Henri
Serre, Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner and Vanna
Urbino in "Jules and Jim" (1962)
❖❖❖
IN
THIS ISSUE
IL
SALVIATINO
BY JOHN MARIANI
NEW
YORK CORNER
VILLARD
by John Mariani
❖❖❖
Il Salviatino
by John Mariani
Is
it reasonable to ask of a hotel in Italy set within
a majestic historical building to compete with a
brand new hotel built in Dubai to be
state-of-the-art in everything from bathrooms to
WiFi?
Not
long ago, the answer was no, for in the past so many
deluxe hotels in Rome, Florence, Venice and Naples
would never meet the five-star criteria taken for
granted in cities like London, Paris and New
York. For one thing, historic
buildings--especially in Italy--are so protected by
bureaucracies, preservationists and art societies as
to cause a developer endless delays, permit problems
and the expenditure of millions of Euros that a brand
new structure would not require. In the past, Italian
hoteliers seemed to believe that their antique charms
more than made up for claustrophobic shower stalls,
mis-matched furniture, and 40-watt light bulbs.
What
changed all that was the opening of the Four Seasons
Milan in 1993 in what had been a 15th century convent.
Its modernity, efficiency and hospitality were at a
level no other hotels in Italy offered at the time,
and others had to quickly catch up, so that today
hotels that were once egregiously outdated are now on
a par with what the Four Seasons Milan set in motion.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Florence, where a
slew of superb hotels, including a new Four Seasons,
set in a Renaissance palazzo, the Hotel Lungarno, and
Villa San Michele are now among the finest hotels in
Europe. Now add to that list the new Il
Salviatino in the hills above Florence in the quiet
town of Fiesole. Back in the 15th century the
estate was a banker’s palace, a century later taken
over by wealthy wool merchants named Salviatis, and
expanded and improved upon by successive owners, who
added a crenelated tower, gardens and a conservatory.
From 1973 the building housed Stanford
University’s overseas branch, with student
dormitories. Lucky students.
In
2007 hotelier Marcello Pignozzo, a 40-year veteran who
once ran InterContinental’s Asia Pacific division,
bought the villa in a state of dereliction, poured 15
million Euros into restoration under award-winning
architect Luciano Columbo, and brought 11 ½
acres of greenery back to verdant life.
Il
Salviatino now encompasses 45 rooms, many with 19th
century frescoes and older mosaics, along with
exquisite paintings and harmonized antique and modern
furniture. And, yes, the bathrooms are as large
as any in a California hotel suite.
You pull up to the porte cochere at Il Salviatino and
are ushered up steps into a grand lobby, which itself
leads to a magnificent staircase fit for a Medici
prince. Long red-carpeted hallways with
chiaroscuro lighting lead to widely separated rooms
with high beamed ceilings and windows looking out over
the Fiesolan hills and down onto the glorious Duomo
and bell tower of Florence's Basilica (above, right).
Unlike French or English gardens, Il
Salviatino’s have a romantic, carefully crafted
wildness to them, and when you open the draperies in
the morning, you will be struck by the same brilliant
light and sky that were painted by the Florentine
Renaissance artists like Botticelli and Piero della
Francesca.
There
is luxury in every corner of Il Salviatino, as well as
WiFi that works (Grazie,
Dio!), and one of the most splendid and quiet
rooms is the grand library. The staff is
comprised of “Service Ambassadors” who act like
personal concierges. There is, of course, a
pool, and a completely modern spa on premises,
overseen by the Dr. Vranjes Laboratory, which offers
something called “emotional polysensorial
voyages”--which sounds positively daunting. And, if
you want to go to town, the hotel has a shuttle
throughout the day leaving from the porte cochere and
letting you off just behind the basilica and its
imposing Duomo. There
was never any question that the restaurant at Il
Salviatino would be anything less than deluxe, but
neither it is overly formal, so families feel at ease
dining here. During the summer, meals are served
on the terrace (below),
while in winter the dining room Le Serre (left) is the
principal venue. Cooking classes can be
arranged, too.
When
I dined there recently I was surprised to find Chef
Carmine Calo’s menu prices somewhat less than I
expected for this degree of luxury. There is an
extensive tasting of eight antipasti, including
polenta with porcini mushrooms, a savory pumpkin pie,
and Tuscan bean soup for 30 Euros, while pastas like
risotto with chestnuts and crepes gratin run 20 Euros
each, and main courses like beef stew with potatoes,
Swiss chard and chestnuts 30 Euros. A tasting menu
runs 70 Euros. Not cheap, but in similar hotel
ristoranti in Italy, like Il Palagio at The Four
Seasons in Florence and La Pergola at the Rome Hilton,
the tabs would be much higher, by at least 10 Euros
per dish.
