Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2025 i Bon Appetit

Some of the best meals I’ve had this year were during my summer trip to Italy. I was blown away by Piazza Duomo Alba, a 20-year-old restaurant with charming pink walls and frescoes by artist Francisco Clemente. Chef Enrico Crippa’s dishes are celebrations of the rolling hills of the Piedmont region and his love for herbs, flowers, and vegetables. I also visited Al Gatto Verde, a new restaurant by Massimo Bottura on his Casa Maria Luigia estate. This homage to Bottura’s mother is designed to be a comforting respite, a guesthouse with magical Italian dishes prepared by chef Jessica Rosval, who folds in distinctly Canadian flourishes from her home country. (Maple syrup chocolate chip cookies, anyone?) Both restaurants reminded me of visits to Maido in Lima, Peru, the transformational palace…

All year I look forward to hitting the road in search of the latest class of Best New Restaurants. New Orleans. Oakland. Austin. Asheville. Charleston. The trips blur together, but the thrill never fades. Neither do the stomachaches. When I finally came home from this year’s monthslong dining frenzy, I craved light, refreshing meals that wouldn’t make my eyelids heavy. Pulling elements from some of my favorite restaurant salads, this squash-and-radicchio number is my return-to-home comfort food. Sherry vinaigrette is cut with hunks of creamy blue cheese, a trick inspired by my favorite salad at Via Carota in New York City’s West Village. Instead of eating straight out of the mixing bowl like I normally do, I take a page from Meetinghouse in Philadelphia, a standout bar where the stately green…

It’s a marvel that Tavel Bristol-Joseph ever finds time to cook at home considering the role he plays in 11 restaurant kitchens across Austin and San Antonio. He’s the pastry chef and partner at the Emmer & Rye Hospitality Group but splits most of his time these days between Canje, a Caribbean spot that landed on Bon Appétit’s 10 Best New Restaurants of 2022, and Pullman Market, the group’s 40,000-square-foot culinary hub with everything from a dessert tasting counter to a whole animal butcher. At home, his kitchen is as functional and ergonomic as those professional spaces, with a bit more room for fun. He’s got a wall oven placed to match his stature (he’s six foot five, after all), an extra-large fridge to fit both groceries and samples from…

As word spread that Kwame Onwuachi was opening a restaurant in DC’s stately Salamander Hotel, the city started buzzing. This was a homecoming for the megawatt chef, a return to the city where he opened his first restaurant nearly a decade ago. D gon is alluringly dim and powered by an army of attentive servers. The restaurant shares some DNA with Tatiana, the much-hyped New York restaurant Onwuachi opened in 2022, with its bumping music and wide-ranging references to the African diaspora. As Tatiana is so distinctly of New York, with dishes inspired by the boroughs, D gon is all in on DC. Chunks of Wagyu beef short rib served with smoky awaze sauce and a crumbly cheese called ayib speak to the city’s Ethiopian community, the largest in America.…

Chef of the Moment Seeking inspiration for his first restaurant, Jhonny Reyes traced his grandparents’ path from Puerto Rico to New York City, and his own from New York City to Seattle, where his family moved when he was six. Inside Lenox, palm fronds throw shimmering shadows and rattan lampshades cast a lazy glow. A subway sign for the line below Lenox Avenue, the artery that runs north-south through central Harlem, leads to the kitchen. The chef’s many homes color his menu: Flaky empanadas stuffed with shredded chicken are like something you might find at an uptown bodega; a bright salad of sweet corn, pickled cherries, and summer squash screams Seattle; a piña colada, the beachiest of beach drinks, is clarified and rendered dangerously quenching. Each dish is a snapshot…

Best Beverage Program A pair of hungry friends could work through most of Mezcaleria Alma’s one-page menu in a sitting—about a dozen electric dishes including tender pockets of masa filled with melty cheese and applewood-smoked tuna and bowls of leaf-green kanpachi ceviche shot through with dill. The bottle list, however, would make for an eternity of great drinking without ever repeating your order. A mighty bar to one side of the open kitchen is outfitted with row upon row of mezcal and tequila, sotol, pechuga, and palmilla, glimmering and reflecting light into the terra-cotta-hued dining room. Spirits can be swirled and sipped as is, or transformed into studied cocktails like a zingy, earthy corn sour with elote mezcal, corn liqueur, corn whiskey, and a smoky Mayan liquor called pox. In…

