Cooking by Ear

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Pickled Duck Feet, Ancient Eggs and Chinese Bibs

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 14:30:43 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing

GMW China

This year I was invited to be one of the teachers at Silkroad GMW (Global Musicians Workshop) in Hangzhou, China. This week-long experience is for musicians of all ages and it allows them to learn directly from musicians of the Silkroad ensemble and from other guest teachers. Here’s a pic I took at the end of the students’ concert.

Each student participates in three ensembles led by one of the teachers. They learn a piece selected by the teacher and they arrange it together for a final performance. Through the week and the process, the students learn about specific stylistic languages, improvisation, arrangement, and how to play in a band. Each teacher also teaches a masterclass for all of the students and a sort of lecture where they talk about their musical journey and specific musical languages they come from.

This year’s faculty was led by Pipa (Chinese lute) virtuoso and Silkroad founding member Wu Man. Other teachers were Italian percussionist Andrea Piccioni (an old friend of mine), Mongolian singer and multi-instrumentalist Huug Jiletu, Uyghur singer and guitarist Ekrem, and myself.

I will show you more about the work that we did below, but first, I want to mention a few culinary things that I learned during these 10 days.

Wonton is not a dumpling.

My assistant-translator Menglan made this clear one day in front of a bowl of wonton. This statement sparked conversation and discussion, but in the end we understood that for her and a few others at the table, a dumpling is what they call 饺子 (jiǎozi) and it implies a specific way of folding and closing the dough around the filling (a bit like the Japanese gyoza). For example, anything round and closed with a circular movement is in the family of 包子 (bāozi), also not a dumpling. For this reason wonton… is (I guess) not actually properly closed, it’s squashed together in a hurry and thrown into a soup, so it doesn’t deserve the title of dumpling…?!

Rice Shumai

Speaking of dumpling like things, I discovered that in the Hangzhou area a 烧卖 (shāomài, an open-topped steamed type of…dumpling, i guess), is traditionally filled with glutinous rice only, with a strong white pepper flavouring, and not the shrimp pork filling that we are accustomed to in the western world (the Cantonese version).

Ancient Eggs

This crazy looking dish here below features the famous thousand-year-old eggs. Pidan 皮蛋, or songhuadan 松花蛋, are traditional Chinese preserved eggs, but luckily they’re typically only cured for a few weeks to a few months. They’re usually duck, chicken, or quail eggs preserved in clay, ash, salt, quicklime, and rice hulls. The alkaline environment gradually breaks down the egg’s proteins and fats, transforming its texture, colour, and flavour. The egg white turns into a translucent, dark amber-to-black jelly; the yolk becomes creamy and grayish-green. The flavour is rich, earthy, and certainly umami-packed. Here served cold as an appetizer: sliced with tofu, dressed in vinegar, sesame oil, and chili oil. Would you eat these?

Lotus Fruit

Did you ever eat lotus fruit? You might be familiar with the lotus flower but in China you often see this interesting fruit being sold on the street. My assistant Menglan bought one for me and explained it’s the lotus fruit and you eat it by picking up the pods, peeling the hard skin and eating the fruit. It’s a hard to describe consistency, crunchy yet soft. The core is incredibly bitter and you can eat it but most people leave it.

Chinese party snacks

I was truly amused by the snacks people seem to enjoy at parties in China. First of all, boneless pickled duck feet!! If you’re more into cakes you can try the pork floss chiffon cake… or the meat floss puffs with salted egg yolk flavour.

But the one that really got me was this one: while getting an amazing foot massage in a fancy hotel, lying down on a comfy bed someone offered me spicy chicken stomachs…as a snack for this kind of experience…they were pretty tasty in fairness but I still can’t get over the concept of it.

Chinese Traditional Instruments

If you want to know a bit more on what we got working on while in China, have a look at this work in progress video. It’s a traditional song (street dance) that Wu Man taught all of us. It was part of a large tutti ensemble piece that involved all teachers and students (the other half was a composition of mine). It’s a good chance to also take a look at a few traditional Chinese instruments:

Pipa (琵琶): 4-string lute with a pear-shaped body that you see on the left, played with plectrums attached to right hand fingernails.

Guqin (古琴): 7-string zither, one of the oldest Chinese instruments, very quiet, bassy and meditative. You see them back on the right.

Guzheng (古筝): 26-string bridge zither. You see a close up towards the end with a big arpeggio.

Dizi (笛子): transverse bamboo flute with a buzzing membrane. You hear this in the last minute of the tune.

Konghou (箜篌): Chinese Harp. This instrument is a cross between a modern western harp and a traditional Chinese instrument. It can be played like a harp but also with techniques similar to the Guzheng.

Da Gu (大鼓): large drum.

At about 1 minute you also hear Mongolian throat singing, performed by teacher Huug.

Longjing Tasting

On our evening off in the week, Wu Man brought us to a traditional tea house in the hills just outside Hangzhou. This was a super beautiful experience. We sat on the traditional soft woven floor (筵席 yánxí) and tasted the tea which grows literally up the hill outside of the window!

We tasted Longjing (龙井茶) regarded as one of the best green teas in China. Longjing is a pan-roasted flat-leaf green tea with over 1,200 years of history, prized for its jade-green colour, chestnut-like aroma, sweet umami flavour, and elegant leaf shape.

Usually, water is heated to around 80°C and then poured over hand-plucked leaves in a clear glass. The first infusion releases a nutty, chestnut-and-fresh-grass aroma. The taste is smooth, slightly sweet, with almost no bitterness, which I learned is the hallmark of authentic Longjing. The same leaves are steeped several times, each pour revealing a slightly different flavour profile. This is a slow-paced experience, and some simple snacks and foods are served to accompany tea and chats. Serving tea to a guest is considered one of the highest forms of hospitality in China, and we all enjoyed this experience immensely as it was our moment to slow down a bit in a very intense week and to connect in a deeper way with the other teachers.

Huug (one of the other tutors) was our tea master for this beautiful ceremony, and you can see a short video of the first infusion here below.

King’s choice

China is one of the greatest culinary cultures of the world. I discovered that Chinese people, like Italians, always talk about food. Every social occasion revolves around large quantities of food and for a country that has the size of a continent, the food diversity is incredible.

We were mostly very busy with teaching and eating on campus (which, in fairness, had pretty good food!) so I didn’t quite have the time for my usual culinary explorations, though on the last day, one of my students brought us to “King’s Choice”, a restaurant that I had noticed (a bib gourmand in the Michelin guide), and that was definitely the most amazing meal of the week.

