Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2025 i Food & Wine

NV BISOL CREDE PROSECCO SUPERIORE ($28) If you haven’t checked out my fellow editor Lucy Simon’s delightful ongoing series of wine reels on F&W’s Instagram, you should! (I pop into them from time to time, too.) Recently, we evaluated a few new Prosecco releases on camera, and this elegant, minerally cuvée from a historic producer was my fave. 2022 FRANCESCO CIRELLI CERASUOLO D’ABRUZZO ($28) Cerasuolo, the classic rosé of Italy’s Abruzzo region, is not like Provençal rosé at all—it’s transparent ruby in color and full-bodied enough to go with main courses of all kinds. I had this one with the spicy lobster crispy rice at Kiko in NYC, where co-owner Lina Goujjane’s list is full of similarly cool surprises. 2022 LA PONCA COLLIO MALVASIA ($50) This small Friulian producer…

THERE’S AN EASY WAY TO MAKE strong single-serve coffee without an espresso machine or an electric appliance with single-use pods. If you’re not already acquainted, it’s time to meet the moka pot. Invented in Italy in 1933, moka pots were the first-ever device for making bold, espresso-style coffee at home. Both espresso machines and moka pots brew coffee with the power of pressure, forcing hot water through coffee grounds (see “How to Use a Moka Pot,” at right). This is different from drip coffee machines or a pour-over, which rely on the gentle pull of gravity to flavor the water. Although a moka pot can’t achieve the same level of pressure as an espresso machine—the latter has a pressure of about 9 bars (the unit for measuring the amount of…

BEFORE I VISIT MY PARENTS’ HOME, I always get a text message from my mother, Thi, asking me what I’d like to eat. I tell her that anything will do. I know she’ll make something nutritious, filling, and Vietnamese. She and my dad, Danh, will go grocery shopping to pick up enough food to feed a small army even if I’m coming home alone. There will be tons of fruit plates, rice, noodles, and platters of herbs. This is how my parents show their love. Almost every story my parents tell is related to food. When times were tough, they didn’t have enough to eat. When they were happy, they celebrated with food. When they wanted to show a person that they cared, they fed them. As a child, I…

Spring Uncorked AT FOOD & WINE, we’re fortunate to have a crackerjack team of wine, beer, and cocktail experts, whose mission is to make sure you have something excellent to drink. By now you know Executive Wine Editor Ray Isle, who just celebrated his 20th work anniversary at F&W, and if you follow us on Instagram, be sure to watch Special Projects Editor Lucy Simon’s video series, in which she demystifies a lot of the everyday wines you love (and a few wild outliers, like a $6,500 port from the 1800s). This issue also marks the print debut of Senior Drinks Editor Prairie Rose, whose feature “Cook Like a Bartender, Bartend Like a Cook” (p. 90) will make you think more deeply about the versatility of your pantry ingredients, whether…

YOU COULD CALL Yao Zhao a sermonizer of spices, or a preacher of pepper. At his company 50Hertz Tingly Foods, which specializes in premium Szechuan pepper, the mission is, in his words, “to spread the tingle.” Szechuan pepper, the tiny dried fruit of the prickly ash tree, delivers zesty, floral flavors, along with a tingly sensation on your lips and tongue when eaten—a sensation similar to 50 hertz of electricity (hence the name of Zhao’s company). In Szechuan cooking, Szechuan pepper is famously paired with hot chile peppers to create a mala (“numbing and spicy”) flavor profile for dishes like mapo tofu. But Zhao wants to showcase its versatility and potential for all kinds of dishes—not just spicy ones. Zhao focused first on pantry ingredients, with a line of Szechuan…

IN 2005, Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson became a F&W Best New Chef for bringing masterful technique to a friendly, relaxed type of cooking from Friuli, Italy. “He even does amazing things with a simple breadstick,” the editors marveled. The recognition came just one year after he’d opened Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder, Colorado, a joint venture with Master Sommelier Bobby Stuckey. “Best New Chef was the takeoff point,” says Mackinnon-Patterson. Now holding a Michelin star and many a James Beard Award, the original restaurant remains one of Colorado’s preeminent dining destinations. Under Mackinnon-Patterson and Stuckey’s leadership, Frasca Hospitality Group has grown to half a dozen restaurants, including Boulder’s Pizzeria Alberico, Denver’s pan-Italian Tavernetta (now with an offshoot at the Four Seasons Resort and Residences Vail), the casual pasta spot Sunday Vinyl,…

RECIPE FROM BOONIE’S Chicago THERE IS NO BETTER SOUND in the dining room at Boonie’s in Chicago than the sizzle of chef Joe Fontelera’s sisig as it’s headed to your table. The charred bits of savory pork sing while the fragrant aromatics like onions, garlic, and fresh ginger nestled between the meat waft through the air, whetting your appetite for what’s to come. Sisig is one of the most celebrated Filipino dishes. To make it, gently simmered pork is finely chopped and pan-fried until crisp in a screaming-hot pan with a generous amount of onions. The meat is finished with chiles and tangy calamansi juice, which add a layer of brightness and warming heat that offsets the overall richness of the dish. This recipe from Fontelera builds on traditional…

