Latest news with #Huichol
New York Times
08-05-2025
- New York Times
A Paris Restaurant With Live Jazz and Soaring Ceilings
Welcome to the T List, a newsletter from the editors of T Magazine. Each week, we share things we're eating, wearing, listening to or coveting now. Sign up here to find us in your inbox every Wednesday, along with monthly travel and beauty guides, and the latest stories from our print issues. And you can always reach us at tmagazine@ Stay Here A New Rosewood Hotel on Mexico's Pacific Coast By John Wogan The expansion of Riviera Nayarit — a roughly 200-mile stretch along Mexico's Pacific coast, about an hour drive north of Puerto Vallarta — continues this week with the opening of Rosewood Mandarina. The 134-room hotel occupies a verdant, densely forested 53 acres interspersed with farmland, and has views of both the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountain Range and the ocean. The environment was central to the interior design, says Caroline Meersseman, a principal at the New York-based studio Bando x Seidel Meersseman. 'Ninety-five percent of the rooms face the ocean,' she says. 'We used as many windows and mirrors as possible to bring the exterior inside.' Aside from the natural beauty, Meersseman and her team found inspiration in the region's Indigenous Huichol and Cora cultures. Mexican contemporary artists were commissioned to create the decorative pieces and furniture found in every guest room, such as the sculptural ceramic lights by Salvador Nuñez that resembles the native peyote cactus, each one painted to reference Huichol art and craft; and a series of abstract murals based on traditional Huichol fairy tales by the Guadalajara painter Maryan Vare. The hotel's primary restaurant, La Cocina, will be another nod to the region, with seafood (ceviche with jackfruit, lobster tacos, spiced prawns) caught from the Pacific, a few steps away. Rosewood Mandarina opens May 8; from $1,000 a night; In Season The Crunchy Red Berry That's a Celebration of Autumn in Chile By Tanya Bush Autumn in Chile signals the arrival of murta season, when ancient wild berries — known variously as murtilla, Chilean guava or strawberry myrtle — flood the country's southern landscapes. Fragrant and floral, with a texture somewhere between a crisp blueberry and firm apple, murta has long been treasured across Chile for both its distinct flavor and nutritional value. At Amaia in Maipú, a suburb of Santiago, the chef Iván Zambra, a champion of Indigenous Chilean foodways, favors murta berries for their crunchy texture and natural acidity. From March through May, Zambra showcases fresh red murta in vibrant herb salads and a tartare. To preserve the season's bounty, he steeps the berries to make syrups and jams, capturing their essence for year-round dishes like murta panna cotta with yogurt semifreddo and lawen, a traditional herbal infusion intended to soothe colds and ease stress. At Boragó in Santiago's Vitacura neighborhood, the chef Rodolfo Guzmán sources murta — including a rare white variety he serves fresh as a condiment or predessert — through an expansive network of southern foragers. He resists preserving the berries whenever possible. 'When you preserve them, you lose the soul,' he says. Though his team occasionally ferment or dehydrate murta to layer flavor into broths, they most often present the fruit at its aromatic peak. This season, Guzmán is debuting a dessert that pairs murta with tangy Patagonian rhubarb and rich sheep's milk ice cream. 'It's about honoring the momentum of the land,' he says. Murta has found its way into gardens and farms in Italy, New Zealand and parts of Britain (at Crocadon, an organic farm and restaurant in Cornwall, the chef Dan Cox serves strawberry myrtle with sorrel sorbet, anise hyssop oil and fresh sorrel leaves), but Guzmán notes that the Chilean variety retains a unique flavor. 'You want to grab that personality and allow it to accent all the other ingredients,' he says. 'When it's fresh, it's just pure magic.' Gift This Embroidered Bed and Table Linens Created in Collaboration With Laila Gohar By Roxanne Fequiere The New York-based artist Laila Gohar and Véronique Taittinger, the owner and artistic director of the bespoke linen company Vis-a-Vis Paris, are launching their first collaboration, a 13-piece collection of hand-embroidered bed and table linens that draw on traditional techniques. A pleated duvet cover took nearly 500 hours to complete, while the intricate point de noeud style of embroidery on the collection's top sheet was once used by 15th-century French nuns. Gohar's penchant for whimsy emerges in the form of a scalloped tablecloth embroidered to look as if a handful of multicolored beans had been scattered onto its Belgian linen surface. For those worried about the practicality of using such delicate pieces on a regular basis, Taittinger says that upkeep is surprisingly simple: 'Avoid the dryer, but they can be machine washed. The more you use them, the better they get.' From $55, Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Boston Globe
