Something for the Weekend #20
Heading back to Dubai. North America’s Inaugural 50 Best List. Ruché: Piemonte’s Little Red Secret. This Week’s Great Substack Reads. So sit back & enjoy a little Something for the Weekend #20 .
The Italian Project.
I received quite a few messages of encouragement and interest about the Piemonte house renovations, so I will keep sharing.
The Italian Project is progressing in earnest from a pipe dream to an active construction site. There is currently 120 years’ worth of stuff piled high like a small hill under the fig tree in our front garden.
We have not thrown everything. We kept the antique furniture that we like tucked away, safe in a room.
I noticed that our demolition guys also reserved three items: an old set of skis for which they may have new ideas, a small statue of the Virgin Mary (this is Italy after all), and a warped brown wine bottle, a legacy from the time this old villa was the cooperative wine press for our frazione.
Many of the living room tiles were mercifully salvaged for restoration and future use. A fresco specialist came to inspect whether the frescoes inside an old study adjacent to the kitchen can be restored after decades of being painted over with what may have been the wrong kind of paint (it chips and may have damaged many of the frescoes).
Can we have a minute for a fresco specialist? Imagine having that job title on a business card.
Issues are already starting to emerge. Something that we discovered after pulling up the tiles in the living room. We wanted to lower the floor, but now we may actually need to raise it.
The new increased height creates practical issues. Our doors will no longer fit. Do we cut our vintage doors to make them shorter? Do we replace them with new ones? Do we create steps between rooms? What does this mean for the staircase?
We also discovered an enormous retaining wall in the sprawling back garden that NO ONE knew existed, as it was cloaked under overgrown brambles and hazelnut trees for God knows how long.
I will share more as we go along, but, for now, I am writing this on a flight back to Dubai from Milan Malpensa, trying to juggle a nearly two-year-old son with zero—repeat, ZERO—chill.
The North Americans are coming.
North America’s 50 Best Restaurants List was announced in Las Vegas earlier this week. This kick-off seemed to be a spark and not a firework, just based on the commentary I’ve read online or, more accurately, the lack of commentary. This also follows the 2024 World’s 50 Best Restaurants List also hosted in Las Vegas. Call it a Wynn Wynn situation.
Some expected and some unexpected results. Filed under expected, New York leads the list with 13 restaurants, including Le Bernadine at no 9 and North America’s no 1 restaurant, Atomix—a progressive Korean fine dining restaurant and stalwart on the World 50 Best Restaurants List currently at no 12.
In the unexpected… California pulled in a total of seven, which struck me as low, especially when Canada swooped in claiming a stonking 11 spots, including four of the top five and two in the top three, namely Mon Lapin at no 2 and Restaurant Pearl Morissette—the latter also received two Michelin stars earlier this month. Go Canada!
The Caribbean scrapes in. Just two restaurants are listed, including Buzo Osteria Italiana in Barbados at no 41. An Italian Osteria is implicitly the best restaurant in the Caribbean. As a West Indian, I roll my eyes that the Caribbean’s highest entry is an Italian restaurant and not a local one.
Is that an indication of what’s actually best in the Caribbean or just where the likely tourist voters spend their time? I will never know. Perhaps I’m being unduly cynical. Perhaps it’s quite good.
Other notable mentions. Singlethread at no 8 (California’s highest-ranked restaurant leagues above Atelier Crenn), which I’m told is nothing short of stellar (I’ve never been, but see Alexander the Guest’s video below). Detroit’s Ladder 4 earned the Resy One to Watch Award. Tanière 3 in Quebec won the Art of Hospitality Award. One Love Community Fridge, a non-profit in New York, won the Champions of Change Award.
With Asia, LATAM, MENA, and now North America with their own lists, it remains to be seen how this new entrant into the 50 Best brood will influence the overall World’s 50 Best Restaurants List.
I still believe that the benefit of the 50 Best List and The Best Chef Awards is that it affords a platform to restaurants that may never appear in a Michelin Guide or Gault & Millau because their markets may never purchase the publishing rights.
50 Best Lists and The Best Chef Awards are arguably more democratic, although certainly not free from fault or criticism. Let’s see the games begin as PR teams now kick into high gear to retain their clients’ places or climb further up.
Lastly, will we see expansion into other regions like Sub-Saharan Africa or even a dedicated Europe list?
Do we care?
If you are interested, you can read some commentary from me, Courtney Brandt and Pallavi Sangtani about the 2024 World’s 50 Best Restaurants List.
Writing.
I published a post earlier this week about Ruché: Piemonte’s Little Red Secret. I deep dived into this grape during this sojourn to Montemagno, as it is one of the DOC regions for Ruché.
If you’re interested, read Ruché: Piemonte’s Little Red Secret.
Great Substack Reads.
Courtney Brandt’s write-up about the last year working inside Trèsind Studio, the world’s first and only three Michelin-starred Indian restaurant.
Dan O'Regan’s experience mirrors my own: hire for attitude, train for skill.
The piece from Charlie Brown about How to Write Like Anthony Bourdain. I must listen to Kitchen Confidential on Audible about once a month. I still have a copy of Medium Raw that remains unread, would you believe? *blames everything else but himself*.
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.
Find me on Substack, Threads, Instagram, BlueSky or Facebook.
Liam is a restaurant critic, food and travel writer based in the Middle East. He owns EatGoSee and contributes to other publications.
Thank you for the shout(s)! And yes, I'm here for any and all Italian/remodel content -- it's fascinating that you two had a WHOLE WALL that was only now discovered. Looking forward to reading more of future finds on the property. Safe travels back to the UAE (and let's get you into Studio soon)!