So,
too, depending on the time of year, one can get a
beautiful room for two, including breakfast, at the
hotel for about 340 Euros, which is remarkable for
this level of posh and considerably below competitors’
prices.
Fiesole has long been a retreat for travelers,
including quite famous ones like Robert and Elizabeth
Browning, Gertrude Stein, and Frank Lloyd Wright, and,
despite Florence’s inexhaustible artistic treasures,
Fiesole--birthplace of the master artist Fra
Angelico--is well worth wandering for
its Etruscan and Roman ruins, 11th century Badia
cathedral, the monastery of St. Francis, and various
villas like Il Salviatino.
If
the BBC needs a setting for a adaption of an Italian
novel of manners like Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady,
it might well be filmed at Il Salviatino, for in its
grand spaces and amidst its extravagant gardens there
is the lingering spirit of aristocracy, now happily
receptive to anyone who wants to bask in such luxury
with all the modern amenities.
Il
Salviatino re-opens in the middle of this month.
Call 011+39 055 9041111 or (888) 482-8642
(U.S. & Canada toll free).
❖❖❖
NEW
YORK CORNER By John Mariani
VILLARD
The New York Palace
Hotel
455 Madison Ave (near
50th Street) 212-891-8100
It
is very rare that I so radically disagree with my
colleagues’ reports as I did with a recent thrashing
by the NY
Times restaurant critic Pete Wells of Chef
Michel Richard’s Villard in the New York Palace
Hotel. Reading it, I could not believe he and I went
to the same restaurant or ate the same food.
(For the record, the staff at Villard knew
each of us on sight on our separate visits.)
Wells is
as aware as any gourmand how highly regarded Chef
Richard (below)
is, winning every accolade possible in his long
career. So Welles rightly wondered if Richard’s
working with an imposed union staff might have
affected the food and service. (I know very well how
those unions can wreak havoc with a chef’s best
intentions: their obstinacy drove a previous
tenant at The Palace--Le Cirque--to leave as soon as
its contract ran out.)
Yet on my two visits--one to the
large dining room that serves breakfast, lunch and
dinner; the other to the Gallery (above), which serves only
dinner--I had meals in every way reminiscent of
those I’ve enjoyed at other Richard-run restaurants
over four decades. Nothing I tasted at Villard
indicated that Richard and a dining room staff of
veterans were coasting on laurels or intimidated by
the union workers there. (There is also the Pomme Palais
market, open all day serving breakfast, lunch and
light dinner options.)
Born in Brittany, Richard learned
his craft in Paris, moved to Los Angeles, where he
first ran a patîsserie, and, in 1986, opened
Citrus, a bellwether California-French restaurant of
its day. He later opened what many still
consider to have been Washington’s finest
restaurant, Citronelle (shuttered when the hotel
itself closed). There have been a few missteps
along the way, but Richard never compromised his
cuisine or changed his witty, winking approach to
prole food--most evident at Villard in his splendid
fried chicken, which is brined, coated in a chicken
mousse, breaded and fried to a succulence I’ve never
before encountered, served with Yukon Gold mashed
potatoes and glazed baby Brussels sprouts. His
short rib sandwiches are made from beef marinated 72
hours; and his tuna burger with a soy dressing on
brioche bun with potato tuile, confit tomato, and
ginger mayonnaise shows what happens when a master
chef applies his precise sense of balanced flavors. In the more
casual side of Villard--though it is a riot of
Gilded Age filigree (left) and a spectacular glass wine
cache--I enjoyed an extensive lunch that included
dishes only a carefully trained kitchen could render
with such delicacy, not least perfect puff pastry (below)
enclosing shiitake mushrooms with butter and
parmesan; or a simple frisée salad with
lardons of bacon, croutons, and creamy poached egg
in which every element was crafted with the same
degree of care. Another classic bistro lunch
dish, ham and
cheese quiche--so
often a leaden bore-- was here a cogent argument to
bring it back to favor.
