Empty tables after Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks: — Les Bouquinistes has long been a favorite luxury restaurant of Paris visitors. Set on a quay along the Left Bank, founded by Guy Savoy, a three-Michelin-star chef, it offers a warm welcome, a contemporary setting, a creative menu, prices that are not stratospheric and drop-dead views of the Seine and Notre-Dame. But on a recent Thursday evening, this 50-seat food emporium was empty except for one couple at a table in front and a small group celebrating a birthday in a back room.
16 incredible dishes from the world’s best female chef: Chef Dominique Crenn of Atelier Crenn and Petit Crenn was recently named the world’s best female chef by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. The San Francisco restaurateur and chef is the only female chef in the United States to earn two Michelin stars. She is internationally renowned for her “poetic culinaria,” which means that she likes to tell a poetic story through food.
Overfishing puts $42bn tuna industry at risk of collapse: Overfishing is jeopardising a global tuna industry worth more than $42bn (£29bn), according to the first assessment of its kind. A report produced by the Pew Charitable Trusts has highlighted the significant revenues that fishermen, processors and retailers are generating from severely depleted species of tuna. Taken together, the seven most commercially important tuna species – skipjack, albacore, bigeye, yellowfin, atlantic bluefin, Pacific bluefin and southern bluefin – generated $12bn (£8bn) for fishermen in 2014, while the full value, including the total amount paid by the final consumer at supermarkets and restaurants around the world, was estimated to be $42bn (£29bn).
The story of Tom Aikens: For as long as I can remember – probably the age of 8 or so – my twin brother and I would help my mother out in the kitchen. She would involve us in making cakes and home baking, or just weighing things out – we were always on hand to help to lick out the occasional sticky raw cake mix that was left in the bottom of the bowl! I have a very real memory of her making milk bread. Sometimes I think it was just a dream as the smell was so incredible. Living in Norfolk we had a large back garden where we grew a lot of our own fruit and vegetables; so from an early age I understood a little about seasonality and that great produce does not grow all year around, but is very much predicted by the weather and season. We grew lots of soft fruits (strawberries, gooseberries, blackberries) for making jam although most often we wanted to see how much my twin and I could stuff into our faces without my mother seeing.
Two Men Indicted in French Laundry Wine Theft: Sixteen months after someone pried open the door of one of the world’s most famous restaurants, the French Laundry, and stole more than $300,000 worth of rare wines, the case has grown into a federal investigation involving three burglaries and money laundering across state lines. Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment on April 28 in San Francisco against two California men, accusing them of money laundering and transportation of stolen goods. Both men were arrested April 27 and have pleaded not guilty.
Inside Alinea 2.0: Look Around the Renovation and Details on New Dining Options: Fresh off its James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant, Nick Kokonas and Grant Achatz are revealing more details on Alinea 2.0. Chicago’s three-Michelin-starred institution is set to reopen in two-to-three weeks, Kokonas says, after closing on New Years Eve for a complete renovation and overhaul.
Michel Bras, the food revolutionary: I’ve heard that you should never meet your hero. I met mine, and I want to amend the rule: You should absolutely meet your hero, if you have the chance. Just don’t offer to make him breakfast. I have idolized Michel Bras for the better part of two decades. He is one of the most influential, forward-thinking chefs on earth, and from his restaurant overlooking Laguiole he changed the way all of us think about and present our ingredients. I’m fairly sure he didn’t set out to do this. He was just minding his own business on the top of a mountain—focusing on his land, and his food, like a culinary monk. He obsessed over and mastered vegetables, and then, drawing inspiration from his surroundings, he plated them in shockingly beautiful ways. His plates are abstract paintings: colorful dots and smears and dramatic lines of sauce; herbs deliberately scattered to look not-so-deliberately scattered.
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