Thomas Barker

Our dinner at Le Louis XV Alain Ducasse, reflected a shift toward lighter, ingredient-driven haute cuisine while preserving the grandeur of the classic restaurant. Under chef Emmanuel Pilon, the cooking focuses on Mediterranean “naturalité”: purity of flavour, seasonal Riviera produce, and restrained technique. Dishes highlight vegetables from Provence, line-caught fish, and citrus from Menton, often treated simply. Grilled, lightly steamed, or raw to emphasize their natural taste. Monsieur Ducasse’s philosophy remains central, but the presentation is more contemporary and precise. The result is a cuisine that feels both elegant and modern, celebrating Mediterranean terroir with clarity, balance, and subtle creativity. None of the famous style was lost, rather accentuated by a fresh hand, acidity and bitterness have entered the equation making the latest menu we tried more relevant to the modern palate in a room that has no equal when it comes to opulence, a meal of juxtaposition and one to remember. @hoteldeparismc @lelouisxvmonaco @alainducasse @emmanuel_pilon @fissorebarker

. Eating at Nuema is like watching hummingbirds up close. The flavours arrive suddenly, hover with ferocious intensity, then disappear. Acid flashes. Smoke hums. Something green and electric vibrates on the tongue for a second too brief to analyze. You’re left slightly stunned, wondering if your palate simply hallucinated the whole thing. Like tiny winged things, these dishes are small but hyperactive, powered by improbable energy. They demand attention. You don’t eat them so much as track them, trying to register every movement before they vanish. Blink at the wrong moment and you miss the point. There’s also an edge beneath the beauty. The food is elegant, yes, but not polite. It doesn’t soften itself for visitors. Some bites challenge, some confront, some seem to dare you to keep up. This is refinement without reassurance. By the end, you’re not full in any conventional way. You’re alert, slightly charged, as if you’ve just stepped out of a cloud forest where everything moved too fast to capture, but you know—absolutely—that you witnessed something rare. And like a hummingbird, once it’s gone, you’ll struggle to describe it without sounding slightly mad. 📸 @__leicavirgin__

Happy name day bro 🥃🥃

. Slow Food, Fast Cars, Three Keys. There are places in the world that don’t need to shout to be heard. Casa Maria Luigia is one of them. Tucked into the Emilian countryside outside Modena, it feels less like a hotel and more like a love letter to food, to art, to the good life lived slowly and well. And now, the world has caught on. Retaining their Three Michelin Keys, a recognition not of luxury for its own sake, but of soul. Of a place built from stories, memories, and the kind of obsessive care that can only come from family. Walk through its doors and you feel it immediately: the Bottura family’s pulse in every detail. Massimo and Lara, with their endless curiosity and mischief, have filled these rooms with art that doesn’t just hang, it argues, seduces, laughs out loud. Each piece, each record on the turntable, is a fragment of a larger conversation about beauty, chaos, and joy. Outside, the gardens explode with life — flowers tangled in wild color, bees lazily orbiting lavender and rosemary. There are tennis courts where the sound of a rally drifts into the afternoon air, and kitchens where history and rebellion coexist. In the Coach House (Francescana at Maria Luigia) dinner feels like a mixtape of greatest hits, dishes that tell the Bottura story, refined but never stiff, playful but grounded in memory. Across the balssmic scented courtyard , at Al Gatto Verde, fire takes center stage. Jess Rosval and a team of bright, beautiful souls turn smoke, char, and imagination into something elemental — a reminder that cooking is still, at its core, about feeding people with love and curiosity. It all hums together. The art, the food, the laughter, the quiet corners where time seems to pause. Casa Maria Luigia isn’t trying to impress you. It’s trying to move you. And with three shining Michelin Keys in hand, the world simply nods and agrees: yes....this is how it’s done. 📸 @__leicavirgin__