11-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Coffee Connection legend George Howell comes home again (and manages to lightly roast Dunkin' Donuts)
Advertisement Why coffee? I'm writing a book about that very question. I got started in coffee kind of sideways, really. I started drinking coffee seriously when I was in the San Francisco area in the '60s and '70s. That was sort of a renaissance in California culture, really. All kinds of specialty food shops were opening up. It was a farmers' market kind of world, more than anything you'd see on the East Coast. Specialty coffee started in the Berkeley and San Francisco area in the late '60s, with the birth of Peet's Coffee. I found that coffee was on the bitter side for me. I don't love dark roasts. I got a French press and started brewing coffee from a cafe that was selling lighter roasted coffee, and that became my way of life every morning. What drew you to California? What a time to be there. I had a small trust that was making life a little bit easier — not very big, but just enough. I was working in an art gallery, exhibiting the Huichol art that you can still see at our cafes in Boston and in Newtonville. In 1974, I moved East, thinking I'd resume my studies at Yale. I arrived in Boston, visiting a friend, and discovered that the coffee was dreadful, to put it mildly. Advertisement What did it taste like? Wooden pellets painted dark brown to look like beans. It was like drinking sawdust. I realized that there was real possibility in opening up a cafe much like we had already experienced in the San Francisco area, and also possibly exhibit the art that I was so interested in. So did you return to Yale? Nope. I stayed here. My wife came up with the name 'Coffee Connection,' based on the popularity of a movie back then called 'The French Connection.' We opened up in Harvard Square, and we roasted coffee in Burlington. Twice a week, we'd roast and then drive the coffee into the Harvard Square cafe. What distinguishes your coffee from others? That was exactly the question I asked myself when we opened: How do we distinguish it, and how do we make it clear to people that we actually roast our coffee right in Burlington? That's where I came up with an innovation, [putting] the roast date on every bag. Every barrel of coffee had the roast date on it, and then we wrote the date on the bag itself. That made it clear to people that we were the ones roasting it, and I also made people very aware of freshness as being a key ingredient in the coffee. That was number one. There was not a place in the country, and perhaps not even in the world, that did this for decades to come. We also made French press on the spot for people. That way, if I had 15 coffees available, you could taste any one of the coffees right away. It really excited people. Within three to four months of our opening in April 1975, we became a media darling. Advertisement A latte from George Howell Coffee Cafe in Newtonville. Dan Watkins How so? Oh god, what's his name? Chuck Kraemer. He was on the 6 o'clock news. He did 'a portrait of a coffee connoisseur,' which lasted from 10 to 15 minutes. It was an interview with me, first at the Coffee Connection in Harvard Square, and then at a Dunkin' Donuts on Boylston Street, as I recall. Dunkin' Donuts! Aren't they the enemy? I wondered the same thing when he interviewed me, and here I was drinking a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee! He asked me: What did I think of the coffee? And I'm thinking to myself, 'Well, I'd better be nice.' I said, 'Pretty good.' And then the next shot that I see, when I'm watching the actual video, is me walking out the door and throwing the cup, with coffee spilling into the garbage can. The media always has the last word. What was Harvard Square like back then? It was fantastic. The Garage, where we were, had Baby Watson's selling cheesecake and all kinds of pastries. And it was the early days of Formaggio [Kitchen] in another corner. The Garage was full of other types of places; Newbury Comics, I think, was there from day one. You had lots of small shops everywhere. And now you've come full circle at Lovestruck. What brought you back? [Owner] Rachel Kanter approached us, and the idea of opening up a cafe within her bookstore really appealed to us. We worked with her to really create a spot that worked well with her concept: We will make it educational. We can actually treat people to various tastings at different times in