Conde Nast Traveller

I ARRIVE IN THE TINY VILLAGE AFTER A SIX-HOUR DRIVE PAST THE

SABRE-TOOTH PEAKS OF ONE OF THE WORLD’S HIGHEST ROAD PASSES

acutely at the Namgyal Tsemo Monastery, overlooking the city, where the only sound is the gentle fluttering of prayer flags in the breeze. Yet the new Ladakhi food movement spreads far beyond Leh. I arrive in Turtuk via an awe-inspiring six-hour drive along the Khardung La, one of the world’s highest road passes, with its sabre-tooth peaks and dubious road signs (“Life begins outside your comfort zone!”). A tiny village wedged between the Karakoram Range and the Himalayas, Turtuk was part of Pakistan until 1971, when the Indian Army captured it during a border skirmish. The aroma of wild mint fills the air and the laughter of children returning from school bounces off the mountains. Close by, the Shyok river that flows from Tibet to India and on to Pakistan babbles demurely. At the Turtuk Holiday Resort, where we’re staying for the night, owner Rashid Ullah Khan catches me gazing at the dandelion puffballs that dance through the air. “Locals say that they can carry one’s thoughts and dreams to loved ones over the border,” he says, wistfully. After working in Japan for years, Khan returned to Turtuk to launch the Balti Farm experience, a farm-to-table meal that showcases the cuisine of Baltistan – an erstwhile kingdom stretching across 29,000 square miles, now divided across two countries, whose borders are just a few miles away. WE FEAST ON NOODLES SERVED IN A HEARTY STEW OF POTATO, PEAS AND WILD HERBS AND A BRIGHT-AS-SUMMER SALAD Unlike the previous meals in Ladakh, our Balti feast is full of fresh herbs and vegetables – the result of the more temperate low-altitude climate here – plucked straight from the garden just before we eat. We feast on ba-leh, noodles served in a hearty stew of potato, peas and wild herbs; and chonmagramgrim, a bright-as-summer garden salad of tomatoes, apples, walnuts, apricot kernels, cucumber and dried cheese. “There are only 3,000 of us on this side of the border,” says Khan. “Baltistan was a small kingdom, our history doesn’t feature in any textbooks. If we don’t tell our stories, who will?” His words come back to me when we visit the old summer palace of the Yabgo dynasty, the rulers of erstwhile Baltistan. In a heartbreakingly beautiful mansion that lies in ruins, we meet the aging king Mohammad Khan Kacho, who points with his curved staff to snow-capped mountains in the distance. “Just beyond that mountain is Pakistan, where the rest of my family is. I’m in touch with them, but I cannot visit. India, Pakistan, the British – they don’t realise that we are all the same.We all experience joy, sadness and heartbreak the same way. Everything else is politics.” From Turtuk, we drive along the Nubra Valley, passing military transit camps and border villages of waving children. It is a dizzying landscape of sheer cliffs, dried-up river beds and wind-ravaged mountains that resemble the claws of some ancient, predatory creature. I’m grateful for Mehdi – our pink-cheeked driver, with a toothy smile – who safely From top left: contemporary cooking at Syah restaurant, Leh; villager in Turtuk. Opposite, clockwise from top: monks at Thiksey Monastery; notes at Alchi Kitchen; Kyagar hotel, Nubra Valley. Previous pages, jagged peaks at the edge of the Nubra Valley 102





transports us through the region. When I ask him how he feels about WHERE TO STAY the task at hand, he replies in a line that sums up life in Ladakh: “It is as beautiful as it is risky. In a flash, everything can change.” STOK PALACE HERITAGE HOTEL, LEH King Jigmed Namgyal and his family still live at this former palace, For now, though, hope is overriding caution. I feel it in Sumur, where where six frescoed suites have been restored. It’s also possible to Sahara-esque sand dunes carpet the vast valley.The new Kyagar boutique stay at Chulli Bagh – three minimalist cottages set amid apricot hotel has brought a sleek elegance to an area of wild beauty, where more trees – and dine at Prince Stanzin’s Willow Café, which uses kitchen and more visitors are riding the same double-humped Bactrian camels garden produce. Doubles from about £155; stokpalaceheritage.com that trudged the Silk Roads. I eat in the home of the cherubic-faced village head Rigzin Wangdus, where he and his bright-eyed wife JADE HOUSE, LEH Tsewang Spaldon serve up a Ladakhi feast in their cosy dining room. At this four-bedroom homestay, sisters Tsezin and Kunzes Angmo Wangdus has taken it upon himself to put his small town on the tourist organise everything from heritage walks through Leh’s old town map: he just launched its first bakery, supplying fancy breads to nearby to three-hour-long tasting menus. Artisanal Alchemy, the dining hotels. As we sit down, he shows us a booklet he put together filled with experience by Kunzes, can be hosted at Jade House or Stok Palace, information on the area that he says is the first of its kind in English. from about £50 for two. Doubles from about £55; thejadehouse.in From their intricately carved thap comes soupy mok mok, the chunky LADAKH SARAI, SABOO Ladakhi take on Tibetan dumplings, stuffed with spiced lamb mince; In the shadows of the Stok Kangri range, a 10-minute ride from Leh, paba, chubby barley and wheat flatbreads; tsamik, a refreshing this expansive retreat has plush beds and balconies to take in the yogurt dip embellished with radish leaves and dried herbs; and skyu, a views. Inspired by old caravanserai, it’s a space where travellers swap one-bowl meal of handmade, orecchiette-like pasta in a milk sauce. stories round the bonfire. Doubles from about £100; ladakhsarai.com Having previously offered rooms to stay, the pair only recently KYAGAR, SUMUR opened up their home kitchen to serve meals. “We felt we weren’t giving A series of smart solar-powered cottages overlooking the snow- capped peaks of the Nubra Valley, this new hotel has a certain AFTER DAYBREAK PRAYERS AT safari sensibility. Owners Rinchen Kalon and her husband Stanzin THE MONASTERY, MONKS IN Gurmet honour their ancestral land by serving locally sourced TRAINING POUR BUTTER TEA AND HAND OUT SOFT BUNS food. Doubles from about £145; @thekyagar tourists a complete experience of the place without our food. If they TURTUK HOLIDAY RESORT, TURTUK really want to know about our lives, they have to eat with us,” says After a long ride through the Nubra Valley, the garden of peach Wangdus, as he points out the apple, walnut and wild jasmine trees in trees and marigolds here feels like a dream. The modest tented his garden. They aren’t fruiting yet, but when tourist season begins, rooms are the best accommodation in the region, and the Balti Farm they’ll be ripe for the picking – before the harsh landscape turns powder dining experience is a standout. Doubles from about £120; turtuk.com white and the river freezes over again; when locals will preserve food over brutal winters. WHERE TO EAT Back in Leh, on our last morning, we head up to Thiksey Monastery, NAMZA DINING, LEH to catch the prayers at daybreak. As the sun comes up from behind the In a farmhouse-style space, Namza Dining celebrates traditional mountains, prayer horns bellow and young monks begin to chant. The recipes, including drapu dumplings with ground walnuts, apricot atmosphere is electric as the priests pray for all the lost souls; for good to triumph over evil. As the chorus winds down, monks in training pour kernels and spices, and local ingredients, many from its own butter tea and hand out soft buns to priests and visitors. I say a small farm. About £55 for two; @namzadining invocation, dip my bun into the warming tea and realise to my surprise that my cheeks, like those of many around me, are wet with tears. SYAH, LEH This elegant farm-to-table restaurant serves the region’s most Brushing them away, I spy, in a corner of the quiet hall, a young creative take on Ladakhi food. Ex-New Delhi chef Pankaj Sharma monk licking his bowl to mop up the last bits of gooey bread and butter. buries vegetables as part of an ancient preservation technique His eyes dart across the room to make sure no one spots him, before and brews soup in a coffee siphon. About £22 for two; @syahladakh finally landing on me. He flashes me a sheepish smile and returns to his prayers. I ponder that in this old land at the crossroads of a new era, TSAS, LEH locals, tourists and everyone touched by Ladakh’s light is hungry: for Another New Delhi returnee, Rigzin Lachic launched this cool salvation, success and, most importantly, a story – to make sense of plant-based restaurant with chef Dhruv Nijhawan, giving tradition a something deep within. We all have a hunger, but the Ladakhis have it modern twist in dishes such as sea-buckthorn semifreddo with in their bones. For them, the thap is where it all begins. berry and aquafaba shards. About £25 for two; @tsas.ladakh Opposite, clockwise from top left: Thiksey Monastery; colourful vegetarian dishes at Tsas in Leh; Ladakh Sarai; dining room at Tsas ALCHI KITCHEN, ALCHI Outside a 1,000-year-old complex of whitewashed monasteries, the thap in Nilza Wangmo’s restaurant has become almost a place of worship. The menu changes daily, with a welcoming team serving regional dishes. About £12 for two; @alchikitchen 105