THE ENDURING APPEAL of the spritz is that it’s not just a drink, it’s a lifestyle. In Italy and France, when golden hour strikes, a daily ritual begins on the local café sidewalks and patios as friends, coworkers, and family gather over bright and bubbly spritzes. Traditions around aperitivo hour are approachable and egalitarian: Everyone is welcome. And for those cutting back, spritzes are among the cocktails most amenable to a nonalcoholic alternative. The range of new NA options—including zero-proof wines, NA aperitivos, and gin substitutes—offers incredible variety and quality, and the technique for making an NA spritz can be as simple as pouring an ounce or two and adding sparkling water. We talked to bartenders around the country about their favorite NA bottles to use for the perfect…

TWENTY YEARS AGO, the Hugo Spritz—a simple cocktail of elderflower liqueur, Prosecco, and soda water—was invented by Roland “AK” Gruber. The four-ingredient drink, originally called the Otto, is now wildly popular around the world, with bars everywhere creating delicious spin-offs like the Green Tea Hugo Spritz (recipe at right). The main star of the Hugo Spritz is the elderflower liqueur that serves as the drink’s base. Elderflower liqueur is a lightly sweet, floral, and fruity aperitif that captures the essence of springtime. There are several elderflower liqueurs on the market, like Giffard’s Fleur de Sureau Sauvage and the Italian-made Fiorente, but the best known is St-Germain, a French liqueur whose production starts with a big wildflower harvest that kicks off in May. “The elderflower bloom is very ephemeral because it’s…

AMONG WINE NERDS, artichokes get no respect. I can’t blame them—the spiky, globelike vegetable is nearly impossible to pair with. Artichokes are packed with a naturally occurring chemical called cynarin that magnifies sweetness. Once it’s on your palate, cynarin amplifies the natural sweetness in wines, causing most of them to collapse into flabby, one-dimensional blobs: Many sommeliers call artichokes their kryptonite. Thankfully, there are superhero wines hiding in plain sight, just waiting to save the day—and the meal. Here are four rules to keep in mind when pairing wine with artichokes. NO OAK Oak, by way of barrel fermentation or barrel aging, imparts sweetness to wines, so when oak meets cynarin, the wine falls flat. Choose wines to go with artichokes that are light, crisp, and bone-dry, with high acidity…

CARAMELIZED CREAM LIKE MANY GREAT CREATIONS, caramelized cream was invented by accident. Chef Craig Wilmer of Farmhouse Inn in Sonoma County was making clotted cream in an old oven when the inconsistent heat caused the heavy cream around the edges of the pan to burn. Knowing that heavy cream has about six times more milk solids than butter—and that toasted milk solids are what gives brown butter its nutty, rich flavor—Wilmer and his team were optimistic about the results. “We tried it, and it was insanely intense,” he says. Since then, caramelized cream (aka SBB, “super brown butter,” as they like to call it at the restaurant) has become a key ingredient that appears in several of Farmhouse Inn’s dishes and desserts, including their pancakes. Pancakes were a natural choice,…

WHEN IT COMES TO TASTE, the world of nonalcoholic beverages has changed, dramatically, seismically, massively, for the better. That’s a good thing because right now, more and more people seem to want less and less, at least when it comes to alcohol. Back in 2022, in our pages, Bill Shufelt of Athletic Brewing Co. predicted that “moderation is a trend that’s not going away anytime soon.” Shufelt was right, and how—Athletic is now valued at close to $800 million and made over 258,000 barrels of nonalcoholic beer in 2023. Shufelt and his partner, longtime brewer John Walker, cracked the code of making NA beer that actually tastes like beer, and now there are craft brewers around the country making excellent NA options. Quality spirit-free spirits took off with the launch…

TAKE A LOOK AT ANY BAR or restaurant drink menu these days, and you’ll likely notice an NA spritz or some sort of zero-proof highball featured. That makes sense—those drinks are based on beverages that are lower in alcohol to begin with. But nearly as often, you’ll run into a nonalcoholic Negroni. How did one of the most classically spirit-forward, potent cocktails out there become such a go-to on NA drink lists? In part, you can thank Brooklyn-based distillery St. Agrestis, which launched its excellent Phony Negroni, a zero-proof bottled version that closely mimics the look and taste of the original, in 2022. Today, the Phony Negroni is sold in over 4,000 bars and 2,500 retailers across the U.S. But bartenders have also jumped in with their own versions.…

BAVARIA, THE SCENIC HOME of countless breweries, beer gardens, and Munich’s iconic Oktoberfest, is synonymous with beer, but all those suds can drown out another local specialty in Germany’s largest state: Schnapsbrennen. Unlike schnapps, the American loanword that calls to mind cloying flavor bombs of peppermint or cinnamon, in Germany, schnaps is a broad term for local spirits, including the dry, refined fruit brandies and herbal liqueurs that proliferate in the southern part of the country. Franziska Bischof, a fourth-generation distiller and 2018 German Female Distiller of the Year, says there are some 24,000 distilling licenses in Germany—even her tiny region of 2,200 inhabitants has 82 licenses. But many don’t bother to sell their products, and the vast majority, like Bischof, are allowed to produce only up to 300…

THERE’S NOT MUCH BETTER IN LIFE, as far as I’ve discovered, than sitting outside on a deck over the water at one of the renovated fishermen’s shacks at Nick’s Cove, an inn and restaurant on Northern California’s Tomales Bay, particularly right as the sun is setting, with a glass of rosé and a dozen raw oysters. The view over the bay turns golden, with darkness just beginning to touch the hills across the water, and all you hear is the light slapping of waves against the piers below you. The place is so peaceful that you’d hardly guess that the San Andreas Fault, that tumultuous collision of two vast tectonic plates, runs directly under the water in front of you. It bisects Tomales Bay, miles below the surface. Have…