Highlights were a jellyfish dish (pic 4), fried intestines, (pic 1) an incredible eel dish and some amazing stir fried noodles (pic 5), almost like yakisoba, with some kind of pork in it that tasted like guanciale and the most intense delicious smoky wok-hei ever 🤤

Bamboo umbrellas

Finally, on our last day, right before the meal I just showed you, we visited a small museum about traditional Chinese umbrellas and I was blown away by the beauty and complexity of these works of craft and design. I learned that traditional Chinese bamboo umbrellas, known as yóuzhǐsǎn (油纸伞), are handcrafted works of art with over 2,000 years of history. They’re made with bamboo (ideally at least five years old) soaked in water, dried in the sun, drilled, threaded, and assembled into a skeleton. Then Washi (oil-paper) is cut and glued onto the bamboo frame. The paper is trimmed, coated with tung oil, and sun-cured for waterproofing. Finally, patterns (flowers, birds, landscapes, or calligraphy) are hand-painted onto the surface.

This piece was copy-edited for grammar and spell check with AI; the voice and content are 100% mine.

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On Dreams, Sean Nos percussion and Plenty of Bibs

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 13:43:07 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing

Dreams

On July 1st, Ireland began its six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union, and the official inauguration took place at Dublin Castle. As part of the celebrations, a concert featuring some of Ireland’s finest contemporary musicians was presented, and I felt incredibly honoured to be invited to join the ensemble. It was a real pleasure to spend those two days making music alongside such inspiring artists.

Here are a few photos from the event.

The artists featured were:

Here below you can watch the full ceremony. If you’d like to skip straight to the musical performances, head to 1:01:05 for Samhradh, Samhradh, sung by Iarla Ó Lionáird, and 1:25:10 for Dreams, performed by Tolu Makay.

Paris

After the opening ceremony, many of the same musicians—joined by a few others—travelled to Paris for the Trad Festival at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, before continuing to Brussels and Luxembourg for two more concerts celebrating the Irish EU presidency.

Whenever I find myself in Paris, I can’t resist exploring somewhere new to eat. This time I discovered a wonderful Asian-inspired restaurant called Brigade du Tigre. I went with a friend and we had a little fun exploration of the menu with these dishes:

Marinated tuna, rosti, capers, ginger

Aubergine confit, nori, pickled cherries

Caramelised fried chicken

BBQ mackerel, nduja,

Green beans and artichoke salad and kimchi

Super delicious dinner with fun quirky dishes and a lot of flavour. It’s a pretty funky small room that gets really noisy, but luckily a table outdoors became available at the last minute and we were able to enjoy the food in calmer environment and cooler settings.

Reels

While in Paris I performed at the Trad Festival at the CCI, gave a lecture on the tarantella, and also had the chance to hear some of Ireland’s greatest traditional musicians. Some are old friends I’ve admired for years, while others quickly became new musical heroes.

Have a listen to concertina genius Cormac Begley and fiddle (and violin) virtuosa Aoife Ní Bhriain ripping through a set of reels.

Brussels

From Paris we travelled to Brussels, where a few more musicians joined the ensemble (including Rhiannon Giddens) for a concert at the beautiful Flagey concert hall.

Vietnamese tapas

Being in Brussels also gave me another opportunity to continue my now predictable search for Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurants. This time I ended up at a wonderful Vietnamese restaurant called Ongba. Here we chose the tasting menu, which consisted of a series of small dishes served almost tapas-style.

This was another great find on the michelin guide. I personally love restaurants like this, where you can sample many delicious small dishes without having to make difficult decisions and in this way you get a sense of the entire menu at a very affordable price.

Sean-nós dancing

Before I show you more food, I’d love you to take a look at a little bit of genuine traditional Irish dance.

Forget, for a moment, the highly stylised competition dancing you probably associate with Riverdance, and discover sean-nós dancing instead.

Sean-nós literally means “old style” (the term is also used for the beautiful unaccompanied, highly ornamented singing tradition). The dancing is rhythmic and percussive, close to the ground, relaxed, with relaxed arm movements, and full of improvisation.

Watch the wonderful Stephanie Keane rehearsing with concertina wizard Cormac Begley.

I spent more than a week performing with Stephanie on this tour, and I genuinely think I learned more about rhythm and percussion in Irish music from watching her dance than I ever have from any bodhrán player or instrumentalist. Listen to the incredible precision of her footwork and the way she really dances the tune, she is a real percussionist!

Luxembourg Bazaar

The final stop on this short tour was Luxembourg and here my usual hunt for Bib Gourmands brought me to a restaurant called Bazaar. This is a fusion restaurant serving pan Mediterranean food.

Here I had the closest thing to actual hummus I’ve had in a while (check out that consistency in the picture), some very tasty and spicy roasted aubergines with feta, harissa and pine nuts, halloumi fries with grilled avocado and pomegranate, and some pan fried mackerel.

Another tasty meal (the bib rarely disappoints) and one I would definitely recommend if you ever find yourself in Luxembourg craving some southern flavours.

This piece was very gently copy-edited for grammar and syntax with AI; the voice and content are 100% mine.

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On Black Wall Street, Gut Strings and the Art of Frying Chicken

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 13:21:51 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing

I am finally back here on Substack after a couple of very intense weeks traveling and playing. I have so many great things to share here and some big announcements to make soon, so watch this space over the next while as I try to unfold all the music and food adventures of the last while.

Juneteenth in Tulsa with Silkroad

This year we were supposed to play with Silkroad on Juneteenth as part of a festival that the Smithsonian hosts yearly on the Mall in Washington, DC, but for reasons that might be obvious to everyone, the festival did not go ahead at its usual location. So Rhiannon actually suggested that we perform in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a place with a history that definitely resonates with the theme of this holiday.

As usual with Silkroad, we spent a couple of days on location, engaging with the local communities, and we all took some time to learn about the horrible history of the Tulsa Race Massacre of June 1921, when white supremacists targeted the Greenwood District, a prosperous African American community known as “Black Wall Street” due to its successful businesses, professional services, and economic independence, and burned down hundreds of buildings, including homes, churches, and schools. The number of fatalities and the destruction stripped the community of its wealth and stability, and thousands of residents were left homeless and forced to flee, leaving repercussions that are still felt today.

The end of this mini residency was a large open-air concert in Guthrie Green, the essence of which was captured in this short video.