With only 12 seats, Sun Moon Studio is booked six weeks out. This is a meal you plan for, one you anticipate. Yet there’s a relaxed comfort to dinner in the airy concrete-floored loft, starting with the Taiwanese sausage that arrives as an early bite, wedged into homemade brioche like a tiny hot dog and plucked up between two fingers. Over about 12 courses, you’ll eat rosy pink pork from one of Northern California’s best farms and intensely savory butter made with miso from Shared Cultures, a small-batch producer coveted by local chefs. Santa Barbara uni is suspended over tofu made with soy milk from Hodo Foods, the Bay Area’s favorite purveyor, dressed in a clean gingery soy sauce. The earnestness with which chef-couple Sarah Cooper and Alan Hsu approach…

Millie Powell and Will Mester didn’t want The Wren to be a restaurant. It was intended, emphatically, to be a pub. The kind of public living room, knitted into the social fabric of Powell’s native Dublin, that so bewitched Mester during their transatlantic courtship. A venue for confidantes and coconspirators and all manner of close ones to sit shoulder to shoulder. Problem is, when you serve food this good, people are going to treat your pub like a restaurant, even if you do away with reservations and table service. In any case, The Wren is most glorious when taken as prescribed. Belly up to the bar with a friend. Have a few rounds of Guinness pulled with pride, maybe a scotch sour. Get a little hungry. Mester will slide down…

KING KONG The first recipe for a King Kong, named in honor of the iconic movie of the same name, appears in 1700 Cocktails for the Man Behind the Bar, by R. De Fleury. The book was first published in 1934, just a year after the film premiered to rave reviews. Its magic hinges on just a few ingredients: gin and lemon, as well as an herbal liqueur known as Benedictine, and Crème de Noyaux, a somewhat more obscure liqueur made with the pits of apricots and cherries. Don’t worry, the naturally occurring cyanide is removed. The final product is a cocktail made bright and punchy with honeyed flavors of citrus and stone fruit, balanced by an intriguing bouquet of herbal notes. Just like King Kong the film, our recipe…

The surest way to get on someone’s bad side in Miami is to serve them a Cuban sandwich with salami. That’s because there are three Floridas when it comes to Cuban sandwiches. And each claims it. Our identity is strangely (pathologically?) mixed up in the way we make our version across the state. We care too much about this sandwich in Florida—it’s weird, I know. In Miami we expect a Cuban sandwich to have only five ingredients: sweet ham, mojo-roasted pork, dill pickles, tangy yellow mustard, and pungent Swiss cheese on Cuban bread. And—this is important—it should be buttered and toasted on a flat sandwich press until melty. No silly grill marks. (Save those for paninis.) Tampa folks insist on adding salami. This debate always ends in hurt feelings. I…

The goal was always to have a restaurant in the Fillmore,” Fernay McPherson says. During six “The years cooking soul food in an Emeryville, California, food hall, the chef ’s sights were set on returning to the historic San Francisco neighborhood three generations of her family have called home. After searching for months, a storefront became available on Fillmore Street. “When I walked into the space, it just felt like I finally made it home,” McPherson says. Some diners who show up for squares of brown butter cornbread and Friday-only fried fish have known the chef since she walked this street on her way to school. Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement, one of this year’s Best New Restaurants, fits into its neighborhood like a missing puzzle piece. Jhonny Reyes was compelled…

For Yia Vang, every meal is a chance to tell the story of family. In a dining room decorated with geometric hanging lamps and exposed wood beams, portraits of the chef’s parents fill open shelves. You’ll meet them again in the form of scorching Mama Vang’s hot sauce, produced on their farm 30 minutes from Vinai. They also provide the restaurant with mustard greens, slender eggplants, and chile varieties that electrify dishes shaped by the chapters of Vang’s life. Deviled eggs with Thai basil sambal and crisp shrimp are pulled from a memory of visits to his paternal grandmother in western Wisconsin, always leaving with hardboiled eggs, a Hmong symbol of life. A tin of confit mackerel served alongside a ball of purple sticky rice calls back to an afterschool…

