peppers bring the heat, pickles the brine and mustard the tang, which “balance the sweetness of the relish.” Various immigrants are responsible for these flavors, with the poppyseed bun “reflecting Eastern Europe” and the “elements that dragged the hot dog through the garden,” like onions, tomatoes and pickle, courtesy of Greeks and Italians, said WTTW.

There’s one condiment you won’t see on a Chicago-style dog: ketchup. That’s because during the early 1900s, ketchup was “used to cover up the flavor of poor-quality meat,” said NBC 5 Chicago. Not having to squirt any on your hot dog was a “source of pride” and “symbol of higher quality.” All these years later, the tradition still stands.

Where to try it: At Gene & Jude’s, the hot dogs are “expertly prepared” and have an “exceptional snap,” said Serious Eats. The stand, located outside of Chicago in River Grove, is “continuously packed,” but the dogs and “just-fried hand-cut fries” that come on the side are worth the wait.

Detroit-style Coney Dog

What is it? A beef frankfurter in a steamed bun, topped with meat chili, diced white onions and yellow mustard.

The Coney Dog, now ubiquitous in Detroit, was created more than 100 years ago by Greek immigrants. As the story goes, they “ventured first to Coney Island” in New York, where they tried the famous hot dogs at Nathan’s, then decided to sell their own version in the Motor City, said Detroit PBS. The secret ingredient in their chili is Greek spices and is an ode to the immigrants’ homeland.

One of the earliest hot dog joints to open in Detroit was American Coney Island, which brothers Constantine “Gust” Keros and Bill Keros opened in 1917. After a falling out, the two went their separate ways, and Bill opened his own shop, Lafayette Coney, next door. The feud is part of Detroit’s culinary history; both restaurants remain open today.

Where to try it: There is “no better spot to indulge” in a Detroit-style Coney than Duly’s Place, said Eater. Open for more than a century, the diner remains a “go-to” thanks to its “consistency” and “greasy-spoon environment.” The dogs here have a “satisfying snap” and come “slathered” in all the necessary toppings.

New York System hot wiener

What is it? A wiener made of pork, beef and veal in a steamed bun topped with celery salt, mustard, chopped onions and spiced meat sauce.

Rhode Island’s take on the hot dog, introduced in the 1920s, “began as a loose nod” to Coney Island-style, but its “identity” was soon “shaped” by Greek immigrant hands, “local tastes” and a “very specific spice profile” that made it stand on its own, said Tasting Table.

The wieners are “smaller than standard hot dogs,” and the meat sauce does not have the consistency or taste of chili. Rather, it’s a “finely textured, crumble-like mixture” seasoned with cinnamon, paprika, allspice, cumin and Worcestershire sauce.

Where to try it: Olneyville New York System in Providence has been serving hot wieners in the same spot since the early 1950s (there’s a sister location in Cranston). The operation is still family-run, and as such there’s a “‘Cheers’-style vibe where everybody knows your name,” said Tasting Table. Pair your dog with a coffee milk, Rhode Island’s state drink.

Puka dog 

What is it? A Polish sausage (or veggie dog) stuffed inside a Hawaiian sweet bread bun, topped with garlic lemon sauce, tropical fruit relish and Hawaiian mustard.

Poke, loco moco, kalua pig and huli huli chicken are all Hawaiian classics, but ignore the Puka Dog at your gustatory peril. The Hawaiian-style hot dog is a fusion of traditional ingredients with tropical accoutrements that give it a “vibrant flair,” said Chowhound.

These can be customized, with the relish alone covering “kaleidoscopic options, from star fruit to banana, coconut and more.” It was created in the early 2000s at the Puka Dog hut on Kauai, and while “spinoffs are widespread” across the Hawaiian islands, this is where the dish was perfected.

Where to try it: The place where it all began: Puka Dog. Ordering is a four-step process: meat or veggie dog, mild or spicy secret garlic lemon sauce, which tropical relish, and mustard or no mustard. The “patient” Puka Dog crew will help you “tweak” things if you “have any questions at crunch time,” said SF Gate.

Sonoran dog

What is it? A hot dog wrapped in bacon in a bolillo and topped with onion, tomato, mustard, salsa verde, pinto beans and mayonnaise.

The Sonoran dog is Arizona’s “most popular fusion of Mexican and American food” and over the last 30 years has “cemented itself itself as a cherished local tradition,” said the Arizona Republic. Its roots are in Hermosillo, the capital of the Mexican state of Sonora, where legend has it the flavorful dish got its start as a popular snack sold at baseball games during the 1940s. Benjamin Galaz of BK Carne Asada & Hot Dogs is credited as the leader of the pack in Tucson, opening the first Sonoran dog food cart on the city’s South Side in 1993.

Where to try it: Tucson has made it incredibly easy to find the best Sonoran dogs in town. The new Sonoran Dog Trail highlights 15 spots, from street cart vendors to old school establishments, and if you visit them all, you’ll receive a souvenir t-shirt. One of the stops, El Güero Canelo, is the “ultimate Sonoran dog spot,” said the Arizona Daily Star. Its hot dogs are “cooked well” and nestled in “nice and soft” buns, with toppings like cooked onions and mustard that add a “tanginess to all the savory flavors.”

The ingredients themselves are the luminaries of spring. They are often verdant — peas, leeks, asparagus, spinach. A pink (rhubarb) or brown (lamb) jumps in too. These recipes center the season’s finest ingredients, using techniques and sauces to complement, not overwhelm, their pristine gestalt.

Asparagus Pakoras

A tender asparagus stalk is a perfect specimen. It needs little to twinkle. Then you go and coat it in a chile-spiked batter made from chickpea flour, fry it til it shatters, and dust it with salt, and suddenly the spear downright scintillates. Get the recipe.

Braised Leek with Chile Bean Sauce

Searing long leek halves turns them charred, sweet-bitter and melting. Braising then softens them into willing submission. They soon clamor for a finishing complement, which a frisky combination of Sichuan chile bean paste, soy sauce, garlic and black vinegar readily provides. Get the recipe.

Broccoli, Bacon and Boursin Quiche

Quiche is always the right idea. It’s all the better when loaded with smoky bacon, lush Boursin cheese and nubbins of Broccolini. Serve the entire entity for a brunch gathering, or parcel it into meals for days on end. Get the recipe.

Lowland Celery Salad

Celery, please step center stage and into the spotlight. No, more to the right and pick up some dates, toasted walnuts and extra-sharp cheddar. Close, but to the left a touch, that mustardy sherry vinaigrette can join you. There! You made it. Feeling the love and attention you have always merited? Get the recipe.

Rhubarb Crisp

A crumble topping is loaded with oats, pecans and Chinese five-spice powder. Rhubarb done two ways: unadulterated and treated with baking soda to shave away some of the plants’ sharp edge. A rhubarb crisp is classic springtime, and this variation nudges the dessert into the modern age. Get the recipe.

Sabzi

We are just on the other side of the spring equinox, but the hunger for an ongoing, explicit spring jubilee persists. Spinach has the tonic earthiness the season necessitates, and lamb is the holy protein of now. This Afghan braise stars not just spinach as the green blast but also a wallop of green onions and cilantro. Steadying and lush, sabzi is a spring headliner. Get the recipe.

Shakshuka

Shakshuka, that stewy egg dish, is everywhere. You may as well have a baseline recipe for your home kitchen. This one from chef Yotam Ottolenghi is basic with no frippery to speak of — just tomatoes, harissa, red peppers, cumin and final filip of yogurt. It’s an optimal diving board for shakshuka-fiddling. Get the recipe.

Spring Peas with Mint Butter

Nearly every possible kind of pea shows up here. Snow peas, English peas, snap peas have all come to play. That means frolicking, after a quick blanching, in a butter bath loaded with chives and mint. Use the best butter you can find, and finish with chopped toasted hazelnuts and flaky salt, just because. Get the recipe.

Spring is one of the year’s stacked seasons for cookbooks. In 2026, new releases include an homage to a single beloved ingredient, Southern cooking by way of both Emancipation and China, and a regional exploration of Lebanese food. Get excited, get curious, and just get cooking.

‘The Butter Book’

Butter is on the brain here, so much so that this slim tome from Anna Stockwell is even shaped like a stick of golden glory. “Part historical deep dive, part recipe book, part decorative object,” the book does it all, said Vogue. Open it, and you are greeted with a history of butter, plus simple ways to use it to elevate everyday dishes. Your pot of rice will thank you. More complicated recipes appear too, including fancified buttered pasta and butter roast chicken. (out now, $19.95, Chronicle Books, Amazon)

‘Down South + East: A Chinese American Cookbook’

This book “so seamlessly blends Chinese cuisine with classic Southern dishes that they seem almost destined to be paired together,” said The Kitchn. In truth, chef-author Ron Hsu, of Atlanta’s Lazy Betty, stretches the influences across multiple parts of East Asia. Banana pudding wafts with the green vanilla notes of pandan. Soy sauce, Maggi seasoning, daikon and shiitake mushrooms bring the pot roast into new territory. Batons of Chinese eggplant are coated in cornmeal before frying. Romaine is braised, as is common in Hong Kong, but with ham hock potlikker. You get the idea. (out now, $40, Abrams, Amazon)

‘A Feather and a Fork: 125 Intertribal Dishes from an Indigenous Food Warrior’

Crystal Wahpepah, the chef of Wahpepah’s Kitchen in Oakland, California, is an enrolled member of the Kickapoo tribe. With “A Feather and a Fork,” she uses her recipes to tell the story of her displaced family, who were moved from Oklahoma to the San Francisco Bay Area, and to “decolonize nutrition and reclaim sovereignty” over “traditional foodways,” Wahpepah said in her book. Lessons come true and fast in recipes for amaranth salad, wild onion soup and chokecherry pudding. (out now, $35, Rodale, Amazon)

‘Hello, Home Cooking: Do-Able Dishes for Every Day’

Ham El-Waylly’s debut is a “lively book that blends solid technique with a touch of whimsy,” said Library Journal. The chef of the New Orleans-influenced New York City restaurant Strange Delight, El-Waylly brings his fine-dining background and expansive, diverse home cooking skills to vivid life. With El-Waylly’s Bolivian mother, Egyptian father and childhood in Qatar, his recipes string these influences into a very inspired American way of eating. (out now, $35, Clarkson Potter, Amazon)

‘Lebanon: Cooking the Foods of My Homeland’

Anissa Helou, a food-writing legend, was born in Lebanon and focused her first book, “Lebanese Cuisine,” on the dishes her mother cooked. This new publication reaches across the nation to showcase a variety of regional dishes. Helou “came to look at the food of my own country afresh, realizing that it’s far more fascinating to view a cuisine through a regional rather than a national lens,” she said in the book’s introduction. (out now, $40, HarperCollins, Amazon)

‘Party Tricks: Easy, Elegant Recipes for Snacking and Hosting’

Let us be extremely real: Everyone needs at least two handfuls of party tricks. With Anna Hezel’s new book, you will be the indebted recipient of a bookful. She recommends votives instead of candles to prevent flammable accidents, premade snacks set in various parts of the space for easy access, and a variety of corkscrews plopped within reach — “that way, no one has to search when they are ready to open another bottle,” Hezel said to MarthaStewart.com. Of course, “Party Tricks” is loaded with knockout dishes and how to make them, including cured ham with hazelnuts warmed in butter, maple butter togarashi popcorn, and whipped feta with burnt honey. (out now, $24.95, Chronicle Books, Amazon)

‘La Copine: New California Cooking from an Oasis in the Desert’

Joshua Tree National Park, in southeastern California, is a desert stunner. Smaller by far and equally jaw-dropping is La Copine, a sliver of a restaurant in nearby Yucca Valley. The co-owners and couple, Nikki Hill and Claire Wadsworth, have “built what’s become a joyful queer oasis in the high desert,” said Olivia Tarantino at Bon Appétit. That assessment is sound. Open Thursday to Sunday during the day, La Copine is a respite after a long hike or a long night of carousing. The pair’s book, with its mix of hearty and feathery cooking, transports. (April 28, $45, Abrams, Amazon)

‘The Taste of Country Cooking’

It’s the “most beloved Southern cookbook of all time,” said the press materials for this 50th anniversary edition of Edna Lewis’ 1976 classic. There’s not a lick of exaggeration in that statement. Lewis taught Americans not steeped in the traditions of Black Virginian cooking how to prepare green tomato preserves, pan-fried chicken and her style of biscuits. Those in the know have long cherished their copies of “The Taste of Country Cooking.” Now a new generation can cradle their own. (May 5, $40, Knopf, Amazon)

‘Ammazza!: Culinary Adventures from New York to Italy and Back Again’

Hillary Sterling is currently known for the monster-hit Italian restaurant Ci Siamo in New York City. It’s a destination that’s both sophisticated and comforting. “Ammazza!,” Sterling’s debut cookbook, promises a similar endgame. There are recipes for her beloved Ci Siamo dishes, like the braised beans with oil-cured olives and fried sage and rosemary leaves. But Sterling’s resume is long, so her Italian way with Passover is here, as well, and her Mexican take on Thanksgiving, because “​​so many of our team members come from Puebla or other parts of Mexico. And because Mexican food is my second love after Italian,” said Sterling to Total Food Service magazine. (May 12, $40, Simon & Schuster, Amazon)

After the boozy beverages of winter, spring requires, or at least requests, a lighter approach. So the coming months are a period for cocktails in bigger glasses that welcome more liquid for more leisurely sipping. Let’s get tall, baby!

Batanga

Blanco tequila, lime juice, cola and salt — welcome to the Batanga, a low-key icon of La Capilla, the “oldest cantina in the town of Tequila, Mexico,” said Imbibe magazine. There are easy drinks, but the Batanga is so effortless you could make it while horizontal in a hammock.

Caribeño

Take a daiquiri, and make it long and tall, and now you have yourself a Caribeño. The rum, lime juice and simple syrup are there, of course. Coconut water does the heavy work, creating a cocktail that will not knock you on your rear.

Champ-Ale

You can have your cocktail and beer, too. The Champ-Ale has you pour a light cream ale and sparkling wine into a big ol’ glass with ice and then shake it with sweet vermouth, lemon juice and cane syrup in a separate vessel. Pour the second mixture into the glass, stir and embrace the best of two booze worlds.

Earl Grey-Aquavit Spritz

Throw some Earl Grey tea leaves and a chunk of lemon peel in a bottle of aquavit, the caraway-seed-flavored spirit. Let infuse for 20 minutes or so, then combine with honey syrup, lemon juice and sparkling wine. Serve this plucky spritz to a crowd of pals.

Kombucha-Vodka Highball

The best of the basics, this highball combines vodka, ginger-flavored kombucha, lime juice, simple syrup and, oh yes, ice. Garnish with a lime wedge to prove you bothered a little.

Oita Chu-hi

A touch of future-thinking is required for this shochu-based highball. You will need to infuse a bag of barley tea in a bottle of shochu and blend sweet, herbal pandan leaves with coconut water, then carbonate the mix to make yourself a coconut soda. From there, it is all about assembling — a little rigmarole for much rejuvenescence.

Serpent-less Swizzle

A drink with ballast, the Irish whiskey base of the Serpent-less Swizzle is a hearty anchor. Sweet white vermouth, lemon juice and grenadine provide contrast and sharpness. Swizzles, a genre of cocktails served over crushed or pebbled ice, are meant for sipping. You may find yourself guzzling.

Watership Down

The “flavors make me think of fields,” said bartender Jeremy Oertel to Punch magazine about his Watership Down cocktail. Yes, its name is an homage to the classic leporine book, with grassy notes a rabbit might adore. Gin, dry vermouth, celery shrub and ginger syrup guarantee a balanced and refreshing drink.

Eating well is a gift you should give yourself this spring after that doozy of a winter. French cooking through the lens of both the West Coast and the Midwest, Hawaiian on the run in New York City, impeccable Mexican in San Antonio – map your meals now.

Bar Nouveau, Portland, Oregon

Chef Althea Grey Potter cooks French food “without Francophile reserve,” said Jordan Michelman at Portland Monthly about this new-ish restaurant off the well-trod paths of the Rose City. Chicken liver mousse is piped in ruffles on savory sablé cookies, and a thimble-size complimentary cocktail begins the meal for those who drink alcohol. Bar Nouveau is both retro and forward-thinking. The restaurant “reminds me of what it was like to go out to eat in Portland a decade ago, and I mean that as a compliment.”

Creepies, Chicago

Creepies may be Chicago’s “first true neo-bistro,” said John Kessler at Chicago magazine. That means the roast chicken is the “one to beat” in town, the fries “stop conversation,” and a butterscotch custard has a “narrative arc in every bite.” None of this comes as a surprise for those who know Chicago’s dining scene. After all, some of the team behind the stellar Elske are running Creepies.

Huli Huli, New York City

A delicious well-executed takeout joint is forever welcome in Manhattan. Enter Huli Huli, the new rotisserie from the team of the modern-Hawaiian Noreetuh. The menu is tight, just roast chicken with shiitake-ginger rice, and fried chicken with cucumber-radish pickles. Flesh out the bird with sides like steamed bok choy and island-style mac salad, plus a choice of four sauces, including the “zippy, umami scallion sauce,” said The Infatuation. Warm weather has now come to your delivery order.

Leña, Detroit

This restaurant “places an emphasis simply on wood-fired cooking and farm-fresh ingredients,” said Lyndsay C. Green at Detroit Free Press. At Leña, the menu is succinct yet somehow pings across every kind of dish you might crave. Chicories are studded with dates and hazelnuts and rich with the manchego-like cheese Pascualino. A roasted whole fish comes with fried potatoes and mojo verde. Plop yourself at the bar for an impromptu moment, alongside salt cod croquettes, a fried chicken sandwich with Espelette mayonnaise, and a glass of a crisp Spanish white.

Locust, Nashville

Open for lunch and dinner three days a week, Locust is “fully, uncompromisingly and unapologetically itself,” said Khushbu Shah at Food & Wine. The menu changes constantly, and you can be assured that what you read there is a mere suggestion of what will arrive at the table. One example: “crab omelette with curry rice” arrives as a pocket square of thin omelet, wrapped snugly around that curry rice. No messy egg half-moons in sight. Reservations open on the first of the month and tend to go poof quickly. Good things demand a touch of effort sometimes, no?