Xiao Long Bao

Commonly known as “soup dumplings”, Xiao Long Bao are a delicacy from the Shanghai area. What makes them unique is the hot, savory broth contained within a delicate, steamed dough wrapper. A few years ago, during a NYC visit, my daughter tried soup dumplings for the first time and they immediately earned a top spot among her favourite foods. So while we were together in NYC a couple of weeks ago, we visited three celebrated soup dumpling spots to compare notes.

Joe’s Shanghai (most classic Chinatown spot)
Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao (another Bib Gourmand spot in Flushing)
Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen (a Bib Gourmand Midtown spot)

If you know anything about soup dumplings, you will know that eating them requires a specific technique to avoid burning your mouth (because the soup inside is scalding hot). You pick up a dumpling with chopsticks or the provided tongs, place it into a deep spoon, gently pierce the wrapper to let the steam escape, sip the broth first, and then eat the rest of the dumpling. They are traditionally accompanied by a dipping sauce made of black vinegar and thin slivers of fresh ginger. The acidity of the vinegar and the sharpness of the ginger help cut through the richness of the meat and broth.

The technique by which they are made is also super interesting, as the soup is not poured directly into the dumpling (imagine trying to trap liquid soup into paper-thin dough!); it is instead created through a clever culinary process. A concentrated meat stock is chilled until it turns into a jelly, which is minced and tucked inside the dumpling along with the meat filling. As the dumpling steams, the heat melts the jelly back into liquid soup.

Hard to pick a winner; they were all incredibly delicious. I have to say I really enjoyed the Flushing spot, as it seemed to have the best balance between the fattiness of the broth, the savory meat filling, and the lightness of the dough. Do you have a favorite Xiao Long Bao spot in NYC? Let me know in comments.

The Old Banjo

The reason I was in NYC in the first place was to play two concerts with Rhiannon Giddens at the Met Museum. The Met recently received a donation of an entire collection of historical banjos, and they decided to celebrate this by asking Rhiannon to put together a show about early American banjo music (no better person!). She was also given the opportunity to play a couple of the instruments from the collection live, which you can see below.

In the end, the largest instrument (double-headed!) that you see above was not really playable, so she opted for the other instrument that you can see in her hands in the first picture. Here is a short film from the show that features the above-mentioned instrument on a brand-new song that guitarist Niwel Tsumbu wrote “on top” of an American banjo tune from the mid-19th century. Note how beautiful, round, and dark that instrument sounds (with real gut strings and tuned down to B). I am also playing my new mandola here (first time out!).

COCODAQ

I have previously mentioned enjoying the Apple TV show “Knife Edge”, a quasi-reality show that follows various restaurants through their trials and tribulations as they try to get recognised in the Michelin Guide. One interesting thing about the program is that you end up discovering some great restaurants. One of them for me was NYC’s COCODAQ, a restaurant that basically serves Korean-style fried chicken, but aims to do so at a Michelin-star level. In the NYC episode COCODAQ never managed to get a star, but it did receive a Bib Gourmand (my favorite anyway!), and the concept sparked my curiosity. I mean… who doesn’t like fried chicken? And here it’s done to the highest level imaginable.

I went with my daughter on our last day in NYC, and we ordered their signature set, which comes with two buckets of chicken (one plain and one with a glaze of your choice), alongside many banchan (Korean small side dishes), an incredibly delicious and fluffy egg soufflé, and a small cold noodle dish. The chicken was probably the best fried chicken I’ve ever eaten, crunchy to perfection, incredibly dry and clean-tasting, and it came with four sauces to accompany it (my favorite was a refreshing green cilantro one). The glazed gochujang chicken was also delicious, but honestly the plain one retained better crunch and juiciness. It’s not cheap fried chicken, as the whole set comes to $52 p.p. But when you think about the amount of food you get, the quality, and the fact that it’s in NYC, I actually think it’s pretty reasonable. A must-go if you love Korean fried chicken…

Materia Medica

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to a friends-and-family listening party for Loah’s first full album, “Materia Medica”. Loah is a singer and songwriter from Ireland, and her heritage is Irish and Sierra Leonean. She has defined her music as ArtSoul in the past, and honestly her list of influences is very long and her sound very hard to define. I did a recording session for her many years ago, and I was pleasantly surprised to know that some of the things I played ended up on the album, although sampled and heavily processed (I had to be told where I was playing lol).

Check out “Materia Medica” on Loah’s Bandcamp page and lookout for the various songs entitled Isobel’s Lament (those are where I play).

You can also watch the official video for the song “Intimacy”.

you enjoy reading “Cooking by Ear” and want to support all the work that goes into it, please consider buying me a coffee

If you can’t afford it please share it with a friend

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Carolina Gals, Citrus Caviar and Pig Cheeks

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 15:10:54 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing

Saturday Morning - Virtuosic folk & roots from Rhiannon Giddens & Francesco Turrisi - BBC Sounds

BBC

Last week, I was on a short week long tour of Europe and the UK. While in London, Rhiannon and I visited the BBC studios for an interview with Tom Service for his Saturday morning show. We were also asked to perform a couple of pieces for the show, and these were filmed. Here you can see an extract of a little medley of “Carolina Gals” and “Last Chance,” two old time tunes that we perform with the very unusual instrumentation of viola and tambourine. We are fans of giving maligned instruments a new life!

You can listen to the whole show on the BBC player here.

Donia

While in London, I had a lot of amazing food, but one brand new discovery was restaurant Donia, a place I visited with Rhiannon one of the nights I was there.

We had:

Adobo Mushroom Croquetas
Sea Bream Kinilaw
Chicken Inasal
Lechon, Liver Peppercorn Sauce
Leche Flan

Donia is a Filipino fusion restaurant with a Bib Gourmand in the Michelin Guide. Filipino cuisine is something that I have become very interested in over the last couple of years, but alas, it is still not very present in the European food scene. I love its bold flavours and the unique combinations of acidity, sweetness, and saltiness, which somehow reflect the multitude of influences from Spanish, Chinese, and Malay cuisines.

Donia opened in late 2023 and is led by Chef Florence Mae Maglanoc. Chef Maglanoc (who named the restaurant after her mother) showcases Filipino cuisine through a contemporary lens. Most of the menu consists of traditional dishes, but they all seem to have an extra gear in terms of flavour. For example, take her Chicken Inasal (pic. 3). Traditionally, it is a dish of grilled chicken that has been marinated with ingredients such as calamansi (a very tart Filipino citrus fruit), vinegar, and lemongrass. Donia’s version featured the most delicious and tender grilled chicken, but it came in a complex, rich sauce that, to me, tasted almost like a Thai curry with a lot of vinegary acidity. Honestly, I could not stop eating it; it was so delicious.