R cl bounty AFTER A CENTURY OF UNREST, ALBANIA’S WELCOME REMAINS UNDIMMED AS REFUGEES RETURN TO PIECE ITS NATIONAL IDENTITY BACK TOGETHER ONE DISH AT A TIME. BY STEPHANIE RAFANELLI PHOTOGRAPHS BY JENNY ZARINS



Clockwise from top left: shepherd, Corraj village; sea bass on the grill and the plate, and cheese at Mystic Rose; flowers at Mrizi i Zanave Agroturizëm; Zoe Hora hotel; Mrizi i Zanave dining room; where the Adriatic meets the Ionian sea; Bledar Kola, Mullixhiu. Opposite, Diella Loshi at Mystic Rose. Previous pages, from left: wild flowers on the road from Gjirokastër; lunch at Mrizi i Zanave

As i stroll the rainbow-painted Soviet Albania,” chuckles Tani Duka, an architect with droll, wolver- blocks of Tirana, Gjergj invites me home ine eyes who walks me around the Blloku quarter, the former for lunch. A pensioner in a tweed cap, with residential district of the Politburo that’s become a foodie a face as smooth and readable as olive enclave clattering with plates and confidence. Nearby, at wood, he leaves his game of backgammon Gzona, 28-year-old Bleri Dervishi, a dimpled chemist-chef, on a bench beneath the furry talons of formerly of three-Michelin-starred Azurmendi, masterminds Lebanese cedars when he sees me. “I seasonal “memory” dishes of the homeland. Having fled to found you,” he quietly declares, insisting that his wife has Italy by rubber dinghy at the age of four, he’s now kerpow- already set the table. Soon I am seated before a starched ing crab-apple pectin into chewing gum in his lab, chalking tablecloth laden with tart mountain cheeses, glistening up new formulas to crack the nation’s first Michelin star. pickles, rosemary-spiked lamb and pomegranates. It took those who left Albania as child migrants, working Despite a century of deep national trauma, Albanians up through the kitchen hierarchies of Europe from plate still abide by besa – the ancient code of honour – to washers to head chefs, to recognise its sustainable farm-to- embrace all strangers as missing family. After Mussolini invaded his table potential; by default, a nation of Adriatic neighbour only 27 years subsistence farmers, artisanal family into Albania’s independence (after producers and foraged bounty. At more than four centuries of Ottoman Pazari i Ri market, women with calves rule), European and Albanian Jews carved by steep inclines sit at stalls were sheltered in the mountains by stacked with honey, like jars of stolen Muslims and Catholic villagers like morning light. Wild gentian and çaj Gjergj’s father; guarded by summits mali mountain teas are neatly weighed as fierce as eagles’ wings. “None were out in bundles; loam-scented tables ever lost,” Gjergj tells me in Italian – heaped with okra, persimmon, figs and his own language is a barbed wire of quince. Beyond Tirana’s rumpled Dajti Gjs, Xhs, Shs and Njs, on which Latin, mountains is the rest of Albania, Greek and Turkish words snag. resounding with the fairy music of free- roaming flocks. Here a stocky build and For the crime of hailing from hooves are still more useful than unbreakable Catholic stock, Gjergj wheels: with the isolationist regime, was later imprisoned under Enver civilian cars and access to 280 miles of Hoxha’s post-war Stalinist regime – wild coastline were strictly forbidden. a nightmarish exaltation of Tito’s When Hoxha’s allegiance switched to neighbouring Yugoslavia that kept Maoist China at the height of the Cold the nation under surveillance, War, underground nuclear bunkers hermetically sealed and agrarian for were built instead of roads. the remainder of the 20th century. Then in 1997 came civil war; when the After communism, confiscated new democratic government lost cooperative land was re-apportioned the people’s money, depots of old in tiny parcels; gardens like craft Russian and Chinese Kalashnikovs patchworks, hand-sewn together by were raided and Albanians fled, the new refugees of Europe. wattle. “There’s a family behind every The past is behind them now, but not forgotten – as engraved ingredient I use, and I know them all by their first names. I on minds as the nation’s summits are with goat tracks. Behind get really emotional about that,” says Bledar Kola, alumnus every smile is a story – many worthy of a Netflix deal – and of Le Gavroche, Fäviken and Noma, who gifts bottles of an invitation to hear it over home-grown food and raki, wine to people queuing outside Mullixhiu, his restaurant twice-distilled from garden vines – the most judgement- in the Grand Park of Tirana. Fitted out like an alpine hut, it melting, heart-expanding liquid form of generosity. is the perfect spartan stage for his minimalist revival of the northern highlands’ cucina povera, using ancient fermenta- It is in the mosaics of eastern and southern Mediterranean tion techniques, foraged fruits and medicinal plants such as dishes that Albanians are reassembling their broken iden- purslane and burdock. tity after a generation in recovery – slowly marinating a new Kola fled Albania at the age of 15, first by speedboat sense of pride in their Arcadian nation, now on the brink of to Italy, then as a stowaway to England, clinging perilously to EU membership. “We’re like the Italians, food is central to the chassis of a truck, at one point getting dragged along the our psyche, yet no one’s heard of Albanian cuisine – or even asphalt. “In London, I had to say I was Italian to get work,” 109

he says. “Otherwise, it was ‘But don’t you Albanians all steal and glacial fortresses. Cow herds dither before us, their bells cars?’ I felt I was betraying my country.” Now he proudly momentarily picking up to trotting tempo. delivers Albanian history lessons in eight courses, unearthed national heroes served at desk-like bakers’ tables. After a A lone cloud rests like a volcano plume on the hillside as palate cleanser of Cornelian cherry juice – a glass of cloudy we pass through Fishtë to Mrizi i Zanave Agroturizëm, papal mauve – comes trahana, a savoury porridge, and dromsa, dedicated to Gjergj Fishta, beloved early-20th-century friar Balkan pici pasta still served in Arbëresh communities in and national poet. Its owners, brothers Altin and Anton Calabria. At the end, there’s boza, the Ottoman fermented Prenga, started Albania’s Slow Food foundation in part to cereal-based drink – at once creamy, fizzy, sweet and sour. protect endangered ingredients such as mountain-dried After hours, Kola pulls out a label-less bottle made from mishavinë cheese, then made by only three families in tribal Shesh grapes, the fruit of Albania’s ancient viticulture revival, Kelmend.The brothers worked in kitchens in Italy for 11 years as weighty as a Piedmontese red and palpably alive. When before, in 2006, returning to the home they fled as children; I leave, the stars above the Dajti mountains look bloated they recall men waving Kalashnikovs in their grandfather’s and seem to blur with meteorite tails. fields, and still find bullet cases in the vineyards. They built a restaurant rock by rock – a temple to heirloom produce, My head is mysteriously clear when I leave the which now supports more than 400 families; its incense, next morning to drive north to Lezhë province, rosemary-infused woodsmoke from the outdoor oven strung the epicentre of the new food movement, with with rosaries of drying chillies. “The most fantastic food Kreshnik Topollaj, a chatty Bektashi Muslim comes from people looking after three cows and 10 fruit trees,” who wears a felt qeleshe hat (“half of a cosmic egg”), tilted says Altin, a 40-year-old as flushed as a Cox apple by outdoor on his head with the steez of a rapper. As he talks, the clouds work and evangelical zeal. In 2016, they restored the derelict dissipate to a faint flock of geese on the horizon. Outside a cottage they were born in: “It was like piecing together our boy sells rabbits from the back of his car. Fields are flecked identities again. You have to be proud to be a farmer.” with yellow goldenrod; branches offer pomegranates like the arms of expert jugglers. The drive can be slow, even on A path marked by wild cyclamen leads to a series of this main road to Lake Shkodër on the Kosovan border. The barns that once housed political prisoners. “Our food Dinaric Alps loom overhead; toppling stacks of rock daggers culture was destroyed by communism; people ate square white bread, square white cheese… In Hoxha’s day this 110 would have been like growing hashish,” he says, laughing,