Mixtli, San Antonio

Great service is akin to interpersonal chemistry: You cannot quite describe it, but you know it when it sparks. There’s an effortlessness to the service at the tasting-menu Mixtli, which rotates its dishes every few months around various Mexico-related themes. (The current theme, through the end of April, is La Vecindad, honoring the grand houses of Mexico City.) Anyone who knows restaurants knows that facile service is a calibrated performance. The ineffability of smooth, clairvoyant service requires endless detail behind the scenes to meet guests’ needs before they themselves know what they want. Mixtli is the rare restaurant where the service is the food’s equal.

Palm & Pine, New Orleans

Spend a fair amount of time in New Orleans, and you will be able to clock a New Orleans restaurant — not simply a restaurant that happens to be located in the Crescent City but one where conviviality flows like a broken water main, and the food is rich, comforting and detonating with flavor. Palm & Pine, on the edge of the French Quarter, hits all the marks. On the regularly changing menu, you might find the restaurant’s take on BBQ shrimp, heady with mesquite-smoked shrimp butter, or chicken-fried quail with smothered Creole tomatoes and snap peas. You will absolutely encounter a gracious staff and the best kind of welcoming vibes.

RT Bistro, San Francisco

The new spot from Sarah and Evan Rich, the owners of the beloved Rich Table, have opened a casual offshoot. RT Bistro is designed for crowd-pleasing, so it, of course, stars a burger with Cheddar, dill-pickled onions and triple-cooked fries. But this being from the Riches, there’s plenty of smart, refined cooking too. The kampachi crudo, with mandarin and chile, for example, embodies the “talent of Sarah and Evan — each ingredient is discernible, no single one dominating the others,” said Nico Madrigal-Yankowski at SFGate.

Long-standing claims of verbal and physical abuse at world-renowned Copenhagen restaurant Noma have finally “come back to haunt” its founding chef, René Redzepi, said The Times.

The “culinary god” has stepped down after shocking details of his “toxic” kitchen culture were revealed by a damning new investigation. “An apology is not enough,” Redzepi said in a statement on Instagram. “I take responsibility for my own actions.”

Empire built on ‘pain’

Redzepi has been “rewriting the rules of fine dining” since Noma opened in 2003, crafting “jewel-like plates” from sustainable and foraged local ingredients, said The New York Times. His innovative approach scooped him three Michelin stars, and Noma has topped the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list on five occasions. He became a revered figure in the culinary world: in 2013, Anthony Bourdain proclaimed he was “without a doubt, the most influential, provocative, and important chef in the world”.

In 2024, Noma transitioned from restaurant to “full-time food laboratory”, developing new dishes and running fine-dining pop-ups in different locations around the world. But an upcoming residency in Los Angeles, with a tasting menu priced at $1,500 (£1,300) a head, “sparked a public conversation” about Redzepi’s treatment of his staff, some of whom came forward to claim his “empire” was built on their “pain”.

Thirty-five former staffers, employed between 2009 and 2017, gave accounts of serious abuse, alleging that Redzepi “punched employees in the face” and “slammed them against walls”. Several claimed he would “crouch under the counters” and “jab them in the legs with his fingers or a nearby utensil, like a barbecue fork”. They also described verbal threats, including to have staff members “blacklisted” from other restaurants or to “have their families deported”. Until 2002, Noma had over 30 unpaid interns, working 16-hour days and covering their own living costs. The restaurant’s “one-woman human resources department” also “happened to be Redzepi’s mother-in-law”.

‘Signs’ were all there

This will come as no surprise to “anyone who has followed modern restaurant culture”, said former restaurateur Richard Crampton-Platt in UnHerd. I visited Noma a decade ago and found it “suffocatingly self-regarding”. It developed a reputation as an “enlightened kitchen” and the “progressive future of fine dining” but the “signs of what was really going on” were all there. Redzepi was filmed “screaming at chefs” in the 2008 documentary “Noma at Boiling Point” and, in 2015, he wrote an article in a food magazine admitting that “I have been a bully for a large part of my career”.

“The backlash was inevitable,” said US chef Andrew Gruel in the New York Post. But it’s “ironic” that a lot of the “outrage is coming from the same elite food world that helped build a culture of abuse”. For years, fine-dining kitchens have been “run like military brigades”, with long hours, unpaid or poorly paid workers and a culture of harassment. The tacit “bargain” aspiring young chefs accept is to “endure the brutality, work the hours, and maybe one day earn your place in the hierarchy”. The price of the excellence that food critics and “elite diners” demand is professional kitchens marred by exploitation, burnout and alcohol and drug abuse.

“It’s dehumanising” and it’s been going on for too long, French food journalist Nora Bouazzouni, author of “Violence in the Kitchen”, told CNN. Her work “exposing the extent of physical, emotional and psychological abuse” in professional kitchens across France “has helped spark a national reckoning” that’s “reached the ears of the country’s lawmakers”. Last year, a motion to create a commission of inquiry into violence in professional kitchens was tabled in the French National Assembly.

Undoing this entrenched “French system” that kitchens around the world have “replicated” won’t be easy. But a 2021 paper which drew on 47 interviews with elite chefs, and was published in the Journal of Management Studies, offers one “compelling, but simple solution: create more open kitchens”. A shift away from the “isolated, closed, hidden spaces” where “regular rules don’t apply” could help to establish a healthier work environment.

Before Redzepi’s resignation, tickets for Noma’s LA pop-up had sold out. This only demonstrates, said The Times, that there are “plenty who can happily separate the art from the artist” as long as “the kitchen is thoroughly soundproofed”.

This fresh and vibrant salad is delicious warm or cold, as a nutritious lunch or shared at a gathering, said Madeleine Olivia. The final touch of pomegranate molasses in the dressing and seeds for topping takes the flavour to another level.

Ingredients (serves 6-8)

• 150g brown, black or wild rice
• 150g whole grains (such as buckwheat, quinoa, barley, amaranth, farro, bulgur wheat)
• 400g tin of beans (such as kidney beans, black beans, chickpeas, black-eyed beans, butter beans, pinto beans), drained and rinsed
• 10 cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 6 radishes, very thinly sliced
• 1 small red onion
• 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
• handful of lamb’s lettuce (or rocket or young spinach)
• pomegranate seeds, for topping (optional)
• lemon wedges, to serve

For the dressing:

• 1 tbsp finely chopped mint
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp pomegranate molasses
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• salt and freshly ground pepper

Method

• Cook the rice and grains according to the packet instructions. Set aside to cool.
• Whisk all the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
• When the rice and whole grains are cool, add to a large bowl with the remaining salad ingredients, adding the lamb’s lettuce (or rocket, or spinach) last, and tossing everything together.
• Pour over the dressing, sprinkle over the pomegranate seeds, if using, and serve with lemon wedges.

Taken from “A Year in a Cottage Kitchen” by Madeleine Olivia

Sign up for The Week’s Food & Drink newsletter for recipes, reviews and recommendations.

Diners are spoilt for choice in London. The capital is a delicious melting pot of different cuisines – from flavour-packed Filipino dishes and the finest sushi to classic Greek meze and authentic Indian street food. These are some of our favourite spots.

Belly, Kentish Town

Small and buzzy, Belly (pictured above) in Kentish Town has all the warmth of a neighbourhood bistro – with a frisson of Filipino flair, writes The Week’s Helen Brown. The brainchild of restaurateur Omar Shah (Ramo Ramen, Hoodwood, Mamasons), it serves up bold dishes that blend European and Filipino flavours. Scallops, for example, come cured in a chilli, annatto and coconut cream, and tiramisu turns an Instagrammable shade of violet with blueberries and purple yam. The smoked trout kinilaw, with its citrus, cane vinegar, coconut milk and shiso leaf dressing, is a top-notch starter if you arrive too late to bag the super-popular but limited tempura cod pandesal: a shareable slider of warm, flaky cod in a soft fluffy Filipino breakfast roll, with American cheese and salmon roe – like a clever, tangy take on Filet-O-Fish. For mains, there’s a paprika-spiked seafood caldereta, with clams, mussels, squid, roasted tomato, red pepper and prawn-head emulsion, wagyu bistek with braised shallot and charred lemon and woodland mushroom arroz caldo with soy-cured egg yolk. But the stand-out dish is the oak-smoked tinola herb chicken in a buttery, herby, ginger, caper and coriander sauce. Order it with the beef-fat fries and dunk deliciously away. There’s an esoterically good wine list, including a Lebanese Grenache, and a small but wickedly inventive selection of cocktails: the watermelon and calamansi margarita is definitely worth a try.
bellylondon.com

Sushisamba, Covent Garden

It’s early evening midweek but there’s already a queue of people trying to get a table at Sushisamba, writes The Week’s Irenie Forshaw. Set in the Opera Terrace on the top floor of Covent Garden’s historic Market Building, the buzzy restaurant is thrumming with life. Lush greenery springs from every corner and a team of chefs are hard at work behind the counter in the sleek open kitchen. The menu is filled with unexpected delights: inventive dishes that fuse elements of Japanese, Peruvian and Brazilian cuisine. Plantain chips, served with a spicy aji amarillo dipping sauce, and salted edamame beans set the tone of the signature tasting menu. The salmon ceviche doused in a rich sesame dressing and topped with crispy slices of sweet potato and toasted sugared macadamia nuts was the highlight of the evening. Other twists came in the form of California rolls (drizzled with truffle oil) and yellowtail tuna (diced and served in mini taco shells). Be sure to save room for the chocolate banana cake, and wash everything down with a cocktail or two. The fiery Tom Yam – a heady mix of gin, coriander, chilli, ginger and lime – is a must.
sushisamba.com

Luna Omakase, City of London

Tucked away in a private room inside Los Mochis London City, Luna Omakase is a sensory Japanese dining experience for those with adventurous palates, writes The Week’s Deeya Sonalkar. Its chef-selected nut- and gluten-free menu has 12 courses inspired by the rhythm of the moon, and changes as the lunar cycle shifts. The 12-seat counter is designed to allow diners to immerse themselves in the preparation of the dishes and learn about the ingredients selected for the day. The venue has low lighting, to mimic moonlight, and the courses are served on wood or stone plates. Each course is intricately crafted, and every ingredient plays a crucial role. The chef’s take on the onigiri was one of the best courses, with a single bite offering a world of flavour. A good number of dishes featured caviar, an ingredient that can sometimes overpower others. The taco maki, a Japanese-Mexican fusion of tacos and maki sushi, with avocado, jalapeño salsa and coriander, was simple, fresh and unique. Every dish offered something new: this place is a joy for anyone who loves traditional Japanese cuisine and fancies an experimental tasting adventure.
luna-omakase.com

Pyro, Southwark

With its open-fire chef’s station, rustic wooden interior and huge outdoor terrace, Pyro, in Borough, combines the warmth of a taverna with a super-elevated take on traditional Greek food, writes The Week’s Helen Brown. It’s the debut restaurant of Athens-native Yiannis Mexis, formerly of Hide, The Ledbury and Petrus, and radiates energy, refinement and excellently inventive cocktails. Most of the plates – from the small potato pittas to a showstopper slab of Dorset lamb – are made for sharing, and bear the charred, smoky marks of the flame. Classic Greek meze, like tzatziki and melitzanosalata, are uplifted to top-quality taste and texture experiences; spanakopita, made with barrel-aged feta, is served as dainty tartlets, and ember-cooked pork souvlaki skewers reach a whole new level with prunes, radicchio and sour apple. Stand-out dishes include a sea bream crudo, with green olives and caper leaves, crispy-topped, fluffily layered potatoes with skordalia, and that hunk of alder wood-cooked Dorset lamb, served with a smoked anchovy yoghurt and a fabulous bitter-leaf salad. Food to fill the stomach, and fire the soul.
pyrorestaurant.co.uk

Sachi, Belgravia

Discreetly hidden on the second floor of the Pantechnicon building, Sachi is one of Belgravia’s swankiest sushi spots, writes The Week’s Irenie Forshaw. The kappo-style (cut and cook) Japanese restaurant reopened in November after an extensive revamp, adding a moodily lit rooftop bar. Expect minimalist interiors with flowing cream-coloured drapes, plenty of teak and potted plants positioned in every corner. For a buzzy atmosphere, book a table upstairs in the bar or escape the after-work crowd by requesting a quieter spot downstairs.

The pared-back menu features an assortment of dishes from tempura and sashimi to decadent sushi platters and oscietra caviar. Everything is simply yet elegantly plated, allowing the quality ingredients to shine. The wagyu, eringi mushroom and yuzu maki rolls are perhaps the most inventive dish; topped with a sliver of marbled Japanese beef, each morsel tastes like a bite-size burger. But the real highlight is the bluefin tuna: both the truffle-dusted carpaccio and the maki rolls are delicious. There’s also a drinks list filled with Japanese whiskies and enticing cocktails, as well as a collection of sakes. Be sure to enlist the help of the knowledgeable sake sommelier for perfect pairings with every dish.
sachirestaurants.com

Patri, Hammersmith

You might miss Patri on the street outside but, once you step inside, it is like being transported to a train in New Delhi, writes The Week’s Rebekah Evans. With its shutters, dark wood interiors and multicoloured hanging light bulbs, the intimate setting cocoons you. But once the food starts to arrive, the last thing you will be thinking about is your surroundings. Patri offers The Grand Thali, a unique experience allowing a group to sample two starters alongside 26 authentic Indian street-food dishes, with rice and garlic naan. You should be prepared for a wait, but it’s certainly worthwhile. With so much to choose from, it’s difficult to pick a stand-out dish. Surprisingly, the vegan chatpati aloo tikki chaat starter is perhaps one of the best: fragrant spicy potato patties and chickpeas, tossed in a chutney bursting with flavour. Dishes like this that really sing are truly cooked with soul. The butter chicken has a rich, creamy, and so moreish, sauce, while the paneer curry is soft and delicious. Be sure to wear trousers with a loose waistband; you’ll certainly test its capacity to give.
patri.co.uk

Sông Quê Pho Bar, Tower Hamlets

Some hot dining spots seem to open a new outpost within days of opening, says Grace Dent in The Guardian. But that’s not the approach taken by “London’s Vietnamese stalwart Sông Quê”. Launched 25 years ago, it has only now spawned a “little sister”. The new branch, located “a mile or so down the road”, has a “tiny menu focusing on pho” – Vietnam’s noodle soup dish – and a “smattering” of small plates. I opted for a pho of rare beef flank, which came “blushingly pink” on top of a bowl of al dente noodles drowned in a “very meaningful broth”. Star anise was the shining light of this “warmly spiced soup”, which I reckon is the “best pho in town”. But the small plates are also well worth trying: they include “little juicy bullets of spicy tempura squid”, and grilled lamb chops with a “truly gorgeous char”. Surprisingly, on Sunday lunchtime, this “jolly handy little spot” was nearly empty (the original Sông Quê, by contrast, attracts “regular weekend queues”). My advice is to go “right now”.
songquephobar.co.uk

Baked Alaska traditionally consists of a cake base, an ice cream filling and a meringue topping that is browned under the grill, said Edd Kimber. This version is more of a quick assembly job: it includes shop-bought elements, plus a couple of simple home-made ones. The recipe is intended only as a guide: you can vary as you see fit. You might want to use brownie offcuts as the base, for example, and jam in place of the compote.

Ingredients

For the blueberry compote:

• 50g blueberries
• 2 tsp caster sugar
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

For the milk chocolate sauce:

• 20g milk chocolate
• 40% cocoa solids, finely chopped
• 30ml (2 tbsp) whipping cream

For the Swiss meringue:

• 1 large egg white
• 50g caster sugar
• small pinch fine sea salt
• ¼ tsp vanilla bean paste

To serve:

• 20g (2 tbsp) salted pretzels or salted peanuts, roughly chopped
• 2 large scoops of vanilla ice cream

Method

• For the compote, put everything in a small saucepan, place over a medium heat and cook for 2-3 minutes or until the fruit has broken down and the liquid is thick and syrupy. Scrape into a small bowl and set aside until needed. It can also be refrigerated for a couple of days before using, if needed.
• For the chocolate sauce, place everything in a small bowl and heat in a microwave, using short 15-second bursts, until the cream is hot. Stir everything together to form a smooth sauce. Set aside until needed. The sauce will thicken as it cools, so stir to loosen when needed. The sauce can also be refrigerated for a couple of days before using, but once refrigerated it will firm up and will need heating slightly to loosen.
• When ready to serve, make the meringue topping. Add everything to a heatproof bowl and place over a pan of simmering water. Whisk until the mixture is hot to the touch and the sugar has fully dissolved. Remove and use an electric mixer to whisk until the meringue holds stiff, glossy peaks, about 3-4 minutes.
• To assemble, divide your pretzels/peanuts between two coupe/martini glasses or other small bowls. Top with a scoop of ice cream and use an ice cream scoop or spoon to press down on the ball of ice cream to create a small well.
• Add the compote and then the sauce atop the ice cream. Spoon or pipe over the meringue. Use a kitchen blowtorch to burnish the meringue until it’s as dark as you want. Serve immediately.

Taken from Chocolate Baking: The Ultimate Guide to Cakes, Cookies, Desserts & Pastries by Edd Kimber.

Sign up for The Week’s Food & Drink newsletter for recipes, reviews and recommendations.

The resolute tango between the personal and the practical is a hallmark of a cookbook humdinger. Doing so merges two apertures — the narrow and the microscopic — into a wide-angle lens.

Andrea Nguyen’s 2006 debut, “Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors,” is a sublime example of that intermixture. She opens the book with the following scene: “We heard the plane coming in low, and I was scared. Mom grabbed me, pulling me underneath the staircase as a bomb exploded nearby. I shrieked, believing the end was near.”

The rare turned common

The end was not quite near, but it was imminent. That opener took place in Saigon on April 8, 1975, when Nguyen was 6 years old. A little more than two weeks later, Nguyen and her family were loaded on a plane, landing eventually in Southern California. Life, and with it, the family’s cooking, was upended.