A matte red cylinder, smaller than a baby carrot. Immediately legible to the tongue as raw, lean tuna. That delicate, metallic tang—almost more sensation than flavor, the suggestion of electricity, like looking at an outlet with a fork in your hand. But then the fish gives way and a smidgen of foie gras stashed inside makes your eyes pop. Iron. Earth. Fat. A flicker of brûléed blood orange whispers of sunshine. Open your eyes again and realize there’s more. A single sparkling oyster goosed with kimchi liquor and black truffle. Wobbly uni alongside an equally wobbly consommé jelly. Each bite arresting time for a moment, three of more than 20 exacting courses served each night as a part of chef Nich Bazik’s two-and-a-half-hour tasting menu. Stopping time is Bazik’s superpower.…

WHY WE LOVE IT Even if you’ve never had Zaynab Issa’s apple cake before, your first bite will feel nostalgic, conjuring memories of autumn air laced with scents of cinnamon and burnt sugar. The bake lives in the neighborhood of sticky toffee pudding and carrot cake, with an almost custardy, dense crumb fortified by tart grated Granny Smiths. Dress it up in the caramel glaze for a decadent dessert that will no doubt wow at school bake sales and dinner parties alike. But don’t forget, it is a snacking cake. Designed to be easy and fuss-free, it is just as superb unglazed. On a crisp fall day I can think of few things more enticing than a warm slice simply adorned with a melting pat of cultured butter. —Wilder Davies…

Do I have to wait for everyone else’s food to arrive before cutting into my own plate? Yes? I think it’s a little weird to just start chowing down and make your friends sit through a nonconsensual mukbang. Most places do their best to make sure everything hits the table at more or less the same time. You can probably stand to wait the 40 seconds it takes for everyone to be served. Do you tip on the total price of the bill if you order a bottle of wine? Yes. Next question. Just kidding. There is a lot more nuance here. Tipping is a not-great-to-kind-ofbad system for compensating restaurant staff, but at its core it is structurally very similar to other commission-based models. A salesperson’s commission percentage does not decrease…

Jake Potashnick’s résumé reads like a fine dining bucket list, with stints in the highest caliber kitchens of Japan, Sweden, and Germany. To open Feld, the chef returned to his native Chicago. Potashnick and crew focus on dishes that showcase the intimate relationships they’ve built with farmers of the finest asparagus, duck, Asian pear—you name it. Early on, Feld became Chicago’s most divisive restaurant, a flash point for critics of highfalutin many-course tasting menus. Potashnick took skepticism as an invitation to share his process, bringing his roughly 100,000 TikTok followers behind the scenes and on frequent farm trips, offering a glimpse of his team’s meticulous operation. His tasting menu features dishes like a dice-size cube of turnip floating in a sublime dashi infused with Benton ham; cherry-seared handdived scallops in…

Since 2018 the smell of rosemary emanating from an Emeryville, California, food hall meant Fernay McPherson was cooking. At her small kiosk she fried chicken in batter redolent of the herb and coaxed every ounce of flavor from pots of braised collard greens. In a fast-casual setting hers was slow, deliberate cooking, earning her a reputation as one of the Bay Area’s most talented chefs. When a storefront became available last year in San Francisco’s Fillmore District, blocks from McPherson’s family home, she moved in. Televisions above a shiny black bar cycle through grainy reruns of the early ’90s sitcom A Different World. A black-and-white cityscape printed along one wall depicts Fillmore Street during McPherson’s father’s childhood in the ’60s, a vibrant center of jazz and Black life. Nostalgia floats…

Best Dessert Program In a city rich with tropical fruits and rainbow-scaled fish, Recoveco unearths less obvious treasures. Ballyhoo, a fish common in the Florida Keys and typically treated as bait, is bathed in a punchy white soy ponzu. It’s a work of art—and this issue’s cover star—the body parceled into 12 uniform pieces, the needle-like nose jutting dramatically off of the plate. In a spare dining room with concrete ceilings and spindly pendant lights, chef-owners Maria Teresa Gallina and Nicolas Martinez serve only what excites them most. The pits of the custardy fruit called mamey sapote are saved from the compost bin, shaved and infused into an almond-like syrup they pour over fudgy wedges of chocolate cake scattered with pearls of finger lime. Restrained plating accentuates the kaleidoscopic color…