Another highlight was the Sea Bream Kinilaw. This was a kind of crudo or ceviche with some spice and a lot of acidity. There was something very interesting in terms of texture in this dish, like little spheres in my mouth that I could not see anywhere (but are actually visible when you zoom into the pic). When I enquired about those, I was told this was finger lime. I do not know if you are familiar with this peculiar fruit, but I had never seen it before, so I had to look it up. I always get excited when I discover a new ingredient, and this one looks insane.

Finger lime is a unique citrus fruit native to Australia. It is apparently known in the culinary world as “citrus caviar” because of its distinctive internal structure. Unlike traditional citrus fruits that contain liquid juice in small oval segments, the pulp of a finger lime is contained in spheres. When you squeeze the fruit or press these spheres against your palate, these tiny pearls pop, releasing a concentrated burst of tart, acidic juice. I am officially in love with finger lime.

Donia was a great culinary experience. I loved every bite of it and I am looking forward to going back and trying some of their other dishes, as everything I saw on the other tables looked amazing. It is definitely worth a visit if you find yourself in London.

More Wigmore

The main reason Rhiannon and I were in London was a concert at the celebrated Wigmore Hall, the legendary temple of classical chamber music. For the third concert of our residency there, we planned a collaboration with a string quartet made of members of Ireland’s Crash Ensemble. We performed a repertoire of arrangements written by myself and other existing arrangements written by Gabe Witcher. This was my first time writing for a string quartet, and I enjoyed the process immensely. The concert was broadcast live by the BBC (no pressure!) for Wigmore’s anniversary. If you want to hear it, you can tune in here, as it will be available for 30 days.

Radio 3 in Concert - Wigmore Hall 125: Rhiannon Giddens, Francesco Turrisi and Crash Ensemble - BBC Sounds

Guanciale

A friend sent me a piece of real, proper Guanciale from Amatrice, and that got me excited about making some classic Roman guanciale pastas, such as Amatriciana, Carbonara, and Gricia.
Guanciale is not just a kind of bacon. The word guancia means cheek in Italian; in fact, guanciale is cured meat made from pork jowl. It is distinguished by its exceptionally high fat content and intense, savoury flavour profile. The curing process typically involves salt, black pepper, and sometimes aromatic herbs like rosemary or garlic. This results in a product that is much richer and more aromatic than pancetta or standard bacon. Since the fat is so concentrated, it renders in a completely different way than pancetta or bacon, making it a vital ingredient for creating emulsified sauces.

In pastas such as Amatriciana, Carbonara, and Gricia, the guanciale is a main ingredient, but even more important is the rendered fat. In Amatriciana, it is pretty much the only seasoning to balance the acidity of the tomatoes (no oil, no condiments, no allium, just a splash of wine). In Carbonara, it helps emulsify the egg yolks and cheese, and in Gricia, it is basically the only condiment!

Would you like to know more about the classic Roman pastas and Guanciale techniques? Let me know in the comments and I can make some short videos.

Aynur

I mentioned in a previous post that I attended a concert in Dublin by the amazing Kurdish singer Aynur Doğan. Last week, while in Amsterdam with Rhiannon, I reached out to Aynur and we met up for coffee and chats.

We had a wonderful time with Aynur. She is such a humble, beautiful human, as well as an incredible artist and one of the main voices of the Kurdish people. We are cooking up something, and I will keep you posted.

But for now, I thought I would share some of her incredible singing and music. One of my favorites in her discography is Hevra (which translates to "Together"), an album that came out in 2013 in collaboration with the Spanish producer Javier Limón. As you will hear from the first notes, there is a very interesting blend of traditional Kurdish music and flamenco influences in this album. The music moves through a variety of emotional landscapes, ranging from powerful, soulful laments to more rhythmic, dancing tunes. Check out the whole album on YouTube here and on Spotify here.

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Soup in a Dumpling, Technicolor Pastries and Crunchy Dried Shrimp

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 24 May 2026 14:56:51 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing

But this week I have written something a little different than usual: it’s a NYC food playlist!

Given that the tour ended with almost a whole week in the city, I did stretch out a bit and went to visit some new spots and some old classics, and you can find them all here below!

On the first night we arrived, we settled in with our things in our hotel in Midtown, and I felt like something easygoing and comforting. I don’t usually love to stay in Midtown, but it’s the closest location to Carnegie Hall and, in fairness, there are plenty of amazing restaurants even in this very touristy area.
You know me by now and you know that one of the first things I do is to open the Michelin Guide app and look for Bib Gourmand restaurants. This is the one tip from me: it very rarely disappoints. So I noticed that the closest one to me was a restaurant in Hell's Kitchen named:

Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen

Established in 2013, this restaurant was opened by Chef Peter Song, an actor who immigrated from China and was determined to share the traditional comfort foods of his home with a wider audience. The restaurant is known for its hand-pulled and hand-cut noodles, as well as its authentic Shanghai Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings).
Ordering was a tough call; I can never resist soup dumplings, but I also read that the wonton here is spectacular (one of my favorite comfort foods). So of course I ordered both, and it was a bit too much for me on my own, but I could not leave anything behind. And they both were spectacular! The wonton, which rates as one of the best I have ever eaten, had the most amazing dumplings, with whole small shrimp inside. In fact, I loved it so much that I came back on my last day before heading to the airport and had another wonton soup and some scallion pancakes (also excellent but on the greasier side). Can’t wait to be back to try some of their noodles.

Chalong

On a night off, I decided to venture a bit further in Hell’s Kitchen and try another Bib Gourmand restaurant that had also been recommended by a friend from Thailand. Chalong is a specialized Southern Thai restaurant, open since 2023 and owned by Chef Nate Limwong. The restaurant aims to be the first of its kind in New York City to focus specifically on Southern Thai flavors.
I have never been to Thailand, and occasions in my life to eat proper Thai food (and not the diluted westernized version you find everywhere) are quite rare, so I was quite excited about trying Southern Thai food… and it didn’t disappoint. Every dish I tried was fantastic. Quite bold flavors and spiciness, but always in a very balanced way and with freshness and acidity. The dishes you see here are:

Tom Sompla
Southern-style tom yum soup, Chilean sea bass fillet, Thai holy basil, mushrooms, chili, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, shallot, and cilantro.

