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Pleasure Matters More Than the Recipes ♥️

In a world of air fryers, be a dancing moka pot

Welcome to Secret Breakfast / The best place to start making omelettes with Rosalía, licking the rims, and rediscover the lower senses

Hi there!

In less than seven days I attended the opening of an Olympic Games, found myself in the same room as George Clooney, had lunch at the chef's table of a three-Michelin-star restaurant, listened to and interviewed one of the most important living composers.

Right now, though, I'm rushing to free a country house infested with owls.

What was Karma supposed to be called?

This issue is unbalanced almost quite like me now.

Piero

✹Naomi Alderman, Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today. Just bought my signed copy yesterday in London. Do you know her? The Power is the book you have to read once in your life.

Eat, Flirt or Cook on Valentine’s Day

Valentine's day is closing in and if you're reading this looking for inspiration, you might be terribly late.

That's why I tried to play with gestures and intentions more than with recipes.

First Bite = Power
PlayDish: Oysters with pink peppercorn mignonette (★recipe)
In Japan, couples feed each other the first bite of cake at weddings—dominance disguised as devotion. Try it with oysters. Lock eyes. Tip the shell toward their mouth. “Open.” Don’t ask. If they obey, you'll enjoy.

Kitchen = Combat Zone
Dish: Korean tteokbokki with gochugaru (★recipe)
Cook together. Stand too close. Steal their spoon mid-stir. If they protest, kiss them quiet. The food can burn. Taste from the same fork. Make them say if it needs more heat. Pray they don't hate garlic.

Secret Ingredient = Risk
Dish: Dark chocolate mousse with pink chocolate shavings & cardamom (★recipe, then wing it)
Moroccan lovers slip saffron into tea—an aphrodisiac (or poison if you overdo it). Hide cardamom in the mousse. Grate pink chocolate on top like you’re performing surgery. Tell them after the first spoonful. “Did you taste that?”. Watch them try to guess.

Restaurant = Theater
Dish: Whatever’s most expensive.
Order the tasting menu. Or something table-side served. No menus, no choices—just trust. In Ethiopia, gursha means feeding your lover by hand in public. Keep it clean, but do it between courses. Make the waiter uncomfortable. If they blush, you’re doing it right.

Wine = Confession Serum
Pairing: Natural orange wine or aged Barolo
In Georgia, toasts aren’t optional—they’re ritual. Pour something strange and expensive. Make them toast to something true: a secret, a fear, a fantasy. Drink from the same glass. When it’s empty, lick the rim. Then see where the night leads you. The wine is just the excuse.

Bonus = Nonna's Move
Dish: Ravioli fatti a mano—any filling (but consider this one)
You want to prove love? Make pasta from scratch. Flour on the counter, eggs cracked with one hand, filling mixed like you’re hiding evidence. Nonna knew: food made by hand says “I spent time I’ll never get back on you.” If you roll the dough thin enough to read through, you win. If you crimp each raviolo shut like a secret—you marry them.

Forget Layers, Sheet Wedding Cake are the New Trend

🌎The World’s Most Welcoming Cities for 2026, according to Booking 🥔Also Rosalía loves this tortilla de patatas (here's a fresh video of her cooking) 🧠Michael Pollan Says Humanity Is About to Undergo a Revolutionary Change 🎻More people are treating themselves to a solo meal 🌹Bring the Bouquet to the Table With These 16 Rose-Infused Recipes for Valentine’s Day 🥒The $20 Side Dish Is Here 🐊Ok, they have a Lacoste Café, but they're not serving alligator meat 🥇Here’s what you should be drinking during the Olympic and Paralympic Games

The Professor of the Lower Senses

Ruby Tandoh /Vittles

In 1790, a pompous French lawyer fleeing revolutionaries crashed a stranger's feast, flirted his way to a pardon, and later turned the story into The Physiology of Taste—the book that invented modern food writing. The twist: this man who taught us to obsess over food was a dinner party bore who ate badly and never entertained, yet wrote so seductively about desire that we've been quoting him for two centuries. He had one radical idea: pleasure matters more than recipes, and talking about food can be as thrilling as eating it.