Olive oil is a staple ingredient in Mediterranian cooking, and was once so plentiful in southern Italy that it was used to fuel street lamps. The olive tree has been harvested for its oil for millenia, and the product is integral to Greek, Italian, Turkish and Spanish recipes: around 2.5…

In Japan, the masters responsible for carving statues depicting buddhas and bodhisattvas are called Busshi. Through his documentary Carving the Divine, Yujiro Seki, a Japanese-born filmmaker, provides a deep dive into the lives of Busshi in contemporary Japan. Offering a rare and intimate look into the life and artistic process of…

We all have been waiting for bars and restaurants to open their outdoors, where we could sip wine and enjoy delicious meals. I’ve collected a list of my favourite places which are opening in April.

Italy’s cuisine is as varied as the terroir: from the Alps and Apennine Mountains to the sun-baked shores of Puglia, from the volcanic soil of Etna and Vesuvius to the northern Lakes and the hills of Tuscany, produce and ingredients follow the land. Still, the country has a staggering number of high quality products, which goes some way to showing the sheer biodiversity on offer within a single nation, formed of twenty incredibly different regions.

By Edoardo Celadon and Phoebe Hunt For those passionate about Italian cuisine, meeting Andrea Bezzecchi at his Balsamic Vinegar factory is similar to how meeting Michelangelo might feel for an artist. The man, the artisan, the location and the end products make Andrea one of the true custodians of the…

Recognized by the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera as “the writer of the decade”, Italian novelist and poet, Enrico “Erri” De Luca needs no introduction. I and dear friend photographer Martin d’Orgeval had the great pleasure to spend a moment in his presence, and absorb his musings around what…

With all the focus going on a few famous regions, and often overshadowed altogether by its French neighbours, the sheer variety of Italian wines is often overlooked. We talk to Monica Larner, an award-winning wine critic and writer who lives in Rome, about Italy’s fantastically diverse offering of wine. The…

By Phoebe Hunt There is perhaps no better way to tell the story of Italy’s culinary diversity than through pasta. Not only are there many hundreds of different shapes originating from the country’s 20 regions – often with multiple different names depending on where they’re being eaten – each pasta…

The original article is published in Más Raro Que magazine – The Gastronomy issue (Sep. 2020) There’s no one quite like him. For chef extraordinaire Bittor Arguinzoniz, food is religion and ingredients are sacred. He mastered the art of grilling any food, capturing the heat of the fire and honing…

Gaining a Michelin star, or three, isn’t simply a mark of excellence, it means your restaurant status goes automatically from a great choice to a must. We had the great pleasure to speak to Chris Watson, ex-Michelin Guide inspector, about the complexity of this rating system, the weight of allocating…