Moo Hong (Phuket Style Stewed Pork Belly)
6 hrs. Braised pork belly with a mix of soy wine and Thai spices, fried shallots, and pickled jalapeno

Baerng Golae
Coconut crisp, grilled shrimp, and famous curry paste from southern Thailand.

I can’t even pick what was my favorite; the soup was amazing, not quite as sour as usual tom yum and definitely more on the acidity side of things, the little grilled shrimp tacos were such a delightful umami bite, and the pork belly was melt in your mouth deliciousness.

They also have a super funky cocktail menu and I tried a fairly classic mezcal Negroni and then a Muang Bao, made with Mezcal, Italicus, green mango, sweet shrimp paste and chili sea salt… finished with an actual dried shrimp. Delicious and very refreshing, kind of in the direction of a Thai margarita I guess…

Domo

I have talked about Domo Omakase before, but since my last visit, Chef Jiro and his wife Sally have upgraded from their humble but charming 3 seat counter in Chinatown to a proper restaurant on 29th Street. So it was time to go and check their new venue.

Domo Omakase was created by Chef Jiro, a highly experienced sushi master with 35 years of training in Japanese cuisine. His career began in Tokyo in 1988, and he has since operated restaurants across New York, Canada, Hong Kong, and China. Jiro makes a seasonal omakase set that reflects his own creativity and highest quality ingredients. I used to be so proud of my almost accidental discovery of super high quality sushi in a Chinese food hall and I always felt it was the best price-quality sushi experience in NYC. Their new location is amazing and it lifts the whole experience several notches. Obviously the price had to change too, and although it’s still reasonable for NYC standards, their 14 piece sushi omakase now starts at $140. Jiro and Sally are also incredibly nice and sweet and they have been great supporters of our music, so it’s always nice to see them and to support them in their beautiful food venture. Highly recommended.

La Cabra

La Cabra has become my go-to pastry and high quality coffee spot in NYC, and I often take a train to its location in the East Village, even when I’m not staying in the area. La Cabra is actually a Danish coffee roastery and bakery. It was originally founded in Denmark in 2012 as a humble coffee shop, but it has grown into a global brand. The bakery is renowned for its sourdough breads, cardamom buns, and exceptional coffee. This time around I tried one of their pain suisse, something that I deeply love, but that often is not properly made. Here it was delicious: crunchy, chocolatey and custardy. I also grabbed a ham and cheese croissant to take away for the next day’s breakfast. This one they make as a swirl and it has a hint of something sweet; I couldn’t quite tell what, like there was a little bit of honey or some sort of glaze in it. It was delicious, even though it was a little too on the sweet side for a savory pastry and my Italian tastebuds (I find the American palate loves sweet and salty at the same time a lot… Italians do not… lol). Their coffee selection is tremendous and this time around I had a washed Rwandan coffee that was beautifully acidic and fruity.
The place is crazy busy: be ready to stand in line, and if you want to attempt to sit down, go mid-morning on a weekday.

Supermoon Bakehouse

There was another bakery that had caught my attention while doing some research on pastries, so I decided to visit it on one of my mornings off.
Founded in 2017 by Aron Tzimas and Ry Stephen, Supermoon Bakehouse seems to be a favorite in New York City and it’s known for its very colorful treats, their signature cruffins (a croissant-muffin hybrid), artistically crafted croissants (voted some of the best in NYC by the NY Times), and doughnuts.
I arrived early on a Saturday morning and I was surprised by the lack of lines and waiting time. In fairness, they had just opened and the situation changed rapidly in the next hour or so. Their display of technicolor baked goods is super impressive and I was struggling to make a decision. I have to admit that most of the things I could see on that metal counter looked incredibly sweet to me (once again the American palate definitely craves more sugar than mine). At the same time, ordering a plain croissant seemed like a pity in front of such a beautiful display. So after much deliberation, I ended up trying their lemon curd cruffin, hoping that the sour lemon curd would counterbalance the evident sugar content. And it did; it was delicious, but possibly still a bit too sweet for me, and honestly a cruffin is a great flex from an aesthetic point of view, but I’m not sure that the design and shape makes for the most practical eating experience.

Tonchin

When I crave Ramen in NYC, I always try to find a table at Tonchin (and you really do need to book well in advance as it’s super busy).
Tonchin was originally founded in Tokyo in 1992 by Katsuhiro and Motohiro Sugeno. The brand’s expansion into the United States was spearheaded by Anan Sugeno, the son of Katsuhiro, who opened the first New York location approximately 25 years after the original Tokyo restaurant began. Tonchin is well-known for its Tonkotsu Ramen, a very dense and rich pork broth that is normally associated with Tokyo. And their Tonkotsu broth is delicious, but I really fall hard for their smoked dashi Ramen, which has a smoked fish element to it. This time around it was warm outside and I didn’t feel like a big bowl of hot broth, so I opted for their delicious Tsukemen.
Tsukemen is a style of ramen where the noodles and the broth are served in two separate bowls. While standard ramen features noodles submerged in the soup, tsukemen is defined by the act of dipping the noodles into a concentrated broth before eating. They are often served chilled or at room temperature and the dipping broth is significantly more intense, salty, and concentrated than traditional ramen broth. One of the advantages of tsukemen is also that since you only dip the noodles in the broth, you end up eating way less of the broth side of the dish (which is the heaviest) and so at the end of the bowl I still had a little space for an eel temaki, which was also pretty delicious.

Laliko

Right before hitting a concert at the Village Vanguard, I was looking for a restaurant in the Village and stumbled across yet another Bib Gourmand restaurant called Laliko. Laliko is a Georgian restaurant and I was quite excited as I had never had Georgian food. I had read that the best way to approach such a restaurant was in a group of friends, as most of the food comes family style.
Unfortunately, I was on my own and not very hungry (I had to eat quite early to catch the gig), so I had to make a minimal and sustainable order. After a brief chat with a very friendly waitress, I opted for two starters: aubergine rolls and Khinkali.
The roasted aubergine rolls were filled with a walnut and garlic purée (which seems a classic in many Georgian dishes) and garnished with pomegranate. Light and quite garlicky with a nice touch of acidity.
The Khinkali were described as “Juicy, hand-folded dumplings, bursting with rich, flavorful broth and tradition” and I opted for the beef and pork combination. I wrote briefly last week about these, so all I can say here is that these Georgian soup dumplings were delicious, rich, and pepper forward.
The meal was also accompanied by freshly baked bread (almost focaccia like) and a really delicious glass of Soliko, an elegant and fresh wine in between white and orange, with citrus and a subtle mineral finish.
The whole experience was great, but I look forward to going back with a few friends and trying some of their main courses.