In the
Gallery, which is landmarked and cannot be altered
in any way, oversized photos of French and American
actresses lean against the walls, and a glowing
light comes from under the tables. My wife and
I had the four-course dinner ($140; there is an
eight-course dinner at $185 and vegetarian dinner at $140)
with many options. We feasted on rich foie gras that
was brûléed with a sweet crackling
sheen. Striped bass came with a sunchoke
puree, parsnip chips, lobster butternut squash
emulsion, while cuttlefish-colored fettuccine was
showered with white truffles ($20 supplement).
Beautiful plump, rosy squab was made more
luscious with a Port wine reduction and an
unexpected cherry-cocoa sauce. Muscovy duck
breast was accompanied by its own confited leg,
pumpkin, crispy spaghetti squash, and a spiced fig
sauce that was as perfect a winter’s dish as might
be imagined. Desserts
proved
every bit as impressive, not least a crème
brûlée napoleon, a raspberry vacherin,
and a dense chocolate bar with crispy chocolate base
and chocolate mousse (left)--the kind of dish that made
Michel Richard famous when he first came to the U.S.
From all
I tasted, Richard is at the top of his form, and
though I worried about his commitment to being at
Villard--he lives in DC--he insists he is in New
York five days a week, overseeing those details that
need constant attention, especially in a union shop.
It’s certainly possible that when Pete Wells dined
at Villard the cooking did not reach the heights
that I experienced, but I can guarantee that when
all is going well, Villard ranks with the finest of
New York’s fine dining rooms right now.
❖❖❖
NOTES FROM THE SPIRITS LOCKER
The
Odd History of the Bloody Mary
By John Mariani
When
you
think of the few “classic” cocktails that
bartenders even know how to make anymore, none
has a more storied past than the Bloody
Mary. In
fact, if it weren’t for the 18th Amendment and
the Russian Revolution there would be no Bloody
Mary.
While the origin of its name and recipe may be
disputed, the birthplace of the original drink is
not—except by one man, Colin Field of the
Hemingway Bar at The Ritz Hotel in Paris, who
happens to be the world’s best bartender but who
refuses to believe that what is now called the
Bloody Mary originated around the corner at
Harry’s New York Bar at 5 Rue Danou. Harry’s (which is in no way associated with
Harry’s Bar in Venice) was opened Thanksgiving Day
1911 by Harry MacElhone after an American jockey
had a New York bar dismantled and shipped to
Paris. This novel New York-style bar became such a
welcoming destination for liquor-starved Americans
during Prohibition that they learned to tell the
Parisian taxi drivers “Sank Roo Doe Noo!”—which
for a long time now has been painted on the bar’s
window. Around 1920,
émigrés escaping the Russian
Revolution began arriving in Paris, bringing with
them vodka and caviar, so Harry’s bartender,
Ferdinand “Pete” Petiot, began experimenting with
the new spirit, which he found tasteless.At the
same time Petiot was introduced to American canned
tomato juice, which back in the dry days of
Prohibition was called a “tomato juice cocktail”
on menus. Over a year’s time Petiot made vodka drink
after vodka drink until finally he mixed it with
the tomato juice and some seasonings, and, voilà!,
a new cocktail was born, called the Bucket of
Blood, christened by visiting American entertainer
Roy Barton after a West Side Chicago nightclub of
the same name. The drink became popular among Americans
visiting Paris in the '20s, so when Prohibition
ended with the passage of the 21st Amendment,
hotelier Vincent Astor brought over Petiot to man
the King Cole Bar at the St. Régis Hotel in
New York, famous for its 30-foot nursery rhyme
mural by Maxfield Parrish.The
drink caught on--particularly as a supposed cure
for hangovers—but under the less sanguine name
“Red Snapper,” which is what it’s still called at
the just-restored King Cole Bar (below).(Originally,
black peppercorns were steeped in a pint of vodka
for six weeks to create a mixture called “liquid
black pepper,” a dash of which gave the vodka
itself a real blast of flavor.) Here is the current official recipe from
the King Cole Bar, which sells about 850 Red
Snappers each month: The
Red Snapper Original Recipe: 1 oz.
