A regular round-up of culinary news from around the Americas, and beyond. If you have any tips about restaurant or hotel openings, new culinary books, food media worth reading, plus events and happenings of every sort, drop me a line thenewworlder@gmail.com.
There’s a rather fascinating issue sorting itself out right now in the Amazon Rainforest, as reported by Jack Nicas in The New York Times. While the internet has been a part of life in Amazonian cities for more than a decade, Elon Musk’s Starlink satelite internet service is now reaching remote areas, which includes some indigenous communities that are not particularly well integrated into wider society, such as the Marubo that live along the Ituí River in Brazil.
These are not uncontacted tribes without connection to the outside world, yet try to imagine the world that is suddenly being thrust upon them and communities like theirs. There are both positives and negatives about what it can do to their identity and culture. “There are now 66,000 active contracts in the Brazilian Amazon, touching 93 percent of the region’s legal municipalities,” the story states. “That has opened new job and education opportunities for those who live in the forest. It has also given illegal loggers and miners in the Amazon a new tool to communicate and evade authorities.” Clickbait media like the NY Post (link intentionally not added) immediately took pieces of the story out of context, suggesting the Marubo got the internet and were immediately addicted to porn. There’s nothing in the story to suggest that, as Nicas followed up.
Much of the Amazon is in a state of transition, despite how we in the Western World like to romanticize its serenity. Much of that transition is being forced onto communities by groups of people, often armed, sometimes with permits, coming to extract lumber, oil, gold and plants. Many communities have been exploited because of their inability to communicate with legal council and other resources. There are important benefits that internet access can provide, yet it is a delicate balance. Village elders in the story complain about younger generations staring at their phones the same way I complain about my kids staring at their iPads. It’s the world we live in, but ultimately it is their choice to determine if the positives outweigh the negatives.
Elsewhere in Food Media
Disfrutar is The World’s Best Restaurant 2024 by Rachael Hogg – World’s 50 Best Restaurants
Are These Really ‘the World’s 50 Best Restaurants’? by Pete Wells - The New York Times
The World’s 50 Best List is Broken by Alan Sytsma – Grub Street
The Case Against Travel by Agnes Callard – The New Yorker
The Maillard Over-Reaction by Ruby Tandoh – The New Yorker
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Restaurant Openings
OSF Kitchen - Manabi, Ecuador: Chef Andres Orlando, also of The Finch Bay Galapagos hotel, is opening a restaurant on a 25-acre residential community with its own farm and food forest, in Puerto Cayo, on the Ecuadorian coast in Manabí.
Proprio - Mexico City, Mexico: In Colonia Roma, the chefs Shary and Alex Chavez have opened this restaurant with an open kitchen, minimalist wood design and a dry-aged fish cabinet. They’re serving dishes like ribeye with mole and red rice with soft shell crab alongside Mexican wines.
Lofe – San Jose, Costa Rica: Argentine chef Luciano Lofeudo of Isolina will open this Argentine Italian restaurant focused on house made pastas. It will be in a renovated building in Rohrmoser, a suburb on the west side of San José.
Cotoa – Miami, Florida: We spoke to Ecuadorian chef Alejandra Espinoza, of the restaurant Somos in Quito, about her work with cacao byproducts earlier in the year. She has now opened Cotoa, an ambitious food stall in the The B100m, or The Bloom Food Hall, in downtown Miami, with a 4-course tasting at night and more casual Ecuadorian fare during the day.
Itamae AO - Miami, Florida: Nando Chang has reopened Itamae, Miami’s beloved Japanese-Peruvian restaurant that started out in a food hall. This version, set in an adjacent space to his sister Valerie Chang’s restaurant Maty’s, is single bar serving only a tasting menu, where he can focus on his experiments in acidity, fish butchery and dry aging, with a hi-hop soundtrack.
Mission Ceviche - Manhattan, New York: Also starting out in a food hall, Mission Ceviche has been drawing crowds to the Upper East Side for their bold take on Peruvian food. Now they are expanding with a larger location just off Union Square sometime this summer.
Matilda - The Catskills, New York: Jeremiah Stone and Fabian von Hauske of NYC’s Contra and Wildair have opened a restaurant attached to a restored 16-room Inn, The Henson, in Hensonville. Think good food and wine on the level of Wildair, but inspired by Hudson Valley produce, in a setting that is the complete opposite of the Lower East Side.
Lomo Libre - San Francisco, California: Peruvian chef Jose Calvo Perez’s Lomo Libre started out as a food truck serving lomo saltado burritos, before moving into a sports bar, and has now transitioned into a more formal location. The focus is on raw and fried seafood (ceviches, tiraditos, jalea, etc) with a mix of classic Peruvian and original cocktails.
Pepino: San Diego, California: In La Jolla, pop-up Pepino from chef Sebastian Becerra, an Eleven Madison Park and Coi alum, will open a Peruvian all day café and bakery later this year. They’ll also have lomo saltado breakfast burritos (when did this become a thing?), as well lechón sandwiches and various pastries.
Book Recommendations
La Cocina de Pepina: 15 Aniversario - by Hammbre de Cultura. A celebration of the iconic Cartagena, Colombia restaurant from the always interesting culinary publisher.
Events
Cookbook Fest – June 21-23, Napa Valley, California. Food, drinks and live entertainment that include open fire cooking and live podcast recordings.
Elsewhere On Substack
Show Me The Money: How open book management can change a restaurant's fortunes in more ways than one.
.Pepinos (agridulces) y Pan. Domingo.
Bologna: The Learned, The Fat, The Red. But Mostly The Fat.
Recent Stories on New Worlder
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