Giovedì translates to “Thursday” in Italian, the night when Jennifer Akiyoshi and chef Bao Tran once hosted dinner for friends and family in their condo’s dining room. Four years later, dishes similar to those they cooked at home characterize their inviting Chinatown restaurant, which mingles Tran’s Italian culinary background with pan-Asian ingredients, all situated in a historic Honolulu neighborhood known for its unvarnished charm and diverse Asian communities. These eclectic inspirations are in conversation at the table. Kampachi crudo is gilded with Calabrian chili crisp, makrut lime kosho, and a snowfall of bottarga. Buoyant bánh tiêu sesame doughnuts are paired with ribbons of prosciutto and peppy giardiniera for a Southeast Asian take on gnocco fritto. Smoky lap cheong deepens an Amatriciana made with egg noodles sourced from nearby Yat Tung…

Have you spent 15 minutes in Manhattan lately? Did someone mention Ha’s Snack Bar in a hushed tone? Did they tell you, smugly, that they lined up at 4:30 p.m. for their spot? Everyone in New York City wants to keep this restaurant to themselves, but self-control doesn’t come easy. Couple Anthony Ha and Sadie-Mae Burns first drew fans for their creative Vietnamese French cooking through pop-ups at buzzy restaurants as far afield as Paris. At their shoebox of a Lower East Side wine bar, mostly counter seats and an open kitchen equipped with induction burners, you order from a scribbled chalkboard menu that changes each night. Wonderfully springy snails arrive in a translucent pool of tamarind butter; sweet chili sauce surrounds a wedge of Spanish tortilla studded with nubbins…

At Komal’s counter in the bustling Mercado La Paloma, chef Fátima Juárez will ask what kind of masa you’d like for lunch. Would you prefer your tetela—that triangular cheese-filled specialty of Oaxaca—made with sweet yellow corn? With heartier, earthen purple corn? With pink kernels that glimmer like precious stones? Ask nicely, and she’ll go further, blending two or even three varieties of masa from a workstation behind the counter into stunning marbled creations that highlight the nuanced differences in each corn’s taste and texture. This kind of culinary finesse is right at home inside Mercado La Paloma, the food hall that also houses Holbox, the Michelin-starred seafood counter where Juárez got her start nixtamalizing corn. Komal’s dishes, like rowboat-shaped sheaths of masa filled with velvety ayocote beans, are mostly sourced…

Seng Luangrath is heralded as the godmother of America’s Lao food movement. But 15 years ago, when she took over a Thai restaurant in Seven Corners, Virginia, and quietly added Lao dishes to the menu, many were still unfamiliar with the cuisine. Four restaurants later, Baan Mae is her most personal and creative, an expression of all she has done to educate and entice diners. With a newfound sense of freedom and playfulness, she serves traditional dishes like sakoo, sticky tapioca dumplings stuffed with fermented radish, alongside cheeky entrants to the Lao canon like her Fi’Lao O’Fish, a fried fish sandwich dolloped with chili paste and pillowy whipped tofu mayonnaise. At Baan Mae, Luangrath goes beyond the borders of her home country, serving dishes native to Malaysia, Burma, and Cambodia,…

Camélia’s Sweet Potato Gratin 6–8 SERVINGS This easy side is designed to highlight the beautiful flavor of Japanese sweet potatoes, which get cut into pieces and tossed in a salty-sweet miso butter before being topped with cheese and hitting the oven. Showered in savory flakes of nori and fresh chives when finished, this dish bears little resemblance to the more traditional potato gratin you might already know. 1 dried bay leaf3 lb. Japanese sweet potatoes (about 4 large or 6 small) or other sweet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1" pieces Kosher salt8 Tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for dish2 Tbsp. white miso1 Tbsp. honey1 medium shallot, halved, thinly sliced3 small sprigs thyme, leaves picked Freshly ground pepper2 oz. Fontina cheese, coarsely grated (about ½ cup)2 oz. Gruyère, coarsely…