Houseman was built for regulars. This is not an interpretation; it is close to a mission statement. The name comes from husmanskost - a Scandinavian word meaning, roughly, “everyday food” - and when chef Ned Baldwin opened the restaurant in June of 2015, the question he kept asking himself was disarmingly simple: what’s in the restaurant that I want to go to? The answer sits on a quiet, tree-lined stretch of Greenwich Street in Hudson Square, a sliver of lower Manhattan that is technically west of SoHo, south of the West Village, and north of Tribeca, and that nobody - including, charmingly, the restaurant itself - can quite claim belongs to any of them.

Baldwin’s path to that question is its own story. He earned an MA in sculpture from Yale and spent years as a visual artist and builder before deciding, at 36, that the thing quietly consuming his attention - cooking - deserved his full commitment. He apprenticed under Alain Ducasse and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, passed through Tom Colicchio’s Craft, and eventually became chef de cuisine at Prune, Gabrielle Hamilton’s East Village institution, where he spent the better part of five years absorbing a philosophy that prized honesty over spectacle. All of which is to say: Houseman is what happens when a man who spent half his life learning how to build things decides to build a restaurant - not a concept, not a brand, but the actual thing, with old walls left old, schoolhouse chairs, a zinc bar, and tables cut from reclaimed bowling alley maple.

We went on a Friday night and sat at the bar, which is where Houseman makes its clearest case. The room runs long and narrow - whitewashed brick on one side, raw weathered plaster on the other, branching fixtures overhead casting the kind of light that flatters everyone equally - and from a stool at the zinc you can watch the whole operation breathe. What struck me first was not the food. It was the greetings. Diners walking in and being received by name. The unhurried conversation between the staff and a man eating alone who had clearly done this exact thing, in this exact seat, many times before. Our bartender was the kind you remember - knowledgeable without performing it, attentive without hovering, the sort of person who makes a seat at the bar feel less like a consolation prize and more like the room’s best-kept secret. We drank Mexican Cokes from the bottle, cold and sweet with real sugar, and at no point did anyone make us feel that this was anything less than a complete and correct order.

The food began with the Smoked Bluefish and the Fava Hummus. The bluefish - smoked in-house, folded into something cool and creamy, capped with fresh dill - came with seeded crackers built for structural duty, and the whole thing tasted like a fisherman’s idea of luxury, which, given that Baldwin is a devoted fisherman whose menu always carries whatever is running locally, is exactly what it was. The hummus wore a pool of marinated olives at its center and a dusting of za’atar at its edges, with thick slabs of grilled sourdough whose char carried into everything it touched. Two openers, two different instincts - one from the water, one from the pantry - both landing in the same unhurried register.

The Butter Lettuce, Snap Peas, Lemon, Labne was the surprise of the night. A pile of impossibly fresh butter lettuce - crisp, cold, structurally perfect - dressed in labne flecked with poppy seeds, painted with threads of lemon zest and whole mint leaves, the citrus lifting everything without announcing itself. A salad this simple has nowhere to hide, and so it stands entirely in the open - every leaf accountable, every element doing precisely what it claims to do, holding your attention with nothing but freshness and proportion. It was, genuinely, one of the best things we ate.

The Houseman Burger came the way burgers should - unfussy, properly cooked, a cool, barely-pickled cucumber standing upright in its own ceramic cup like it had somewhere to be. If the steak is the plate this city makes pilgrimages for, the burger is the one the neighborhood orders without opening the menu - the Tuesday answer, the plainest and most fluent expression of husmanskost in the building. There is a particular comfort in a burger that knows exactly what it is.

The Steak and Fries is the headline, and it earns the type size. New York Magazine has called Houseman’s hanger steak the best in the city, and the plate that reached us made the case without apparent effort - thick slices cooked to a deep, even rose, the crust dark and mineral, confit garlic cloves and a sprig of thyme resting on top, a ramekin of aioli alongside. And the fries. I have eaten a great many French fry in my life with ample enthusiasm, and these are my favorite kind, full stop - thin but not shoestring, golden to the point of amber, crisp through the entire bite, and carrying, just beneath the salt, a faint bright note of vinegar - the ghost of a salt-and-vinegar chip, the kind of detail you notice mid-sentence and lose the sentence over. The Michelin Guide describes them as fluffy, crispy, and perfectly salted, which is accurate and still somehow undersells the experience of eating them at the bar on a Friday night with a cold Mexican Coke.