One makes do, and new traditions are born. Western noodles, like fresh fettuccine, and butter were luxury items in Saigon. Thus, noodles with butter went from a rare novelty to a kitchen staple for the Nguyens. She shows the reader how to dress just-boiled noodles with umami-laden Maggi sauce, then warm garlic in melted butter, adding the noodles and tossing. The “nutty, savory caramel qualities of the Maggi sauce” come to the fore as you toss and sear the noodles.

Cabbage also receives special status in the family’s new home, because “cool-season crops such as cabbage and cauliflower are difficult to grow” in Vietnam. So ribbons of the vegetables are sauteed until wilty, then fish sauce and beaten egg added, the egg lacquering the cabbage with a custardy coating. If you thought you knew all there was to know about buttered noodles and cabbage heads, you have just been shaken out of culinary complacency.

Icons, dissected

“Into the Vietnamese Kitchen” is not only a Nguyen tale. Classics from the diasporic Vietnamese repertoire are included too, with irreproachable instructions. An exemplary version of bo kho (beef stew) is heady with lemongrass, fish sauce, ginger, five-spice powder and star anise. Salmon, shrimp, catfish and chicken all appear braised in recipes using the savory, bittersweet, burnt-caramel sauce known as nuoc mau. Pho is here; bun (rice noodles) are as well, alongside grilled pork and punchy herbs, and in comforting soups with crab or beef.

Feeling adventurous? Dive into a round of project cooking to make the charcuterie, like gio lua (silky chicken sausage), that stars in banh mi, those irresistible spiky Vietnamese sandwiches. In Nguyen’s text, you will be guided by sure hands, as welcome storytelling is whispered in your ear.

Bone broth “has undergone the PR glow-up of a lifetime”, said Saskia Kemsley in The Standard. Celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow, Halle Berry and Kylie Jenner have all jumped on board, extolling its rejuvenating benefits.

So what is bone broth? Put simply, it's a nutrient-dense liquid made by simmering animal bones with vegetables or other natural ingredients for up to 24 hours, similar to making stock for use in soups or stews. Drinking the broth for its health benefits is a “phenomenon” that has “skyrocketed” in recent years, even if the evidence is somewhat unclear.

“Of all the wellness trends, this one’s probably up there with the strangest,” said Daisy Jones in British Vogue. “A broth? Made from bones, you say? Sounds a bit fee-fi-fo-fum to me.”

But bone broth promises an “array of supposed health benefits”. Some studies have shown that it is an anti-inflammatory “gut-healing powerhouse”, rich in electrolytes, and full of amino acids that help “regulate the immune system and promote gut health”. People are also indulging in a bid to improve their skin with the high collagen content. “Hmmm, maybe not so unappealing after all?”

Some of the most popular brands are “hugely expensive”, and often not much better than you can make at home, so you don’t need to “spend a fortune” buying the stuff, said Clare Finney in The Times. All you have to do is pop into a butcher’s for some “broken-down bones” at a “fraction of the price”, Michelin-star chef Emily Roux told the newspaper, “or if you’re making a roast chicken, never throw away the carcass”. After a four- to six-hour “long, slow simmer”, you can add combinations of “star anise, black peppercorns, any veggies or herbs that are suffering in the fridge” to “zhuzh it up”.

If you do want to splash out on a shop-bought broth, one of the best on the market is Borough Broth, whose organic beef bone broth is “filled to the brim with umami excellence” and has a “whopping 40% bone content”, said Kemsley in The Standard. Freja is another brand “taking supermarkets by storm for good reason”. Its broths have a two-year shelf-life, making them a “pantry essential”, and there’s also a fish-based version for pescatarians.

Despite the frenzied uptake by influencers who think it is a “wonder stew for your face”, some experts have a “bone to pick” with the trend, said GQ. Though it can be a great source of amino acids, the results can be inconsistent depending on what is cooked, and how.

“My personal advice would be that it doesn’t add anything that a healthy diet containing a good source of proteins wouldn’t do”, Dr Christine Hall, NHS GP and aesthetics doctor, told the magazine. “In fact, a healthy, balanced diet will actually contribute more.”

For those who want to eat well without spending a fortune, here’s a selection of restaurants newly awarded a Bib Gourmand (given to establishments offering excellent, good-value cooking) in the 2026 Michelin Guide. Prices are between £25pp and £50pp for three courses.

The Clarence

At this “likeable neighbourhood spot” from the team behind the popular Cail Bruich, there’s a “generosity in the portions and pricing”. That’s especially true if you choose the set menu, which offers three courses for £29. The chefs use “prime Scottish product” – seasonal girolles, “super-fresh Loch Fyne mackerel”, Barnsley chop – and make ample use of the charcoal grill. Excellent service “adds to the appeal”.

168 Hyndland Road, Glasgow

Norman’s Neighbourhood Kitchen

If you “find yourself near Huddersfield”, then a diversion to this “wonderful” bistro is a must. Named after the owner’s dog – and his grandfather – it offers great-value sharing plates in a rustic setting. The menu roams the globe (with Japanese and Indian influences), but local fare features too, as in a dish of pig’s cheek glazed in “cult” Sheffield condiment Henderson’s Relish.

22A North Road, Kirkburton, West Yorkshire

The Yurt at Nicholsons

Lunch in this “lovely yurt” – fashioned from upcycled materials – is certainly “a little different”. But it’s an experience that will make you smile. Located at Nicholsons nursery, where some of the ingredients are grown, it offers generously sized, Mediterranean-inspired dishes packed with “bold, natural flavours” – cider-cured Chalk-Stream trout with crab bisque is a “wonderful example” – as well as “bright and breezy” service.

The Park, North Aston, Oxfordshire

Post

“Straightforward is the name of the game” at this “delightful bottle shop and bistro” close to the River Severn. The concise menu – which is chalked up each day on a blackboard – uses produce from the restaurant’s nearby smallholding. Dishes might include homemade pappardelle with braised ox cheek ragù and salt-baked celeriac with hazelnut cream and black grapes. On Sundays, there’s a sharing set menu offering three courses for £35pp.

Horwood House, High St, Newnham, Gloucestershire

Ssam Ssam

This family-operated Korean restaurant is “run with palpable pride”. Some tables have their own BBQ, allowing you to grill the sensibly priced meat, such as spicy pork belly or Wagyu ox tongue. At the standard tables, “bansang” dishes – consisting of a main component such as grilled mackerel along with three sides and “top-drawer kimchi” – are “surefire winners”.

149 Merton Road, London SW19

Counter Culture

This “lively restaurant” – inspired by the “pintxos” bars of San Sebastián – offers “terrific Spain-meets-Cornwall cooking”. Local seafood is the “bedrock” of many dishes, as in Cornish monkfish tail with cavolo nero, salsify and anchovy jus. For those who want a drink and a quick bite, there are cocktails and delicious snacks, including smoked eel with apple and cauliflower, and smoked cheese “croqueta”.

4 Beach Parade, Newquay, Cornwall

Flavor meanderings, genre reconsiderations, health on the rocks — 2026’s predicted cocktail trends move from the world of ingredients to a thoughtful appraisal of what precisely comprises an Irish pub. Right this way to what’s ahead in the drinking world this year.

Fermentation is in it for the long game

A process that’s no newbie, fermentation has been around for eons. Its presence in the cocktail world, though, keeps bubbling in the interest of “pushing flavor boundaries,” said Lindsay Parrill in The Manual. “I’m not sure if it’s the ‘next big thing’ or just my personal obsession, but fermentation is king,” said Chad Austin, the beverage director of Bar Benjamin in Los Angeles, to Vine Pair. It brings “layers of depth, acidity, funk, brightness — all the things that make cocktails more compelling.”

That might mean miso syrups or the use of fermented citrus like spicy Japanese yuzu kosho. “Our guests are increasingly drawn to drinks that balance citrus, salinity and light heat,” said Tana Kokanot, the head bartender of Jeong Yuk Jeom in New York City, to Vine Pair. And fermented citrus “delivers that balance.”

Hojicha and matcha say it’s tea time

The roasty-toasty hojicha is the tea that’s “going to define 2026,” said Chris Figueroa, the beverage director at Markette and The Argyle in New York City, to Vine Pair. The ingredient is “truly versatile.” It “deepens the base, rounds the edges and adds a quiet complexity that elevates an entire drink.”

But matcha may beg to differ about hojicha winning the 2026 Steeping Olympics. When the green tea’s verdancy appears in a bar, it’s “hard to overlook what some bartenders have called the ‘sizzling fajita effect’ — a head-turning item that prompts more order,” said Liz Provencher at Food & Wine. With its “combination of herbaceous, earthy notes and slight sweetness,” matcha has “great tannin structure that helps it hold up against a variety of other drink components.” So the internecine Camellia sinensis battle begins.

Irish pubs are back and maybe better

“When I first came to America, they were actually writing articles on the death of the Irish pub,” said Jack McGarry, the co-founder of New York’s The Dead Rabbit, to Punch. The Irish pub is “never going to die. But it has to be done right.”

“Done right” these days entails one that bests the simulacrum approach that has existed in the U.S. Gone is the American idea of an Irish pub, and in arrives a new wave of bars that lock on the beating heart of an Irish drinking establishment. Consider Guinness with oysters on the half shell at Manhattan’s Banshee, wild ox pie with live music at The Harp in Washington, D.C., a pour of Skellig Irish whiskey alongside fish cakes with tartar sauce, and an analog listening party at Baltimore’s The Wren. All prove the truism that a pub is “not just a place to get a drink but a place where life happens,” said Hannah Walhout at Punch.

Pandan clocks in

Tropical drinks continue to have their beachy day in the sun. It was perhaps inevitable, then, that pandan would stretch its pointed leaves into the cocktail-sphere. The plant is sometimes called the “vanilla of the East,” said Richard Luong, a bartender at Cure in New Orleans, to Vine Pair. “The leaves have sweet, nutty and vanilla aromatics that are very pleasant; my family always had some growing in the backyard.”

Pandan is so on the trend move that it’s even being captured in bottled form. Owner-bartender Nico de Soto of Mace in New York City and Paris’ Danico created KOTA Pandan Liqueur with the French distiller Gabriel Boudier. The “resulting liqueur is beautifully aromatic with notes of vanilla, toasted rice and buttery sugar cookie,” said Penelope Bass at Imbibe.

Protein strongarms its way into the glass

Everyone can’t stop yapping about protein, and the growth of Mate! Vodka Protein Water, a canned 4.5% ABV beverage with eight grams of protein, is muscle-bound evidence. Sales keep increasing, and the protein surge has also entered the high-end cocktail space.

Drinkers now want “satiety, recovery support or wellness alignment while still honoring the ritual of cocktail hour,” said Ahu Hettema, the owner of Istanbul Hawai’i in Honolulu, to Wine Enthusiast. “Clear whey isolates,” a type of protein powder, can be “seamlessly incorporated in bright, transparent cocktails like gin and tonics, spritzes and margaritas.”

Trends demand both fealty and novelty. Fealty because everyone has to either play along or cry foul. Novelty because there is forever an old trend dissipating and a new one materializing. Cabbage, the workhorse of a cruciferous vegetable recruited in boundless cuisines since perhaps the beginning of time, has been dubbed 2026’s vegetable of the year. Welcome to the churning now, old friend!

“It might be the closest thing to a shelf-stable vegetable we have,” said Joe Yonan, a cookbook author, to Real Simple. “Of course, it needs refrigeration, but it can last for so long that it seems to be always there, waiting for you.”

Cabbage’s steadfastness is a boon indeed. As is its nutritional profile, being loaded with fiber, vitamins K and C, and folate. Less alluring for some can be the vegetable’s sulfur-bomb heart. If you buy it fresh, say from a farmers market, you acquire a less stinky head. If you do not overcook the mighty bejesus out of your cabbage, the results are milder. Less time from harvest, more better. Less cooking into boiled oblivion, also more better.

There are immeasurable ways to refashion cabbage into a craveable dish. It caterwauls for big, bold treatments. Cabbage is “having a moment,” said Berk Guldal, the chef-owner of Hamdi in Seattle, to Martha Stewart, because “it’s endlessly versatile. You can pickle it, ferment it, shave it raw into salads, or lightly blanch it, and it still shines.” Consider the following recipes and techniques a warm-up for your cabbage-centric adventures.

Roast and flavor-assault

Chef and food writer Andy Baraghani is the Crown Prince of Cruciferi. He works wonders with the vegetable, always utilizing a complementary mixture of ingredients to finish his pan-seared cabbage. Two standout examples: a garlic-anchovy sauce with loads of fresh dill and a chunky, zippy sauce with a whole chopped lemon, pistachios, honey, olive oil and a flurry of shredded cheese.

Cloak it in a familiar costume

A scorching oven setting turns cabbage wedges smoky and charred in chef and James Beard Award winner Hetty Lui McKinnon’s take on chicken Parm. The wedges are then draped with tomato sauce and mozzarella, and blasted in the oven again so the cheese bubbles and browns. A finish of croutons and basil leaves provide texture and a green lift.

Cook softly with moisture

Sometimes a soft sauna turn in the oven is what cabbage most craves. Prolific cookbook author Molly Stevens shows you how to make the “World’s Best Braised Cabbage” by cooking it covered, slowly, with onion, carrot and water — or stock if you’re feeling glamorous. The leftovers are their own pleasurable reward.

A classic cookbook is often formed in the forges of time. Years of kitchen use and page-flipping transform a book into a genre fixture. Now and again, a brand-new book waves its knowing hand. People look in its direction, tow it into the kitchen, cook from it once, then again and again. They ask themselves, “Is this text an instant classic?” “Six Seasons of Pasta: A New Way with Everyone’s Favorite Food,” released in October 2025, is one such cookbook.

Division as greatness

“Six Seasons of Pasta” was, in many ways, fated to be a triumph. Its chef-author, Joshua McFadden, has been known for years as a vegetable soothsayer. His debut cookbook, “Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables,” showed how to bring vegetables to glorious life. His co-author, Martha Holmberg, translated McFadden’s restaurant-minded technique into unimpeachable recipes for the home cook.

McFadden is as impassioned about pasta as he is about the garden, so he and Holmberg replicated their winning formula. As with their debut cookbook, “Six Seasons of Pasta” is anchored by six chapters that divide the year into six rather than four seasons: spring, early summer, midsummer, late summer, fall and winter. Artichokes star in five pastas for spring, including in radiatore with chicken and lemon-flavored ricotta. Eggplant appears with linguine, tomato and almond pesto, or nestled with capers and golden raisins between ribbons of mafaldine. You get the idea.

Boil, boil, toil and (no) trouble

The book opens its aperture to the amplest of wide angles, too. “Six Seasons of Pasta” begins with a series of treatises on the fundamentals of McFadden’s pasta-cooking style. “Cooking pasta is simple in the way writing a haiku is simple,” he writes.

He clarifies how much salt is the right amount to add to your boiling water. He reveals the effortlessness of building your sauce in the skillet as the pasta boils. He tells you why you should add any cheese while you finish cooking the pasta in said skillet: so the cheese has an opportunity to melt and emulsify the sauce. Richness is goodness, and McFadden’s 50/50 mix of pecorino and Parmigiano-Reggiano is a pantry godsend.

For the make-ahead, ragu-obsessed, there is a chapter on long-cooked sauces, including a white chicken ragu woodsy with thyme and rosemary, a black peppercorn-laden short rib ragu and even a vegan nut ragu with five kinds of nuts. Faultless recipes for now, impeccable recipes for your future self, exhilarating recipes and guidance that upends how you cook: All the makings of a classic.

Wine drinkers are usually a picky bunch and have a list of go-to bottles they never betray. But while people’s loyalty to their favourite tipples can be strong, some newer Portuguese wines have enjoyed a surge in popularity.

The “inexpensive yet un-boring” nature of these wines have turned them into “fixtures on the dinner table”, said Victoria Moore in The Telegraph. Portugal’s “portfolio of characterful indigenous grapes” and pocket-friendly prices helps explain how the country “quietly overtook” Chile on the Wine Society’s sales leader board last year.

Gone are Portugal’s days of “lagging” behind its EU neighbours, said John Mariani in Forbes. Following Spain’s “progress and global recognition”, the Portuguese wine industry is having a deserved moment in the spotlight. From “tinta roriz and castelăo red grapes to the alvarinho and loueiro white”, the “wide variety of styles” can make it “confusing” for consumers.

There are over 250 types of grapes native to Portugal, “but I’d wager that many of us wouldn’t be able to name many more than two of these indigenous varieties”, said Hannah Crosbie in The Guardian. The “old vines of different varieties are often planted side by side” which avoids the “painstaking process of separating harvests”. This is why it’s “the norm” in Portugal to make “blends” instead of “single varietal wines” which only feature one type of grape. With so much choice, here are three of the best bottles to try.

Symington Family Estates, Pequeno Dilema, Douro, Portugal 2022

This “complex yet subtly approachable” white wine has an “assertive freshness”, said Decanter. Viosinho, arinto, códega do larinho and a “sprinkle” of alvarinho come together to create a wine with “equal amounts of classicism and energy”. Expect hints of white pepper, aniseed and chopped almonds with a “strong mineral backbone”. The "vividness and depth” comes from the 10-month aging process in French and Hungarian oak barrels.

Bando de Corvos Murder of Crows Tinto 2023, Lisboa, Portugal

“Fruity with a touch of earth”, this high quality blend is made with castelão, trincadeira and touriga nacional grapes, said Moore in The Telegraph. Produced “expressly” for the Wine Society, it’s a “very good value” red wine.

Taste the Difference Douro White 2024, Portugal

For lovers of white wine, this “brand new vintage” is an “excellent” choice, said Moore. “Bright and fresh”, the wine is almost “sherbetty” with “tangy notes of lemon rind” as well as hints of white peach and quince. “Shiveringly clean and crisp”, it’s a deliciously refreshing tipple.

In my opinion, every stir-frying lesson should start with this dish, the Chinese equivalent to the French omelette challenge, says Jeremy Pang. It is a real test of your control of heat, or wok hei: not hot enough, the egg will stick to the base, while too hot and the food is bound to burn. And if you combine your ingredients in the wrong order, you will end up with a rice omelette. No pressure, then. Still, if you master this, you will have picked up a valuable skill that will serve you well on your Chinese cookery journey.