Clockwise from far left: sunset, Dhërmi old town; local from Zadrima in traditional clothes; making bread, and lunch at Mystic Rose; musicians at Mrizi i Zanave; reeds at Lezhë lagoon; dish of trahana at Agroturizëm Gjepali; on the road between Fishtë and Lezhë; Agroturizëm Gjepali’s dining room; rose-petal water, Mrizi i Zanave





Clockwise from top left: staff at Rapsodia restaurant; pita chicken at Mystic Rose; goats, Nivica; cheese at Mrizi i Zanave; Camp Nivica; Hotel Kalemi 2, Gjirokastër; Llogara Pass; goat’s cheese, pâté and herb cream at Mrizi i Zanave; locals in Lezhë. Opposite, from left: Mullixhiu restaurant; Camp Nivica; garlic at Pazari i Ri Market, Tirana; chef Alfred Marku at Rapsodia; espresso time. Previous pages, from left: lunch in Nivica village; sea view, Llogara Pass

sliding back an iron door to the smoke room, where beef a night in jail. Octopus and wild fennel scented his perilous torsos hang before a wood stove. In another barn, shelves of moonlit speedboat journey to Trentino where, at 15, he cheeses are catalogued with the care of museum artefacts. camped in abandoned houses. Chestnut semifreddo sweetens Villagers in long black socks nobly push wheelbarrows of his ascent to accomplished Italian chef, with a triumphant produce like artists delivering their latest commission. after-rush of oregano. The next morning, we drive towards Patok Lagoon, where T he next day, I gaze out to the flats of Bari from the fishermen throw out nets before stilted huts and flamingos Cape of Rodon; the white of the waves now harmless, limber up in the water’s reflection. At Mystic Rose, a local as if peacefully applied by putty knife on an Adriatic- institution on the water’s edge, we lunch on flia – crêpes with blue canvas. We follow the coastline south to fermented cream, cooked in a wok-like iron saç in the ashes Northern Epirus: a vision of terraced citrus groves and of a hearth, stoked by men lit like the subjects of an Old Master Kalinjot olives with the open crowns of laurel wreaths. Here, painting. “The more sacrifice in making the dish, the more the Adriatic gives way to the Ionian and the Albanian hospitality it conveys,” says Diella Loshi, a gap-toothed Sophia Riviera starts its ascent to Corfu – a rocky shoreline of Loren in her 60s, who camped in the woods here in the 1990s umbrella pines, shingled coves and sunlit bream-y waters, before building a home and opening a restaurant in her living where locals speak an archaic Greek dialect and roll vine room. She brings out plates of sea bass – blackened and leaves into vinegary cigars. We spend the day on Dhërmi heavy as pewter trays – and mounds of prawns the size of beach, until the afternoon bleaches out like a vintage fists. “Chinese officials went crazy when they came here,” Polaroid. Then we head out to explore – the menthol of pines she laughs. Under communism shellfish, considered “insects”, our smelling salts – stumbling along makeshift paths that were fed to the pigs – along with plump Albanian oysters, sprout with wild saffron, crunching over the red-spined fruit rotten black potatoes (truffles) and toadstools (porcini). of strawberry trees to secret coves, where locals spearfish and dive for sea urchins. We prise one open and pick out the At Rapsodia in coastal Shëngjin, Alfred Marku – a charm- spongy tongues from inside; little mouthfuls of ocean, zinc-y ing beardy man, stocky as an olive trunk – constructs delicate and sweet. The fiercest shells protect the softest of hearts. mezze of seafood with wild chicory and sambuca flowers. His stories are as seasoned and well paced as his plates. As FOR MORE ON ALBANIA TURN OVERLEAF  a 14-year-old fleeing civil war, he crossed the Greek border on foot and was greeted with a police gun to the head and 115

This page, pool at Hoteli i Gjuetisë, Lezhë. Opposite, portraits on display in a bunker, Tirana sunlit ci ars

TIRANA occupied by 10th-generation Bektashi dynasties, who lounge around 17th-century fireplaces and eat pickled aubergines while It’s not just the food scene that won Tirana the title of European seated on sheepskin rugs. Doubles from about £40; oldbazaar.al Youth Capital 2022. After the 2019 earthquake, the EU invested PERMET more than £34 million in restoring Albania’s cultural heritage, including the capital’s Soviet-style architecture. Hoxha’s The route to Përmet is flanked by the Vjosë, one of Europe’s last wild rivers, a paintbrush streak of watercolour blue mausoleum, a brutalist pyramid with the heroic lines of Agitprop posters, is currently cloaked in scaffolding, and his villa – a through the lush green of the landscape. Most visitors come here to hike in Albania’s largest national park, knitted with Hotova modernist royal palace in tropical gardens in Blloku – is set to be a firs. Saint Mary’s Church of Leusë sits shrouded in walnut cultural centre. There are bunkers repurposed as galleries, a woods on the edge of a ravine, while a mediaeval Ottoman coffee culture that’s long been on the bubble and posterity- bridge stands over ancient geothermal baths. shaking bars such as Komitet, Hemingway and Radio. STAY Fundim Gjepali has reclaimed his grandfather Elez’s STAY A restored 19th-century merchant’s mansion, Villa Permet confiscated pre-WWII farm – once an idyll of oxen-ploughed has rooms with wooden floors and fireplaces, while hyper-local fields and birdsong that existed only as a lost paradise in the food and cooking lessons nod to the region’s rich culinary history. minds of subsequent generations – to create Agroturizëm Doubles from about £45; villapermet.com Gjepali, in the Durrës wine region near Tirana airport. Both head chef of Rome’s Antico Arco and NIVICA Tirana’s Padam Boutique Hotel and Restaurant, Gjepali opened Few but the most serious this Tuscan-style restaurant with alpinists reach Nivica canyon – one of the longest in Europe – in rooms in 2019, championing the little-explored Kurvelesh tribal Albania’s robust reds on six acres. region of pitted rock and dense woodland. Asphalt roads have Doubles from about £60; only just been built. In his coltish agroturizemgjepali.com days, a mounted Lord Byron tallied here, seduced by the THE RIVIERA 70-year-old vizier Ali Pasha, who fed him sweetmeats. Today, After the demise of communism wild Balkan horses jump barbed- in 1991, travellers whispered wire fences left behind from World War I; pensioners pass by carrying about these shores being Europe’s lambs by their hind legs, and the last wild beaches in the same hillside turns infinite shades of lilac hushed tones as had previously when the saffron flowers bloom. been used for post-peace STAY Camp Nivica might look like an African safari camp – its Swedish Cambodia. In the 2010s, Italian owner spent her childhood travelling and Balkan tourists followed the the continent – except the roofs first wave of intrepid campervans. of the stilted tents were thatched Now there are plans for a new by Roma and teeter over Nivica canyon, an almighty primordial airport and riviera tunnel, and split in the earth inhabited by rare bars from the capital’s cool Blloku Egyptian vultures and misted by waterfalls. Ex-military man Vilson neighbourhood hold regular Haldeda leads hikes along 40 miles of newly connected Roman pop-ups at the resorts. It’s a short and Ottoman tracks. Donika Zana from the village, whose skill set boat ride or a pleasant hike through includes slaughtering sheep and singing like a haunting angel, roasts lamb in a milk churn buried in the campfire beneath a umbrella pines to Gjipe beach. glittering halo of stars. Doubles from about £215; campnivica.com STAY A mountain hamlet with a HOW TO GET HERE blue Orthodox dome and zig-zagging cobbled streets that Drive Albania offers a five-night North Albania Gastronomic Tour from about £850 per person, including one night each in require goat legs to climb, Dhërmi village was founded by Hotel Dinasty Tirana and Agroturizëm Gjepali and three nights 17th-century Greek colonies. Today, a wolf-like Akita dog leads in restored Thirties hunting lodge Hoteli i Gjuetisë, plus meals, guests to the gorgeously restored stone cottages, archways and infinity pool of Zoe Hora – the riviera’s first genuine luxury hotel, cookery classes and wine and raki tastings. Excludes flights. part of a government initiative to revitalise 100 Albanian villages. drivealbania.tours Doubles POA; @zoe.hora GJIROKASTER AND BERAT Ottoman fortresses sit like hefty crowns on peaks above the UNESCO-protected towns of Berat and Gjirokastër; the castle walls of the former are still partly inhabited. The latter is a bazaar town on a hillside of preserved mansions, like stacked cherry- wood music boxes that resound at call to prayer. Some are still 117