There is a small illustration on the Houseman menu - two cheerful, vaguely mythological creatures strolling through grass - captioned with four words: A Day like any other. I keep thinking about that caption, because it is the entire restaurant in a sentence. Houseman will hold your birthday, your anniversary, your celebration, and hold them well - but its quiet genius is the Thursday. The steak and a glass of red, alone at the bar, no reservation, no performance of any kind - just a room that knows you, food made by people who mean it, and the quiet, durable pleasure of being a regular somewhere. From my days on the line I can tell you that those people are the ones who keep a restaurant alive. Houseman seems to have understood this from the very beginning, and built itself, plank by reclaimed plank, in their image.

Dinner nightly. Lunch weekdays, brunch on weekends. Walk in, sit at the bar.

Powell is the manager and pastry chef of The Wren, the pub she opened in early 2025 at 1712 Aliceanna Street in Fells Point with her husband, chef Will Mester, and their business partner Rosemary Liss. Mester is one of the more decorated figures in the Baltimore food scene — culinary school dropout, former cook at Woodberry Kitchen, co-founder of Le Comptoir du Vin, which earned a Bon Appétit Hot 10 nod in 2019. He is also, by his own account, a man who had been falling more and more out of love with restaurants - bored by the demands for sleek presentation and show-offy technique, drawn increasingly toward something simpler, more honest, more in line with the kind of place he had come to love while traveling across Europe.

The building helped make the decision. 1712 Aliceanna Street is a circa-1890 rowhouse in Fells Point that had spent 44 years as Birds of a Feather, a beloved hole-in-the-wall Scotch bar with a devoted local following. When its owner retired, Mester and his partners bought it with a commitment that seemed both obvious and, in a neighborhood that has lost more than a few of its defining places to gutting and reinvention, genuinely rare: to leave it mostly alone. The original 19th-century wooden bar remains. The pressed tin ceiling — amber-hued, extraordinary — remains. The terracotta tile floor, the oak millwork, the back-lounge fireplace. What changed is relatively minor, and deliberately so.

The name carries, as names tend to do, a story. The wren holds a particular symbolic weight in Irish culture, and this is not an accident of branding. Mester has said of pubs that they are “one of the only public spaces left where anything deep or interesting happens,” and the concept of a pub as a vital third space - not work, not home, but somewhere in between, where a community gathers after christenings and funerals and nothing in particular - is what drove every decision made here. No QR codes. A chalkboard menu that changes daily, sometimes mid-service. No reservations were taken initially. And yet: The New York Times named The Wren one of the fifty best restaurants in America in 2025, the only entry from Maryland. Bon Appétit followed with its list of the year’s best new restaurants. Both publications essentially wrestled with the same delicious contradiction - this was never supposed to be a restaurant, and the food is far too good to pretend otherwise.

We were there on a Saturday evening in April. The room filled in the way a 40-seat pub fills - not crowded, but dense with warmth, every stool at the long oak bar occupied, conversations layering over the low crackle of the record player. Pints of Guinness and glasses of Scotch catch and absorb the amber light of the tin ceiling above as Mester himself is stationed at the end of the bar, moving with the deliberate calm of a man who has made his peace with exactly where he is. The chalkboard menu reads like a letter from somewhere in the pastoral British Isles: twelve dishes in chalk — Country Plate, Cold Roast Lamb with Bitter Leaves & Broccoli, Poulet Rouge & Boudin Blanc with Ramps, ½ Dozen Madeleines — written in a hand casual enough to suggest they might change before the night was out.

The Country Plate set the agenda for everything that followed. A white plate bearing a slice of an herb-studded, chicken terrine - tightly packed, a cross-section embodying patient work done earlier in the day - alongside something richer and closer to headcheese, a generous mound of butter dusted with fleur de sel, cornichons tumbled alongside, a dried prune, two radishes, a pool of grainy mustard. Nothing on the plate announced itself. It sat there asking to be eaten slowly, with bread, with conversation, with whatever was in the glass, in whatever order seemed right - and this is precisely the quality that separates great pub food from its approximation. Not the sophistication of the ingredients, though the ingredients here are sourced with genuine care, but the total absence of anxiety about how the food is received.