. Walk into Da Gorini during the damp, fog-kissed days of autumn, and you know you’re in a place that means it. No bullshit, no flash, no molecular hocus-pocus that leaves you hungry ten minutes later. Just a room that smells of woodsmoke, iron pans, and the unmistakable funk of mushrooms pulled from the forest floor hours ago. We are approaching the season when the land hands over its best, but in the hills things arrive a little early: hare, wood pigeon, chestnut, porcini. The kitchen doesn’t bend them out of shape. They let them speak. The porcinis that come first; seared until the edges blister, meaty as a porterhouse, with that damp, almost indecent musk of wet leaves and soil. They arrive in a convoy of platters, barely photographed before being greedily devoured by our group. Special mention goes to my favourite, sweetbreads. Fried golden, crisp on the outside, molten within. This is the kind of dish that separates the curious eaters from the timid. Creamy, nutty, unapologetically rich—the best argument for eating nose-to-tail. They sit there on the plate daring you not to love them. The Wood Pigeon. Shit, what do Chefs have against pigeons? They are usually served cold and almost raw, I think it’s a dare, a challenge. This is the most difficult bird to cook, so I’m gonna do it and show everyone how cool I am. Very few get it right. Gianluca does! Our pigeon is moist and superbly tasty, a reflection of his traditional kitchen skill, showing that when you know the rules it’s ok to break them sometimes. Miles Davis springs to mind (not just because he’s my writing companion today) And then there’s the risotto. A green herb risotto, luminous as spring grass but tasting of autumn- a clean hit of chlorophyll against the richer tones of the season. It’s a reminder that even in the heaviness of late summer there’s brightness, there’s lift. I encourage you to explore the hills of Emilia-Romagna, away from the spotlight, where Da Gorini isn’t just serving dinner. They’re serving the season itself, still breathing, still alive on the plate. This is Italy stripped of postcard clichés, and that’s a beautiful thing. 📸 @__leicavirgin__ except 8,11,14

. Restaurant Pearl Morissette. RPM Farm + Table Niagara isn’t where you expect to find a place like this. When people hear “Niagara,” they think of tour buses, neon-lit motels, honeymoon clichés, and bad wine sold to people who don’t know better. But then you drive out, past the kitsch, through farmland that feels like it’s been waiting for something. A horizon of grapevines, grain silos, and the smell of dirt after rain. That’s where RPM lives—quiet, unsentimental, and utterly serious about what it does. A plain barn-like building that looks like it could just as easily house tractors as tasting menus, as if it doesn’t care whether you find it or not. That’s the point. The best meals are often behind doors you’d never think to open. Inside, there’s no glossy veneer, no pretentious theatre. Just a room stripped down to its essentials: wood, concrete, windows that frame the endless fields. A place where you know the food will do the talking. This kitchen tells you the story of the day, what the soil and the farmers and the weather have offered. It’s a leap of faith, and that surrender is liberating. A dozen or so courses arrive, one after another—each plate precise without being precious. Nothing is loud. Nothing shouts for your attention. It’s confident, restrained cooking—the kind that only comes from cooks who don’t feel the need to prove anything. Dining at RPM is like stepping outside of time. The world shrinks down to the table, the glass, the conversation. There’s a clarity to it, a reminder of why we sit down together in the first place: not just to feed ourselves, but to connect, to feel human. This type of graceful connection isn’t for everyone, and thank God for that. You can't please everyone and stay true to yourself. This is a property where the chefs and farmers insist on being present, on listening to the land, on making you listen too. In a region that could so easily drown in its own clichés, here’s a place that cuts through the noise with something startlingly honest. Come hungry, come curious, and most of all, come ready to give up control. Because here, surrender tastes better than choice. 📸 @__leicavirgin__

. ..... a continued visual story. This selection of images taken from our little refuge on the mountainside; all within 10mins of each other as the light slipped away. Nerd alert- Leica m8, voigtlander 35mm, Konica 90mm. Manual focus. @einprosit2025 @nobordersmusicfestival @fissorebarker 📸 @__leicavirgin__