PHOTOGRAPHS: ADRIAN LANDER; TOM ROSS. ARCHITECT: PETER FREDERICK COLE SPINNING PLATES FRESHLY REWIRED AFTER A PROLONGED LOCKDOWN, MELBOURNE’S RESTAURANT SCENE IS NOW MORE DYNAMIC AND MULTIFACETED THAN EVER, SAYS VETERAN FOOD WRITER PAT NOURSE



PHOTOGRAPHS: LAUREN BAMFORD; ANNIKA KAFCALOUDIS; MARK ROPER; BONNIE SAVAGE/SMITH AND T H E C I T Y ’ S F O O D S T O RY goes back more than 40,000 years.The five DAUGHTERS: A COOKBOOK BY SHANNON MARTINEZ AND MO WYSE (HARDIE GRANT); ALEX SQUADRITO peoples of the Kulin Nation fished for whiting and snapper, farmed and smoked eels, hunted kangaroos and ducks. They gathered oysters and mussels and yam daisies here for millennia around a place they called Naarm, and on the banks of the Birrarung, the river known in English as the Yarra. So Melbourne’s status as the food capital of Australia is a tiny, recent blip on a vast timeline. Sydney, founded in 1788, is the older of the two biggest Australian metropolises by nearly half a century, but Melbourne’s growth and wealth were supercharged by the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s. That boom brought fine stone buildings and waves of migrants, including the Cantonese prospectors who founded Chinatown on Little Bourke Street, the longest continuous Chinese settlement in the Western world. Melbourne’s most singular characteristic is the depth and breadth of its culinary culture, which has nurtured a fast-moving restaurant scene. This owes everything to its émigrés – Greeks and Italians, Vietnamese and Lebanese, Ethiopians and Chinese. In one restaurant it can feel like Borneo, or Shanxi province, or a port city in northern Vietnam. I like Melbourne’s moody, less obviously Australian landscape of ports and cranes and warehouses; its smooth interiors and directional fashion. It is a serious, ideas-led city that enjoys the theatre of repurposing the post-industrial and brownfield, prizing assuming, interstitial spots as possibilities for new, cool spaces. Melbourne fetishises the rooftop, the laneway and the basement. It’s common to find a thriving Thai noodle business in a multi-storey car park, or a craft micro-bakery collocated with a panel-beater. Its food institutions produce offshoots, side hustles, mash-ups and collaborations in the oddest of places. Covid-19 has had a remarkable effect on Australia’s food capital. During the crushingly long, fallow pan- demic period – no Australian city was more of a closed shop than Melbourne, which clocked up 263 days of Above, vegan Mexican recipes from Smith and Daughters’ cookbook. Opposite, clockwise from top left: duck and rhubarb dish at Anchovy; Public Wine Shop; Smith St Bistrot; the neighbourhood of Collingwood. Previous pages, from left: Lillian Terrace; Hope St Radio 121

lockdown between March 2020 and October 2021 – ideas furiously percolated. The city has suffered many PHOTOGRAPHS: ANNIKA KAFCALOUDIS; ADRIAN LANDER; JO MCGANN; privations, and the toll was hard on staff losses, supplies and nerves. But miraculously, almost in the face of ALEX SQUADRITO; MIKKEL VANG/TAVERNE; HARVARD WANG reason, Melbourne’s dining and drinking scene has emerged from Covid newly electrified. The pandemic has opened up space for smaller, independent creatives to find a foothold, whether that’s a pop-up, or just-afford- able rent somewhere previously out of reach. That has always been the joy of this city – an affordability that makes room for an agile creativity when it comes to new food projects – but the pandemic has allowed an even deeper blossoming of this spirit. There are fewer barriers to entry in the restaurant scene than in the UK or the USA, argues Boris Portnoy, a Russian-American who arrived in Melbourne via Mugaritz in the Basque Country and Meadowood in Napa. His wine bar, Gray and Gray Bread and Wine, serves Georgian, Catalan and Victorian wines alongside a menu loaded with smoked and pickled things: blue fenugreek and green plum; potatoes, lovage and rye. “You can open up a small place on a shoestring budget, because liquor licences are cheap. It is not somewhere like San Francisco, where you need serious backing, which means you cannot take creative chances and things are formulaic. Here, it doesn’t have to be a bistro, and it doesn’t have to be Eurocentric.” I am deeply enjoying this new hotbed of creativity, where young guns such as John Rivera are turning their hands to thrilling microprojects. His Kariton Sorbetes, a Filipino gelato shop, churns out purple yam and cala- mansi flavours alongside a remarkable champorado, combining chocolate, wild rice, caramel and fish sauce. Dennis Yong has opened Parcs, a restaurant that upcycles other restaurants’ food waste into dishes such as a miso-driven take on cacio e pepe. Then there’s the best, more-ishly sweet full stop or breakfast indulgence: Monforte Viennoiserie, a tiny hatch on the street in Carlton North. Here, Giorgia McAllister Forte sells deli- cious leatherwood honey and sea-salt croissants. Melburnian chefs and restaurateurs are free to take on the mantle of creative visionaries in the realm because they can – and the time for dipping in and tasting is now. Above from left: seafood feast; neon lighting at Yakimono. Opposite, clockwise from top left: vegetarian sushi at Minamishima; cocktails and sea-urchin snack at Gimlet; Smith St Bistro; wood-fired spring greens, seating and Hannah Green and Rosheen Kaul of Etta; Lillian Terrace 122