Stolichnaya vodka 2 oz. Tomato juice 1 dash lemon juice 2 dashes salt 2 dashes black
pepper 2 dashes cayenne
pepper 3 dashes of
Worcestershire sauce Garnish with a lemon wedge and
celery stalk. Exactly when
other bars around town began calling it the
“Bloody Mary,” with reference to Mary Tudor, Mary
I of England and Ireland, who was known for her
bloody reign against Protestants, is vague, but in
a 1939 ad campaign for American-made Smirnoff
vodka, first made in 1934 by Russian
émigré Rudolph Kunnetchansky,
entertainer George Jessel claimed to have named
the drink after a friend, Mary Geraghty. Recipes
under the name Bloody Mary date back in print at
least to 1946.Butch McGuire’s Bar in Chicago claims to
have added the celery stick as a flavorful
stirrer. Ernest
Hemingway (far
left in photo, in Paris), who likely
knocked back a few Red Snappers on his visits to
Harry’s New York Bar in the 1920s, wrote in a 1947
letter that he had introduced the Bloody Mary to
Hong Kong in 1941, an act he said “did more than
any other single factor except the Japanese Army
to precipitate the Fall of that Crown Colony.”(Hemingway
also claimed to have “liberated” The Ritz in
August 1944, actually arriving a few hours late.)Papa
had very specific instructions on how to make a
Bloody: “To make a pitcher of Blood Marys
(any smaller amount is worthless) take a good
sized pitcher and put in it as big a lump of ice
as it will hold. (This to prevent too rapid
melting and watering of our product.)Mix a
pint of good russian vodka and an equal amount of
chilled tomato juice. Add a table spoon full of
Worchester Sauce.Lea and Perrins is usual but can use AI or
any good beef-steak sauce.Stirr.
(with two rs) Then add a jigger of fresh squeezed
lime juice.Stirr.Then add small amounts of celery salt,
cayenne pepper, black pepper.Keep on
stirring and taste to see how it is doing.If you
get it too powerful weaken with more tomato juice.If it
lacks authority add more vodka.”
One
way or the other a Bloody Mary possesses plenty of
authority, so to celebrate the octogenarian
cocktail’s coming to America, went to the King
Cole Bar (right),
ordered a Red Snapper and drank it with excellent
grilled prawns with a smoked aïoli and a
chopped salad with arugula, chickpeas, cheese and
avocado. I drank a toast to Pete Petiot, to
my wife's Russian family, who emigrated to Paris
in the 1920s, to Vincent Astor (whose face is that
of King Cole in the mural), and to the end of
Prohibition on Dec. 5, 1933, which opened the way
for the advent of the Bloody Mary in this country
eighty years ago. And when you
go to the King Cole Bar, discreetly ask bartender
Mike Reagan about the secret every regular knows
about what’s going on in the painting.
❖❖❖
Wine Column Sponsored by Banfi Vintners
Reliable Old Friends
by Cristina Mariani-May co-CEO of Banfi
VintnersAmerica's leading wine importer
As wonderful as it is to try
new things and expand one’s horizons, sometimes life
throws so many complications at us that sometimes the
virtual gourmet in each of us just needs to fall back
on a reliable standby.In the world of wine, examples of such
touchstones are what we call “seminal” wines,
recognizable brands from simpler days gone by.Perhaps it
was the wine that a regular guest brought to Sunday
dinner at Grandma's, or the one that we ordered at our
favorite neighborhood restaurant with a special
someone.They
may not be the latest varietal discovered or hail from
the hottest region, but they are consistently good.Sometimes
it is not the job of the wine to bring an audience to
its feet, but to keep it happy in its seat.The job of
a good table wine should be to let the meal or the
company stand out, subtly complementing but never
stealing the thunder.
A few years ago, my family’s
portfolio of imported wines was enhanced by two such
brands – Bolla and Fontana Candida.These are
classics, wines that have always been on the scene.So many
friends have since told me of personal memories of
these as their first experiences with wine.Going back
to them is like putting on that comfy sweater or the
well worn sneakers.They go well with a wide range of foods and
occasions, and they are consistently unfailing in
their ability to deliver exactly what you expect of
them.Sure,
the sommelier is not going to recommend them and the
wine list may offer more exotic choices, but have no
fear of going with old reliable.We all know
about comfort foods – these are comfort wines!
Recommended
Comfort Wines
Fontana Candida
Frascati – A light, tasty wine with
a dry, crisp finish that’s built on a zesty citrus
backbone.The
grapes for this dry, clean wine are grown in the
porous, volcanic soils located in the Frascati commune
near Rome.Easy
to drink, it pairs well with salads, pasta, veal,
chicken, vegetable soups, mild seafood dishes and mild
cheeses.Average US
retail around $10.Fontana Candida also produces two ranges up the
scale, normally available only on restaurant wine
lists --Terre
dei Grifi, a special selection of their Frascati from
select vineyards, and Luna Mater, a very special
bottling that combines age-old traditions with
innovative winemaking techniques – and proves that the
term Great Frascati is not an oxymoron, but a new
entry to world class standards.