Ingredients

• 250g boiled/steamed and cooled jasmine rice
• 2 eggs, well beaten
• 80g petits pois
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• ½ tsp sesame oil
• vegetable oil
• black pepper
• 1 spring onion, finely sliced, to garnish

Method

• Run a spoon through the cooked grains of rice to separate them as much as possible, breaking up any clumps. (This will help when you add the rice to the dish later.)
• Build your “wok clock” by placing the ingredients around a work surface or plate in the order they will be added to the wok. Start at 12 o’clock with the beaten egg, followed by the cooked rice, petits pois and finally the light soy sauce.
• Heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil in a wok over a high heat until smoking hot. Pour in the beaten egg and allow to bubble, then scramble it slightly. Allow to bubble again, then repeat this process 2-3 times. Push the egg to one side of the wok to allow space for the next ingredients.
• Drizzle a little more vegetable oil into the wok, add the rice and stir-fry for a minute or so, pressing into the rice to separate the grains out further while cooking them through. Then add the peas and continue to stir-fry for 1 minute.
• Pour the soy sauce over the rice and stir-fry for 30-60 seconds until the rice has absorbed it all and become drier. Once the grains are “jumping” around the base of your wok, the rice is ready.
• Add the sesame oil and mix together well, then season to taste and scatter over the spring onion.

Taken from “Chinese Kitchen: Simple Techniques and Recipes to Enjoy Delicious Chinese Food at Home” by Jeremy Pang.

Sign up for The Week’s Food & Drink newsletter for recipes, reviews and recommendations.

Once you realise that tomato sauces are enhanced by the addition of miso, you won’t be able to grab a can of tomatoes from your cupboard without a jar of miso coming out too, said Bonnie Chung. This is the best veggie pasta ever, and my favourite when I’m feeling lazy. All you need is an aubergine and some store-cupboard essentials.

Ingredients

• 1 medium aubergine
• 5 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 3 fat garlic cloves, minced or finely grated
• 400g can of tomatoes
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• pinch of chilli flakes
• 200g dried spaghetti, or dried linguine
• 1 tbsp white miso
• 3 basil leaves, roughly torn, plus more to serve
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To serve:

• Parmesan cheese, or vegetarian Parmesan-style cheese
• Extra virgin olive oil

Method

• Chop the aubergine into bite-sized pieces. Heat 2-3 tbsp of the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat, then fry the aubergine until charred and cooked through. Aubergines love oil, so don’t be shy. This should take about 15 minutes and it is important not to rush it. Take it out to rest, and season with a pinch of salt and pepper.
• In the same pan, warm up 2 tbsp more olive oil over a medium heat and add the onion and garlic to cook down, soften and become slightly sticky. Then add the can of tomatoes and bring to a simmer, before stirring through the red wine vinegar and chilli flakes.
• Meanwhile, in a large saucepan of boiling salted water, cook the spaghetti according to the packet instructions to al dente, reserving a small cup of the pasta-cooking liquid before draining.
• Scoop out some of the tomato liquid into a small bowl and mix in the white miso with a small spoon until smooth and emulsified. Then add it all back into the pot of tomato sauce and stir through.
• Add the aubergine and basil leaves to the sauce and warm through for 1 minute before adding the pasta. If the sauce is a little too thick, stir in some of the pasta-cooking water, to create a silkier sauce.
• To finish, serve with the grated cheese, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and a basil leaf.

Taken from Miso: From Japanese Classics to Everyday Umami by Bonnie Chung.

Sign up for The Week’s Food & Drink newsletter for recipes, reviews and recommendations.

Zippy, homey, satisfying, electric: The cooking of Sara Kramer and Sarah Hymanson at their Los Angeles restaurants, Kismet and various locations of Kismet Rotisserie, pings between those descriptors.

The duo’s 2024 debut cookbook, “Kismet: Bright, Fresh, Vegetable-Loving Recipes,” shows home cooks how to achieve the same effervescent effect at home.

Schmear and dip and repeat

Kramer and Hymanson are sauce-and-dip obsessed, which tracks, knowing the pair’s fondness for the food of the Levant and Middle East. So the book devotes an entire chapter to the topic.

You’ll learn how to ferment your own labneh with kefir grains, whole milk and heavy cream, then mix it with fresh horseradish and fish sauce to “up your roast beef sandwich game” or whir it in a blender with fresh bay leaves to understand firmly and with finality that, yes, bay leaves do indeed have culinary value.

Tahini sauce is mounded with honeyed kumquats. Or the sesame seed puree is blitzed with Tuscan kale and completed with tangy pomegranate molasses. Or it’s finished with chunks of Castelvetrano olives and Calabrian chiles. At Kismet, everything is fair game in the name of flavor.

On the dip front, there is a smoked trout dip, the fish luxuriating in a base of yogurt and sour cream, and garnished with fresh tarragon and Aleppo pepper. And in a delirious, inspired commingling of creamed spinach and artichoke dip, the Pickley Cheesy Greens’ star ingredient is half-moons of dill pickles.

Simple tricks, big results

Yes, the Kismet pantry is a many-splendored marvel. But the book is also filled with plenty of stripped-down recipes that reveal the liberating power of good cooking technique.

Kramer makes a case for throwing out the flour and eggs when making latkes and, most expansively, serving them year-round with everything from pickled chiles to loads of dill and basil, and, of course, labneh. Hymanson, a born Chicagoan, warbles the praises of giardiniera, serving it alongside a recipe for chicken schnitzel but noting your fried egg might be keen on its presence too.

Even garlic gets the Kismet rethinking. The pair notes — and many of the recipes show — a finishing touch of raw garlic grated on a Microplane grater provides "pleasant sharpness and earthy funk.” A fine truth — and an apt alternate subtitle for the book.

This bright and balanced prawn and pomelo salad is a staple in the repertoire of Luke Larsson, head chef at Khao Bird. Fragrant lemongrass and sharp, refreshing ribbons of makrut lime leaf balance with sweet pomelo, crunchy toasted coconut and crispy shallots.

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 4 king prawns, peeled and de-veined
• 1 stalk lemongrass, very finely sliced
• ½ shallot, very finely sliced
• 3 makrut lime leaves, very thinly sliced
• handful mixed herbs: mint, coriander, dill (leaves picked)
• ½ tsp fried garlic
• 1 tsp crispy shallots
• ½ tsp toasted coconut
• 80g pomelo flesh (or grapefruit segments)

For the dressing:

• 50ml fish sauce
• 25ml fermented chilli sauce or sriracha
• 25ml lime juice
• 25ml palm syrup or sugar syrup

Method

• Bring a small pan of salted water to a simmer. Poach the prawns for 1–2 minutes, just until they turn opaque and bounce slightly to the touch. Remove, cool and. if you prefer a lighter texture, slice them in half lengthways.
• Make the dressing in a small bowl by whisking together the fish sauce, fermented chilli sauce (or sriracha), lime juice, and palm syrup. Taste and adjust: you want a balance of salty, sour, sweet, and spicy.
• Prep the aromatics: the lemongrass, shallots, and makrut lime leaf. Slice as finely as possible – the thinness is what keeps the salad delicate.
• Assemble the salad in a mixing bowl. Gently toss the pomelo (or grapefruit) with the prawns, sliced aromatics, herbs, crispy shallots, fried garlic, and toasted coconut.
• Dress the salad by gradually spooning the dressing over. You may not need all of it. Toss lightly to coat.
• Finish and serve. Adjust seasoning with extra lime juice, chilli or fish sauce, if needed. Serve immediately so the herbs and aromatics stay fresh and crisp.

Sign up for The Week’s Food & Drink newsletter for recipes, reviews and recommendations.

What better way to welcome the weekend than with the smell and sound of a frying ijeh, asks Sami Tamimi. A delicious frittata-like mixture of courgettes, leeks, peas, herbs and eggs, it is often made, in Palestine, with finely chopped herbs and onions. I like the addition of fresh and dried mint, and dill or fennel seeds.

Ingredients

• 250g frozen peas, defrosted
• 2 courgettes (300g)
• 1 small onion (150g)
• 1 large leek, finely chopped (175g)
• 50g plain flour
• 15g fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 10g fresh mint leaves, thinly shredded
• 1 1⁄4 tsp dried mint
• 1 tsp Aleppo chilli flakes (or regular chilli flakes)
• 1⁄2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp dill or fennel seeds, slightly crushed
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• salt and black pepper
• 3 tbsp olive oil

To serve:

• Lemon wedges
• Soured cream

Method

• Put the peas into a food processor and blitz for a few seconds – you want them to be slightly crushed but not mushy. Place in a mixing bowl and leave aside.
• Trim the courgettes and peel the onion, then, using the coarse side of a box grater, grate them on to a clean tea towel or muslin.
• Gather the ends of the tea towel and twist hard over a bowl to squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Add the grated courgettes and onion to the peas, along with the leek, flour, herbs, spices, eggs, 1 3⁄4 teaspoons of salt and a good grind of black pepper. Mix well to form a uniform batter.
• Place a large (28cm) shallow non-stick pan (with a lid) on a medium heat and add the oil. When the oil is hot, add the ijeh mixture, smoothing it down to make an even patty. Partly cover the pan and cook for about 17 minutes on a low heat, shaking the pan a few times to make sure it doesn’t stick at the bottom, and running a rubber spatula around the sides, until the edges start to get golden brown. Get a large flat plate and place it over the pan.
• Carefully invert the pan, plate and all, so that the ijeh ends up on the plate. Slide it back into the pan to cook uncovered for 15 minutes, until it is firm and cooked through.
• When ready to serve, slide the ijeh on to a serving plate, squeeze over a little lemon juice, and serve with lemon wedges and soured cream.

Taken from Boustany: A celebration of vegetables from my Palestine by Sami Tamimi.

Sign up for The Week’s Food & Drink newsletter for recipes, reviews and recommendations.

Veganuary – a month-long challenge to eat only plant-based foods – has become a staple to kick off the new year. Whether it’s in support of the environment, health motivated, or you’re just looking to try new recipes, embracing a vegan diet is a great way to start 2026.

Instead of a radical overhaul of all your meat-filled favourites, one of the best ways to approach Veganuary is to change in small ways – or “veganise” – your existing recipes, food writer Richard Makin told The Guardian. Most people have eight to 10 dishes they make on rotation; try to “switch up the ingredients a bit”, replacing dairy milk with soya milk, or beef mince with Quorn mince. Taking incremental steps means “you tend not to feel quite so dislocated in your diet”.

If this is your first foray into vegan cooking, it’s important not to overcomplicate things, food author Anna Jones told Vogue. Don’t treat vegetables any differently than you would meat: “lots are much better when put on the grill”, and are able to soak up all the “char and smoke”. Consider using umami-rich ingredients like sundried tomatoes and miso for a “deep savouriness”, and adding a handful of fresh chopped herbs to further “enhance” the flavours of plant-based dishes.

One of 2025’s “most talked-about ingredients”, beans, are the perfect way to add fibre and flavour to your New Year cooking repertoire, said Hannah Twiggs in The Independent. In a “rare feat” for January eating, they are packed with anti-inflammatory benefits and have a “knack for making food taste better rather than worse”. A Veganuary favourite is Mediterranean butter beans with toasted focaccia, where the “richness of the sundried tomatoes” and the “saltiness of the olives” make for “next-level soul food”.

If you hit a wall with one ingredient, that’s perfectly fine, former head of Veganuary Toni Vernelli told The Independent. “There’s such a diversity out there” that you may need to shop around and try different varieties of plant-based milks or vegan sausages until you “find one that works for you”. Ultimately, it is important to be kind to yourself. If you find yourself reaching for a milk chocolate bar, that’s fine. You “didn’t fail”, “you were a human being”!

Little vegan treats can make things easier, said Joanne Shurvell in Forbes. For breakfast, you could try the “light, creamy and tangy” Nush protein vanilla fudge yoghurt range, containing “billions of live vegan cultures”. And for chocoholics, the “shockingly tasty” Pierre Marcolini vegan chocolate bars have “all the sweetness of a milk chocolate bar in a vegan version with oat milk”.

If you’re looking for more inspiration for vegan recipes, try these from The Week:

Celeriac soup with pumpkin seeds and chilli oil

Spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce

Broccoli and lentil salad with curried tahini and dates

Spring greens and chickpea curry

Adjapsandali (Georgian-style ratatouille)

Green goddess salad

Golden coconut and butter bean curry

A “sobering shift” is taking place, with “stiff drinks” giving way to “soft power”, said Tamzin Reynolds in Tatler. As “Dry January hits its stride”, low- and non-alcoholic alternatives to booze are booming.

Whether you’re “zebra striping” (alternating between alcoholic and soft drinks), or going cold turkey (perhaps literally with leftovers), “abstinence has never been more indulgent”. Here are some of our favourites to kick off 2026.

Lucky Saint unfiltered alcohol-free lager (0.5%)

One of the reasons Lucky Saint is such an “old favourite” is that the company only makes alcohol-free products, said Victoria Moore in The Telegraph. The “Pilsner style beer” is an “excellent” lager made with “citrussy, floral Hallertau hops”. Its popularity means it is widely available in major supermarkets.

Almave Blanco blue agave spirit (0%)

“A zero-proof tequila-style spirit may not be the first thing you’d think to turn to when you’re not drinking, but this was an unexpected hit”, said Joanne Gould in The Guardian. Founded by Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton in partnership with Mexican spirits group Casa Lumbre, once you pop the stopper you are met with an “immediately distinctive” and “extremely convincing” agave aroma, with the taste to match. The non-alcoholic spirit is “genuinely nice even for sipping straight”, but when mixed into a spicy margarita, it is “fantastic”.

Wild Idol sparkling wine (0%)

This is perfect for a “special” occasion, said Hermione Blandford in Shortlist. If you want something to mark a birthday or engagement “you can’t go wrong” with Wild Idol. Unlike other similar products, branded as “sparkling tea”, this alcohol-free drink is made with grapes, so it “looks the part”, and “tastes the part” of wine. It also comes with a hefty price tag (bottles start from around £29.99) so it’s a luxury option, but is definitely “worth it”.

Impossibrew cask reserve amber beer (0%)

You can still enjoy the warming depths of a darker, caramely festive treat all “without the dreaded hangover”, said Shahed Ezaydi in Stylist. And it’s “just as fun”! For those seeking “richness and complexity” from a non-alcoholic beer, look no further than Impossibrew. Expect “layers” of “toasted rye”, “citrus zest” and “fresh pine” from the cask reserve. “Refreshing!”

Château La Coste Sparkling Rosé (0%)

Such is the “booming” trend of no- and low-alcoholic drinks, that “even the bastions of Bordeaux and Provence” are trying to tap into it, said Reynolds in Tatler. Nooh, in particular, from Château La Coste is a “perfect example” of how non-alcoholic beverages can compete with the real thing. This option has been de-alcoholised – alcohol is removed from the process – meaning the “red and citrus fruit flavours” are preserved. Though it may not have quite the same “mouth-feel”, expect delicate “hints of jasmine, conjuring summers in the South of France”.

Bright, refreshing, and nourishing, this prickly pear juice recipe from Bermudian herbalist Doreen Williams-James is a simple way to enjoy this unique cactus fruit. Prickly pear is available as an import in the UK, and can also be grown indoors. Blended with ginger and lemon, the juice is lightly spiced with citrus notes, and perfect when served over ice.

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 2 or 3 ripe prickly pears
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• Juice of one lemon
• 480ml of cold water
• Honey or agave syrup, to taste (optional)
• Ice cubes, to serve
• Sprig of mint or slice of lemon, to garnish (optional)

Method

• Prepare the prickly pear carefully with gloves or tongs to avoid the tiny spines. Cut off the ends and slice them open to scoop out the flesh.
• In a blender, combine the prickly pear flesh, grated ginger, lemon juice and water. Blend until smooth.
• Strain the juice by pouring the blended mixture through a fine mesh strainer. Remove the pulp and seeds.
• If desired, stir in honey or agave syrup to sweeten the juice. Adjust the sweetness to your preference.
• Pour the juice into glasses over ice cubes. Garnish with a slice of lemon or a sprig of mint.
• Any leftover juice can be stored in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for up to three days.

Doreen Williams-James’s book “Discovering Nature's Bounty: A Culinary Journey Through Wild Edible Plants” contains more plant-based recipes.

Sign up for The Week’s Food & Drink newsletter for recipes, reviews and recommendations.

These restaurants know how to transport. Some bring the flavors of far-flung locales like the Caribbean and Indonesia; others welcome with homey dishes in nourishing settings. Here’s where to eat this winter.

Amba, Cleveland

A meal at Amba is a “feast for the senses, with low lighting, a lively soundtrack, and a menu built for sharing,” said Eater Chicago. The menu leans heavily on North Indian dishes, including local paneer with curry leaves and mustard seeds. But there’s wandering, too, as evidenced by Turkish fried eggs, wok-fried green beans with gai choy, and popcorn chicken with Thai basil.

Coquine, Portland, Oregon

“Coquine is the perfect little restaurant, unfailingly, 10 years running,” said Karen Brooks at Portland Monthly. The restaurant, with miraculous food from chef-owner Katy Millard, is somehow both precise and nonchalant. You could go all out with a five-course tasting menu, dine à la carte or pop next door to Katy Jane’s for a few rounds of oysters. Choosing your own adventure has never been more delicious.

Fallow Kin, Cambridge, Massachusetts

This brand-new restaurant has strong connections to both local farms and the community, showcasing a zero-waste menu section and donating a portion of its food to neighborhood food insecurity programs. Vegetables, such as parsnips with pickled pear and miso, as well as potatoes with bonito-flavored mayonnaise and trout roe, are the centerpiece of the menu at Fallow Kin but not its sole offering.

Kabawa, New York City

The Caribbean gets short shrift in fine-dining restaurants across the U.S. That has been shifting over the last few years, and Kabawa is a luminous addition to the sea change. Chef Paul Carmichael is at the helm, and he island-hops for inspiration, snatching influences from countries including Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad for Kabawa’s prix-fixe menu.

Duck sausage is “jerked” with Jamaican spicings. A fillet of black bass is sauced with a Trinidad-evoking curry. In keeping with the Caribbean spirit, a meal at Kabawa can be a rambunctious good time. You need only clue the staff into your readiness to have a whole lot of fun.