PHOTOGRAPHS: SHARYN CAIRNS; MICHAEL GARDENIA; JILL HAAPANIEMI; ANNIKA KAFCALOUDIS; THE FIRST NATIONS CHEF JULIAN KINGMA; ADRIAN LANDER; JO MCGANN; KRISTOFFER PAULSEN; ALEX SQUADRITO Nornie Bero is the person doing most to champion indigenous food in Victoria.A Komet woman from Mer, an island in the Torres Strait, Bero pinned her heritage to the plate at the hit suburban café Mabu Mabu. Her new restaurant Big Esso, in the heart of the city at Federation Square, introduces the wider world to ingredients such as quandong fruits, bunya nuts and kangaroo tails. Sharing plates include coconut-cured namas kingfish and corned-beef croquettes. Tart Davidson plum adds a tangy note to house sodas, while alcohol-free pilsners are flavoured with lemon aspen. VIETNAMESE INFLUENCERS Among Melbourne’s most talked-about up-and-comers is Khanh Nguyen. The Noma alumnus cross referenced South- east Asian and Australian ingredients at Sunda, and has come into his own with Aru, which he opened in 2021. A play on bò lá lot includes beef tongue seasoned with native pepper- berry, grilled and served on a betel leaf. His bánh mì layers pork, pâté, bún chà and a jelly made of Maggi Seasoning in a shortcrust pastry. Vietnamese-influenced happenings are afoot in Richmond, too, and these could be the most appeal- ing openings.At Anchovy, chef Thi Le lays pretty slices of giò thu – pig’s-head terrine – over slivers of bamboo shoot before spooning on chilli crisp, and dresses a salad of heirloom courgette and green chilli with fig-leaf oil. At Le’s new bánh mì shop Ca Com, terrines, house pastrami and juicy slices of coal-grilled suckling pig are packed into airy baguettes. AT THE TOP END The starry old guard has not been in hibernation. Ben Shewry’s Attica, Australia’s highest-profile restaurant, still rules the roost. In the depths of 2020, Shewry spray-painted “Never Give Up” on the wall. Attica is joined in the top tier by glamorous sushi bar Minamishima and Vue de Monde, a fine-dining establishment on the 55th floor of the Rialto Tower, led by 27-year-old Noma-trained chef Hugh Allen. Amid the worst throes of on-again-off-again lockdowns, Melbourne welcomed a slew of openings from its biggest names. Gimlet is a swerve into mid-century classicism from local Andrew McConnell that is reminiscent of The Wolseley in London. Di Stasio Pizzeria brings the art of pizza scoffing upmarket, with art by Reko Rennie on the walls. The Australian Centre for the Moving Image has opened Hero by veteran chef Karen Martini. Silken fazzoletti pasta with funghi and confit egg yolk is served against the striking backdrop of Christina Zimpel’s broad-brush portraits of Nick Cave, David Gulpilil and Kylie Minogue. Melbourne’s most prolific restaurateur is Chris Lucas, and he launched four new projects: modern Japanese Yakimono; bistro Lillian Terrace; upscale steakhouse Grill Americano; and Society, which is a bid for timeless sophistication akin to a Clockwise from top: Public Wine Shop; chef Khanh Nguyen; graffiti on Hosier Lane; Lillian Terrace; vanilla sponge, quince and kulfi malai at Manzé. Opposite, clockwise from top left: Nornie Bero; pastries, and hatch at Monforte Viennoiserie; cocktail, and dining room at Gimlet; cheese plate at Smith St Bistrot



PHOTOGRAPHS: PETE DILLON/BROADSHEET; JULIAN classic hotel. Chef Scott Pickett has been similarly busy, OUT OF TOWN KINGMA; BENEDETTA MARTINI; KRISTOFFER PAULSEN opening the upmarket Chancery Lane, a laid-back option at Smith St Bistrot, and reviving a beachside landmark at The Many of Melbourne’s best restaurants aren’t quite in Melbourne. Continental Sorrento. An hour or so on the road or train opens up dozens more options THE NEXT GENERATION TEDESCA OSTERIA MORNINGTON PENINSULA These boldface names are now joined by a constellation of Brigitte Hafner’s dream was to transport her big-city cooking skills to a ambitious newer players, many of whom are the most inter- pretty weatherboard house on 27 acres, and pour them into a restaurant- esting of them all. Exploring this milieu will take you across town, from the black-garlic macarons laden with salmon roe with-rooms that hews closely to the experience of weekending at a at Navi in the west to the earthy shiitake fudge at Amaru in friend’s. Lunch glides from tagliatelle with mussels, courgette and lemon the east. The best are Helly Raichura’s inventive and luxuri- to a grilled dry-aged porterhouse with horseradish grown down the road, ous regional Indian dégustations at Enter Via Laundry; Shannon Martinez’s vegan cooking at Smith and Daughters; and the sweet finish of peach frangipane tart with Chantilly cream. the make-everything-from-scratch magic of Brianna Smith About £190 for two; tedesca.com.au and Oliver Edwards at Hazel; and the similar approach taken in a Korean key by Jung Eun Chae at Chae. BRAE BIRREGURRA THE RETURN OF THE WINE BAR This restaurant unites chef Dan Hunter’s years of experience at Basque culinary powerhouse Mugaritz with a deep feel for the Victorian Wine bars are as much a part of the culinary vanguard as top- dollar tasting-menu venues: a lot of the most exciting food in countryside. Snacks include eel and pork jowl grilled over coals on a twig Melbourne is found in places that are as much about drinking of olive wood, and the chef not only mills the flour for his home-baked as eating. Nagesh Seethiah challenges the flavours of Mauritius bread, but grows the wheat too. About £370 for two; braerestaurant.com at his natural wine bar Manzé. Masala lamb with sorrel is sharpened with a gentle tomato and ginger broth brimming IGNI GEELONG with okra and choko. Ross Magnaye’s Serai pairs natural wines with wood-fired Filipino food, such as fried scallop It would be easy to walk straight past unprepossessing Igni on a laneway with crab-fat sauce on a pandesal bun. At Hope St Radio, in the port city of Geelong. Such understatement puts the focus on what where dancing happens after dessert, Ellie Bouhadana scat- chef Aaron Ward cooks in the open kitchen and the care with which his ters figs with the flowers of wild oregano and dresses lamb team manages the floor. Transportive seasonal pleasures include lamb carpaccio with green chilli and Tropea onions. At Public Wine with broad beans and mustard. About £230 for two; restaurantigni.com Shop, which is squeezed into a space the size of a bedsit, Ali Currey-Voumard produces such wonders as poached mullet BAR MERENDA DAYLESFORD with aïoli and a fine chilled grape and cherry tart. Next door in Brunswick East, at Etta, chef Rosheen Kaul grills pork Good wine-bar action is not confined to the city. To accompany rib over a wood fire and serves it with oyster cream and baby the 500-bottle wine list, a blackboard menu points to small plates by turnips in a punchy, kimchi-like chilli dressing. local producers, whether a pork and pistachio terrine or spring From above: plating up at Igni; dining room at Brae; shiitake greens scattered with soft cheese and lovage. About £45 for two; with turnip and greens at Igni. Opposite, clockwise from top left: barmerenda.com.au cake pit stop; Underbar ice-cream sandwich; city skyline; beetroot roasted in redgum at Igni; café culture, Collingwood DU FERMIER TRENTHAM Landing a table at Du Fermier is not the easiest thing to do. But Annie Smithers’ food (and maître d’ Bronwyn Kabboord’s cosy service) warms the soul – not least the confit duck leg and duck breast stuffed with Armagnac prunes. About £130 for two; anniesmithers.com.au UNDERBAR BALLARAT Chef Derek Boath, who cut his teeth at Per Se in New York, is an army of one here, feeding 16 guests per sitting. His instant-classic dishes include calamari from the bay, poached in butter, teamed with summer peas, dressed with buttermilk and garnished with fennel, rocket and mustard flowers. About £200 for two; underbar.com.au 127