The Cold Roast Lamb, Bitter Leaves & Broccoli moved the table to a different register entirely. Radicchio and broccolini arranged with quiet authority above broad slices of beautifully pale, cold roast lamb, adorned with peas and capers, and a creamy dressing to pull everything together. The bitterness of the radicchio against the richness of the dressing, the lamb cool and yielding, the capers offering the occasional sharp punctuation. This dish was emblematic of the specific discipline that is the execution of cold food, done with intention, and requirings as much confidence as it does technique. This plate had both.

The Green Salad arrived the way a good green salad should - simply, without ceremony, as a kind of palate reset between courses - a thing easy to overlook and quietly essential in the way that only the most confident kitchens understand. It did its job completely.

And finally, we were greeted by the Poulet Rouge & Boudin Blanc, Ramps, the dish upon which the two burners in the back corner of the kitchen make their fullest argument. A pale boudin blanc, pan-seared to a golden skin with the kind of gentle snap that tells you the interior was made with care, curved over a pool of lentils that had absorbed the deep and patient jus upon which sat a piece of poulet rouge, its skin crisped to the russet color that only a heritage bird achieves, the fat having done exactly what it was supposed to. A streak of mustard on the side, an invitation rather than a directive. The whole thing landed on the table with the assurance of something that did not require explanation, and we did not offer any - just ate it, in the quiet way you eat food that has earned your full attention without asking for it.

The Wren is, by several measures, the least likely entry on any best-of list. No front of house. No tasting menu. No designed moment. Will Mester on two induction burners, Millie Powell baking madeleines to order in the back, Adam Estes pouring Scotch at the bar. What it has instead is something harder to manufacture and easier to recognize: the sense that the people running it genuinely believe in what they’re doing, that the food emerges from a set of convictions about what food is actually for, and that none of it requires your validation to be complete. What The Wren proves, quietly and without making a fuss, is that the strongest argument a place can make is simply to be exactly what it says it is. Mester has spent fifteen years figuring out what that looks like. Here, he finally found it

Dinner Tuesday through Saturday from 5 p.m. Bar seating first come, first served. Lounge via reservation. Minimal table service - eat your food when it arrives, before it’s cold. The menu says so, and they mean it.

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Over the course of the last year, I have neither been reminded of, nor thought of, a restaurant more often than Stissing House. This restaurant has lived rent free in my mind, visions of which were a daily and natural occurrence, and I had never even been. Until now.

The legend of Stissing House is of a G…

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As Tibi Eats has evolved with time, we have received many requests expressing the desire to know more about our Tibi travel excursions. The last couple articles for this section have been a reflection of that, as we previously highlighted a wonderful experience staying at the Gjelina Hotel in Venice, and our trip to Spain in early August provides a fantastic continuation of this creative direction for the Tibi Eats franchise.

We visited Barcelona on a Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, the quieter days of the week, a noiselessness that was further accentuated by the fact that most of the younger, local population was also on holiday during our time in the city. This set and setting allowed for a uniquely intimate connection with the city, free from sidewalk congestion, fostering an ability to walk-in to most, not all, but most of the incredible museums, galleries, concept stores, and restaurants with a relative ease that is generally unfamiliar when visiting Europe in the summer. Sure, there is a certain energy ushered into a city and its night-life by the younger generations, but for the purpose of this trip, the end to a beautifully long and eventful summer, all we really wanted was the freedom to explore and to dine effortlessly, not into the wee hours of the night, but until we felt satiated, and that we did.