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On Tuna Bone Marrow, Doughy Knots and Lilting Banshees.

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 17 May 2026 14:22:49 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing

How did I get to Carnegie?

I have been on the road in the US with Rhiannon Giddens for the last few weeks, and the tour ended with a big concert at Carnegie Hall. It featured Rhiannon, the touring band, and a bunch of amazing guests. The show was part of the America 250 celebrations and it was entitled “The Hidden Soundtrack of America.” I guess you could describe it as a very ambitious, condensed history of the music from the United States according to Rhiannon Giddens, especially highlighting how the connections between working class people across race generated many of the sounds that became so popular in the 19th and 20th centuries.

I have played a good few times at Carnegie Hall before, both with Rhiannon and with ensemble L’Arpeggiata, but this was only my second time in Stern Auditorium, the largest of the rooms in the building. Not many know that Carnegie Hall actually has three rooms: Stern Auditorium (2,804 seats), Zankel Hall (599 seats), and Weill Recital Hall (268 seats).

Many of the musicians in the band and some of the guests had never played at Carnegie, so there was a lot of excitement in the air, and the show was sold out (!), which made things even more exciting! Here is a little video of the end of the last song of the show, a celebration and homage to the original grandmother of rock and roll, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, with some vocal pyrotechnics by Rhiannon.

Tuna bone marrow

Many years ago I discovered almost accidentally Domo Omakase, a tiny three-seat sushi counter inside a food hall in Chinatown. It was run by Jiro and Sally, a very sweet couple who lived and trained in Japan. At Domo, they offered a high level sushi omakase in a very unexpected and unpretentious setting. They finally moved out of that location in order to open a proper restaurant, and so I visited their new spot on E 29th St with Rhiannon last week.

At the end of a fantastic meal, chef Jiro announced he was going to treat us with a dish outside of the menu. He proceeded to pull out a big piece of what looked like a tuna spine, cut a vertebra off, and poured the jelly contents into a small cup… yes, it was tuna bone marrow!

I had never even heard that eating tuna bone marrow is a thing (and trust me, I have eaten many unexpected parts of the tuna before!), so I was quite excited to try it.

The bowl also had some uni, caviar, a small piece of salmon, some wasabi, and a shoyu-based condiment. It was a delicious mouthful. Honestly, I can’t tell you that I tasted the marrow itself, as all the other ingredients had quite intense flavors; I suspect the marrow doesn’t have much flavor and is more about the texture. It had a rather solid jelly consistency, with a bit of a bite, and according to Jiro’s wife Sally, it’s very good for you. Would you try it?

Lilting Banshee

Rhiannon has been learning some tunes on the concertina and she carries her beautiful baritone concertina everywhere. Since I don’t know that many Irish tunes myself, I thought it would be a good excuse to learn what she was practicing, and so while in Dallas for a concert at the Longhorn Ballroom, we sat by the river nearby and I learned this tune known as the Lilting Banshee. After a couple of rounds, I tried to improvise a little accompaniment made of counterpoint melody and the occasional chord.

Khinkali

Among my many NYC food adventures (on which I promise to share more next week), I did visit Laliko, a Georgian restaurant with a Bib Gourmand in the Michelin guide. It was my first time eating Georgian food, and after a bit of research, everything and everyone pointed in the direction of trying Khinkali. These are spiced meat dumplings designed to hold a rich, savory broth inside a pleated dough shell. I was surprised to discover they are basically soup dumplings, even though the design and eating technique are a bit different from the Chinese version (Xiao Long Bao). For me, there is no better way to understand a culture than to try to eat its food in the way it’s properly done, so I immediately asked my very friendly waitress to talk me through the process.

Unlike Xiao Long Bao, Khinkali are eaten by hand. You pick the dumpling up by its thick, doughy knot-like top, known as the “handle.” To avoid burning yourself, you bite a small hole in the side and sip the hot broth first. Once the liquid is gone, you eat the rest of the dumpling. The doughy handle is typically left on the plate.

The beauty of these dumplings is the contrast between the dense, chewy dough and the explosion of hot soup that releases upon the first bite. Traditionally, they are filled with a mixture of beef, pork, or lamb, seasoned with onions, salt, and quite a lot of pepper.

Poll results

I started with this format that I call “Take Five” in October 2025, and 18 posts later, I felt the need to check with you all on how it’s going. So two weeks ago, I asked you, my readers, to express some opinions, and you have spoken almost unanimously.

76% love “Take Five” more than other types of posts.

47% and 38% of you love reading about Italian food and music respectively, and that’s great, because I do love writing about those, even though very often I end up talking about other food cultures I am exploring, but I am sure you are interested in that too!

43% mentioned they’d rather read Take Five every second week, while 40% prefer every week. At the same time, 74% prefer a weekly newsletter rather than a monthly.

59% of you read my newsletter in their email inbox and 51% also read my notes on the Substack app.

A special thanks to all the kind souls who have a paid subscription, not in order to access special content, but to support me and my writing.

From this little catch up, I am concluding the following:

I will continue writing “Take Five” regularly. I will try to do it on a weekly or fortnightly basis, depending on the touring schedule and the content that I have.

I will not change the format of the post with a combination of food and music.
I will probably still write long posts on very specific subjects more occasionally.

Most of my content is anyway free, but I decided to make it all free and available to anyone going forward. If you can afford it and want to support my writing and the amount of time and research behind it, please consider buying me the equivalent of a coffee a month by signing up for a paid subscription. If you can’t afford it, that’s totally fine too; I want my writing to be accessible to everybody and I hope you will enjoy it and take something away from it.

Looking forward to more writing and thank you for the support.

Creole Arancine, Zamba and…a few Questions

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 03 May 2026 15:06:53 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing.

This week I would like to hear your opinion on a few things, so if you have a minute please scroll to the end of this newsletter and let me know what you think!

Road!