THE GLOBETROTTER JOHN BOYEGA MADE FAMOUS BY THE ‘STAR WARS’ FILMS, THE BRITISH-NIGERIAN ACTOR LOVES CITY SKYLINES AND FINDING SWEETS IN THE MINIBAR, AND NEXT APPEARS IN AN EPIC HISTORICAL DRAMA SET IN WEST AFRICA Where have you just come back from? Describe your favourite view kids. Nigeria is always a bustling, beautiful “Cape Town. It’s where we filmed The Woman “I love city skylines. I grew up in a tower block, chaos, and as I was running with my mates, King, and I love its energy; the mix of modern so the skyline felt like the only luxurious thing I fell into the mainstream gutter, along with life and this backdrop of nature, with Lion’s about where I was at the time. I love looking the nation’s faeces. I felt like a bag of maggots.” Head mountain, Table Mountain and the out over a city during the summer, when you ocean. I loved the fact that I could eat oysters get the mixture of greenery and sunset, but Tell us about a great little place you know and watch the sun set, but I could also eat I also love the views of the ocean in the “Koh Rong island in Cambodia. Great grilled meat and sweet bread with the com- Caribbean or Cuba.” views, right next to blue waters, lovely corals, munity in a shanty town; and go parasailing or great local restaurants and food. It’s not horse riding in between.” What do you pack first? built up, and the locals aren’t fighting “My PlayStation 4. It has to come, regardless against restaurant chains. I love the peaceful, Where in the world have you felt happiest? of where I am. I need to be able to do the stuff tranquil vibe of it.” “In Ocho Rios, Jamaica. I’d been to Kingston I normally do at home, even if I then have the before, but I wanted somewhere calm and option to go for a run on a beach after.” And the smartest hotel you’ve stayed in? rural to rewire between movies. I was able to “I stopped staying in hotels years ago, because kick back and mentally relax, which was really “I MET A RASTAMAN IN OCHI there were so many Star Wars fans, but I do like healing. Give me water and that vitamin D, – SOMETIMES TALKING TO staying in unique Airbnbs, especially in the and I can’t complain.” A STRANGER ABOUT YOUR UK when I want to escape from London. I love ISSUES IS PROFOUND” a modern treehouse, and I stayed in a boat- Name a place that most lived up to the hype house in Miami once, which was incredible.” “Atlanta, especially as a young Black man, as Describe a childhood holiday memory it’s home to a lot of Black-owned businesses, “Oh Lord, does it have to be a good one? We Who is the most interesting person you’ve and feels like a real hub of creativity. I loved actually only went on holiday once as kids met on your travels? the vibe – the parties at a spot called Blue, but because mum and dad couldn’t afford it, but “I met a Rastaman near a waterfall in the Ochi also all the different types of churches.” we went to Nigeria. I remember sitting next mountains in Jamaica. Sometimes speaking to to my parents on the plane, and my mum put a stranger about your issues is the most pro- Which is your favourite city? on a movie called Baby Boy starring Tyrese found, most exhilarating experience you can “Tokyo. It feels like a clash between technol- Gibson – about a young African-American have. Someone randomly comes up and gives ogy, history and culture, and it appeals to my guy who’s trying to get his life together. There you clarity on the world you left behind, the nerdy, anime-loving side. I love the weirdness were a lot of sex scenes and I was like: this isn’t career you love and the goals you’re pursuing. of the things you can do – dressing up as Super supposed to happen on a plane, where I don’t That was really magical to me. He’s probably Mario characters, or jumping in a go-kart and have the option to leave the room.” telling friends today, ‘I remember this British riding the streets at night. I remember this weird guy that I met by the waterfall telling me all local light show that made absolutely no sense, Where did you go on your first holiday his business.’ But to have that freedom to chat but everybody goes and has a great time.” without your parents? was amazing.” “LA. Once I dropped out of uni and decided Which is your road most travelled? I wanted to pursue acting, I went out there to What would you most like to find in your “I find myself going to Los Angeles a lot, try and network and do what us actors have minibar? partly for work, but I have a personal life there to do. It felt like a coming-of-age sort of trip; “Soda and sweets. Just kids’ stuff.” now, too. When I first went, just after I made going to find my destiny with a dream but not Attack the Block, I didn’t get the Hollywood much money.” Nominate your eighth wonder of the world experience, and wasn’t really in the crowd. But “Petra. We went to Jordan to film Star Wars through staying in Inglewood and then Describe a holiday disaster and I stayed for some holiday time, and to just Compton, I’ve built friendships that are now “I love Nigeria and am a Nigerian citizen, but see it face to face in the middle of the desert like family. LA is another place that, to it would most definitely be in a place called is pretty incredible.” a certain extent, is a mash-up of worlds – from Songo. We went to church one Sunday and I Malibu to West Hollywood, and then up to was playing outside with some of the other John Boyega is in “The Woman King”, out on Topanga. Each area has something different.” 16 September. He spoke to Francesca Babb September 2022 Condé Nast Traveller 129

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PHOTOGRAPHS: MATT AUSTIN; LUCY LAUCHT The Food Special HAPPY PLACE FIERCE LOCAVORISM AND AN INVENTIVE SPIRIT ARE THE HALLMARKS OF THE UK’S LATEST CROP OF DESTINATION RESTAURANTS. WE SEEK OUT THE CHEFS PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES IN UNLIKELY SETTINGS, FROM AN OLD COW SHED TO A WEDGWOOD WAREHOUSE. EDITED BY RICK JORDAN

STAYCATION The Food Special

Clockwise from this picture: a Welsh sunset; Pensons interior; Nicholas Balfe at Holm; barbecued oyster at Killiecrankie House. Opposite, clockwise from top left: countryside walk; cocktail bar at Killiecrankie; rambling in the UK; cuttlefish skewers with black garlic at Holm; Killiecrankie grounds; lamb sweetbread with miso caramel at Lunar. Previous pages, from left: a coastal trek; house pickles and cured sardines at Lilac PHOTOGRAPHS: LULU ASH; ALEX BAXTER; ISSY CROKER; VENETIA DEARDEN; LINDEN STORES, CHESHIRE Society, which lends its name to this new MAUREEN M EVANS; 7 FIFTY; LUCY LAUCHT; DAVID LOFTUS; ED SCHOFIELD project from former Whatley Manor chef Niall Narrowboat devotees know the village of Keating. Inside a warehouse-sized space on Audlem for the lock-side Shroppie Fly, one the Wedgwood estate, a giant moon rises over of the best watering holes on the Shropshire upcycled dining tables and ghostly ceramic Union Canal. Now there’s another reason to moulds line the shelves, while a secret door dawdle. Chris Boustead (former chef at swings open to reveal a turf-floored cocktail famous East London pub The Ten Bells) and bar. Keating grew up not far from here, and Laura Christie (founder of Turkish-oriented was determined to showcase his county’s over- Oklava in Shoreditch) originally opened looked farm produce, which he and head chef Linden Stores in the capital, but decided to Craig Lunn finesse into Asian-inspired dishes escape city life with their young son just before every bit as delicate as the bone china they are the pandemic, alighting here to be nearer their served on (with the potters’ studio opposite, families. This cosy, teashop-sized space on the this is a rare example of kiln-to-table dining). high street has become a showcase for local Black pudding and quail’s egg are paired with produce, Christie’s eye for interesting but kimchi and herb congee; miso sweetbreads are affordable wines and Boustead’s relaxed, tender, toffee-ish nuggets; an egg custard is unfussy style of cooking. Ingredients such as garlanded with crabmeat and spring peas; and, heritage carrots take centre stage, tumbled in a scene of pure tableside theatre, a chicken with hung yogurt and prune puree; foraged baked in Wedgwood clay is smashed open with wild garlic is used in an aioli for dipping a hammer and carved, spilling out treasured plump croquettes of pea, mint and fettle rice. A mould-breaking restaurant for this part (English feta); a crisp-skinned fillet of red of England. RJ lunarwedgwood.com mullet sits atop a slice of sourdough slathered in red-wine-marinated onion and carrot. BRIDGE ARMS, KENT Boustead also likes to bring childhood flavours from his Scarborough upbringing – hence Back in 2018, former Clove Club chef Daniel the umami Bovril mayonnaise and gingery Smith and his pastry-chef wife Natasha took Yorkshire parkin, crowned with a bauble of over Arts and Crafts pub the Fordwich Arms, rhubarb ice cream. A neighbourhood restau- drawing a whole new crowd to a tiny village rant worth travelling for. RICK JORDAN near Canterbury that has barely seen buzz since lindenstores.co.uk the Middle Ages. Gone were the scampi and chips; in their place were whipped cod’s roe, LUNAR, STAFFORDSHIRE venison dumplings and an ice-cream rendition of a Daim bar. It won a Michelin star, and a The village of Barlaston may seem like the dark devoted following. Last year the couple side of the moon for London-based foodies, but repeated the trick a few miles away in their it’s easily reachable: just ride the train to Stoke- home village of Bridge, taking over a simi- on-Trent and turn right by the statue of Josiah larly inglenooky pub and winning a star Wedgwood. The pioneering 18th-century within months of opening. This sequel is less potter gathered with other eminent thinkers formal than Fordwich – no tasting menu or of the day at a supper club known as the Lunar September 2022 Condé Nast Traveller 133