Though we ultimately opted to stay at a friend’s cozy apartment in Sant Antoni, we did look into a few charming hotels, the two worthy of distinguished mention being Hotel Neri and Casa Sagnier - the former is located in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, while the latter resides in the more central area of the city. Our first night began with drinks at the historic Bar Allegria before walking over to a more complete dining experience at Gresca, a restaurant by Rafael Peña that will celebrate a 20-year anniversary next year, and for good reason. The next morning we visited Raw Studio’s new location in L’Esquerra de L’Eixample for a coffee and fresh breakfast. The space is raw, as the name would suggest, but layered, with an innate warmth derived from minimalist floral arrangements and Ring 3 color tones - coffee by La Cabra, a “Copenhagen” plate, and Yogur con Granola y Fruta set the tone for the day.

We then set off to explore a few concept shops and galleries, Bassal Store for a tightly curated range of young contemporary designers, Muy Fragile for the weird and intriguing selection of jewelry and found objects, and Terranova for a passionate and thoughtful selection of books on photography, art, and culture. A mid-day snack was found outdoors at Ciutat Comtal, where an Estrella on tap and a Pan con Tomate held us over until The dinner.

I say The dinner because it is the meal and experience from which the fundamental inspiration for this article is derived - Xemei, a Cocina Venexiana. You may be curious why and/or how a Venetian restaurant has found itself as the highlight of our Tibi Eats for Barcelona, so let me explain. Xemei is the profound work of twin brothers Stefano and Max Colombo, chef and manager respectively - the two are also the creative minds behind Bar Súper, Bar Brutal, and the various Can Pizzerias scattered throughout the city. This year, 2025, marks the 20th anniversary of Xemei, and we just so happened to be dining on the same night that they hosted their team for a celebration of their two decades of service (celebration in the hospitality industry means providing service for those you love). Upon sitting down, we were immediately embraced with open arms. Conversation with the couple to our left turned into a full evening of coincidences and core memories. As wine was tasted and shared (with everyone), bottles flew through the air between, under, and around the tables with a careless grace, the kind that keeps you on the edge of your seat, and forces the relinquishment of any worry, be it spillage or shatters, because such is life, and this moment of pure joy and laughter, of new friends and cherished lovers, is worth submitting to.

The Xemei wine list is our dream curation, full of both natural wines from young producers and those of traditional production methods. We began with L’Opera des Vins, Les Années Folles by the classic Frenchman and legendary wine artisan Jean-Pierre Robinot - effervescent, perfectly light, subtly tense, but deeply emotional. To be honest, I lost track after this. I think my glass was traded around so many times that by the end of our meal, it was at the opposite end of the restaurant held by a hand whose owner’s name I would not remember, but a face I could not forget. Images of the meal itself are scarce, the sign of an acutely present experience, but the memories flow back in endless waves. A Vitello Tonnato of pure elegance and perfection, Black Squid Ink Spaghetti obliging a fulfilled grin with each bite, a black grin, the prettiest and most special of grins, and a Goat Shoulder for our Segundo warmly recollected by the tender meat that did not just fall off the bone, but lightly slipped with the soft pressure of a fork, as it should.

We were done, ready to tap out, but were lured back into the wondrous Xemei flavor void by a Tiramisu, perfectly jiggly mango Panna Cotta, and limoncello on the house. We walked away from our table with unrelenting smiles and very, very full hearts - a level of contentment only attainable by one thing – seeing the care and passion driving those with a true, and real, dedication to their craft for no reason other than a genuine love for the game. Such is the ongoing trend here amongst our featured travels, and the team behind Xemei is precisely emblematic of the places we want to share with you all. Not because they asked, not because they need or want the attention, but because they deserve it.

**Honorable Mentions**: Fundació Joan Miró, Odd Kiosk (coffee/art), Bar del Pla (tapas), Ultramarinos Marin (mariscos), House of Rowdy (vintage)

We have been traveling to Paris, France around four times a year for the last two decades. Throughout this period of time, a lot has changed in the city, as does naturally everywhere. With this natural evolution has arisen a subtle changing of the guard, if you will. Questions of the definition of true luxury, what it means to live and travel well, to eat and experience the art of a different culture, or merger of cultures, are answered in a different way than before. Is luxury measured by the thread count of our sheets? Or by the care through the hand that wove them? Is it represented by an undying support in the belief that the customer is always right? Or is the customer maybe, sometimes, wrong? Where does the identity of a brand come into play? Is something interesting and creative because of the brand, or because of the person and the intent behind its inception? Or, can it be both?

