Travel + Leisure November 2022

Natalie Preddie COMING TO THE SURFACE (P. 35) Preddie wrote about the remains of the last slave ship to land in the U.S., now on display at the Africatown Heritage House in Mobile, Alabama. “I loved meeting the descendants of those who arrived on the Clotilda,” she says. “Their passion in telling their ancestors’ stories was invigorating.” Sloane Crosley COLD COMFORT (P. 98) Humorist Crosley recalled a standout winter activity in New York City: walking Pier 26 in TriBeCa. “It’s easy to get proprietary about the places we love, but when that place is a public pier, it’s gratifying to share it,” she says. Her new novel, Cult Classic, is out now. Matthew Pillsbury THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR (P. 94) While photographing Summit One Vanderbilt, an observation deck in a new Manhattan skyscraper, Pillsbury was…

THE TRAVEL GODS can give, and the travel gods can certainly take away. This past July, my husband and I checked in to Jumby Bay (oetkercollection.com; from $2,400 per night, all-inclusive), a 300-acre private island off the coast of Antigua, for four nights. Jumby is a Gifford family favorite, one we book when we’re not in the mood for a “thinking” vacation—when staring out at the horizon, or down at the starfish in the Caribbean shallows, is about all we can really take. On this visit, we ate sticky buns for breakfast at the Veranda, then shuffled over in our sandals to the main beach. There were rum punch cocktails at the seaside Genny’s Bar, and conversations with other guests, too. (It’s amazing what people will say when they’re wearing a…

A GLOBETROTTER’S GUIDE TO THE LATEST IN TRAVEL “HEAR THAT?” asked Simon Kopec. “No,” I said. “Exactly,” he replied. I’m not one for gimmicks, but Kopec, the marketing director at the Aman New York (aman.com; doubles from $3,400), had a point. He was inviting me to listen for the rush-hour traffic, which had apparently started to pick up on the streets of Manhattan 10 stories below. But at $15,000 per night, the Corner Suite we were touring was impervious to the auditory intrusions of midtown. This is something management is quite proud of; hence the sound test. Cultivating a sense of serenity is something the brand is known for—aman means “peace” in Sanskrit—but until fairly recently, almost all of its 34 properties had achieved this by being located as far as possible from a place…

DURING A RECENT dinner at the Bar & Lounge at Caviar Russe (caviarrusse.com; tasting menu $145), I ate almost everything with my hands: tiny, pebble-shaped, twice-baked potatoes; cones of nori filled with scoops of fatty tuna; a hollow disk of crispy cracker filled with smooth uni custard. All were blanketed, naturally, with heaping quantities of salty, sexy, oozy, unctuous caviar. Caviar Russe, which was founded in New York and imports from sustainable sturgeon farms in Germany, has had this storefront in midtown Manhattan for 25 years—the last nine of which have seen the upstairs fine-dining restaurant awarded a Michelin star for its meticulously presented tasting menus. So the lick-your-fingers approach at the new ground-floor venue felt like a novel direction. You can recline on banquettes or post up at the 14-seat…

Check the label of a trendy sparkling wine and you’ll likely see two words: pétillant naturel. French for “naturally sparkling,” this method eschews commercial yeast and added sugar; the wine is bottled before fermentation is complete, and achieves carbonation without intervention after it’s sealed. But lately, the term has also become shorthand for a more free-form style of bubbly that breaks from the traditions of Champagne and other rule-bound regions—technically, philosophically, and often geographically. Here, five affordable American bottles to toast with as the weather turns. 1. Tart, Herbal Martha Stoumen x Las Jaras Collaboration 2019, California, $45; marthastoumen.com. 2. Berries, Sour Cherries Obsidian Wine Co. 2021 Pezsgő Sparkling Petite Sirah, California, $36; obsidianwineco.com. 3. Juicy, Peppery Macari 2021 Sparkling Horses Cabernet Franc, New York, $29; macariwines.com. 4. Stone Fruit, Honeysuckle Early Mountain Pét Nat Blanc 2021, Virginia,…

BEFORE FATIMA MAGOMADOVA let a new employee stir the kidney beans into her borscht, roll crêpes filled with mushrooms, and caramelize carrots for a rice pilaf, she would ask a simple question: “What do you cook at home for New Year’s?” The answers came in a rainbow of salads, soups, and entrées representing a swath of the former Soviet Union. For many of the staff at Roman Russian Market (romanrussianmarket.com) and its adjoining sibling, Rough Russian Café (rough-russian-cafe.business.site; entrées $7–$11 per pound), in Southeast Portland, this was their first gig in the U.S. If they got this food, they got the job. Magomadova arrived in Portland in 1996 after fleeing the war in Chechnya, and her team—which includes a number of recent immigrants from Ukraine—speak Russian: Oregon’s third most-spoken language, after…