Lem’s, Chicago

“Once you have tried Lem’s, you can’t help but develop a particular craving for it whenever you want barbecue,” said Chicago magazine. “Because nowhere else in town does it quite as well.” The city’s oldest Black-owned barbecue business, Lem’s specializes in rib tips and hot links. Who said you need to be in the South to eat good ’cue?

Mabel Gray, Detroit

Long live the longstanding! Restaurant culture, by its nature, is obsessed with newness. Mabel Gray celebrated 10 years in September of this year, and the restaurant is a “look into the creative minds of people who have seen the world,” said Danny Palumbo at Hour Detroit. The menu changes constantly; you can experience it a la carte or as part of a $92 tasting menu. Recent dishes include fluke with whole-grain-mustard beurre blanc, dirty rice arancini, and wilted spinach with smoky whipped tofu. Mabel Gray is always evolving, forever sublime.

Rice and Sambal, Philadelphia

Put yourself in the kitchen’s hands at Rice and Sambal, and you will experience the wide-ranging flavors of great Indonesian cooking. Come for brunch on Sundays to have an omelet with shallot, tomato and sweet soy sauce, or the coconut jam-slicked srikaya toast topped with, yes, chocolate sprinkles. For dinner, the menu is set, at either five courses on Thursdays and Fridays or the blowout Liwetan feast served in a communal bamboo basket only on Saturdays.

Zao Bakery and Cafe, St. Paul, Minnesota

When the weather is outstandingly sharp, you want a bowl of ripping-hot soup. Or you want a fluffy pastry. Or, you simply want it all. Zao Bakery and Cafe is “built for everyday moments and everyday meals,” said Justine Jones at Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine, a place to “slip in weekly for a stomach and soul-warming lunch, a sweet pastry pick-me-up or a weeknight dinner.” For that bowl-connected need, it might be congee with ginger chicken or beef noodle soup. And the pastry selections, including taro twists and matcha custard buns, are near endless.

Good bars should impress. The best ones do it without batting an eyelash. Some of these bars have a laser focus on one style of drink; others are just welcoming locales with solid cocktails. Any of them will serve you well.

Daisy, Sherman Oaks, California

Almost any cocktail these days that has tequila, sweetener and lime juice dubs itself a margarita. Daisy, located just north of Los Angeles, aims to reclaim the classic drink’s soul. The bar’s beverage director, Max Reis, “treats the margarita as both template and playground,” said Punch, a drink magazine. So the standard iterations are sublime. But there is “ample room for customization,” too. Choose tequila or mezcal as the base. Make it regular or picante, up or on the rocks. You get the idea. Discipline and free will are good bedfellows.

Gilly’s House of Cocktails, San Diego

“One thing I’m really proud of is,” when Gilly’s House of Cocktails is packed, “no one is on their phone. You see strangers interacting with each other,” said Erick Castro, one of Gilly’s owners, to Imbibe magazine. “That’s something that’s missing right now in American society. We need to feel like we belong somewhere.” Gilly’s has been around since the 1960s. Castro and his crew bought it a few years ago. It’s now employee-owned, the cocktails are top-notch, but the laidback, community-minded vibe remains.

Loma, Providence, Rhode Island

Repeat after us: Latin American drinking is not a monolith. Loma, whose owners’ lineages trace to Puerto Rico and Guatemala, succeeds in proving the point — in the glass. You may find a singular rum from Michoacán, Mexico, used in a caipirinha or a Mexican mezcal stirred as the base of a martini. The food menu also flits from arroz y gandules (Puerto Rican rice and beans) to a local cheese plate. The hospitality welcomes, just as you hope it would.

Madeira Park, Atlanta

The newish wine bar from the crew behind beloved local institution Miller Union balances “historical appreciation and casual magnificence,” said Mike Jordan at Bon Appétit. The glass wine list centers on great styles and producers, like Domaine Fanny Sabre white Burgundy, tempranillo from Spain’s López de Heredia Rioja and, natch, a collection of vintage madeiras. Satterfield’s food menu at Madeira Park is, yes, grape-friendly: butter and anchovy tartine, a chicory salad with blue cheese and candied pecans, and steak au poivre with rutabaga.

None of the Above, St Louis

In agile hands, a speakeasy concept never grows tiresome. None of the Above sits below the events space City Foundry, hidden away as so many speakeasies are. But bar manager Fionna Gemzon has her sights looking up, up and away. There’s calamansi and red miso alongside black sesame-infused rye in the In the Mood for Love Cocktail. Gemzon’s “Filipino heritage inspires her tendency to lean on high-acid and sweet-sour flavors behind the bar,” said Imbibe magazine when selecting her as an Imbibe 75 Person to Watch.

Pretty Neat, Denver

No muss, no fuss, just friendly vibes and great cocktails. Pretty Neat stands by its name and mission. “It’s just a place to have good drinks and be comfortable,” said co-owner Xanthus Be Dell of his bar to Westword. The drinks move from deep classics, like the Amaretto Sour, to modern ones, including the Penicillin and Espresso Martini. And a bunch of Pretty Neat’s own inventions, such as Be Dell’s The Absinthe of the Fall, with vanilla-kissed rum, lime, pineapple, coconut puree and an absinthe rinse.

Providencia, Washington, D.C.

This wee bar in the nation’s capital is a group endeavor from bartenders Pedro Tobar and Danny Gonzalez with food from Erik Bruner-Yang and Paola Velez. Providencia is a “reflection of the quartet’s effort to seamlessly honor and remix shared and disparate influences,” said Elazar Sontag at Bon Appétit. It is, unabashedly, an immigrant–forward establishment.

So the Sabanetas cocktail with rum, blackberry and ginger is an explicit homage to Gonzalez’s mom’s blackberry agua fresca in Sabanetas, El Salvador. That same personal history runs across the rest of the menu. No hiding; only celebrating.

Winter requires the very most from your home cooking. Whether hosting a holiday hoo-ha or recovering from the gluttony of said gatherings, you are bound to eat a pendulum-swinging variety of dishes over the coming months. These recipes aim to solve your needs, from December through February.

Creamy Giardiniera Dip

Dips are the king, queen and court jester of any holiday gathering. They’re somehow both regal and cheeky crowd-pleasers. For this lush giardiniera dip, mix together sour cream, cream cheese, Parmesan and a bunch of chopped giardiniera, that jarred, zippy Italian pickle of cauliflower, celery and peppers. Bust out the chips, and keep the Champagne flowing.

Dutch Baby

There may be no more simple showstopper of a brunch dish than a proper Dutch baby. The way it puffs and burnishes as it bakes in the skillet. The way you garnish it as you like, then serve the entire thing in the same skillet you cooked it in. This recipe gilds the finished Dutch baby with powdered sugar and lemon — along with optional jam and walnuts. Choose your preferred fillip.

Hoppin’ John with Turnips and Turnip Greens

We all could use a little luck each New Year’s Day — even more so after 2025. Black-eyed peas and rice, aka hoppin’ John, is a New Year’s staple in some parts of the American South. Todd Richards’ version stars the obligatory ham hock but is loaded with so much flavor that the hock can be omitted without the dish missing a flavor beat.

Kimchi and Ketchup Fried Rice

Once you start being accustomed to cooking fried rice, there is a roteness to the move. You will generally reach for the same aromatics and additions, whether those be ginger and egg, or ham and green onions. It is then a treat to quiver the familiar, and this fried rice remains simple to execute. But the addition of both ketchup and kimchi takes the dish in a new direction. Unless, of course, you were always adding those all along.

Perfect Poached Eggs

So simple as to barely be a recipe, Mei Lin’s game-changing technique for poached eggs guarantees intact whites and runny yolks. You simply combine two parts water to one part vinegar. Then, about 30 minutes before you’re going to serve your eggs, crack however many eggs you are going to cook into the water-vinegar bath. The outside of the eggs essentially cure, tightening the whites. When you poach the eggs, the whites don’t spread into wandering filaments. Brunch, you’re welcome.

Totchos (Tater Tot Nachos)

Nachos are superb; totchos are just a whole other delight unto themselves. A simple made-from-scratch cheese sauce drapes the tots. Underneath and on top is a charred-tomato salsa, bits of chorizo and lots of green and red onion. Make it for a party or for a comforting night in.

Vegan Chili

During winter, there is reassurance in knowing there is a big pot of fortification waiting in the fridge whenever a need strikes. Chili is forever a correct answer, all the more when it is a meat-free variation loaded with kidney beans, the sweet musk of cumin and the hearty addition of bulgur.

This season’s collection of winter cocktails is hot, hot, hot! Whether you are eyeing a soothing nonalcoholic gut-filler or a sharp toddy variation with Irish whiskey and apple syrup, these warm drinks are the bouncy blanket for the months ahead.

Barraquito

The barraquito is a visual stunner, with layers of condensed milk, yellow Licor 43, frothed milk and espresso assembling into an striated, earthtoned sequence. The drink from Spain’s Canary Islands is a “midmorning pick-me-up, a post-meal ritual and an intergenerational tradition,” said the beverage publication Punch.

Francophile

Spices do wonders for wine during the coldest months. The Francophile’s way with mulled wine includes cinnamon simple syrup for sweetening and Calvados, the apple brandy, for a stout complement. An apple slice and cinnamon stick as garnishes remind you exactly what’s afoot in this gladdening cocktail.

Hot Tiger’s Milk

Like some hybrid of a hot buttered rum and a piña colada, Hot Tiger’s Milk is rich and coconutty. It’s an old recipe, dating back to the 1800s. You wouldn’t want more than one, what with its rich coconut cream base and addition of evaporated milk when you build the drink in your mug. But you are going to want to finish each drop of the one you do drink.

Moneygun Hot Toddy

Whiskey, step away from the toddy. Rum and cognac are stepping in for today’s performance. In the Moneygun Hot Toddy, named after the Chicago bar, a touch of fresh ginger, Darjeeling tea, cloves, lemon juice and honey are the supporting players that give this lively toddy a strong, welcoming point of view.

Peanut Atole

Atole is a hot, agreeable Mexican drink, nonalcoholic by nature. The base is nearly always made with corn. This variation employs that prototypical corn base but adds a slap of natural peanut butter for a welcome touch of richness. If Goldilocks really knew what was up, this would be her porridge of choice.

Queen of Cups

Hazelnut brown butter, spiced apple syrup, Irish whiskey: Thirsty yet? Not the kind of cocktail that one can throw together during a somnambulic moment, The Queen of Cups requires advance thinking to make the brown butter and apple syrup. Once those elements are prepared, though, you simply assemble. At that point, you can indeed make it in your sleep.

Verte Chaud

Hot chocolate is spiked with green Chartreuse in the simple, thrilling Verte Chaud. Imagine packing a thermos with this effortless cocktail. Anyone you share it with will thank you, profusely. Or just keep it all for yourself. You deserve it.

When one thinks of the Scottish capital, images of winding lanes, towering spires and snow-capped hills might come to mind. But after a wander round Edinburgh Castle, with its sweeping views and 900 years of history, you might find that you have become hungry – and this is where the real fun begins.

Edinburgh’s food scene is creative and dynamic, so don’t be shy, get stuck in and discover why it has become one to watch. Here’s some of the best the city has to offer.

Memorable fine dining

The Witchery

With its location right next to the castle, you might be afraid that this is a tourist trap – but don’t be. The building dates back to the 16th century, but the restaurant is from 1979, and feels like it has been around forever. The Medieval dining room glows in the dimmed light, as you enjoy a menu that is packed with favourites. This is classic cooking, from lobster bisque, to beef tartare, to some of the best haggis on the east coast. Food here is unctuous and indulgent – you will leave feeling spoiled.

thewitchery.com

Heron

Get out of the centre and head to the foodie hotspot of Leith to discover Heron. The brainchild of chef Sam Yorke, it was awarded its first Michelin star in 2023, and it has maintained this level of quality since. With a focus on local ingredients that are used with flair and creativity, it has been praised for its relaxed atmosphere and attention to detail. Don’t miss the sika deer with lingonberry and fig leaf, or the monkfish with black truffle. Wine pairings are perfectly matched, and the cocktail menu is innovative. This is a meal you won’t forget.

heron.scot

The Little Chartroom

Also in Leith, you will find a chic dining room that flickers in candlelight. Chef Roberta Hall-McCarron’s The Little Chartroom is a breath of fresh air, with truly excellent ingredients that showcase the best of Scotland’s larder. Treacle-cured chalk stream trout, Teasses Estate mallard, and locally caught plaice are among the delights you will be treated to on an invigorating menu that changes regularly. The service is relaxed, but oozes confidence.

thelittlechartroom.com

Gastropub favourites and stand-out seafood

The Captain Darling

A newcomer in a city that’s almost a millennium old, this gastropub is taking leafy Stockbridge by storm. This is a neighbourhood spot at heart, although the cuisine is a tad more elevated than that suggests. Chef Scott Smith has designed a menu of flavourful, seasonal dishes, including comforting pies, velvety cauliflower cheese, and crispy chicken schnitzel. It serves a cracker of a Sunday roast too.

thecaptaindarling.com

Tipo

Sometimes a big bowl of pasta is just the only thing that will do, so when that happens Tipo is the spot to run to. This is just one of chef Stuart Ralston’s restaurants, but it stands on its own two feet as a spot not to be missed. The creamy cacio e pepe with truffle will warm you up on a cold Scottish night, while the artichoke with endive and hazelnut side is a must.

tipoedinburgh.co.uk

Barry Fish

Another Leith establishment, the coastal town’s long fishing heritage inspired chef Barry Bryson to open a new seafood joint in 2025. And after earning a Michelin Guide recommendation just eight months after opening, its reputation is growing and growing. The menu is bright and exciting, with Mull cheddar beignets, halibut with mussels, and lobster with smoked fish agnolotti. Perfect for a sunny day by the water.

barryfish.co.uk

Scotch whiskies and small plates

Nishiki

The oft-overlooked area of Haymarket is worth heading to for some of the most authentic Japanese food in the city. Designed like a Tokyo izakaya, the vibe is casual, with an emphasis on fresh, fast flavours. Small plates include yakitori chicken, yakiniku beef, prawn katsu with cheese and avocado, and an impressive selection of sashimi. Don’t forget to sample the sake menu to feel like you really are on the other side of the world.

nishikiedinburgh.co.uk

Toscano

This Italian sandwich bar is a little outside the centre, but the picturesque stroll to leafy Bruntsfield district is worth it. It specialises in Tuscan schiacciata, a type of flatbread stuffed with authentic ingredients like deli meats and cheeses. The Il Toscano features prosciutto crudo, crema di parmigiano, rocket and balsamic glaze, and is a feast for the senses. This will keep you going all day.

toscanoedinburgh.com

Scotch Whisky Bar

You simply have to have some whisky while you’re here. Scotch, in the historic Balmoral Hotel, is one of the top places to explore our national tipple, and staff here make it their mission to find one that you will love. With an enormous selection behind the bar, they know a thing or two about the water of life, as it is known. Sláinte.

roccofortehotels.com/hotels-and-resorts/the-balmoral-hotel/dining/scotch/

Ardfern

Wine bars are having a moment, and Ardfern is certainly one of the best. This cafe, bar and bottle shop has a large selection to enjoy by the glass, as well as some really unusual wines by the bottle, that you can take home or have in store. Pair your choice with one of its bar snacks, such as sunflower seed hummus with chicory or oysters and chilli.

ardfern.uk

Vivien

It takes a second to adjust to the dark in this basement bar, but once you do you know you’re in for a treat. Sit in a cosy corner with friends, or at the bar where you can watch the team expertly prepare one of their unique concoctions. From the Essence de la nuit with calvados and lavender syrup, to the Poire au poivre, with Islay cask whisky and pink peppercorn.

vivienedinburgh.co.uk

Of course, no visit to the capital would be complete without exploring some of the city’s best pubs. The Guildford Arms, the Jolly Judge, the Blue Blazer, the Halfway House and the Sheep Heid Inn are all excellent examples of traditional watering holes.

Where to stay

W Edinburgh

Launched in 2023, the W Edinburgh has made its name as one of the most exciting properties in the city. It is situated in the St James’ Quarter in a purpose-built bronze, ribbon-shaped building, perfectly located for all the main sights. Its 244 rooms are designed with the W’s contemporary and disruptive style in mind, and are decorated in jewel tones, with stonework inspired by the Edinburgh landscape, and skyline-sweeping views. After a long day of sightseeing, you might also want to enjoy the Away Spa, with its private hot tub, experience shower and sauna space made for luxuriating in. Skilled therapists use products from Ishga, a Scottish brand that harnesses the power of Hebridean seaweed, for massages that refresh and revitalise.

Not to be missed is the W Deck rooftop bar, which has a 360-degree vantage point – surely the best hotel view in the city. The W Lounge on the floor below serves cocktails that you can enjoy beside floor-to-ceiling windows. This is also where you will find Scotland’s first branch of Sushisamba, the first branch in Scotland, where you can enjoy umami-rich dishes including lobster ceviche, sea bass with pickled chilli, and A5 wagyu beef on a hot stone.

Jaymi was a guest of the restaurants featured and the W Edinburgh

Even if you haven’t got a open fire to roast them on, chestnuts are so versatile, they can add flavour all manner of dishes, savoury or sweet. And, at this time of year, “I urge you to seek them out”, said Felicity Cloake in The Guardian.

The Romans had “something of a penchant for sweet chestnut trees, spreading them across Europe” so they could use the “fast-growing timber” as a raw material in their empire’s expansion, said BBC Future. Many of the trees alive today “will be descendants” from those that “ancient Roman legionnaires and foresters brought with them” thousands of years ago. By the Middle Ages, chestnuts had become a “staple food in many parts of Europe”, ground down to make flour or boiled with sugar to make a purée.

Chestnuts “might not be the first treat you think of” during the Christmas season, but “they’re still deeply rooted in global festivities”, said Express Online. Jamie Oliver recommends preheating your oven to 200C, slicing a cross on top of the shells with a sharp knife, and putting them “cross-side up” on a tray in the oven for 25 to 30 mins. Once they are cooked, the tops will split open and, after they have cooled, the shells can be peeled away, leaving the roasted nut ready for eating.