With these questions in mind, we planned two nights in Paris. Sleep was found at Hôtel Bourg Tibourg - the second project from the owners of Hotel Côstes. 24 intimately designed rooms, characterized by a rich and warm palette of dirt clay reds and mustard yellows, they are really more like time capsules, and are a striking juxtaposition to the relative modernity of its outdoor surroundings. Slightly small and constrained in that ever so charming Parisian manner, the bedroom flows directly into the bathroom where a mirror frames a detailed reflection of the sleep quarters, granting the illusion of space where there is none. The hotel is a Bridgitte Bardot album in real life, specifically the Bubble Gum compilation, released in 1994, with songs like Une histoire de plage and Bonnie and Clyde.

During our time we stopped by the regulars - Septime la Cave, Tarantula, Maison - but the highlight this trip was found at Le Cheval d’Or. There was a rarity in our experience at this restaurant, the type that occurs once or twice a year if you’re lucky, and the conditions of which are defined by many intangibly tangible details that alone may confuse, but together form the harmony of, well, life. Inconspicuously placed in the Quartier Jordain, the East Asian flavor driven bistro’s facade coincidentally mimics a very similar color scheme to that of Hôtel Bourg Tibourg. Inside, exposed white brick walls and an open ceiling present the skeleton of the space in an elegant manner as the rawness of the physical interior is balanced by minimal wooden tables, chairs, and bar-tops of varying shades of light brown. Metal lamps hang from the ceiling, accenting the unveiled, silver air-ventilation tube that streams overhead in the foyer, while an arched entryway frames the dining room - a frame that is reinforced by another arch that leads to the restrooms in the rear.

There are two dining options at Cheval d’Or - Menu Or (nine course tasting menu) or Menu Cuivre (six courses à la carte) - we opted for the latter. A croque madame on shrimp toast, mapo tofu tortellinis, thickly sliced tuna akami, and a perfectly steamed fish, whose name I cannot recall, gently floating in a light sauce made of agretti, ginger, and spring onion - these are a few of the beautifully creative dishes we are grateful to have experienced. While typically savory leaning, our palette was delightfully rounded out by the freshest, crispest, cleanest pavlova that incorporated citrus flavors of meyer lemon, mandarin, and orange.

In addition to the food, the wine list at Cheval d’Or is one to be studied for far longer than the time before requesting a glass, or bottle, allots - our choice to accompany the food was a white wine from a fantastic, younger French winemaker, Fabien Duperray, who founded Domaine Jules Desjourneys in 2007. Producing in La Chapelle-de-Guinchay, Chénas, Beaujolais, his white wines have the substance and character of the boldest reds, and his reds have the ease and approachability of the greatest whites.

Other details of this space worth mentioning are the sculpturally textured, almost mosaic-like white walls of the restrooms, the open kitchen and its harmonic tool and utensil organization, and the people. The staff, the chefs, the cooks, the servers, all deeply interested in being the best at their specific craft within, and contributing to, the greater ethos of Cheval d’Or. This night was a core memory for inspiration, for loving life, and for experiencing life with others that you love. The kind of experience that touches you with a lasting feeling akin to leaving your family’s home after a wholesome Sunday evening dinner, where culinary ability is less important than the conversation and atmosphere - Cheval d’Or just happens to combine the best of it all.

When I traveled to Los Angeles in April to conduct research for the new CP City Guides project, I knew the restaurants we wanted to feature, the shops we love, the sights and sounds to experience, but I had no idea where to sleep. While LA certainly has an abundance of beautiful hotels, there were none I could find that truly resonated, none that emphasized the hand behind the work, the importance of independence, the uniquely inspiring culture of Southern California. That was the case, until I was made aware, by a deeply tapped in creative, of Gjelina Hotel. Given my background as a cook, I was well aware of Gjelina’s culinary prowess as a restaurant, but a hotel? I was in awe from the jump.

