Food & Wine March 2025

2022 BEDROCK WINE CO. OLD VINE ZINFANDEL ($27) Charm sometimes gets overlooked in restaurant reviews—but when it comes to Lola’s, where I recently dined in New York City, you just want to go back over and over again. Chef Suzanne Cupps’ cooking is excellent and is complemented by the smartly chosen wine list, where you’ll find this dark-fruited steal of a Zin. 2022 LUCIUS BOJO STONERIDGE VINEYARD CRU SYRAH ($30) Washington winemaker Andrew Latta has started using carbonic maceration—a winemaking technique where grapes begin fermentation in a sealed, oxygen-free environment—to varieties not typical for it. And with great results: Witness this super lively, medium-bodied, spicy Syrah. 2016 CHÂTEAU CANTEMERLE ($45) Not all excellent Bordeaux has to cost a fortune. This 2016 from Cantemerle, whose wines I’ve been a fan…

Chrome Dreams WHEN ASSOCIATE EDITOR AMELIA SCHWARTZ pitched her story on diners for this issue, it sparked a major nostalgia trip at Food & Wine. It seems like all of us here have our own diner memories, our own platonic ideal of what a diner should be, and our own go-to orders. I’m sure you do, too. As Amelia writes in “Rise & Shine” (p. 68), “If you grew up going to a diner, odds are it wasn’t just a place to eat, but a place where many of your core memories were formed.” My own perfect diner order is two eggs over-easy, bacon, hash browns, and rye toast. That’s what I always asked for back in high school and college in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where I spent countless…

IF YOU COOK OFTEN, maintaining a fresh-smelling kitchen requires more than a regular cleaning. That’s where an air purifier comes in. With the right type of filter, an air purifier can rid the air of dust, pollen, smoke, and even the strongest cooking odors. We tested the most popular and top-rated air purifiers to find the best for every type of home and kitchen. Read on for the ones that aced our tests and kept us breathing easy. BEST OVERALL COWAY AIRMEGA AP-1512HH MIGHTY Inside the Coway Airmega’s slim profile are four separate filters that tackle pet hair and dust, as well as smaller particles associated with odors, viruses and bacteria, and molds. The smart technology lets you know when it’s time to change the filters, keeping the unit operating…

I’M HARVESTING A 300-YEAR-OLD OLIVE TREE in central Italy. It’s a windy October day, and the silver-green leaves shimmer under the Tuscan sun. Using a small comb, I help Romain Piro brush his nearly ripened olives onto the net below us, trying my best not to smash the fruits that drop close to my feet. And then, the clock starts ticking. “The branch is an umbilical cord,” Piro says, explaining that the olives start to oxidize as soon as they leave the tree. The same day the fruits are harvested, they will be sent to Piro’s mill, where they will be crushed into a thick paste, slowly kneaded, and finally pressed to extract unfiltered olio nuovo, a robust liquid that is almost Day-Glo green. After resting the oil for three…

ROY CHOI 2010 F&W Best New Chef Restaurant at the Time of Award Kogi BBQ, Los Angeles Legacy Through his career as a chef, television star, entrepreneur, culinary ambassador, and cookbook author, Choi has always stayed true to his passions and put people first. WHEN ROY CHOI FIRST OPENED KOGI BBQ, he thought his days of being a professional chef were over. “I left that world behind me, hung up my whites, and went off on this new journey to feed the streets,” he says. Choi had spent most of his career cooking at hotels, where the kitchens are often very traditional—you start as a line cook, work your way up, and, hopefully, eventually become executive chef. “At the time, there was only one path. The idea of becoming an…

EVERY PART OF A RESTAURANT is designed to tell a story, including its scent. On a recent visit to Lord’s, a British-inspired restaurant in New York City from 2023 F&W Best New Chef Ed Szymanski, I stepped into the restroom and was surrounded by the clean, crisp scents of palo santo, cedar, and fresh pine, transporting me to a cozy cabin with a wood-burning fireplace. The source of the intoxicating fragrance? The Wood Cabin candle from the company Keap. I loved it so much that I ordered one for my own home. Here are the candles used by savvy restaurateurs at some of the best restaurants in the country to impress guests with a fantastic-smelling bathroom. Light any one of them, and be transported. 1. KEAP WOOD CABIN Lord’s is…