Noble Rot Issue 23: If Not Now, When?

Back in mid-March when Noble Rot restaurant temporarily closed due to Covid-19, it was questionable whether publishing a summer edition of Noble Rot would be in keeping with the mood of the times. But we all need reasons to be cheerful, even in the most challenging days, so issue 23 is a reaffirmation of our original mission statement: to celebrate wine and gastronomy.

In this instalment…

• …temporarily otherwise employed critic Marina O’Loughlin imagines her ideal restaurant, Diana Henry writes about restaurants’ restorative magic, and Honey & Co’s Itamar Srulovich reminisces about his last meal out before lockdown.

• …author and importer Kermit Lynch, Beastie Boy Mike Diamond, writer Andrew Jefford and Noble Rot editor Dan Keeling ask: if they are not drinking their most treasured bottles now, with the world appearing to be self-destructing, when will they do it?

• …Fay Maschler profiles Italian cookery supremo Giorgio Locatelli

• ...we spotlight Anjou and Savennières, two of France’s most exciting white wine appellations; talk to iconoclastic Mâconnais legend Jean-Marie Guffens, and take a look at Beaujolais’ long -lost terroir classifications.

• …we feature our guide to the best places on the planet to drink natural wine; Russell Norman reveals the spiciest moments of London restaurant folklore; and we take a fresh look at The Zuni Café Cookbook.

• Plus recipes, stories and musings from Simon Hopkinson, Rachel Roddy, Ruby Tandoh, Alastair Little, Jon Bonné, Stephen Harris, George Reynolds, Zeren Wilson, Simon J Woolf, and John Niven, among much more…