. Every year Manuela and I take 2 weeks off, well almost off, you can't get rid of us that easily. In Tarvisio, up near Austria and Slovenia, the summer edition of Ein Prosit rubs shoulders with No Borders Music Festival, that has been around for 30 years now. Great music, spectacular location, two weekends of chef collaborations, wine tastings, cheese eating, bike riding, lake swimming, mountainside BBQs, fresh, clean air, thunderstorms, sunny days. Peace. This year instead of food shots you can't eat I leave you a few images captured outside of these festive events, because at the end of the day we are here to enjoy the mountains and take a deep breath. @einprosit2025 @nobordersmusicfestival @fissorebarker 📸 @__leicavirgin__

Lunch yesterday at @hisafranko , always creative , always local , always delicious. Chefs Ana and Yvonne lead us through flavors of the Soça Valley during summer rain showers and of course, the sun that always comes out. Pairings from the funky end of natural selection are on point as usual. Possibly too many 'eyeballs' in the video but that's another story. Congratulations to the Hisa Franco family, it's always such a pleasure to visit you and live a day in your special part of paradise.

Our wedding anniversary lunch at the one and only @restaurantmirazur . 8 years married to the most impressive woman I've ever met, cheers baby 🥂 A huge thank you to Mauro and Julia for the wonderful surprise. Today we ate 'Leaves' , as part of the ever evolving, moon cycle format that Mirazur adheres to, this was a perfect lead up to the cake that appeared after dinner - made with chartreuse, they really know their audience! 💚 - pro tip , when @maurocolagreco asks if you want the whole menu you say #ouichef !! #bronzeanniversary

. Welcome to Studio + (Studio plus, plus what? That's the idea...) The brand spanking new, multi purpose culinary space in Alba. Under Piazza Duomo's roof, and supervision, the Studio + space aims to give prominence to visiting chefs and artisans. The kitchen table seats 8. The idea, to take the logistics out of taking your craft on the road. Fine dining in the Piazza Duomo room, fun dining in the Studio + Oh, and the sound system is bangin', if you happen to have some vinyl records in your bag that's even better 🤟🏻

. A Knife, a Fire, and a Dream: Chef Himanshu Saini of Trèsind Studio Dubai Carves His Name in Culinary History with Three Michelin Stars. On a steamy Dubai night, under the unforgiving scrutiny of Michelin’s white-gloved arbiters, Chef Himanshu Saini did what no Indian chef has ever done: he walked away with three Michelin stars. That’s not just a nod. That’s a roar. That’s a declaration that Indian cuisine doesn’t belong in takeout boxes or tired clichés — it belongs on the goddamn throne. Trèsind Studio, his culinary rooftop temple, has been something of an open secret — a place where turmeric gets the reverence it deserves, and where cardamom sings arias in eighteen courses of mind-bending brilliance. It’s not a restaurant. It’s a stage. It’s a battlefield. And Chef Saini? He’s not just cooking. He’s telling stories with spice and fire. You could call him a rule-breaker, but that would be lazy. This isn’t rebellion for rebellion’s sake. This is respect — deep, ancestral respect — reimagined through the lens of a mad scientist with a steel palate and a poet’s soul. From humble beginnings in New Delhi to culinary school in India to world renowned kitchens — Saini didn’t take shortcuts. He took scars. This moment is more than personal glory. It’s a reckoning. Indian cuisine, long typecast and boxed in by colonial ignorance and drunken, late-night expectations, has finally been acknowledged not just as worthy — but as revolutionary. “I’m not cooking for stars,” Saini once said. “I’m cooking for my mother, my country, and the kids who didn’t know this was possible.” Well, it’s possible now. ⸻ “Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.” — Anthony Bourdain. _____ Tonight the temple met the amusement park, India’s most celebrated gastronomic thrill ride is well and truly open. With respect.