Though delicious in their own right, chestnuts can also be the basis of the perfect vegan alternative to a traditional Christmas dinner. A buttery mushroom, chestnut and thyme wellington will knock your guests’ socks off, vegan cook and food writer Katy Beskow told Stylist. Easy to prepare, with only a handful of ingredients, it is a “failsafe for the big day”.

Chestnuts are equally good in sweet dishes. Nigella Lawson’s chestnutty twist on a classic pavlova is a real delight, said Food & Wine. “Crisp” meringue with a “soft, marshmallowy interior” is topped with a sweetened chestnut purée and then “swathes of softly whipped cream and splinters of bitter chocolate”. It's a “fabulously festive” treat.

Table for one, please

More of us are dining out solo, and enjoying it, apparently. Recent surveys show that reservations for one have risen dramatically, and 49% of Gen Zers say they dine out alone at least once a week. While lunch is the most common meal to eat alone, solo suppers have become a self-care ritual for some diners able to find places where they don’t feel judged by observers or resented by staff who might worry about losing revenue to a twotop left half empty. “As a longtime waiter, I can guarantee that your server does not care at all,” said Darron Cardosa in Food & Wine. “Embrace your solitude and enjoy a meal with just yourself.”

Make mine with tallow

The “Make America Healthy Again” movement is making a difference in the nation’s food aisles. While many of their claims lack scientific backing, social media influencers such as the MAHA Girls and podcasts like Culture Apothecary are echoing the talking points of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: beef tallow over seed oils, cane sugar over corn syrup, nix to ultra-processed foods and artificial food dyes. Nestlé, Starbucks, and other major companies have responded by tweaking ingredients, while Walmart has cleared space in its grocery aisles for moringa, chia seeds, and lion’s mane mushrooms. The push may not last, but health advocates are hopeful. “Food is the only bipartisan issue we have,” food and wellness consultant Maha Tahiri told The New York Times. “This is really a moment if we play it well.”

Protein everywhere

Protein everywhere “There’s no escaping the sense that we’re living in the era of peak protein,” said Emily Heil in The Washington Post. Forget protein bars and shakes. Boosted levels of the macronutrient are now a marketed feature of everything from pasta to potato chips to moon pies. While justly touted as critical to building and retaining muscle mass, protein has become synonymous with healthy for many consumers. Experts note that most of us are getting plenty of protein without having to supplement our intake and should resist doing so by neglecting other key nutrients. “Treating protein as a holy grail of health ignores the fact that your body’s needs are complex and nuanced,” said Caroline Tien in Self. “Your diet should reflect that.”

Got milk again?

Cow’s milk is making a comeback. Reversing a long trend, sales of dairy milk are on the rise and alt-milk sales declining. The protein craze and MAHA’s interest in raw milks have contributed to the rebound, and milk has enjoyed an image makeover. Demonized in the 2010s as inflammatory, unethical, and environmentally harmful, it’s being recognized again for its health benefits and for being purer than processed soy, nut, and oat milks. On TikTok and beyond, young consumers who grew up on plant-based milks are discovering dairy for the first time and, perhaps inspired by Nicole Kidman in Babygirl, treating it as the decadent, sexy choice. “After a decade of restriction and replacement,” said Ashliene McMenamy in Bon Appétit, “milk feels nourishing and subversive.”

The Southeast Asian breakout

It was a banner year for restaurants featuring the cuisines of Southeast Asia, with new footholds in fine dining established for several foodways. Kasama, a Filipino tasting-menu restaurant in Chicago, gained a second Michelin star, while the James Beard Award for Emerging Chef went to Phila Lorn for the Cambodian-American cooking at Philadelphia’s Mawn. Minneapolis became the U.S. capital of Hmong cooking thanks to Vinai and Diane Moua’s Diane’s Place, which earned Food & Wine’s Restaurant of the Year honors. It was joined on other bestrestaurant lists by New York City Vietnamese standouts Bahn Ahn Em and Ha’s Snack Bar and by three Laotian restaurants: Baan Mae in Washington, D.C., Bar Sen in Oklahoma City, and Lao’d Bar in Austin.

Flavor combos gone wild

Food collaborations got seriously weird this year. Cruising the grocery aisles in 2025, consumers could find Pepsi tinged with Peeps Easter candy, Chunky soups infused with Pabst Blue Ribbon, potato chips that tasted like IHOP pancakes, a hot sauce spiked with 5-Hour Energy, and other way-out food collaborations. At times, even nonfood products got in on the action. Krispy Kreme and Crocs gave us doughnut-themed clogs, while Red Clay and the hair-care company TRESemmé put out a hot honey called Hot Gloss. That move evoked a hair oil add-in and for me went too far, said Jaya Saxena in Eater. “Absurdity is fun, but I don’t want to drizzle it on my pizza.”

Matcha mania

The focus of tranquil tea ceremonies in Japan, matcha has become a monster in the U.S. The green tea powder now helps sell lattes, cookies, and even KitKats, and matcha bars draw long lines in cities across the country. The boom has caused matcha shortages in Japan and a profusion of counterfeit powders. Meanwhile, Americans are drowning the tea’s subtle grassy flavors in sweeteners, ignorant of the four principles of the matcha tea ceremony: respect, purity, harmony, and tranquility. “Sure, let’s sip our strawberry matcha lattes,” said Frances Giangiulio in Salon, “but maybe, while we’re sipping, we can remember the farmers who picked the leaves and the monks who first whisked them into something more.”

Babybel, the “small, ready-to-eat industrial cheese wrapped in its signature red wax”, is an unexpected beneficiary of anti-obesity drugs, said Le Monde.

Its French-owned producer Bel is investing €60 million to ramp up production of the cheese in response to a 6% growth in global sales, and a 12% increase in the US.

Healthy snacks are in demand as meals are being “swapped for grazing” as the rise of weight-loss jabs encourages a “change in eating habits”, said The Independent. In the UK more than 1.5 million people are thought to be using weight-loss drugs, which will have repercussions for the way we shop and eat.

‘Open up your palate’

As well as generally reducing appetite, GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro reduce the “reward value” of junk food. This means that “many patients go off” them, Alexander Miras, a professor of endocrinology at Ulster University, told The Guardian.

We’re “hardwired to like things that used to be scarce in evolutionary terms”, like “large amounts of fat and sugar”, said Jason Halford, of the European Association for the Study of Obesity. By reducing those cravings, weight-loss jabs can “open up your palate and allow you to appreciate other tastes”.

Not all those new tastes are particularly sophisticated. A high-protein version of Babybel has found a thriving market in the US among consumers on weight-loss jabs who want savoury, protein-rich snacks rather than sweet ones.

In the UK, Waitrose has reported that 57% of its customers are opting for “snacky foods” over full meals, due to appetite-suppressing obesity jabs and broader “concerns over ultra-processed foods”, said City A.M.

Cold turkey

The surging popularity of weight-loss drugs is already having a slimming effect on restaurant menus, and it’s also impacting on how we shop, particularly as the festive season approaches.

The supermarket sector is “unprepared for the change this Christmas”. More than one in 10 Britons say they will be hosting at least one guest this year who is on anti-obesity medication.

“There is a worry that Christmas retail hasn’t caught up with reality,” said Toby Nicol, chief executive at weight-loss group Chequp. “Millions of people now eat dramatically smaller portions, yet the supermarket aisle still assumes everyone wants a full adult serving.”

However, what retailers lose in junk food sales, they may gain in other sectors. Data suggests that while weight-loss drug patients are spending less on food, they are splashing out more on clothing and hair and skincare products as they “become more interested in their appearance”, according to market research analysts Berenberg.

You want the recipes in a cookbook to work. All the more so in a baking cookbook. This is the obligatory minimum.

A proper cookbook should also swell your imagination and expand your kitchen confidence. Natasha Pickowicz’s “More Than Cake: 100 Recipes Built for Pleasure and Community” succeeds on all counts, supplying both inspiration and a grounding sense of the altruistic ways in which baking can bind.

Baking for good

Pickowicz is a longtime pastry chef turned writer who for years has harnessed her baking prowess and that of her restaurant-world pals to raise money for a variety of charitable organizations through bake sales. She takes the “for pleasure and community” part of the book’s subtitle seriously. “Creating recipes is a loving, community-based act in constant communion with our world,” she writes in the book’s introduction. “Baked goods are part of my commitment to community building.”

And so, for example, Pickowicz devotes an entire chapter to “modern layer cakes” — shareable creations to delight and encourage communing with either your loved ones or the people in your community at large. The chapter is formatted as a choose-your-own-adventure. Select a cake base, say, a black sesame chiffon cake. Then a soak for that base, like maple and vanilla milk. Fill it with, for example, sweet and spicy hazelnuts and frost it with Italian espresso buttercream. There are 21 of these base items, so the permutations are, well, you do the math: near-endless.

Flavor, considered

That wild menagerie of layer cake foundations is simply the door leading to a wonderland under the pastry-kitchen stairs. Pickowicz’s carrot cake is striated with coconut flakes; she tops her pine nut sablé cookies with a smear of funky Taleggio cheese; she transmutes miso soup into a danish; rose water and mezcal are conjoined in a deeply, darkly caramel flan.

Whether you’re baking a toasted vanilla bean pound cake for nibbling across a week yourself or blowing it out for a party with a caramel chocolate chip ice cream bombe, “More Than Cake” offers a solution for endless occasions. “Baking brings me closer to my parents, friends and my neighbors,” Pickowicz writes. “Baking is more than cake.” This book is ready to prove that to you, if you let it.

Panettone is “synonymous with Christmas in Italy”, said Forbes, but over the years, the festive bread-cake has become popular “all over the world”. Whether “elegantly boxed, tinned, or wrapped in paper”, it is the “quintessential” edible gift.

Carluccio’s limoncello panettone

This elegant and dangerously sweet panettone is an ideal treat to enjoy in those festive in-between days. With a gorgeous white chocolate crust adorned with sparkling sugar crystals, the sweet bread wouldn’t go amiss as the centrepiece of a festive dessert table. Slicing into the middle, you’ll find a soft, buttery centre studded with glistening lemon peel for an extra zing of flavour. It is also oozing with a delicious limoncello-flavoured custard, that is yellow and bright. While the Italian liqueur has become a popular flavour in recent years, this is a panettone that still feels refreshingly unique.

carluccios.com, £29.95

DukesHill chocolate panettone

Keen to ditch the traditional dried fruit offering? Look no further than this luxury panettone that makes chocolate the star of the show. While you’ll no doubt recognise the typical Italian recipe with its fluffy centre, the addition of chocolate chips adds a decadent touch to the festive sweet treat, and a velvety chocolate cream runs all the way through. It means the bread is best served warm, allowing the chocolate to melt. Not too sweet, this option carefully balances chocolate and bread for exactly the kind of Christmas indulgence necessary.

dukeshill.co.uk, £19.95

Vergani Dubai chocolate and pistachio panettone

This panettone puts a festive twist on 2025’s runaway flavour trend: Dubai chocolate. What started as a social media craze of chocolate filled with pistachio and filo pastry soon spiralled into a demand so great that it triggered a global pistachio shortage. Vergani’s expertly crafted panettone is an even-textured dough stuffed with a generous helping of velvety chocolate pieces, and smooth, almost buttery, pistachio cream that isn’t overpoweringly sweet. The result is a contemporary dessert leaning into a popular flavour, but without losing the traditional festive feel of a classic panettone. Wrapped in glossy Dubai-inspired packaging, the panettone neatly nods to the moment, but more than delivers on taste first.

valentinadeli.co.uk; £32.95

Fattoria La Vialla organic panettone

Straight from an organic farm in central Italy, this traditional wholewheat panettone is ideal for those who want to get back to the roots of the traditional bread-cake. The quintessential Christmas favourite still shines with festive flavour, featuring fragrant orange peel and bursts of tasty golden sultanas – and there are lots of them. The bread feels silky and rich, given that extra virgin olive oil replaces butter. It also means the panettone is a slightly healthier treat to enjoy in an otherwise gluttonous season. An Italian tradition reimagined for the modern palate, each bite is somehow more delicious than the last.

lavialla.com, £22.70

Seggiano chestnut panettone

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire immediately evoke the feeling of Christmas, so combining this flavour and smell with a traditional festive cake is a recipe for success. This panettone is filled with marrons glacés – candied chestnuts – that melt into the crumb and provide a warm, earthy sweetness. Drenched in acacia honey, the panettone also has a delicate floral taste that lifts the cake. It could perhaps be a tad moister and more visually appealing, but the chestnut flavour is steady and satisfying – a perfectly packaged treat that will have you devouring every fluffy mouthful.

seggiano.com; £20

CORD by Le Cordon Bleu panettone

This panettone is the kind of bake that makes supermarket versions feel like pale imitations. The name speaks for itself, but it’s a treat to find the panettone doesn’t let the reputation of the culinary school down. A burnished, floured crust gives way to a light and fluffy centre, with delicious notes of vanilla and citrus – rich in flavour but not dense. It’s also a reminder of Le Cordon Bleu’s ethos: attention to detail, finesse and respect for the classics. While it might not be as showy as some of its other panettone counterparts, the festive bread is a showstopper, embracing tradition while being elevated into a refined treat.

cordrestaurant.co.uk; £25

With Christmas around the corner, mince pies have returned “in full force” to supermarket shelves, said Holly Morgan in The Mirror. The seasonal staple is part of the festive furniture, as beloved as “carol singers and questionable novelty jumpers”. Brits eat more than 800 million of the delightful mincemeat-stuffed pastries a year, and it isn’t hard to see why.

Mince pies are an excellent “no-fuss” addition to any Christmas gathering, said Emma Henderson in The Independent. Gone are the days where hosts need to stress about “impromptu visitors during the Christmas period”: the mince pie is the “perfect treat to keep in the cupboard”, to be served with a “glass of mulled wine” at the drop of a hat.

Waitrose No1 Brown Butter Mince Pies with Cognac

For the second year in a row, Waitrose scooped “Best Buy”, coming in as the “clear favourite” in the supermarket category, said Rebecca Marcus in Which?. Expect “moreish” brown butter pastry surrounding “fruity” mincemeat, bound together with brandy and festive spice. Though one of the “priciest” around, it’s well “worth splashing out”.

waitrose.com

Iceland Luxury Butter Mince Pies

Look no further for a “masterclass in harmony”, said Stacey Smith in Good Housekeeping. Building on traditional flavours, the “yuzu juice-spiked” mince pies are “densely packed” with fruity, “zesty” filling. “Testers described it as ‘a fantastic, classic mince pie’.”

iceland.co.uk

Marks & Spencer Collection Mince Pies

Whether you’re looking for the “standard” or “posher” versions, the M&S entries “aced it in my tests for their fruity, nutty filling and buttery pastry", said Xanthe Clay in The Telegraph. For those who are sustainability minded, they don’t contain any palm oil, and are made with Wildfarmed regeneratively farmed flour.

marksandspencer.com

Sainsbury's Taste the Difference All Butter Mince Pies

These tasty mince pies are “hard to fault”, said Henderson in The Independent. The pastry has an “excellent creamy, buttery flavour”, while the mincemeat is well-balanced with a “decent tang” of brandy. Brilliant quality, they are a “cut above” other supermarket mince pies.

Sainsburys.co.uk

Beans are “having a moment”, said Andrew Ellson in The Times. “Small, dry and often flavourless”, the humble legume has never been particularly “glamorous” – but its fortunes have changed of late.

Major supermarkets have seen “soaring” demand, with Waitrose’s canned beans sales up 122% year-on-year.

A major “culprit” for the bean renaissance is newcomer to the market, Bold Bean Co, said Charlotte McCaughan-Hawes in House & Garden. The brand’s butter beans are “fat, creamy, wonderful nuggets of joy”: it’s no surprise the company has amassed a dedicated online following.

Beans are certainly making “waves” among foodies, and it’s clear the enthusiasm is “here to stay”. There are so many benefits to integrating beans into your diet: “they’re a healthy source of protein for anyone trying to cut out meat”, low in fat, high in minerals and a “very sustainable” food source.

But “versatility” is what really makes beans stand out. On the one hand, they can be “an excellent foil for fatty meats like hunks of pork or as a purée with lamb”, but they also make a good pasta substitute. You can happily “chop and change” ingredients based on what’s in the fridge – “there is, simply, no right way to cook a bean dish and the fun, for me at least, has been in the process”.

The simplest recipes can pack the biggest punch, and charred tomato beans are as simple as they sound. Easy to fix in a rush, just add stock and pan-softened tomatoes with chilli and garlic to a tin of beans for a “hot, tasty, nourishing bowl of food on the table in 15 minutes”.

The nutritional value doesn’t just help us: growing beans alongside other crops can be brilliant for the environment. Many beans are “nitrogen fixers”, converting nitrogen from the atmosphere into the ground, which ends up making the soil “more fertile for other crops”, food writer Eleanor Maidment told The Guardian.

Beans can quickly become the “bedrock” of your cooking, Jenny Chandler, author of "Super Pulses”, told the publication. “Salads, soups, purées, curries, stews and even puddings” can be heightened by the addition of legumes.

Best of all, they are faff free. There is a common misconception that pulses have to stew for hours: this is simply not the case. Don’t be “put off by the idea that you have to soak dried pulses in advance”, said Maidment. “I am rarely organised enough to do so, but thankfully there’s a huge range of jarred and canned varieties that require no prep and are hugely convenient.”

Starbucks is selling a majority stake in its business in China after it struggled in the East Asian nation.

But as the US chain has struggled, China’s coffee consumption has been “increasing by double-digits annually”, said South China Morning Post, and it now has a 300-billion-yuan (£32bn) coffee industry. So what gives?

Local players

Starbucks opened its first outlet in China nearly 30 years ago. There was “much fanfare”, said CNN, including a “troupe” performing a traditional “golden lion” dance and “eager customers” sampling cappuccinos.

The arrival of the US brand “helped spur the rise of a thriving coffee culture among the burgeoning middle class” in a country that traditionally drank tea, and by 2017, the giant was opening a new outlet every 15 hours in China.

But “dozens” of domestic chains have “exploded onto the scene” in recent years offering coffee at “steep discounts”.

In 2024, Luckin Coffee opened its 20,000th store in China and “doubled its footprint in a single year”, said Campaign. “The message is clear”, the nation’s "coffee game" is being “rewritten by local players”.