STAYCATION The Food Special bouches – but takes the same approach, gath- restaurant bakes its own bread and grows ering up local ingredients as rosy-cheeked as some of its own produce, with the rest coming The Darling Buds of May – creating whimsical from nearby farms and dairies. “You just don’t dishes that both surprise and reassure, drizzled get the same connection or immediacy in with Kentish rapeseed and scattered with edible London,” says Balfe. His mantra of simple, flowers. A jade-green pea mousse, studded seasonal food cooked well is best summed up with jellies and hazelnuts; a posy of crisp- in a lamb dish comprising Otter Valley hogget, skinned confit chicken wings, painstakingly Pitney Farm spring cabbage, anchovy and deboned and served with rich roast-chicken foraged wild garlic – matched to a glass of low- butter sauce; a pitch-perfect hunk of brill intervention Sicilian Frappato-Nero d’Avola. anchored by a crisp potato pavé. While you’re The crew know how to have fun, too, with co- here, drop into The Pig at Bridge Place down director Mark Gurney as adept on the turntable the road for a drink, or ramble up Star Hill to as he is at pairing a sparkling perry from the Bourne Park, spotting buzzards, egrets and Temperley orchard with a pear dessert. As storks on the wing.A gastropub only in the most with the team’s much-loved London restau- elevated sense of the word. RJ bridgearms.co.uk rants, eating here is like joining in one big dinner party. RJ holmsomerset.co.uk HENROCK, CUMBRIA PENSONS, WORCESTERSHIRE While Simon Rogan’s third Michelin star for L’Enclume was the big news of 2022, his other It’s all about the soil and the terroir here. In fine-dining restaurant in the Lake District still this barn of a restaurant on the Netherwood feels a little under the radar (and a lot easier to Estate (literally a double-height barn, raw in book). It opened not long before the pandemic brick and beam), you’ll see objects found in the hit, in Linthwaite House just above Windermere fields over decades by ploughman Ivan Turner. (the name refers to a rocky outcrop on the Stone Age arrowheads, medieval tiles, Sixties lake). While many ingredients are plucked toy soldiers, all creating a potted history of this from Rogan’s own farm in Cartmel, its menu rural enclave. Similarly, the menu is a snapshot ranges wider than L’Enclume’s determinedly of the region’s ingredients, many taken from British outlook, taking in influences from the the kitchen garden. Chris Simpson won a chef’s travels. Much of it is Asian inspired, simply Green Michelin Star this year for sustainable because he “bloody loves Asian food”. There dishes that quiver with freshness, such as cured are deep-flavoured dishes such as miso-glazed trout with asparagus, pickled apple and a aubergine and smoked vegetable dashi, and cereal crunch of sourdough crumbs. Ask for – something of a signature – Peking duck with a mint tea and the waiter will nip outside to roundels of celeriac and a date and gochujang pluck leaves; pelargonium shoots are infused croquette.With head chef Sam Fry in charge and for cocktails. Patron Peta Darnley is evangelical Greek bartender Andreas Grammatikopoulos about the region’s talents (“lots of people shaking up cocktails such as mastiha and talk about local but not many are as hyper- marigold-infused gin, this is dazzling food in a local as us”), encouraging collaborations: the hotel that feels like a grande dame without the centrepiece basketware chandelier that twirls glower – easy enough to pop in just for a fish- down like a fairground slide, the napkins finger sandwich on the terrace, and a walk in woven in a farmyard mill a mile away, the the sculpture-filled gardens. RJ henrock.co.uk ceramics fired on Shropshire’s Clee Hills. It’s how Britain may have looked had we ignored HOLM, SOMERSET the Industrial Revolution and stuck to cottage industries instead. Two courtyard bedrooms This decade may prove to be a turning point for opened last year, so you can wake up, inhale the work-life balance of restaurateurs. Nicholas the country air and head for a walk through Balfe made his name with seasonal spots Salon, nearby woods to a boathouse. A tactile, multi- Levan and Larry’s, in Brixton and Peckham, dimensional distillation of one of England’s but has swapped South London for South overlooked corners. RJ pensons.co.uk Somerset. Holm is a restaurant (with rooms opening in 2023), workspace and community ANNWN, PEMBROKESHIRE garden set in and around a former Dad’s Army-style bank in the village of South After years working with Raymond Blanc at Petherton. Merlin Labron-Johnson’s Osip, in Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and in Michelin- nearby Bruton, is an obvious comparison. The star restaurants around Europe, Matt Powell 134 Condé Nast Traveller September 2022

Clockwise from this picture: Henrock terrace above Windermere; the UK coast; dish of Limpet and the Littoral Zones at Annwn; pickled mussels with trout roe at Linden Stores; Pine sign; dining under the moon at Lunar; grilled peas with salted cherry blossom at Pine; boating on a lake PHOTOGRAPHS: @IGIGI.FUNGI; 7 FIFTY; CRIS BARNETT; LUCY LAUCHT; AMELIA LEBRUN; MATT POWELL; LUCAS SMITH; IAN WALLER

Clockwise from this picture: Ian Waller plating up at Pine; herbs at Pensons; seating at Lilac; out for a stroll; barbecued celeriac with seaweed béarnaise, Holm; Pensons garden. Opposite, clockwise from top left: Bridge Arms bar; Holm exterior; dining room at Ugly Butterfly; langoustine tail with pork belly, Pine

The Food Special STAYCATION PHOTOGRAPHS: MATT AUSTIN; ISSY CROKER; JOHN HERSEY; JODI HINDS; LUCY LAUCHT; took a breather. He moved to Pembrokeshire UGLY BUTTERFLY, CORNWALL PINE, NORTHUMBERLAND ED SCHOFIELD; JOE TAYLOR; BRITT WILLOUGHBY DYER and started fishing bass from the rocks, attun- ing himself to the rhythm of the tides and The floor-to-ceiling windows in the dining Very few restaurants go from rumour to seasons; then started taking people foraging, room here are like an IMAX screen, showing Michelin star as fast as Pine. The first whispers picking winberries, sea purslane and gorse a continuous reel of Carbis Bay’s glorious sea, came during the pandemic winter, with news flowers. If ever you were lost in the wilderness, surf and sand. It’s these views that made the that chef Cal Byerley – one-time right-hand Powell – gently spoken and able to conjure a difference between Ugly Butterfly being a man of Simon Rogan and head pastry chef at meal from the shoreline – is the person you’d summer pop-up and a permanent fixture. “As Lake District favourite Forest Side – had bought want to bump into. Last year he planted himself soon as I drove down the hill from St Ives and an old cattle shed by Hadrian’s Wall with his in a Victorian walled garden on the River saw the Blue Flag white sands and the water partner Siân Buchan, a former assistant Cleddau estuary, adjoining The Little Retreat I thought, holy hell!” says chef Adam Handling, manager of Newcastle’s House of Tides. The campsite, and opened a 12-cover restaurant to who had never even set foot in Cornwall timber-and-glass reality, opened last summer, showcase his almost folkloric knowledge. Lamb before. Handling’s original Ugly Butterfly has exceeded even the most feverish expecta- is cured in sea salt and herbs, and dried for 100 pop-up in Chelsea was cut short in lockdown tions. The main dining room – accessed via an days; mallard seasoned with coriander-like sea but its ethos carried on. “There’s no such thing industrial steel staircase beneath a roof space plantain. Powell likes to pair ingredients that as an ugly butterfly and the same goes for food of dried wildflowers – is decorated in muted grow near one another, making oil from beech offcuts,” he says. “We use the byproduct of shades of grey, white and conifer green that leaves to serve with chanterelles that sprout something phenomenal and age it in some- echo the windblown Roman landscape seen beneath the tree. If there’s a signature ingredi- thing phenomenal, then serve it with no through huge windows. The cooking has the ent, it’s seaweed: gathered from storm-tossed garnish.” At Carbis Bay, this means lobster same cool northern edge. Byerley – who beaches and turned into dishes such as The blanched then aged for 24 hours in retired grew up on a farm a few miles away, and still Littoral Zones (five different seaweeds and dairy cow fat and seared on the barbecue. Cod forages for woodruff, gooseberries and meadow- limpet mousse arranged on a bed of pebbles), liver becomes a taramasalata dip; shucked sweet – has created a 16-course love letter to one titled simply Kelp, dry-aged for a year and oyster shells are infused in vodka for the his home turf. Dry-aged lamb comes with a made into broth, a rockpool dish of truffle-like Fal-Town Martini. Rules are strict: every ingre- lamb-fat muffin like the bread-and-dripping intensity. Seaweed crackers are dipped into a dient has to be sourced from within Cornwall’s that once sustained Northumbrians, while puree of Pacific oysters. This is food at its borders, and even the design is done in-house, the wild leek and Doddington cheese canelé most meditative, amid a swirling landscape of reusing lights and furniture from previous is a dream version of the plate pies that water and sky. RJ annwnrestaurant.co.uk projects.A seaside restaurant pushing sustain- remain a Saturday night staple round these ability to the next level. RJ uglybutterfly.co.uk parts. Pine received Northumberland’s second September 2022 Condé Nast Traveller 137