Gjelina, started in 2008 as a restaurant on Abbot Kinney, is named as a tribute to the mother of Fran Camaj, the brilliant founder who I had the pleasure of sitting with on my last day in the city – we’ll touch more on this later. The Gjelina Group is essentially a treasure hunt of creative endeavors that take the form of imaginative concepts linked by one common thread, that which Fran loves and is best for his family, employees, and city - the deeper you dig the more you discover. After opening Gjelina, Fran opened Gjelina Take-Away (GTA), followed by Gjusta Bakery a few years later. Originally a commissary kitchen to support Gjelina and GTA, in 2014 Gjusta naturally evolved into an all-day bakery, deli, and café, but more precisely, it is a continuation of Fran’s mission to support the local Venice community with thoughtfully nourishing food and culture.

The evolution continues, and in 2016 with Shelley Kelyn Armistead at the helm, Gjusta Goods opened next door to the bakery. The market sells artisanally crafted items for life and goods for the home - locally produced linens (the same ones from Gjelina), cookbooks, and stunning floral arrangements from Gjusta Flower Shop, which opened inside Gjusta Goods in 2022. Organic progression is the name of the game here, as a tight-knit Gjelina team continues to pursue veracious passion over massive profit, which is truly the best way their ventures can be depicted – passion projects executed with the highest degree of detail, care, and love.

As we carry on down the Gjelina rabbit hole, we find ourselves in Gjusta Studios, an interdisciplinary gallery space tucked away behind Gjusta Goods featuring artists across a range of creative mediums. Upstairs, above the bakery, goods market, and studio, you’ll find Gjusta Apartment, a 700-square foot space furnished like the rooms at Gjelina Hotel, with especially curated vintage homewares and fittings, made-to-order furniture, bespoke vintage rugs, locally sourced ceramics, and more. Oh, and all the carefully selected items in the apartment are available for purchase.

The next treasure to be discovered is the Gjelina Hotel. Opened in 2023 just one block from the Venice boardwalk and a 12-minute walk from Gjelina and Gjusta Bakery, the hotel has 27 rooms and suites of varying size and shape, each uniquely designed and out-fitted. The experience is that of a home away from home, cozy and perfectly imperfect with a clear hand and human eye behind every decision and detail, all the way down to the mis-matched teacup set from the 80s. Each morning begins with a complimentary coffee and pastry from Gjusta Bakery, followed by a warm and breezy walk along Venice beach as you return to your room, sandy and salty haired, before the day officially begins.

Normally, when experiencing new restaurants, hotels, and others of the like, it can take a moment to fall in love, to feel at home and part of the family, but in the case of Gjelina, few, if any, hospitality concepts have made such an inspiring impact on us in such a short period of time. On my last night in Venice, I received an email from Fran to meet for a coffee, perfectly timed as I had one more day in the city and was deeply interested in rounding out the trip through a conversation with the man who started it all. I was incredibly curious to learn his story, the why behind Gjelina and its many projects, and the principles that have driven Fran, consciously or subconsciously, to where he stands today.

Overarching everything Fran does is a genuine desire to provide for the Venice community and his employees, with an immense emphasis on fostering a family atmosphere within the brand, an effort that is felt by all who pass through any of the Gjelina Group’s doors. Nothing has been forced into existence, a fact that is abundantly clear when observing the various concepts from a bird’s eye view and seeing the deeply rooted, principle oriented through-line that ties them all together. An insistence on surrounding yourself with and providing for good people, on living a fulfilled and family-oriented life, and on the importance of maintaining the agency to make decisions, both creative and business - these are the principles of Fran, and consequently those of the Gjelina Group as well. (Sounds a lot like our ethos at Tibi, so it’s no surprise that everything at Gjelina resonates so deeply with us.)

In the words of Fran, “We try as hard as we possibly can to make it appear as though we haven’t tried at all.” Well, we felt it, and I am positive others do and will as well. Our gratitude goes out to the wonderful Gjelina team, from dishwasher to CEO, for cultivating and caring about the little things, facilitating endless core memories in the process. We can’t wait to be back.

