Something for the Weekend #18
An unexpected M series: Monferrato, Montemagno to Moleto. From Le Manoir to McDonalds to British mousse. Lie back and enjoy a little Something for the Weekend #18.
Happy Sunday, folks! Here’s a selection of this week’s eye-catching headlines, plus glimmers into my time in Italy over the last seven days. So sit back and enjoy a little Something for the Weekend #18.
Monferrato, Montemagno and Moleto.
The laptop slid shut on Friday evening, moments before sunset in Montemagno. I am holed up in this quaint but minuscule blink-and-you-miss town in the beating heart of Monferrato, working remotely. Montemagno is the Italian bucolic ideal: hole-in-the-wall bakeries, a weekend market and a pasitificio that warmed my heart, plus those little bars where locals clink apero with such military regularity, you could set your watch by it.
After a long week, we head over to Moleto, where, if you walk down cobbled streets, past meticulously pointed archways wrapped in vines, you will arrive at Bar Chiuso, a trend bar that effuses effortless cool in a town that punches above its weight with good places to eat and drink.
This sliver of pastoral divinity is a UNESCO recognised area: the Vineyard Landscape of Piemonte: Langhe-Roero-Monferrato. The enviable panoramic views across the Monferrato hills cool from golden hour’s warm hues to twilight as we steadily make out way through a local white wine.
I want to escape to wine tastings this weekend, but these tile samples don’t choose themselves. Fingers crossed our Municipality approval for our renovation work comes next week, and then it’s full throttle on dragging an old villa into its second century.
Also, if you’re interested, read My Favourite Restaurants in Piemonte.
My Favourite Restaurants in Piemonte
My periodic travels throughout Piemonte curated this evolving list of restaurants, osterias, enotecas and more. An evolving list means this is updated over time, so bookmark it! Share it! Check it out now and then!
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Raymond Blanc bids adieu to Le Manoir.
Over 14 years ago, good fortune and a corporate expense account led me Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons for a garden to table cooking class with about half a dozen colleagues. We, the legal team, stayed in the Malmaison Oxford, a converted prison now hotel, as if to say “see, we lawyers do have a sense of humour”.
It was all a team-building event. Such were the days of corporate budgets.
We turned artichokes, made mayonnaise and sliced plums for frangipani tarts where I re-learned how to roll pastry. I still do it that way to this day (one single motion, fingers to elbows).
We toured the 15th-century Manor House’s palatial grounds, so impeccably maintained, it makes Downton Abbey look like Les Miserables.
I have always loved food and I dabbled behind the lines of professional kitchens, but Le Manoir was, and I am sure it still is, different. Leagues different.
I made and drank a clarified gazpacho, decanted like ice water into a wine glass thinner than an Olsen twin. The gazpacho brimmed with the fragrant, grassy essence of tomato. The memory is still so vivid.
Raymond Blanc OBE was there drenched in his signature oui-oui mon petit chou Gallic charm. His celebrity smile beaming at full watts.
We left with branded aprons, a notebook of recipes I’ve only stared at since and a box with our plum tarts.
It was an experience so memorable that, years later, I secretly plotted a surprise birthday lunch for a friend and his girlfriend at Le Manoir because he also needed to experience it.
So with sadness, I read this week that Monsieur Blanc OBE announced he is stepping down after 41 years at the helm of Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons which has successfully held its two Michelin stars since opening in 1984. I was two years old.
Le Manoir will shut for 18 months for ‘redevelopment’ and Raymond will become its Lifetime Ambassador. (NB. Allegedly some 150 jobs are imperilled as a result, and head chef Luke Shelby will also leave.)
It feels trite to say 41 years is a long time, but it is. I do not know who will take over the kitchen, but those are big, well-worn shoes to fill. It seems so many of the great restaurants are shutting these days, e.g. Bibendum most recently.
It’s a lesson to perhaps not put off those things you’ve coveted for a special occasion as, perhaps, it may no longer be there when the occasion presents itself.
Also, if you’re interested: read Chris Pople’s recent review of Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons.