coordination with the bookstore. Advertisement Why do bookstores and coffee go together so well? Well, what a history. Coffee becomes really important in Europe in the 18th century, the Age of Reason, wasn't it? It's very connected to literature, literacy, gatherings of literary groups and such. It has that history from day one. This is where Jean-Paul Sartre, the philosopher, would sit and write his books. [Cafes] have always been associated with intellectual pursuit is really the answer, I think. Since you're now in a bookstore, this is only fitting: Favorite author? In more recent times, probably Gabriel [García] Márquez. In 2011, George Howell showed the Globe how to make iced coffee the right way. Essdras M Suarez/Globe Staff Are we oversaturated with too many coffee places? You know, from a point of view of competitors, we always feel pressure, to be honest. It's a matter of trying to separate ourselves within the Godfrey, which is our key location in Boston. We have a tall table. We invite people to come in pretty much every day, certain hours, and taste coffees with us. We do tastings for them black. We even have times where we offer people to bring in their own coffees, and we'll brew that alongside ours, and taste them blind. What's the verdict? I wouldn't be doing it if we didn't win most times. There's a new study that says people who drink coffee in the morning have something like a 31 percent reduced risk of cardiovascular problems. I love that, but I stay as far away from health claims as I can, because that's not the business I'm in. I'm in the business of high-quality, flavor, taste, and complexities in coffee. Coffee drip, that's like wine. Coffee espresso, that's like a cognac or a whiskey. You take it in really small doses, and it's way more powerful. Advertisement Where do you like to eat when you're not working? At my age, I don't go into Boston that often. But closer to home is 80 Thoreau in Concord; that's a place I really like to go. And Giulia in Cambridge — [owner Michael Pagliarini], he actually appreciates coffee. Most restaurants simply cannot afford a barista. They get run of the mill coffee, and that's that. You've been here a long time. Are there restaurants that you really miss? I used to love going to L'Espalier, especially when they were off Newbury Street. And I used to go to [Jody Adams's] restaurant in the Charles Hotel, Rialto. But, as I say, most of the time I spend at home at this point. What's your favorite food? Oh, boy, just about everything. I really span the spectrum, everything from oysters to French food to Italian, you name it. It's more the exploration. I'm here in Mexico right now, and I just had breakfast with mole sauce and two fried eggs. Oh, my God. And, of course, plantains. Just delicious. I'm exploring the food. Oh, and this is a major thing of mine: I really don't like tortillas that use wheat and such. It needs to be a corn tortilla, one. Two, the Mexican tortillas are very flat. If you go to Guatemala or El Salvador, they're thicker. They're handmade. There's texture and flavor that's mind-bogglingly good. I would love to serve them in one of our cafes sometime. Let's talk about coffee faux pas. Shots of hazelnut. Foams. What annoys you? Flavored coffee was big in the '80s. That was like 30 percent of many cafes' sales. We refused to do that. We never did that. There's a new type of flavored coffee happening now, where farms, especially larger ones, are doing all these crazy combinations. They're cooking the coffee, fermenting it in different ways. Now you have infused coffees that are starting to happen ... mixed with pineapple or some other fruit to add exotic flavors. That's just awful to my mind and does no service for farmers who really try to make a high-quality beverage. Outside of that, the big mistake for consumers is they should not buy ground coffee. They really would improve their coffee a heck of a lot by getting a grinder. And I really wouldn't recommend a blade-type grinder that rolls around, but a genuine grinder. It will cost typically over 100 bucks, but it's a one-time purchase. In the long run, it's really worth it. Grind the coffee pretty much on the spot and brewing it. Once you've opened the bag of coffee, which has a one-way valve and is sealed, you've opened it up to oxygen. Seal the bag and freeze it. This stops the oxidation process in its tracks, which is what stales coffee and makes it lose a lot of its nuance. The first sip, you may not notice a difference. But, if you really drink the coffee over 15 minutes, especially black over 15 minutes, as it's cooling, the nuance and the dimension of a coffee will have really diminished. It's like watching a tire slowly flatten. Interview has been edited and condensed. Kara Baskin can be reached at