Greetings from the road. I’m in the middle of a tour with Rhiannon Giddens and her band in the US. We are touring with an acoustic setup, essentially a string band, and exploring many different musical styles with this unique combination of sounds. Last night we played, for the first time, a song by Niwel Tsumbu entitled “Africa Eh”. This composition was actually part of last March’s tour with the Silkroad Ensemble and, for the nerds out there, it features a (quite complicated) groove of interlocking rhythm cycles of 7/2, 7/4 and 7/8. Here is a little snippet from last night’s performance featuring Niwel Tsumbu on guitar and vocals, Rhiannon Giddens on banjo and vocals, Jason Sypher on bass and myself on accordion.

You can still catch us on the road for the last three shows of this tour. More info and tickets here.

Calas

Last week we spent a couple of days in New Orleans and this was a great opportunity to do some culinary exploration, as there is always amazing Louisiana food to be discovered. While visiting the well known restaurant (and butchery) Cochon, I ordered a plate of delicious shrimp stew and it came with round fritters which were described as pecan rice calas.

Calas are traditional New Orleans rice fritters with roots in rice growing regions of West Africa, though some food historians also point to French influences. They became part of Louisiana’s Creole food culture and, by the 1700s, they were a familiar street food in New Orleans, often sold by enslaved Black women, especially after church on Sundays, as a way to earn money. Cochon’s calas were incredibly flavourful and I loved the texture, with the pecan, the rice and a touch of sweetness that counterbalanced the overall intense umami of the dish. They brought a smile to my face as they made me think of Louisiana’s answer to Arancine…

If you want to know more about calas, read this piece by NPR.

Dooky Chase

While in New Orleans I also had a lovely meal with Rhiannon at the Tremé restaurant Dooky Chase. This legendary spot opened in 1941 and is long associated with civil rights history and Black culture in the city. It became especially famous under Leah Chase, often called the “Queen of Creole Cuisine,” who helped turn it into both a fine dining destination (it has a Bib Gourmand in the Michelin Guide) and a gathering place for artists, activists and politicians.

Here we tried some of their legendary gumbo, followed by fried shrimp, jambalaya and greens. This was a lovely meal of Louisiana Creole classics, comforting, delicious and heartwarming. The space has the grandeur of a very old school restaurant, but it also feels very down to earth and the food has the warmth of a home cooked meal. There is definitely an energy in this busy and buzzing room and one can sense the history that has passed through these walls.

Zamba

For a little music recommendation this week I want to circle back to L’Arpeggiata’s new album “La torre del oro”. A new video from the recording session came out in the last week and I want to share it with you here. It’s one of my favorite pieces from the album and it is a zamba by Hilda Herrera called “La Diablera”. Zamba (not to be confused with Brazilian samba) is a folk dance from Argentina, usually played in a slow, elegant 3/4 rhythm that has a very particular swing feel. Like other Argentinian folk rhythms such as chacarera and chamamé, zamba seems to show evident ties to African diasporic rhythms. It is usually accompanied by guitar and the bombo legüero (a large barrel drum).

This zamba was composed by the legendary Argentinian pianist Hilda Herrera and is sung here by Chilean Swedish singer Luciana Mancini. I greatly enjoyed adding some accordion colours to this track and providing a counterpoint to the vocal melody.

Question time!

I am thinking of changing the structure of a few things here at “Cooking by Ear” as I sometimes struggle with keeping up with my writing goals and full on life on the road and at home. So please let me know what you think about the following topics and feel free to add anything in comments.

Thank you so much for taking the time, surely appreciated!

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Reef Fish, Competition Beans and Colonial Gold

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 14:31:51 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing.

This post has some content for my paying subscribers. To access please consider upgrading your subscription

Theater an der Wien

Last weekend I spent three days in Vienna rehearsing with the ensemble L’Arpeggiata and then playing a concert in the legendary Theater an der Wien. This venue opened in 1801 and is one of Vienna’s most historically important theaters, especially for opera and classical music. It was founded by Emanuel Schikaneder, who also wrote the libretto for Mozart’s The Magic Flute (!). The theater hosted major premieres, including works by Ludwig van Beethoven, such as the opera Fidelio (he apparently even lived there for a time while composing it). After being closed for renovation for a few years, it reopened in 2024, and it was named Opera House of the Year (2025) at the International Opera Awards. It seats roughly 1,200 people, and this concert had been sold out for months.

Joropo

L’Arpeggiata is, on paper, an early music group that I have been collaborating with on and off for more than 20 years (I started when I was still a student!). I say “on paper” because the group does perform 17th century Italian music, but it is mostly known in the scene for its more crossover and adventurous projects, which usually blend very different sounds and styles with early baroque music. This particular project is one of those, and it features regular members of the ensemble alongside musicians from Venezuela, Chile, and Argentina. Here is a short video from rehearsals of a Joropo from Venezuela, performed by Manuel A. Sánchez on cuatro (the four string guitar like instrument), Manuel Barreto on arpa llanera (the traditional Venezuelan harp), Rafael Mejías on maracas, Leo Teruggi on bass and singer Luciana Mancini.

“Torre del Oro” new Album

The Torre del Oro is one of the most recognizable historic landmarks in Seville, Spain. It was built around 1220 during the rule of the Almohad Caliphate, a dynasty that controlled much of southern Spain at the time. The tower originally formed part of the city’s defensive walls. One theory about its name (Tower of Gold) is that it stored precious metals arriving from the Americas during Spain’s colonial period.

The idea behind this project was to invite musicians from Latin American countries and explore the connections (that in some places are still alive) between traditional music and some of the music that the colonisers brought in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Many of the instruments that are traditional in North, Central, and South America seem to have arrived with the Spanish and Portuguese colonisers, especially the multitude of stringed instruments. For example, the Mexican jarana is incredibly close to the Spanish baroque guitar, the Brazilian cavaquinho is directly inherited from Portugal, and the Cuban tres, Venezuelan cuatro, and Puerto Rican cuatro can also be connected to various Iberian guitar like instruments. All of these instruments evolved and incorporated stylistic elements from the African diaspora and from indigenous populations, and in each of these countries they have become part of the essence of their musical DNA.

In turn, a lot of the music that was created in the colonies travelled back to Europe and influenced major trends during the Renaissance and Baroque eras. For example, dances such as the ciaccona (chaconne), zarabanda (sarabande), and fandango all originated in the Americas and became popular in Europe, to the point that by the time of Bach they had been so absorbed and stylised that they almost became unrecognisable.

This is a very interesting subject, so I might write a more extended post on this in the near future for my paid subscribers, but for now I would like to share the album, as it came out only a few days ago.