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The city where morning runs on empty streets give perspective to a side of Paris that you won’t see unless you are up before 6 am, one accompanied by garbage men, construction workers, and others who make the city run (no pun intended). Of course, along with these hard-working laborers are the bakers, pastr…

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It’s an 88 degree, spring evening in Soho. For all intents and purposes, this is summer. I’m drenched, the humidity is insane. It’s the kind of summer heat that feels okay while you’re moving, walking around the streets, but once you arrive at your destination, the sweat that was seemingly hiding decides to appear all at once. I think that’s just part o…

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This year, for our Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter 2024 collections, we shot a couple campaigns in studios around NYC, but in early April we made our way down to St. Simon’s Island (SSI), Georgia for a four day shoot that was over six months in the making. Our team of 13 would be shooting three models at six different locations over three days, with one day devoted to scouting and still life. In my eyes, this trip represents an ultimate full circle moment for Tibi and Amy. SSI is where Amy grew up, it is where the first few thousand dresses were delivered by 18-wheeler to my grandparent’s garage just off the Sea Palms golf course, it is where our family has gathered for the last 20+ years during the holidays, and it is now where we shot what are arguably four of the best Tibi collections of the last 3 decades. A full circle moment.

The ability of our small team to mesh, collaborate, and read each other’s minds is why we can successfully pull off these high-stakes, on location photoshoots with very little to no margin for error. Sure, you can learn a lot about someone as you watch them scarf down an RX bar at 5:30 am on the way to a remote beach for a 16 hour day in the sun, but the strength of this bond especially grows with each family meal at the end of these long days on set.

Our first group meal was a late one at Gnat’s Landing in Red Fern Village after a day of scouting and still life photography. Gnat’s is a SSI institution that has been around since 1999. I have vivid memories as a child running across the street to Gnat’s for a chicken fingers and french fries break before running back to my Grandfather’s art gallery to paint and roam around his studio all day. The classic Gnat’s slogan: “remember… if you want home cookin' - stay home. And always, free beer tomorrow” continues to ring abundantly true, and as the same surfboards and heritage beer signs from 2005 adorn the wood planked walls, it is a restaurant that I would dub a quintessential island staple with a home that could be none other than SSI.

The next day we ventured out bright and early to photograph the Fall ‘24 and Winter Capsule ‘24 collections amongst the driftwood and weathered trees on Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island. The trees on Driftwood Beach have been severely weathered by the sun, wind, salt water, and various other conditions to create a beautiful, yet eery scene as their partial remains intertwine with the dark sand and other living aspects of the environment. This set provided the perfect backdrop for the Fall and Winter Capsule collections, and produced some of the most intriguing campaign assets of the entire trip. For lunch on Jekyll Island we made a short diversion from the beach to Tortuga Jack’s, a classic Baja-Mexican restaurant with a massive oceanfront tiki-hut bar. There you will find Consuela, Wall-E’s second girlfriend, a robot food runner that dances plates to your table as an array of mariachi tunes stream from her speakers.

Aside from this big group lunch, most days our crew was fueled by Frosty’s Griddle & Shake or Sea Salt Healthy Kitchen, both spots are simple and easy, run by wonderful locals, and are of course incredibly delicious.

Speaking of Frosty’s, for our last night on the island we ordered take-out from Southern Soul BBQ, both of which are run by the talented and creative chef/owner Griffin Bufkin, a SSI legend and long-time high-school friend of Amy’s. Over the last five years I have had the privilege of being surrounded by the best barbecue in the world in Austin, Texas; Southern Soul is the closest thing to Texas barbecue that I have had outside of the state (this is about as big of a praise I can give for any barbecue spot located beyond the Texas borders). We were so exhausted, mentally and physically, that throwing on some Calder sweatpants and getting cozy with the team felt like the perfect way to wrap the trip. We all huddled around a big table outside of our hotel, drank a couple beers, and plated up our barbecue as the team traded core memories from the last four days. A scene that would not have been complete or possible without Southern Soul and their incredible hospitality.

St. Simon’s Island is an island by the locals for the locals, and I think it is fair to say that Tibi plays an integral role in the SSI community; we have had a store on the island for over 24 years and our warehouse, full of the most wonderful, dedicated people, is located just 30 minutes away on the mainland. I love SSI, and I love the creativity that the island pulls out of you; I credit much of the creative success of this trip to the essence of the island, in a special way that does not disrespect the crazy hard work of the Tibi team. The Spring/Summer ‘24 campaigns from SSI are coming out as you read this, and the Fall/Winter ‘24 campaigns will release in a couple of months. This was a truly inspiring trip where I felt incredibly grateful to work in the presence of such professionals at every level of the production, and I hope the content resonates with you all as deeply as it does with us.