Pork drizzle 

Chinese brands are “constantly dropping seasonal specials with local ingredients, herbs, superfoods, the works”, Roolee Lu, food and drink category director at Mintel China, told the outlet. There are “lattes drizzled with pork sauce” or “spiked” with Chinese alcohol, said NBC News.

Yes, tea “remains foundational to Chinese culture”, but some "young, middle-class consumers” are “finding coffee’s caffeine kick” is “more suited to the pressures of a competitive job market and workplace”, with its “high job stress and long hours”. It can also be “attributed to a shift in lifestyle preferences” because “more people have more disposable income”.

So although tea has “long been the drink of choice” for Chinese people, a “coffee culture has boomed”, said the South China Morning Post. Coffee shops in suburban areas are seen as a means of “rural revitalisation” because they “create jobs and drive up the local economy”, helping “offset urban-rural disparities”.

Meanwhile, in cities like Shanghai, a café culture was “really” given a “boost” after Covid, as locals began to “embrace outdoor living, looking for places to meet their friends and family”, said the BBC.

When we think of Puerto Rico a few things come to mind: Bad Bunny, Bacardi rum and, of course, piña colada, which is believed to have originated from the Caribe Hilton in 1954. The islanders are to this day arguing about which particular bartender had that stroke of genius but you can leave that to them and simply embrace boricua, the islanders’ name for themselves that encapsulates their pride in their way of life.

We stayed at Aire de O:live, a beachfront hotel in the Isla Verde district of San Juan, a perfect location for exploring this small island. It has a popular rooftop Asian fusion restaurant and bar overlooking the beach serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, the best way to experience boricua is to dive into the local food and drink culture.

A whistle-stop tour of San Juan

First up was a food tour through the ancient capital with Flavors of Old San Juan. We met our guide in a square where the roads were paved with blue bricks that arrived as ballast in Spanish galleons in the 15th century. Pablo, a local university history student, was overflowing with stories of the island – from the original Taínos, Christopher Columbus’ arrival in 1493, to the African slaves and the takeover by the Americans in 1899 after the end of the Spanish-American War.

To get us going we started with coffee at Café Cuatro Sombras, a farm-to-table coffee shop. Puerto Rico became one of the world’s largest coffee producers in the 18th century, exporting vast quantities to Europe. The coffee is excellent and might in part account for the lively nature of the locals.

Buoyed by the coffee and a delicious passionfruit lolly made by A Paleta, a native producer using only local fruits, we walked past Parque de las Palomas, eating alcapurrias – traditional fritters made with mashed plantains – along the way. We ended at Chocobar Cortés for quesito cortés, delicious cheese and chocolate pastries. The fourth generation family-owned bean-to-bar chocolate company is famed for its hot chocolate and is a favourite across the island.

Eat like a local

Our second tour was with Laura Ortiz Villamil – a local historian who founded Sofrito Tours, to showcase the island’s vibrant culture, food and history. After visiting a mangrove restoration project in Loiza and taking a traditional bomba dance class, we visited El Burén de Lula, a family-run food stand that is open every Sunday. Started by 90-year-old matriarch Vilma, six generations of women have helped preserve the recipes. We had crab empanadas, corn arepas and sweet tortillas made from cornmeal with coconut, sugar and cinnamon and wrapped up in banana leaf, all cooked on traditional hot plates. You need to get there early as by the time we left the queues were snaking into the street.

Next up was El Sazón de Sylvia for alcapurrias fritters made with a dough of green bananas and cassava and stuffed with either crab or beef with some tasty crab rice on the side. The indulgent food was washed down with Kola Champagne, an iconic Puerto Rican fizzy drink that was like a cross between cola and cream soda with hints of fruit. It was very sweet but speak ill of it at your peril as it’s beloved by the locals. We ended the day at Luquillo Beach, a popular area with lots of vibrant bars and food stands.

Make perfect cocktails at Casa Bacardí

We also learnt how to make the ubiquitous piña coladas during a tour of Casa Bacardí, home to the company since 1930, blending rum, pineapple and coconut cream to create the perfect cocktail. The cocktail class was full of spring breakers and hen parties from the US so the cheer was particularly loud but the cocktail helped take the edge off. There are daily tours of the distillery where you can learn about the process of making the famous rum. You’ll also learn fascinating snippets about its history, including how the founder’s wife noticed the fruit bats hanging in the rafters and suggested the bat as the company logo, as the winged mammal is a symbol of good health and fortune among the Cuban Taíno people. More importantly we learnt the golden ratio for all perfect cocktails: one part sweet, one part sour and two parts rum.

Drink excellent coffee

In the cool mountains in the centre of the island are the coffee plantations, sitting in dreamlike landscapes with waterfalls and mist-filled valleys. Hacienda Tres Ángeles is a coffee plantation set up 12 years ago by a husband-and-wife team and their three daughters (the three angels in the name), following the Puerto Rican dream of their grandparents to own a farm. The coffee plantation has gone from strength to strength, becoming the islands’ first certified agrotourism coffee farm recognised by the UN World Tourism Organization. It produces high-grade medium-roasted coffee with complex chocolatey flavours, all processed and roasted on the farm with no waste – even the husks feed the biomass generators, along with solar panels and back-up generators.

Get back to nature with a farm visit

Frutos del Guacabo is a family-owned farm around an hour’s drive from San Juan. It was set up in 2010 by Efrén Robles and Angelie Martínez, with a focus on hydroponically grown plants for local restaurants and bars. When they had to rebuild after Hurricane Maria, with the help of World Central Kitchen, they increasingly focused on the sustainability of products and processes. They also began offering educational tours, while continuing to supply more than 200 hotels and restaurants with speciality produce. Happily grazing beneath the mango and custard apple trees were some very happy goats, including Ursula, who graciously allowed us to milk her while she feigned extreme indifference to our cack-handed attempts. The farm uses the milk to make delicious fresh cheeses, along with soaps and other products.

The verdict

Arriving back in damp and grey England with my duty-free rum, I set to making my own piña colada in the hope of recreating the feeling of that lush Caribbean island. But sipping it on my sofa rather than in a rooftop pool with the sun setting over the beach just wasn’t the same. They may have American passports but Puerto Ricans have a culture all their own. Passionately independent, they are rightly proud of their food, music, beautiful landscapes and, of course, the rum. Raise a glass and cheer Boricua.

Natasha was a guest of the Puerto Rican tourist board; discoverpuertorico.com

Telling your personal narrative through food is a common cookbook trope. Taking an anthropological wander through a people’s or country’s food culture is another prevailing cookbook methodology.

Less ubiquitous is an author who merges the two, swiveling a mirror to look at both themself and their ancestral background. Niloufer Ichaporia King’s 2007 masterpiece, “My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking,” might be the exemplar of this double-vision.

Parsis and global cooking

Across the book’s 300-plus pages, King tells the story of the Parsis, a group of Persians who practiced Zoroastrianism thousands of years ago and were persecuted after the Arab-Islamic conquest of Persia. As the persecuted often do, the Parsis fled. Many landed on the western coast of what’s now India.

This meant, for King’s family, establishing themselves in Bombay, merging their Persian cooking with Indian influences. The resulting cooking featured an “immense range of tastes and techniques,” King said in “My Bombay Kitchen,” a real “magpie cuisine.”

King moved from Bombay to Baltimore in 1962, then to Berkeley, California, acquiring all the more culinary influences as she worked on a doctorate in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. In time, she connected with the food-world rabble-rousers at the formative Chez Panisse restaurant, eventually spearheading an annual Nowruz (Persian New Year) dinner there for more than a decade. There, King’s bright way with the flavors of India and Persia showcased with California’s faultless ingredients exploded how to think about cooking and eating.

Innovation in the kitchen

“My Bombay Kitchen” compiles recipes that flaunt that same fresh, innovative cooking style. King’s Parsiburgers are a breezy take on kebabs, with your choice of ground meat seasoned with chopped yellow or green onions, ginger, fresh green chiles, cilantro and mint. You shape them into patties, sizzle them in a skillet and serve them however you like. This is how King cooks: the spirit of Persia and the Indian subcontinent on the wings of California’s freewheeling individuality.

Parsis are mad for potatoes. “If I had to draw a Parsis food pyramid, it would rise out of a plinth of potato chips,” said King in her book. There are recipes for both fried angel-hair potatoes and potato wafers, aka potato chips, plus hash with curry leaves and turmeric.

Of note is King’s kicky, sharp tomato chutney. It’s fresh and plucky with loads of cane vinegar, chile powder, cloves, cinnamon and matchsticks of fresh ginger. Recipes that become ritual are a surefire tell of an indispensable cookbook.

The cocoa content of Club and Penguin bars is now so “debased” that Britain’s much-loved lunchbox biscuits can no longer legally be marketed as chocolate, said Tony Turnbull in The Times. Their downgrading to “chocolate flavour” highlights how products that look and taste like chocolate may actually contain very little of the real ingredient.

Dire harvests in the world’s key cocoa-growing regions have sent the price of cocoa beans soaring, sparking a “cocoa crisis” that is affecting the solid chocolate bar sector, too. Some manufacturers are simply downsizing their bars (so you get less chocolate for your buck) but others are “adjusting” their product, using fewer cocoa solids and more palm oil or shea oil. As a result, it’s harder to find a flavourful bar of chocolate, made with good-quality ingredients, for a reasonable price.

Milk chocolate sold in the UK must contain a minimum 20% cocoa solids (lower than the EU’s 25% minimum but higher than the 10% specified in the US). White chocolate must contain at least 25% cocoa butter (milder and creamy that cocoa solids), and dark chocolate must contain at least 35% cocoa solids, although high-quality bars can have up to 90%. In all cases, the remaining percentage is usually made up of emulsifiers, flavourings and other fillers.

“Dark chocolate with a higher cocoa percentage typically has a richer, savoury taste,” said Which?, while bars with “lower cocoa percentage may be sweeter and more mellow”. For most people, a “70% cocoa content provides the perfect balance between sweetness and intensity”, said Tom Hunt in The Guardian.

The majority of chocolate is made from processed cocoa beans, which are then “conched” and “tempered” – technical terms for the aerating, heating and cooling steps that give good chocolate its glossy finish and distinct snap. If you’re after a higher-end, “more distinctive” product, look for “high-value bean-to-bar chocolate”, where the beans are “roasted and processed entirely in-house”.

Just like wine, which is influenced by the soil and climate in the region where the vines are grown, cocoa has a “its sense of terroir”, said Turnbull in The Times. Beans grown in Venezuela, for example, “range from nutty and creamy to dark and earthy”, whereas cocoa from Ecuador and Peru is more fruity, floral and caramelised. West African-grown amelonado beans are “earthy and bitter”, but can develop “notes of tobacco and rum” when grown in the Caribbean.

For milk chocolate, Pierre Marcolini Chocolat au Lait is the “best posh” choice. The Belgian chocolatier’s 44% milk bar “uses amelonado cocoa beans from São Tomé and Príncipe”, providing notes of “caramel and honey”. Tony’s Chocolonely Milk is the best supermarket choice. Although it only contains 32% cocoa solids, this still “gives it the edge over” Lindt Excellence (30%), and its “chunkiness” is an added bonus.

The best supermarket dark chocolate is Green & Black’s Organic 70% Cocoa bar, said The Guardian. It “starts with vanilla, then a powerful bitter cocoa flavour builds in complexity with sour notes, before finishing on a lingering sweetness”. With its “smooth and quick-melting texture”, it’s “excellent value as an entry-level organic chocolate”.

This has to be one of the easiest, most decadent desserts you’ll ever make, says Poppy O’Toole. I picked it up when working in the kitchens of a bank: for big events it would be our go-to sweet treat, as it was so easy and everyone loved it

Ingredients (serves 8-10)

• 20cm loose-bottomed fluted tart tin
• 250g Hobnob biscuits (or your favourites – Oreos, Bourbons, digestives... anything you fancy)
• 300g unsalted butter
• 200g light brown soft sugar
• 200ml double cream
• 200g 70%-cocoa dark chocolate, broken up
• pinch of flaky salt

Method

• Place the biscuits in a large sandwich bag and smash them with a rolling pin to a fine crumb (or you could blitz them in a food processor).
• Measure out 100g of the butter and melt in a microwave-safe bowl, with bursts of full power.
• Mix the melted butter through the crumbled biscuits, then press the crumbs into the tin to make a base, easing it up the sides and into the fluted edge. Transfer the tin to a fridge to set the base for 30 minutes.
• To make the filling, in a saucepan on a medium heat, add the sugar and remaining 200g of butter. Leave the butter and sugar to melt (it can help if you chop the butter first), then bring it to a simmer. Once simmering, leave it bubbling gently for 2-3 minutes, then give it a stir to combine.
• Stir in the cream and bring the mixture to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, and mix in the chocolate, until melted, smooth and glossy.
• Pour the filling into the set base and sprinkle the top with the flaky salt. Leave the tart to set in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Remove the tart tin and serve in delicious slices.

Taken from The Actually Delicious One Pot Cookbook by Poppy O’Toole.

Sign up for The Week’s Food & Drink newsletter for recipes, reviews and recommendations.

Mezcaleria Alma

Denver

Every spot that Johnny and Kasie Curiel have opened in Denver in the past few years has been “a window into Mexico’s dynamic food heritage,” said Kate Kassin in Bon Appétit. Late 2023 brought Alma Fonda Fina, winner of a Michelin star. Late 2024 brought this companion, a deeply stocked mezcal bar whose brief food menu is “nothing short of transportive.”

Visit with a friend, and the two of you “could work through Mezcaleria Alma’s one-page menu in a sitting.” The roughly dozen dishes include applewood-smoked tuna, pockets of tender masa filled with cheese, and bowls of leaf-green kanpachi ceviche shot through with dill. All of them are “electric.”

And then there’s the bar, and a bottle list that “would make for an eternity of great drinking without ever repeating your order.” The mezcals, tequilas, sotols, and pechugas “can be sipped as is, or transformed into studied cocktails like a zingy, earthy corn sour.” You could get an education in Mexican spirits at this mescaleria. You’d also be more than happy to eat here every night. 2550 15th St.

The Wren

Baltimore

“The Wren is warm, intimate, and in many ways out of time,” said Lydia Woolever in Baltimore magazine. Inspired by the public living rooms of Dublin, the tin-ceilinged bar just two blocks from Baltimore’s harbor takes no reservations and blasts no Spotify playlists. Sitting on a stool with a whisky or a perfectly pulled pint of Guinness at your elbow, “you could very well be in a pub off the Irish Sea.”

In this convivial setting, Will Mester, a star local chef, is clearly in his element, using a couple of induction cooktops in the back corner to conjure “a simple yet sophisticated ode to European country cooking.” Mester’s chalkboard menu might feature tender pork cheeks in a turnip-laden broth or sage-fried egg and blood sausage in a smoky-sweet brown sauce.

When Mester is cooking, “even the basics are blissful,” and his Dublin-born wife, Millie Powell, makes delicious home-style desserts to match when she isn’t busy handling her maître d’ duties. Like its name-sake bird, which in a Celtic folktale outsmarts an eagle, “this old-soul watering hole proves that small can mean mighty.” 1712 Aliceanna St.

McGonagle’s Pub

Dorchester, Mass.

If there’s a battle raging over what Irish food is these days, chef Aidan McGee isn’t just in it: “He’s winning, decisively,” said Julia Moskin in The New York Times. At McGonagle’s, an upscale pub south of Boston, McGee serves an award-winning Sunday roast and uses a U.K.-built chip-cutting machine for his fish and chips.

But there’s also an adventurous, globally inspired side to his menu that’s common to pubs in today’s Ireland, such as croquettes of Irish cheese that are clear upgrades to American mozzarella sticks. Better yet, he has introduced to these shores “the spice bag”: a “magnificent late-night Dublin drunk food” that’s “a Chinese-Indian-Irish jumble” of fries and fried chicken bits tossed with chiles, cumin, star anise, and turmeric.

The Guinness is always handled with care here, served two degrees warmer than other beers, said Rachel Leah Blumenthal in Boston magazine. But McGonagle’s also has special house cocktails, a feature “expected at modern bars in Ireland but less so at Irish pubs in Boston.” Try the “Ah Go On Then”: gin and elderflower liqueur served cheekily in a teacup. 367 Neponset Ave.

For me, soups are always superior when the veg has been roasted beforehand (as opposed to boiled), said Flora Shedden. The squash and apple in this recipe both develop a lovely natural sweetness when they are left to roast and caramelise; the other great thing about this recipe is that you just shove everything in a tray to cook together.

Ingredients (serves 4-6)

• 1 butternut squash (about 900g), peeled and deseeded, then cut into 1cm slices
• 2 eating apples (about 250g), cored and cut into 1cm slices
• 1 large onion (about 250g), cut into wedges
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole
• 45g fresh root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
• 45ml/3 tbsp cider vinegar
• 10g sage leaves
• 1kg chicken (or vegetable) stock
• olive oil, for cooking
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• yoghurt, to serve

For the crispy breadcrumb topping:

• 50g fresh breadcrumbs
• 50g pumpkin seeds
• 10g sage leaves, the smaller the better, but if large tear in half
• olive oil, for frying

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180C fan/200C/400F).
• Put the squash, apples, onion, garlic and ginger onto a baking tray and drizzle over the cider vinegar and a generous amount of olive oil. Season well with salt and pepper, then add the sage leaves. Toss everything together with your hands, then place in the oven to roast for 40-50 mins, stirring halfway through, until the squash is soft and nearly falling apart. If your veg is browning too quickly, cover the tray with foil.
• Once cooked, spoon the vegetables into a large saucepan and pour over the stock. Use a splash of the stock or some boiling water to rinse out the roasting pan, then use a wooden spoon to loosen off any caramelised bits. Add those to the pan with the veg, then bring the soup to the boil and cook for 10 mins or until everything is simmering.
• Remove the pan from the heat and use a hand-held blender (or food processor) to blend the soup until very smooth. Season to taste.
• To make the topping, heat a little oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and fry the breadcrumbs, pumpkin seeds and sage leaves for 5 mins, or until everything is crispy and fragrant.
• Serve the soup with the crispy breadcrumbs, a dollop of yoghurt, and a drizzle of oil.

Taken from “Winter in the Highlands” by Flora Shedden.