STAYCATION The Food Special Clockwise from this picture: kitchen- counter seating at Holm; small plates at Linden Stores; Killiecrankie squid dish; garden at Linthwaite House ever Michelin star, just nine months after cosmopolitan flourishes – miso tablet, a black- PHOTOGRAPHS: ALEX BAXTER; ED SCHOFIELD; LUCAS SMITH opening – but the sense of local pride feels pudding madeleine – seals the deal. Irresistible. more important than any outside recognition. STEVE KING killiecrankiehouse.com HARRY PEARSON restaurantpine.co.uk ROBIN WYLDE AND LILAC, DORSET KILLIECRANKIE HOUSE, PERTHSHIRE It takes some nerve to open a great restaurant Queen Victoria, famously, adored Pitlochry. in Mark Hix’s backyard – the charming seaside Who wouldn’t? The Perthshire setting – at the town of Lyme Regis – but following the success soft, sepia-toned, south-eastern edge of of her pre-lockdown pop-up, local chef Harriet the Highlands – is beyond dreamy.Whitewashed Mansell has opened two.At former pottery shop Killiecrankie House is a short drive north of Robin Wylde, with its framed dried flowers and the pretty town centre. Something of an elegant forest-green banquettes, she deals out institution, it has recently changed hands exquisite tasting menus that shift as rapidly as and been catapulted into the 21st century the Dorset sky. The spring version was heavy by its new owners, Tom and Matilda Tsappis – with flavours foraged from nearby beaches – a chef and sommelier who left careers in pepper dulse, saltbush, dulse and rock samphire finance and advertising to start a much- – while recent dishes included a sublime mush- loved London supper club. There’s a room tart using lion’s manes and shiitakes from smart little bar, a library-lounge overlooking West Dorset suppliers Grown Up Mushrooms. the kitchen garden and five impeccably As well as wine pairings, there’s a soft pairing renovated bedrooms. The open-plan kitchen- including shrubs and seasonal ferments such dining room comfortably seats 18 – still small as lilac and woodruff kombucha. It was while enough to feel convivial, but just large enough looking for more space to store her impressive for self-involved couples to remain in their collection of wines that Mansell discovered the bubble. Tom and Matilda deliver – in person, cellar down the street. Comfortably refur- with much engaging banter – a modern-Scottish bished, Lilac is a more informal wine bar with tasting menu of great wit and finesse, with a list that includes Familiar Faces and Perfect elegantly executed reinterpretations of familiar Strangers, the latter rare and organic wines. favourites: Moray Firth squid cooked in its own The small-plates menu spans nibbles and ink, for example, or dripping-fried porridge, a starters (coppa, split-pea hummus) through high-end homage to the humble porridge heftier servings (hake with sorrel cream) to “piece”, only this time the intense beefiness British cheese and pudding. And the man derives from braised Highland wagyu coming in for a bite and a quick glass? Very like tail, onion cream and wild garlic flowers. the handsome Mr Hix. JASON GOODWIN The introduction of still more unexpected, robinwylde.com; lilacwine.co.uk 138 Condé Nast Traveller September 2022

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EVENTS PHOTOGRAPH: CAROL SACHS CONDÉ NAST TRAVELLER INVITES YOU TO A TASTE OF RIOJA JOIN US FOR THE LATEST IN OUR CHEF’S WORLD SERIES AT AN EXCLUSIVE DINNER WITH CHEF FERNANDO TROCCA PAIRED WITH THE SPANISH REGION’S FINEST WINES BOOK NOW: RIOJACNT.EVENTBRITE.CO.UK Tickets cost £100 per person and include a Rioja wine tasting followed by a four-course dinner with wine pairing Rioja’s headline red wines are liberally consumed, but its whites, rosados and sparkling options are less well known. Lesser known still is the place. Though the green lines of fluttering vines score 65,000 hectares of red earth, wine is not the only draw. Bell towers clang in a rolling hillscape, mediaeval monasteries promise spiritual refuge and ancient river towns are backdropped by the snowy caps of the Sierra de Cantabria. Though Frank Gehry shifted the world’s gaze to this corner of the world briefly in 2006, with the opening of his radical Hotel Marqués de Riscal – all silver and purple squiggles – it is off the radar of most tourists. The Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Oriental scenic routes and their 560 bodegas – which shine with Michelin stars as well as cellar doors – can be explored by bike, car or even horseback. Celebrate and explore Rioja and its wine with Condé Nast Traveller at Sucre in London’s Soho on 13 September. Guests will be treated to a wine tasting hosted by Jane Parkinson, a presenter on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen, followed by a four-course dinner with wine pairing. Chef Fernando Trocca, the Argentinian open-fire-cooking expert behind Sucre, will be in London to oversee the event. Book at the link above. Visit buyrioja.co.uk for stockists TUESDAY 13 SEPTEMBER 2022 SUCRE, 47B GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET, LONDON W1F 7JP PARTICIPANTS MUST BE 18 OR OLDER. CONDÉ NAST TRAVELLER RESERVES THE RIGHT TO POSTPONE THE EVENT IF RENDERED NECESSARY BY ANY UNAVOIDABLE CAUSE. TICKETS WILL BE FULLY REFUNDED IN SUCH CASES. 140 Condé Nast Traveller September 2022



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WOST WANTED HOTEL CONFIDENTIAL The Dorchester is currently This renovation signifies undergoing an extensive our commitment to LUCA VIRGILIO, GENERAL MANAGER renovation – can you tell us enhancing our legendary OF THE DORCHESTER, LONDON a little more about this and hotel and to embracing the what you’re most excited need to evolve so that we and English mother, who always about? We embarked on our can offer the very best of nurtured a love of England in me. phased renovation in February everything to our guests. This is the fourth time I’ve moved this year and it is the most to London to live here, so while significant renovation the hotel An interesting fact about Rome is home in my heart, this has undergone since 1989. In The Dorchester that we city still feels like home to me. September we will reveal a new may not know? Before the look for our famous forecourt and hotel was built in 1931, the Can you tell us about your How would you describe The reimagined interiors throughout second Dorchester House life before you arrived at Dorchester? I always say that The the lobby, The Promenade, the stood in its place from The Dorchester? I joined The Dorchester is not just any hotel. bar and the first two floors of 1853 to 1929, home to the Dorchester in January this It is so dear and so important guest rooms and suites. wealthy British landowner, year from my previous role as to many. It has always been so horticulturalist and MP general manager at Dorchester entwined with London and with We are working with Robert Stayner Holford. Collection’s Hotel Eden, Rome. England. Our hotel truly captures the best names in design. This grand property was I was there since 2014 and the energy and spirit of London in Pierre-Yves Rochon is designed by the notable oversaw its refurbishment. every possible way for our guests. overseeing it all, with the architect of his time, Lewis Before that, I held roles in What’s more, The Dorchester is exception of the bar, which is Vulliamy, and modelled on Switzerland, Monte-Carlo, in such a prime position, standing being transformed by Martin Villa Farnesina in Rome. Rome and London. I was raised tall in Mayfair and overlooking Brudnizki Design Studio. I love this little connection in Italy by my Italian father one of the world’s finest parks. We are also curating a new with my home city. The Dorchester has a fascinating collection of contemporary heritage that spans 10 decades, British art, with two incredibly What is your cocktail of and has a finely tuned tradition impressive pieces by artists choice? A Vodka Martini, of putting guests at the centre Christian Furr and Sophie extra dry with a lemon twist. of everything, a tradition my Coryndon to hang in the team and I uphold. lobby, which I’m particularly dorchestercollection.com excited about.

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