McDonald’s beef with tipping.
In short, I briefly worked at a country-style pub on the River Exe. (Google Maps tells me it’s still open.)
I left after two weeks for the (much better) cocktail bar up the road for many reasons. When someone offered to tip, we always quietly advised: Do not tip by card, please tip by cash, if possible, because the owners deducted card tips from our hourly wage. So, if I made £4 an hour (actually, less) and you tipped £2, then I was paid £2 that hour (+ the tip). If you tipped £5, I was not paid that hour, and £1 was shaved from the following hour.
So step forward this week when McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski took a firm stand against the tipped wage system and recent policy changes he believes favour restaurants that depend on tips. In particular, McDonald’s has split from the National Restaurant Association over the issue, arguing that the “no-tax on tips” provision in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” creates an unfair advantage for tip-based businesses.
As McDonald’s doesn’t accept staff tips, its workers don’t benefit from the tax break, while their competitors can shift more of their labour costs onto customers under the tipped wage structure. McDonald’s is pushing instead for one consistent minimum wage across all restaurants, whether or not tips are involved.
For me, I am pro-fair wages, but this is always a difficult topic in hospitality, aggravated by America’s eye-swelling tipping culture—a WILD worldwide pariah that’s resilient, ferocious and tribal in its expectations.
To be clear, I loved tips and I support them. I always hoped for tables of generous tippers, and I always remembered the customers who did. (Law books are NOT cheap.) Yet, I never expected a tip, whereas in the US, there is a strong presumption or bias towards tipping that I find logically bankrupt.
Personally, I would rather pay more knowing the staff are paid fairly than bear the societal expectation of supplementing their wages. As a bartender, I wanted to be paid fairly and not roll the dice on each table’s whims.
Does this mean people would be taxed more? Probably. The issue is that hospitality workers need a fair, livable wage, and that will push costs back onto customers, but a steady, predictable salary is a far better thing.
Many countries don't have a tipping culture. My opinion is to keep tipping, just make it truly discretionary, as unpopular a view as that may be.
Also, if you’re interested, read Service Charge Shenanigans by Dan O'Regan.
Tell the French that the British are coming.
Nyetimber’s 2016 Blanc de Blancs won big with the 2025 Champion Sparkling Wine 2025 Daniel Thibault Trophy at the International Wine Challenge—the first sparkling wine outside of the Champagne region to win the prestigious taste testing.
The IWC judges commented that Nyetimber’s 100% Chardonnay sparkler was a…
“racy, pithy blanc de blanc that treads a fine line between restraint and generosity of flavour. A time capsule of a wine with mouthwatering acidity, flavours of citrus zest and camomile with a chalky finish.”
Many scoffed at the idea of English sparkling wine, while others quietly took note, like Taittinger, who bought land in Kent back in 2015 and just produced their first vintage.
Dubai readers should shuffle down to BOCA for a brisk swig of Nyetimber at very reasonable prices, vs what some other places that I won’t name charge.
Also, if you’re interested, here is Konstantin Baum’s video from just last week.
Great Substack Reads.
This article about White People Spicy in Vittles
Selling Wine to Restaurants by Robert Joseph—by the way, buy Georgian wine if you see it.
This long read with delightful photos from Burcu Basar, Reading Japan: From Hokkaido to Okinawa
If People Are Eating Healthier, What Does It Mean for Traditional Cuisines? By Charlie Brown
The Usuals.
You can find out more about me here, together with my Substack page.
Flick through my Dubai Restaurant Guide here.
Find weekend inspo in one of Dubai’s best breakfast spots.
Visit the best spots in Jumeirah Lakes Towers and Dubai Hills, two Dubai dining IYKYK hotspots IMO.
Some of world’s great dining spaces.
Liam is a restaurant critic, food and travel writer based in the Middle East. He owns EatGoSee and contributes to other publications. You can find Liam on Substack, Threads, Instagram, BlueSky or Facebook.
I liked seeing wee Liam! And props to Nyetimber -- we had the rose earlier this week, and it was lovely.