NEW YORK
Italian restaurateur Massimo Bottura, chef patron of Modena’s Osteria Francescana, which boasts three Michelin stars, tells of his favourite haunts in the Big Apple
Imet my wife in New York in 1993 when we were both working at a small cafe in Soho, so the Big Apple is close to my heart. Since then the city has become a second home, withh my in-laws living on the Upper East Side, just behind the Guggenheim Museum. We’ve spent nearly every summer there, our children visiting art galleries and museums, or climbing the rocks in Central Park, and taking trains to Coney Island or Long Island beaches for the day. What I love is wandering the city from north to south without a plan. It’s like meditation and serendipitous things happen—i’ll bump into an old friend, find a vinyl record shop I hadn’t heard of before, or stumble on a small Japanese restaurant. I try to erase my mind of any agenda or obligations so I can explore in a pure and untainted way.