Sign up for The Week’s Food & Drink newsletter for recipes, reviews and recommendations.

Relaxing in the autumn months with a glass of sherry and bowl of “briny olives” can only be described as a “deeply satisfying pleasure”, said Victoria Moore in The Telegraph. The timeless experience “remains relatively inexpensive”, even when you choose a more premium bottle.

Sherry – a wine fortified with grape spirit – originates from the province of Jerez in southwest Spain. The vast majority of sherries are made from the white palomino grape variety.

The fortified wine is made using the “solera system” of maturation which involves gradually adding younger sherries to older ones, creating a “blend from different years”, said John Clarke in The Independent. This method offers a “wide and exciting range of tastes and flavours”, and is a lower-cost way of experiencing “centuries of traditional winemaking”: it is “history in a glass, if you like”.

“Long seen as old-fashioned, sherry is undergoing a quiet revolution,” said Sophie Arundel in The Drinks Business. For years the fortified wine had a reputation for being “sticky, sweet, and destined only for certain aunts at Christmas”. In reality, though, it can range from dry to intensely sweet, and everything in between.

Undaunted by the “baggage” of sherry’s past, producers are turning to younger drinkers, encouraged by signs that millennials are embracing natural and orange wines, which have comparable “nutty, oxidative qualities”, said The Buyer.

“In my book, the idea of a modest sherry before Sunday lunch is maybe not such a bad one,” said Fiona Beckett in The Guardian. Though sherry thrives in the Spanish summer sun, some of the nuttier, darker styles work “brilliantly” at this time of year.

Most sherries are best served chilled alongside olives and chorizo, to bring out the salty flavours, said The Telegraph. Drier versions like manzanilla and the more traditional fino pair well with salted almonds, tomato bread and manchego cheese. The darker, “more intense and nutty” oloroso works better with “heavier” food like oxtail stew to complement the richer flavour.

If you’re looking for something “dry” and “strongly flavoured” at the lower end of the price scale, which is “not for the faint-hearted”, Morrisons’ “superb” The Best Palo Cortado NV (£7.50) fits the bill. Or for something “easier to drink”, try Gonzalez Byass Tio Pepe Fino Sherry NV (£13.50). “Apple-fresh with notes of sourdough and salt”, it is perfect served straight from the fridge with tapas nibbles.

These extra-special breakfasts and brunches are worth waking up for. From the perfect eggs benedict served at the marble counter of a Michelin-starred restaurant to soft, fluffy waffles enjoyed on the 40th floor of the Heron Tower, these are some of the best spots in London.

Booking Office 1869 at St. Pancras London, King’s Cross

This softly lit cocktail lounge and brasserie is set within the original 19th-century ticket hall of the famous station, now a part of the five-star St. Pancras London. The restaurant looks out over the platforms – you can even see the Eurostar trains pulling in from your seat. Decked out with gleaming dark woods, towering palm trees and colourful patterned fabrics, it has an intimate, buzzy atmosphere even in the afternoon. The new jazz brunch (Sundays from 12-3pm) features live music from talented musicians. We were treated to a guitar and vocal duo performing gently swinging standards by the likes of Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. Dishes are tasty and indulgent; highlights include waffle and buttermilk popcorn chicken drizzled with maple syrup, and shakshuka with herby feta and crispy flatbread. The real draw, however, is the cocktail menu which features a fun, inventive tipple for each decade dating back to the 1860s when the station opened. For the wow factor, try the 1890s creation: a heady mix of Eagle 10 Year Bourbon Whisky, bitters and demerara sugar, served with a touch of theatre at the table in a box filled with pecan smoke.

St. Pancras London, Euston Road, NW1 2AR, booking-office.co.uk

Engel Bar, City of London

Located on the mezzanine floor of The Royal Exchange, the Engel Bar is a great spot for those wanting to take in the beauty of the historic architecture while soaking up the 1920s Berlin-style atmosphere. The Marlene Brunch, available only on Saturdays, takes it up a notch with a specially curated menu alongside live R&B, soul and jazz performances. With an amazing line-up of singers on the roster (such as Jermain Jackman and Natalie Williams), the experience is not to be missed.

The food is sublime: a mix of classic brunch go-tos and a few fun fusions. It’s hard to go wrong with the fried chicken and waffles. The sea bass with a yuzu and soy glaze is bursting with flavour. Diners are spoiled for choice drinks-wise with the option to pick bottomless fizz, Bellini or Aperol spritz. If that’s not enough, there is a champagne menu that’s 50% off for the afternoon. In all, the Marlene Brunch makes for a memorable experience in the heart of the capital. Something definitely worth leaving the house early for.



The Mezzanine, First Floor, Royal Exchange, EC3V 3LQ; engelbar.co.uk

Pavyllon London, Mayfair

There’s an effortlessness to dining in a Michelin-starred restaurant that is hard to replicate elsewhere. Pavyllon London achieves this in its breakfast offering but without forced pretension. This is impeccable, attentive and refined service at a marble counter, an experience that offers a front row seat to the theatre of the kitchen.

A health shot to start will zap you awake. It is followed by a fluffy vanilla muffin, an amuse-bouche of sorts – and, of course, your choice of tea and coffee.

The eggs benedict here is certainly a contender for the capital’s best: toasted muffins are topped with pillowy eggs that break into golden silk with the puncture of a knife. The dish is drawn together with a rich, creamy hollandaise and paprika – flavours that make the breakfast sing.

Another must-have is the Frenglish platter, offering a bridge to Gallic finesse – it’s everything you’d expect of a full English, but with interesting twists like the crispy Pommes Anna, soft sourdough bread and tomatoes that taste as if they’ve just been picked from the vine. To finish, try the crepes. Thin and velvety with caramelised brown sugar, their flavours are elevated through a drizzle of maple syrup, fresh berries and a cloud of vanilla whipped cream.

Four Seasons London at Park Lane, Hamilton Place, W1J 7DR; pavyllonlondon.com

Duck and Waffle, Liverpool Street

No list of Britain’s best breakfast and brunch spots would be complete without Duck and Waffle. Located on the 40th floor of the Heron Tower right in the heart of the City of London, the restaurant is one of the highest in the capital, and boasts some of the best dining views on the planet.

Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the restaurant attracts City types, foodies and tourists, with different menus for different times of the day. Brunch is available between 10am and 4pm on Saturday and Sunday, and includes the eponymous duck and waffle, alongside the more traditional fare of smoked salmon royale, the full English breakfast and vegetarian options, too.

110 Bishopsgate, EC2N 4AY; duckandwaffle.com

Dishoom, various locations

Breakfast at this Bombay cafe chain is an evocative experience where flavours dance on your tastebuds. Bacon and eggs may be morning stalwarts; naans less so. But this combination, in tandem with some killer chilli tomato jam, cream cheese and fresh coriander, makes for a very tasty breakfast.

Dishoom also offers a host of other options, including Bombay omelettes, cinnamon-jaggery pancakes and the “Parsi power breakfast” of spicy chicken keema served with chicken liver, fried eggs and home-made buns. The chain has acquired a cult following since it was founded in 2010 and it is easy to see why.

Various locations; dishoom.com

45 Jermyn St, Green Park

It is no good adding salmon or caviar to eggs in a bid to improve them if you haven’t got the eggs right in the first place. Fortunately, that essential building block of the very best breakfasts is done perfectly at 45 Jermyn St.

And that isn’t the only basics the swish St James’s establishment does well. Coffee, juice, avocados and toast may all sound simple enough, but in the hands of the chefs at 45 Jermyn St, they are all elevated into something spectacular. The eggs, scrambled and mixed with cream, are quite possibly the most indulgent in London. And with a dollop of caviar or a side of salmon, they are pure brunching perfection.

45 Jermyn Street, St James’s, SW1Y 6DN; 45jermynst.com

St Pancras Brasserie by Searcys, King’s Cross

Sitting below St Pancras’ magnificent vaulted ceiling, with an art deco design by Martin Brudnizki, St Pancras Brasserie by Searcys feels like a throwback to the golden age of travel. It offers Europe’s longest champagne bar and the fizz to go with it.

The breakfast menu is available from 8am to 11.30am on Monday to Friday, and 10am to 11.30am on Saturdays, where visitors can enjoy a dish from the “bakery and bowls” section of the menu, eggs or the full English breakfast. Searcys also has a substantial menu for its bottomless Sunday brunch. Two courses and 90 minutes of free-flowing lager, prosecco or mimosas are available, and there is plenty to choose from. Stand out dishes include the mouth-watering breakfast cheeseburger, the pork belly benedict and the buffalo chicken waffle.

St Pancras International Station, N1C 4QL; stpancrasbysearcys.co.uk

Quaglino’s, Green Park

Brunch at Quaglino’s can be a disconcerting affair. The food, the wine, the dramatic lighting – and your fellow diners, dressed to impress – lull you into a late-night frame of mind, and you may well find yourself blinking in surprise as you emerge into the early afternoon sunshine.

The illusion starts the moment you step into the dark, cavernous restaurant and descend the illuminated stairs. Art deco glamour oozes from every surface, from the velvet curtains of the cabaret stage to the gilded marble bar. The menu is also suitably starry. Brunch classics – eggs benedict, royale or florentine, with avocado and smoked salmon – are tucked away in one corner, but there are also surprising options on offer. Take the Cygnet 22 gin cured trout, or asparagus and ricotta tortelloni, for instance. The brunch is available on Saturdays only.

16 Bury Street, SW1Y 6AJ; quaglinos-restaurant.co.uk

Theo Randall at the InterContinental, Park Lane

Celebrity chef Theo Randall’s Saturday brunch invites diners to enjoy la dolce vita in true Italian style, with a three-course festa in famiglia – a chance for families and friends to experience the best of the country’s produce.

Try not to fill up too much on the help-yourself antipasti – as tempting as the platters heaped with vibrant salads and cured meats are – as to follow is your choice of secondi, with options including porchetta (a slow-cooked crispy pork with potato and fennel al forno), as well as a sumptuous baked fontina cheese soufflé. Those with a sweet tooth will want to hold out for the desserts – a highlight of which is Randall’s palate-cleansing Amalfi lemon tart.

1 Hamilton Place, W1J 7QY; theorandall.com

Yauatcha City, Liverpool Street

On Fridays and Saturdays, this high-end Chinese restaurant offers one of the capital’s most sophisticated brunches: the Infinite Yum Cha Brunch.

Unlimited rounds of delicious dim sum (featuring black truffle dumplings, pork and prawn shui mai, and shrimp har gau) and soft bao buns are followed by a selection of signature main courses. Guests can choose from options including stir-fried rib eye beef in black bean sauce, sweet and spicy sea bass curry, and more, perfectly complemented by steamed jasmine rice or egg fried rice. End the experience with delicious soufflé pancakes topped with honeycomb.

1 Broadgate, EC2M 2QS; taogroup.com

Smithereens

New York City

“Summer on Cape Cod this is not,” said Matthew Schneier in NYMag.com. Chef Nick Tamburo’s homage to New England oceanic foodways occupies a cramped subterranean East Village space that makes a meal there “closer to dining belowdecks on the Pequod.” Fittingly, the menu is full of deep cuts and dark riffs on the New England theme: a maple-infused pâté of smoked bluefish, rye-like anadama bread, grilled mackerel that’s “perfumed with tamarind, allspice, and chile,” and head-on whiting that’s whole-fried and “served with the dignity usually accorded to branzino.”

Tamburo also isn’t afraid to be impious: He serves a delicious riff on clam chowder that buries quahogs in steamy rice. Not every dish lands. The chef’s “abiding interest in the weird” isn’t for all diners, and maybe seaweed doesn’t belong in any dessert. But after several months of unsteady experimentation, Smithereens has found its sea legs. Though it’s “not a restaurant for everyone,” it “might be an even better thing: a restaurant very much for some.” 414 E. 9th St.

Bayonet

Birmingham, Alabama

“Everyone is having fun at airy Bayonet,” said Kim Severson in The New York Times. Rob and Emily McDaniel have given their Southern chophouse, Helen, a breezy companion of a seafood-forward sister, and the newcomer is so good that it made our newspaper’s list of America’s best new restaurants. Rob’s short rotating menu has him working wonders with sustainable fish. “He uses caramel sauce to punch up bánh mì stuffed with Gulf shrimp, makes schnitzel out of cobia, and pairs an acidic fruit salsa with fatty Ora King salmon collar.”

Meanwhile, at the raw bar, “Alabama oysters fight it out with East Coast stalwarts.” Clearly, “the chef and his team are tapped into the local seafood scene,” said Caroline Sanders Clements in Garden & Gun. But the McDaniels also recognize the value in variety, shipping in oysters from North Carolina’s Dukes of Topsail and Cape Cod’s Moon Shoal. Pop a dozen while snacking on hand-cut fries dipped in lemon aioli. “And no meal at Bayonet is complete without a martini stirred tableside with a plump, salty oyster at the bottom of the glass.” 2015 N. 2nd Ave.

Ostrea

Detroit

When Ostrea was announced, “I had high, if not unreasonable, expectations,” said Danny Palumbo in Hour Detroit. It’s a spin-off of the London Chop House, “a titan in the history of Detroit’s dining scene,” and while Ostrea turns out to be more easygoing, the food is just as refined.

Occupying a street-level space above the Chop House, the place always feels bustling, “even in its quiet moments,” in part because of the fresh seafood that’s constantly arriving. The oyster offerings change regularly. My dozen included Corktown Golds, Bad Boys, and Pink Moons, and “each one popped with a clean, oceanic freshness.”

Elsewhere, the menu is sneakily adventurous. Seafood restaurants today are almost required to serve hamachi crudo, but Ostrea’s is special, a “divinely harmonic” marriage of hamachi, basil, and grapefruit. The lobster roll, with flavors “faintly reminiscent of a Bloody Mary,” feels “both traditional and new.” The prices here have scared off some locals, but consider whether it’s wise to spend $22 on a chowder made with a crab and lobster velouté and loaded with scallops, swordfish, and chunks of bacon lardon. “For something so luxurious, I’d encourage it.” 536 Shelby St.

For the archetypal US conservative male, beer has long been seen as the booze of choice, but a growing number of right-wingers are turning against a cold one.

Conservatives in America have had a “stormy relationship” with beer in “recent years”, said Slate. Now the right is waging a “war” on the beverage on several fronts, and “beer is losing badly”.

Dizzying backlash

In 2023, a “conservative uprising” against Bud Light became “one of the highest-profile beverage-themed revolts since the Boston Tea Party, except with more guns and influencers”.

For two decades, the brand had been the best-seller in the US with “boorish marketing aimed squarely” at men of all ages, but when a transgender influencer featured in a social media ad campaign, it sparked a backlash that was “swift and dizzying”, as “seemingly every conservative personality” turned against the brand.

Sales “plummeted” and Bud Light “tumbled” from top spot to third. Twelve months later, it was estimated that the company had lost $1.4 billion (£1 billion) in sales from the “backlash”.

Next, two Mexican beers – Modelo and Corona - found themselves in the “conservative crosshairs”. Donald Trump’s tariffs meant that selling beers imported from Mexico became a “disastrous business model” because the president was “obsessed with keeping out stuff from abroad, especially stuff (and people) from Mexico”.

Beer is also suffering from a wider trend of sobriety among Republicans. Many leading right-wing figures, including Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have talked about being sober. So did Charlie Kirk. “Maybe the rising tide of Christian nationalism has revived an old-fashioned Protestant temperance,” said The Guardian, or perhaps heeding RFK’s quest to “make America healthy again” means “eschewing beer, barbecues and bourbon”.

‘Anti-woke’

For those right-wingers who want to boycott what they see as “woke” brands but without giving up the booze, there is a solution: “anti-woke” beer. In the wake of the Bud Light boycott, a “slate of alternative ‘anti-woke’ brands” has appeared on the scene to “meet the boycotters’ needs”, said Politico.

One was “Conservative Dad’s Ultra Right 100% Woke-Free American Beer”. It has an alcohol volume of 4%, but one tester for Politico said it tasted “like a non-alcoholic IPA”, adding: “I can’t imagine anything less conservative” than that.

There was also bad news for this brand earlier this year, when beer giant Anheuser-Busch filed a trademark claim against it, claiming that Ultra Right Beer infringes on the trademark of Michelob Ultra, a move the makers of Ultra Right described as “revenge”.

The challenges facing the brewing industry go beyond the political divide. In a poll last month, Gallup found that the percentage of American adults who reported drinking any alcohol had fallen to 54%, the lowest number in nine decades of polling. Once again, the demographic “leading the charge” were “self-identified Republicans” of whom “more than half are off the sauce altogether”.

When it comes to picking the best barbecue throughout the South, “you have to go with your gut,” said Robert F. Moss in Southern Living. Two years after I last ranked a top 50, a newcomer has taken the No. 1 slot, pushing two established greats down one notch each. But change is to be expected. Every year, some old favorites close or lose their edge, and “there’s been no shortage of ambitious players entering the business and making a splash.”

City Limits Barbeque

West Columbia, South Carolina

The brisket, hot links, and beef ribs at this two-year-old weekend-only spot are “as good as any east of the Mississippi,” and City Limits “shines even brighter” when pitmaster Robbie Robinson focuses on such local treats as pork shoulders cooked “burn-barrel style.” While a “dizzying” array of contemporary fusions adds more joy, “what really pushes City Limits to the front of the pack are the Saturday spareribs.”

Snow’s BBQ

Lexington, Texas

A visit to Snow’s is “an adventure no barbecue fan should miss.” Operating since 2003 and only on Saturdays, it opens at an “egregiously early” 8 a.m., creating hours-long queues. But free beer and Bloody Marys “take the edge off,” and you might glimpse 90-year-old pitmaster Tootsie Tomanetz as you pass the open pit houses. “The payoff comes” when you reach a little red building and load up on brisket, spareribs, and “best of all, tender, juicy pork shoulder steaks with mahogany-hued bark.”

Fresh Air Bar-B-Que

Jackson, Georgia

In Georgia, chopped pork is the game, and “no restaurant better represents the state’s distinctive style” than this 96-year-old institution. Fresh hams are cooked over hickory and oak, and the finished pork is chopped into shreds and dressed in a “thin, tangy” red sauce.