Bolla Valpolicella - Made from handpicked grapes
from the Veneto region of northern Italy.This soft,
sumptuous wine has flavors of berries, almonds,
raisins and spicy black cherries.Its full
flavor pairs nicely with beef dishes, grilled meats
and zesty pasta.Average US retail around $9.Equally
reliable and savory are Bolla Soave and Bardolino as
well as other classic varietals; the winery also
produces some outstanding premium wines including
single vineyard versions of its Valpolicella and Soave
and, of course, its heralded Amarone. Proving
that an volume producer can also take on the mindset
of an artisan, Bolla offers its Tufaie Soave from a
delimited zone of older, more prized single vineyards
in Soave’s heartland; a Ripasso version of
Valpolicella called Le Poiane, and a Super-Veneto
called Creso, blending the dominant local grape
Corvina at 70% to the international voice of Cabernet
Sauvignon at 30%, but the latter made from dried fruit
akin to the Amarone method – and therefore putting a
distinct Veronese thumbprint on this very special
wine.
Cristina Mariani is
not related by family or through business with
John Mariani, publisher of this newsletter
❖❖❖
THE FIRST NAME THEY CAME UP WITH WAS "DEATH TO THE
INFIDELS CAFÉ"
A Middle Eastern restaurant in Eastpointe,
Michigan, has opened, called The Bomb by Syrian owners
George and Rana Kasar, who contend the name refers to
the slang expression and to their spicy food,
including a dish called "Bomb Fajita." Rana Kasar says
that the reaction has been scary: "They think we're
terrorists now."
BLOCK
THAT METAPHOR!
"The matzo-ball soup comes with bone
marrow to stir in; a variant on the Happy Waitress, as
New Jersey as a traffic jam, features not just a
poached egg but also Taylor ham and a cheddar-cheese
sauce resembling hollandaise."--Amelia Lester, "Empire
Diner," The New
Yorker (2/17/14).
❖❖❖
QUICK
BYTES
The
annual Charleston
Food + Wine Festival will be held March
6-9, with more than 80 events and a stellar line-up
of chefs and food writers including Frank Lee,
Jeremiah Bacon, Anthony Lamas, Chris Shepherd, Frank
Stitt, John T. Edge, Andy Ricker, Anne Quatrano,
Natalie
Dupree, Nancy Silverton, and dozens more. John Mariani will
again host a Wine Cruise of Charleston Harbor on
Saturday at noon. For info go to: http://charlestonwineandfood.com/events-tickets.
The 10thannual Savor Dallas,
March 20-22, 2014, celebrates wine, food, spirits and
the arts in downtown Dallas and nearby locations.
"Savor the Arboretum"at the Dallas Arboretum and
Botanical Garden kicks off the festivities with wine
and chef cuisine in the gardens on Thurs., followed by
the popular "Arts District Wine Stroll" on Fri.
Sat. features include a Winemaker Tasting Panel,
a modern mixology seminar, The Reserve Tasting, and
"The International Grand Tasting" offering
cuisine from dozens of the area’s top chefs and more
than 400 premium wines, spirits and craft beers.
Prices for individual events range from $20 to
$150…$365 for a cost-saving weekend package.For tickets
and more information visitwww.SavorDallas.com or call 888-728-6747.
❖❖❖
Any of John Mariani's
books below may be ordered from amazon.com.
Modesty forbids me to praise my own new book, but
let me proudly say that it is an extensive
revision of the 4th edition that appeared more
than a decade ago, before locavores, molecular
cuisine, modernist cuisine, the Food Network and
so much more, now included. Word origins have been
completely updated, as have per capita consumption
and production stats. Most important, for the
first time since publication in the 1980s, the
book includes more than 100 biographies of
Americans who have changed the way we cook, eat
and drink -- from Fannie Farmer and Julia Child to
Robert Mondavi and Thomas Keller.
"This book is amazing! It has entries for
everything from `abalone' to `zwieback,' plus more
than 500 recipes for classic American dishes and
drinks."--Devra First, The Boston Globe.
"Much needed in any kitchen library."--Bon Appetit.
