Starters
What you take home from the kitchens we cover. Few ingredients, one balance to get right.
Bagna cauda recipe: Asti's slow garlic and anchovy dip
Piedmont's autumn starter comes down to one technique: garlic and anchovies melted into olive oil over the lowest flame. Here it is for four, with the vegetables to dip.
Latest
Pink fir potatoes recipe: Opheem's pickle-spiced starter
Mustard oil, whole pickling spice and tamarind turn waxy pink fir apple potatoes into the kind of starter Birmingham's Opheem built its reputation on.
Tiradito recipe: Lima's sashimi-style answer to ceviche
Chef Virgilio Martínez of Central, ranked Latin America's best restaurant, slices white fish sashimi-thin and dresses it with lime and ají amarillo — no marinating required.
Horiatiki recipe: Greece's village salad, done right
Tomatoes, cucumber and a whole block of feta, dressed with nothing but oil and oregano: the salad behind Estiatorio Milos, now hunting funding for its next stage of growth.
Vitello tonnato recipe: Piedmont's cold veal in tuna sauce
Poached veal, sliced thin and dressed in a creamy anchovy-caper-tuna sauce. No mayonnaise, no shortcuts, just a classic that outgrew Piedmont.
Taramasalata recipe: Thessaloniki's pink fish roe dip
A Thessaloniki chef's family recipe turns stale bread, cured roe and lemon into the pink dip that opens a proper Greek meze table.
Pan con tomate recipe: the bread Catalonia doesn't cook
Four ingredients, no stove beyond the toaster, and no real cooking at all. The whole dish rests on the bread, the ripe tomato and, above all, the olive oil you choose to finish it.
Borscht recipe: Ukraine's beetroot soup, Klopotenko's way
Roasted pork ribs, beetroot added twice and a smoked dried pear: the Ukrainian borscht that chef Ievgen Klopotenko took to UNESCO, rewritten as a starter for six.
Pulpo a la gallega recipe: Galicia's fair-style octopus
Galicia boils its octopus whole, cuts it with scissors onto a wooden plate, and dresses it with nothing but pimentón, salt and good olive oil.
Fennel and orange salad recipe, Palermo's winter staple
Shaved fennel, orange and black olives: a Sicilian salad built to cut through heavy winter food, with sharpness timed to the very last step.
Provoleta recipe: Argentina's grilled cheese, before the steak
A thick disc of aged provolone, seared hard in a cast-iron pan until it forms a crust around a molten centre — the starter every Argentine parrilla serves before the meat arrives.
Puntarelle alla romana recipe: Rome's winter salad
A puntarelle alla romana recipe built on one trick: ice water curls the bitter chicory shoots before the anchovy dressing goes anywhere near them.
The best of the month,
once a month.
The openings of the month, the chefs to watch, the recipes and the figures that matter. Once a month in your inbox, five minutes, nothing else.
What lands in your inbox
- The places worth booking this month
- The opening everyone is talking about
- The recipes of the month, from the kitchens we cover
- The figures that matter, with their source