There’s a stereotype about musicians that they know how to party. And while we’re reluctant to generalize, we suspected that rock stars might have some insight into one of Saturday morning’s oldest questions: What should I eat to cure this raging hangover? So to get some professional, definitely scientific insight, we asked some of our favourite musicians about what sort of greasy breakfast bomb they crave to dull the pain and what restaurant does it best.
Over the last few years, the craft beer movement has completely taken over Melbourne thanks to a handful of young beer makers across the city. With an over 1,000 percent increase in the number of local breweries (reaching at least 60), the craft beer scene in Melbourne and surrounding areas have made the city one of Australia’s greatest destinations for beer. What’s more, one in three craft beers in Australia now comes from Melbourne.
We’ve all been there —the waiter accidentally pours someone else’s Pinot Noir into your Barolo, ruining your perfectly good glass of wine. You smile and tell them it’s okay while silently seething, reminding yourself that we all make mistakes. And while it’s something that just happens sometimes, it’s not something you’d expect to happen at Melbourne’s Attica, one of the best restaurants in the world. That is, unless it’s being done on purpose.
Jane Lopes, Attica’s new sommelier, is used to guests freaking out when she tries to pour a Chikuma Nishiki “Kizan Sanban” sake into a half-full glass of 2011 Crawford River “Noble Dry” Riesling. “We’ve had people cover their glasses, try to move their glasses out of the way, yell, ‘What are you doing?!’,” she said of her mixed-in-the-glass wine pairing for the restaurant’s abalone with seaweed butter and black garlic cream course.
If there is one dish that best exemplifies Australia’s native ingredients movement’s most current evolution, it just might be a piping hot bowl of kangaroo pho. “I encourage people to try the different plants before adding them to the broth,” Rebecca Sullivan explains as she places an array of indigenous plants and herbs upon our table. She points to succulent sprigs of coorong seablite, leaves of lemon and anise myrtle, shimmering bunches of iceplant and pods of finger limes spilling out tart green pearls. “I like to squeeze them just straight into the broth,” she says, pointing to the chubby citrus bombs.
This is Warndu, a pop-up restaurant and well-being brand from Adelaide, Australia brought to life by Sullivan and her partner, Damien Coulthard. Named for the word “good” in the Adnyamathanha language—the language of Coulthard’s Aboriginal heritage—Warndu is aiming to bring native Australian ingredients to consumers through dinners that educate and inspire, as well as selling a line of packaged foods (like kangaroo broth and native teas) to cook at home, with the goal of helping to build up sustainable farming and foraging systems within Aboriginal communities for economic growth.
“Indigenous food is food that’s grown in Australia, comes from Australia and that Aboriginal people ate and utilised during their time on the land,” renowned Aboriginal chef Mark Olive told the Daily Telegraph this year. “When people start using these foods with these flavours they’re blown away. Chefs around the world are embracing it and are so curious about it.”
With over 24,000 different documented species of plants, Australia is one of the most bio-diverse countries in the world, but while this flora situation may seem like a chef’s foraging paradise, much of Australian mainstream cooking has yet to embrace some of the delicious, healing, uniquely Australian native ingredients of the land. But thanks to a new generation of chefs, these native Australian ingredients, ranging from the caramel-y akudjura bush tomato to the wonderfully nutty wattleseed, are finally getting the mainstream attention they deserve—and, in the process, completely revolutionizing Australia’s food scene.
A good market is a magical thing. The colors, sounds and smells can make you fall in love with a place faster than the sappiest Meg Ryan rom-com makes you fall in love with Tom Hanks. And Mercado Central de San Pedro in Peru’s ancient Incan capital, Cusco, is the Sleepless in Seattle of markets.
Mercado Central is the beating heart of the city, packed with food stalls and vendors selling everything from fresh sugar cane to hand-made sausage, as the sounds of pan flute punctuate the murmur of busy streets. While you’re getting swept up in the marvels of Cusco’s market culture, at some point you may find yourself wondering something like: is that a bag of bile? And the answer is usually: yes. So, to help you break down San Pedro market’s overwhelming array of vendors, we’ve put together this handy visual guide to everything from salted and dried alpaca to herbs used in ancient shaman rituals. Don’t worry, we got you.
In the world of food and booze today, marketers and restaurateurs alike endlessly lean on buzzy phrases like “handcrafted,” “house-made,” and even “farm-to-table” to lend dishes and consumer products an air of authenticity and craftsmanship that many of them simply don’t have. They’ve appropriated these descriptors from the Slow Food movement—where they once distinguished goods produced outside of the industrial and corporatized food system—and applied them to everything from maple water to tortilla chips.
So when Anthony Bourdain, the culinary world’s foremost anti-establishment bullshit-detector, decided to launch Raw Craft, a web series that highlights true craftsmen—artisans such as famed knifemaker Bob Kramer and welder Elizabeth Bishop—I was intrigued. Even more interesting is Bourdain’s choice of sponsored partner on this project: the single-malt Scotch brand The Balvenie.
I met up with Bourdain in between two back-to-back LA premiere screenings of the web series’ second season in the back room of the silent movie theater to talk about how the “artisanal” craze started, the food media’s role in its perpetuation, the pros and cons of making everything in-house, and why unnecessary things can be the most beautiful.
When Jordan Kahn’s Red Medicine closed in late 2014, the culinary world waited with bated breath to see what the Alinea and French Laundry alum would do next. Two years later, Kahn has emerged on the scene again, with a new concept called Destroyer — named, says Kahn, after the meteor that hit earth, ending the Cretaceous Period.
2016 has been an exceptional year for food in Los Angeles. The city may finally, universally be recognized as the culinary leader it is, and chefs and restaurateurs around town have made good on making sure we live up to, and can continue to claim, the honor. From the artisanal doughnut trend to fermented everything to Filipino flavors and more, Los Angeles is at the heart of some of the country’s most delicious and inspiring food and restaurant trends. (It’s not all good, of course. To see the worst food trends, click here.) So to celebrate all the great ideas L.A. chefs have put out into the world this year, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite food and restaurant trends of 2016.
Just because you want to be eco-friendly doesn’t mean you can’t have an amazing bachelorette road trip with your best ladies to celebrate the end of singledom — Especially in Napa Valley. From the latest electric cars that make it possible to drive long distances without recharging, to a growing eco-friendly wine movement, restaurants supporting local organic farmers, and no shortage of top notch spas boasting eco-friendly products, Napa Valley is the perfect place to enjoy a bit of luxury and make some wine filled memories with your best friends — all while leaving the smallest environmental footprint.
Ah fall, that magical time of year when college students flock back to campus for yet another year of hungover, pajama-clad lectures in pursuit of that super-useful liberal arts degree. But it’s not all fun and games. The start of another school year means it’s also time to fall back into broke-college-kid mode and save your money for the important things in life… like student loans.
Luckily for those that bleed blue and gold, the area surrounding UCLA is a veritable cornucopia of delicious cheap eats, making that whole responsible adult thing all the easier when it comes to your wallet. Here are the best places for Bruins (or anyone else hanging around Westwood) to save money and still eat well.