Coincidentally, our music director of almost 30 years, Javier Peral, was also in Paris, having just directed the music score for the Helmut Lang FW ‘24 show, and we were lucky enough to catch up with him at Gramme 11 on his last night in the city. Gramme 11, opened in 2023, is the newer and larger rendition of the original Gramme concept. Opened in 2017 in the Marais, Gramme is a hole in the wall type cafe/kitchen known for its wonderful pastries and unique versions of well known dishes like their banh mi hot dog and chipotle popcorn tempura.

Gramme 11 can be defined as a modern Parisian brasserie serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The morning and afternoon menu is adorned with traditional French bakery classics as well as modernized and creative takes on these traditions, one of these being the Gramme Grammola, a wonderfully tasty granola made with rolled oats, almonds and hazelnuts, puffed rice, coconut, cranberries and honey. The evening menu is representative of a variety of cultures, served in a tapas style, with Asian, French, and South American cuisine influences most prevalent the night we dined (the menu changes daily depending on the local availability of produce and ingredients).

When Chef Marine Gora and Romain Tellier opened their first petit Gramme location, they sought out to cook fun and comforting food by reimagining more serious classic dishes from their diverse origins. Hailing from an Asian/European family background (Vietnamese mother and Polish-German father), Chef Marine actually started out in the music industry and did not make the jump into the culinary world until the age of 35. The influence of her family history is ubiquitous throughout the menus and cooking techniques employed at both of her restaurants and can also be seen in the design elements of her version of the traditional Parisian brasserie, with little nods to her Vietnamese origins sprinkled throughout.

With respect to its cuisine, hospitality, and wine selection, Gramme 11 is a great example of unassuming luxury practiced with humility and intention. The creativity, modernity, and playfulness of the menu is particularly impressive because of the incredible level of skill required to achieve and execute the simplicity of dishes represented. Some of our favorites were the beet and radicchio salad, potato mille-feuille, and lamb skewer with parsley, cilantro, and pomegranate, each evoking a sense of nostalgia and a taste of the future simultaneously. Before one can reimagine and reinvent a classic, one must garner a deep and innate understanding of the cultural origins of the dish in its most simple form. I think this holds true not just of cooking, but in fashion as well, and in many cases even life.

While working at Este in Austin, TX, I cooked on nearly all the stations in the restaurant, but the sauté station was by far my favorite. There was something about the heat, the pace, and the balancing act of speed and precision that brought out my best cooking. One of the dishes on that station is a steak au poivre but reimagined from a Mexican point of view. This steak was the best steak I had had in Texas and was one of the main reasons why I initially wanted to work for Chef Fermin. It is also probably the most difficult dish on the sauté station to master because of the nuance and intricacies involved in perfecting an au poivre sauce. It was not until I tasted the inspiration for the dish, the filet de boeuf au poivre at Bistrot Paul Bert in Paris, that I truly understood what to be striving for: the consistency, spice profile, color, fat ratio, etc… I had to go all the way back to the roots of the dish to properly execute Chef Fermin’s interpretation of what it could be. Because of experiences in the kitchen like this, I have a great respect and admiration for the dishes I was privileged to try at Gramme 11.

A great Chef (also Fermin) once told me that the best ingredient (the most important) is the one you leave off the plate, and this philosophy clearly prevails in Chef Marine and her team’s approach to cooking. To replicate something great and do it well is very difficult. To then take this replica and reimagine its form to become unique, modern, personalized and relatable at the same time is even harder. Finally, to take this reimagined replica and simplify it yet again to achieve a luxurious and minimalistic, yet profound status may be the hardest feat of all; this is how I would describe the potato mille-feuille on the menu that night.

As we shared a beautiful 2022 pinot noir by Patrick Bouju and discussed Tibi runway show songs dating as far back as 2004, Gramme 11 provided our team with a much needed respite from the commotion and craze that can at times engulf Paris during fashion week, and for that we are very grateful and equally as excited to return next season.