Now in Paperback,
too--How Italian Food Conquered the
World (Palgrave Macmillan) has won top prize from the
Gourmand
World Cookbook Awards. It is
a rollicking history of the food culture of
Italy and its ravenous embrace in the 21st
century by the entire world. From ancient Rome
to la dolce
vita of post-war Italy, from Italian
immigrant cooks to celebrity chefs, from
pizzerias to high-class ristoranti,
this chronicle of a culinary diaspora is as
much about the world's changing tastes,
prejudices, and dietary fads as about
our obsessions with culinary fashion and
style.--John Mariani
"Eating Italian will
never be the same after reading
John Mariani's entertaining and
savory gastronomical history of
the cuisine of Italy and how it
won over appetites worldwide. . .
. This book is such a tasteful
narrative that it will literally
make you hungry for Italian food
and arouse your appetite for
gastronomical history."--Don
Oldenburg, USA Today.
"Italian
restaurants--some good, some glitzy--far
outnumber their French rivals. Many of
these establishments are zestfully described
in How Italian Food Conquered the World, an
entertaining and fact-filled chronicle by
food-and-wine correspondent John F.
Mariani."--Aram Bakshian Jr., Wall Street
Journal.
"Mariani
admirably dishes out the story of
Italy’s remarkable global ascent
to virtual culinary
hegemony....Like a chef gladly
divulging a cherished family
recipe, Mariani’s book reveals the
secret sauce about how Italy’s
cuisine put gusto in gusto!"--David
Lincoln Ross,
thedailybeast.com
"Equal parts
history, sociology, gastronomy, and just
plain fun, How Italian Food Conquered the
World tells the captivating and delicious
story of the (let's face it) everybody's
favorite cuisine with clarity, verve and
more than one surprise."--Colman Andrews,
editorial director of The Daily
Meal.com.
"A fantastic and fascinating
read, covering everything from the influence
of Venice's spice trade to the impact of
Italian immigrants in America and the
evolution of alta cucina. This book will
serve as a terrific resource to anyone
interested in the real story of Italian
food."--Mary Ann Esposito, host of PBS-TV's
Ciao
Italia.
"John Mariani has written the
definitive history of how Italians won their
way into our hearts, minds, and
stomachs. It's a story of pleasure over
pomp and taste over technique."--Danny Meyer,
owner of NYC restaurants Union Square Cafe,
Gotham Bar & Grill, The Modern, and
Maialino.
❖❖❖
FEATURED
LINKS: I am happy to report
that the Virtual
Gourmet is linked to four excellent
travel sites:
I consider this the best and
savviest blog of its kind on the web. Potter is a
columnist for USA
Weekend, Diversion, Laptop and Luxury Spa Finder,
a contributing editor for Ski and a frequent contributor
to National
Geographic Traveler, ForbesTraveler.com
and Elle Decor.
"I’ve designed this site is for people who take
their travel seriously," says Potter. "For
travelers who want to learn about special places
but don’t necessarily want to pay through the nose for
the privilege of staying there. Because at the end
of the day, it’s not so much about five-star
places as five-star experiences." THIS WEEK: AMSTDERDAM
Eating Las Vegas
is the new on-line site for Virtual Gourmet
contributor John A. Curtas., who since 1995
has been commenting on the Las Vegas food
scene and reviewing restaurants for Nevada
Public Radio. He is also the
restaurant critic for KLAS TV, Channel 8 in
Las Vegas, and his past reviews can be
accessed at KNPR.org.
Click on the logo below to go directly to
his site.
Tennis Resorts Online:
A Critical Guide to the
World's Best Tennis Resorts and Tennis Camps, published
by ROGER COX, who has spent more than two decades
writing about tennis travel, including a 17-year stretch
for Tennis magazine.
He has also written for Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, New York Magazine, Travel &
Leisure, Esquire, Money, USTA Magazine, Men's Journal,
and The Robb
Report. He has authored two books-The World's Best Tennis
Vacations (Stephen Greene Press/Viking
Penguin, 1990) and The
Best Places to Stay in the Rockies (Houghton Mifflin,
1992 & 1994), and the Melbourne (Australia) chapter
to the Wall Street
Journal Business Guide to Cities of the Pacific Rim (Fodor's
Travel Guides, 1991).
nickonwine:
An engaging, interactive
wine column by Nick Passmore, Artisanal Editor, Four
Seasons Magazine; Wine Columnist, BusinessWeek.com;
nick@nickonwine.com; www.nickonwine.com.
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET
NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Editor/Publisher: John
Mariani.Contributing
Writers: Christopher
Mariani, Robert Mariani, John
A. Curtas, Edward Brivio, Mort Hochstein, Suzanne
Wright,and Brian Freedman. Contributing
Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery,
Bobby Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.