Savoring Costa Rica, Sip By Sip

“Coffee,” said Buzzy O’Keeffe, the owner of the renowned River Café, in Brooklyn, “is the last thing a restaurant diner tastes — so it better be good.” For Mr. O’Keeffe, it seems, it’s never good enough. Every couple of weeks he assembles his chef and several staff members for a blind tasting of brews from…

A Midwest Connection for Wagyu Beef

In 2014, several Angus cattle ranchers in Ohio started raising Wagyu for Sakura Wagyu Farms, a company formed to set standards for the cattle. The animals are bred from 100 percent Wagyu stock crossed with Angus, according to strict rules covering how they are grown (pastured, without hormones or antibiotics). Sakura’s own farms, also in…

The Only Saucepan You Need

Cookware is among the stuff sold on Food52, the website for cooking and dining. Its new line, Five Two Essential Cookware, is designed with consumers’ feedback, and includes about the best saucepan you could want. Everything was considered: Made with three layers (aluminum sandwiched between stainless steel), it has well-balanced heft, a slightly rounded silhouette…

Take a Deep Dive Into Spanish Cuisine

In the past two decades, the reputation of Spanish food on the world’s culinary stage has skyrocketed, with chefs like Ferran Adrià, the Roca brothers, the Arzaks and José Andrés in the lead. But as “Delicioso,” a new history of Spanish food explains, it is not a sudden phenomenon. The illustrated book is a dense,…

Vegan Soups Ready to Reheat

Ben LeBlanc, whose satisfying soups are ladled out at Good Stock, his cafe in the West Village and Urbanspace Vanderbilt market stand, is now selling them online. They come frozen in plastic sleeves, each a single generous 16-ounce portion. All are vegetarian or vegan, in flavors like carrot-ginger, roasted mushroom, lentil and roasted tomato. There’s…

An Ode to Manhattan’s Chinatown

The Chinatown Collection is a temporary pop-up store with items, selected by Care of Chan, a brand management agency, that pay homage to residents and businesses in the Manhattan neighborhood. T-shirts celebrating famous restaurants designed by the chef Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese Food and the artist Andrew Kuo, who has used Jing Fong as…

Drink Like a Coppola on Oscar Night

Francis Ford Coppola knows a thing or two about the Oscars, and about wine, with extensive and historic vineyards in Napa and Sonoma counties. This year, some of his wines, notably two swathed in gold, will be poured at the bar and backstage at the Academy Awards ceremony and the Governor’s Ball. And you can…