Letter From the Editor

CAN YOU REMEMBER the best meal you’ve ever had? Having grown up in a vegetarian household and being subjected to gruel like ratatouille for dinner, I definitely remember the first sumptuous dish I ever tasted— the veal marsala at the venerable restaurant Tony’s in St. Louis on my 12th birthday. At the top of my current most delicious list is the simple seafood pasta at Ristorante Bagni Delfino in Sorrento, Italy. I just happened to stumble across the place but there were several photos of Pierce Brosnan with the owner hanging in the entrance, so I knew the restaurant would be special if 007 was a repeat customer. A meal that comes out of left field to wow is a rare occasion, indeed. Especially since factors like atmosphere, service and price are what also help the experience blow past expectations. And availability. The best burger ’n’ fries in NYC used to be served from a food truck that parked outside MJ’S offices every Friday. Unfortunately, it disappeared during the pandemic and now every other burger in Manhattan is just a waste of money and a painful memory of what used to be. Anyway, good news for you. After extensive research and debate, we found the 10 best dishes in the U.S. (“Plates of Glory,” p. 56). Granted, there may be a few stellar contenders out there we’ve missed, but each of ours has that special something that earned its place on the list. Also, big apologies if you don’t live within a 30-minute drive of one of these lifechangers. It might not be fair that the best steak in the country is three states over, but them’s the breaks. To help mitigate this frustration, we created a simple and comprehensive holiday gift guide (p. 26). Whether it’s a snowblower for dad, Scotch for a friend, a leather purse for wifey or a pizza oven for yourself, there’s something for everyone, and everything is only a few clicks away. In other news, a woman is on the cover of Men’s Journal for the first time in its 30-year history. If you don’t know her by name, well, now you do. Alexandra Daddario has been working her way up the Hollywood ladder for the past two decades and is currently having quite a moment. Her acclaimed portrayal of a dispirited trophy wife in The White Lotus earned the New York native an Emmy nomination for best supporting actress, and she takes the lead in the upcoming streamer Mayfair Witches. In her engrossing profile, Alex tells us, on a lighter note, that her favorite food is sushi and that a guy can never go wrong with diamonds. We missed that in our gift guide, so a word to the wise.