Archive for the ‘Destinations’ Category

Dining Essentials: Tastes

Friday, January 4th, 2008

Encinitas, Calif.

It was de ja vu when we walked into the bistro Tastes just after Christmas while visiting the California coast north of San Diego.

A scant year ago, on the eve of 2007, we discovered a high-concept dining spot in North Naples, Fla., called Naples Tomato. It successfully combines authentic Italian fare in the dining room with a retail gourmet food space out front and … even an adjacent wine tasting lounge. The lounge was notable for self-service wines-by-glass accessible by inserting a pre-paid “member’s card” into a corresponding slot above a given selection. There were dozens from which to choose.

Dining Essentials: Custom House

Friday, September 28th, 2007

Chicago

Decorated chef Shawn McClain now is more dominant in Chicago than ever with a trio of restaurants. The latest, Custom House, was our dinner destination this week when author and journalist Bruce Schoenfeld arrived in town from his bunker in Boulder, Colo. I was in some knowledgable company, so I listened, savored and sipped for the most part as an evening of conversation — mostly about Spanish wine — unfolded amid the buzz of Custom House, a comfortable, contemporary room adjoining the city’s financial district.Custom House

Also at the table was Brian Duncan, wine director at another superb Chicago eatery, Bin 36, and Denver-based Spanish importer Steve Miles. Steve is an independent operator now but was a key player with Eric Solomon’s European Cellars import operations for more than a decade.

Inspired Destinations: London

Friday, September 21st, 2007

Our two-week summer adventure through Russia and Italy’s sublime Tuscany was a dining odyssey marked by several memorable menus and wine lists, some described in earlier Vintelligence posts. By the time it was over in mid-August, the beginning of the trip — a brief stay in London — was more or less overshadowed.

Unless you are a business traveler with a benevolent accounting department, London is not an obvious choice these days. It is easily one of the world’s most expensive cities, a reality only magnified for American visitors because the British pound-U.S. dollar exchange rate is about 2-to-1. But London is a great city (the Olympic Games host in 2012), nonetheless, and a perfect starting point on the way to the European continent and beyond.

A couple of highlights from the notebook:

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