The Actual Experience of Virtual Experiences
Decimated by pandemic, many businesses are offering online experiences, from cooking classes to a visit to Rome’s colosseum, but can staring at screens offer a suitable replacement for doing actual things?
Dispatches From Food Service Workers Across the U.S.: ‘I’m Trying Not to Panic’
“I found out the secret was really not to make eye contact, because if I saw one of us start to tear up, it opened the floodgates for me.”
The Complicated, Problematic Influence of TripAdvisor Restaurant Reviews
“Despite its mediocre reputation in New York’s food world, Olio e Piú was busy in part because at the time, it was ranked the No. 1 restaurant in New York City — on TripAdvisor.”
What Did ‘Authenticity’ in Food Mean in 2019?
If your restaurant serves a European cuisine, you can have tablecloths and silverware. Anything else, you have to be a hole in the wall with plastic stools. In the next decade, can “authenticity” be less racist?
The Rise (and Stall) of the Boba Generation
Boba Life came to stand for modern Asian-American identity, but sometimes it was more sugar than substance.
The Californication of America’s Restaurants
Creating a clean, bright, supposedly “Californian” interior can create a transportive dining experience, but the aesthetic many restaurants are offering lacks the complexity and depth that now define California cuisine.
Ivar’s the Great
A Pacific Northwest resident revisits the chowder and fried fish of her youth to tell the story of Ivar’s, the enduring Washington state seafood chain, and the inextricable link between it, her life, and her family.
Inside the Exceptionally Shady World of Truffle Fraud
White truffles (also known as Piedmont or Alba truffles) are one of the world’s most prized culinary delicacies: When shaved atop a dish, they add a pleasantly earthy layer along with their unexpectedly fresh texture. Often, their presence—thanks to their famously high price tag—is more a status symbol, a signal of the procurer’s appreciation of the finer things in life, regardless of the cost. And perhaps not surprisingly, as with many other luxury symbols, thieves, saboteurs, and fraudsters operate an underground market that looks to cut corners wherever possible.
Christ on the Comal
“In the midst of all of this, the family was on the brink of losing all hope. To my mother, the tortilla was a sign from God that He would make things better.”
The Lost City of Aguachile
“Aguachile” literally means “chile water.” Where did the shrimp in this ever-more-popular dish from Mexico’s Sinaloa state come from, and what happened to the original Sinaloan aguachile?