More info on buying the album or streaming it here
Listen to the whole album on Youtube here and on Spotify here

Dublin Coffee festival

Last weekend I visited the Dublin Coffee Festival. It was my first time at such an event, and as a newish coffee enthusiast I was quite excited, although I did not know exactly what to expect. I did expect more stands with coffee gear for different interests, and I was somewhat disappointed by the lack of that. On the other hand, there were many Irish coffee roasters at the festival, which was very interesting. They all had brews constantly on the go, and it was great to be able to taste small samples of many different coffees roasted all over Ireland. I had not realised that there were so many, especially for such a small country, and it is clearly a market that is continuing to grow. Each roaster sells beans at their stand, and some even hand out free samples.

I also witnessed parts of the finals for the Ireland’s Brewer’s cup and that was quite fascinating. The Brewer’s Cup is a specialty coffee competition focused on manual brewing. Competitors usually perform in two rounds, a Compulsory Service, where everyone brews the same coffee provided by the judges, and an Open Service (the part I saw), where competitors bring their own beans and design a presentation explaining their choices. It is a de facto performance, where each competitor is mic’ed up and talks through his choices for beans, recipe, brewing technique, all while making three identical coffees for the judges. The winner of the Irish brewer’s cup qualifies for the World Brewers Cup. Competition beans, technique and recipes are not exactly the type of thing you would get at a cafe or be able to replicate at home. I guess they represent the avant garde of brewing technique and technology, although in practice it can feel somewhat abstract to watch, as you are not able to taste or fully understand the results

Poke!

I have been posting pictures of my weekly poke on my socials, and many people have been asking for recipes, so below you will find my simple go to recipe (for my paid subscribers).

Before that, a brief note on the history of this very popular Hawaiian dish. It seems that the word poke means “to slice” or “cut crosswise” in Hawaiian, and it refers to the dish’s original form, salted chunks of reef fish eaten as a quick snack by native fishermen and accompanied by seaweed and kukui nuts. Over time, poké evolved as different cultures influenced Hawaiian cuisine. When Japanese immigrants arrived in the 19th century, they brought ingredients like soy sauce and sesame oil, which became part of the dish. Only in the 2010s did poke spread from Hawaii to mainland US cities, along with the trend of assembling bowls with rice, vegetables, and a wide range of toppings.

So, as I always say, with global trend comes bastardisation and nowadays we think of poke as a bowl of rice with almost anything on top, sometimes without fish, although in its origins it was, and still is, a simple dish of marinated fish.

I understand that there are many different ways of preparing poke, and given that it is a dish that is made and eaten very quickly with fresh fish, I tend to use the simplest and freshest ingredients I can find here in Ireland. My daughter really enjoys raw salmon, and organic Irish farmed salmon is easy to find and generally the safest choice for raw fish here, so that is what I usually use. I do not have access to Hawaiian limu seaweed or kukui nuts, but I have been experimenting with toasted or smoked almonds, as I like the crunch they add. Here is a basic recipe for two people.

On Frailing, Agnolotti and Kurdish Dancing

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 14:29:46 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing

Cousins

One night during our latest Silkroad “Sanctuary” tour, we had a crazy, fun hang on the tour bus where everyone ended up trying other people’s instruments. It was a beautiful way to connect with each other and to further understand the beauty and genius of every musician involved. Then something that was meant to happen much earlier finally happened: Rhiannon swapped her early minstrel era banjo with Mehdi’s Moroccan guembri, and the results were very interesting. The early banjo technique is almost identical to the guembri technique, and that is because this instrument is part of the family of instruments that inspired and influenced the birth of the banjo. Usually people talk about the ngoni as an obvious influence, but probably the akonting and the guembri have much more in common with it when it comes to right hand technique (the ngoni technique is quite different).

Check this short video

Venezia!

After many years, I returned to the beautiful and unique city of Venice, where I spent two days hanging out with my friend Enrico and collecting my daughter to bring her to Torino for Easter. In Venice I had some fantastic meals, including a dinner at a restaurant called Anice Stellato.

We tried:
- Crudo di pesce (Ombrina)
meagre crudo
- Baccalà servito in umido con polenta
Salt cod stew served with polenta
- Gnocchi di pane, latticello, panna, cipolla bruciata, erbe primaverili
Bread gnocchi, buttermilk, cream, burnt onion, spring herbs
- Spaghettone in salsa alla veneziana: acciuga e cipolla.
Thick spaghetti with Venetian-style sauce: anchovy and onion
- Calamaro, sedano rapa, insalatina di agretti e sesamo
Squid, celeriac, agretti salad, sesame
- Sarde fritte, maionese al finocchietto selvatico
Fried sardines, wild fennel mayonnaise
- Selezione di formaggi a latte crudo
Selection of raw milk cheeses

Dessert was a kind of ver dark chocolate ganache with fresh strawberries

We shared all of these dishes. Everything was delicious, and I particularly loved the traditional baccalà with polenta and the spaghettoni, served with a dense tomato sauce with anchovies and onions, somehow quite similar to the very Sicilian pasta alla Milanese. The gnocchi were also fantastic and quite unusual, with the complementary contrast of buttermilk cream and the bitter herbs. The sardines were literally like a drug, I could not stop eating them.

Overall, a wonderful dinner in a very chilled and unpretentious setting.

Aynur

Last week I was fortunate enough to catch an incredible performance by Kurdish singer Aynur in Dublin at the National Concert Hall.
Aynur Doğan (often known simply as Aynur) is one of the most significant contemporary Kurdish musicians, both artistically and culturally. Born in 1975 in Turkey, she grew up surrounded by traditional Kurdish music and she developed a style that blends traditional Kurdish folk singing, modal improvisation, and contemporary jazz arrangements. For decades in Turkey, the Kurdish language was restricted or outright banned in public life, so when Aynur chose to sing primarily in Kurdish, it became not simply entertainment but a political act of resistance. She faced censorship, threats, and concert interruptions. In this sense, her work is part of a broader cultural resistance, preserving language through music.

Aynur now lives in Amsterdam, and it is not an exaggeration to say she is the voice of the Kurdish diaspora. It was beautiful to see Ireland’s Kurdish community out singing and dancing, and I had never seen this kind of energy at Dublin’s National Concert Hall.

Agnolotti reel

I started a while back a small series of very short videos on specific cooking tips, which I call “etudes”. The first two were on focaccia, and the next instalment will be on how to make a simple butter sauce for ravioli.

Feel free to add some sage leaves, but make sure you do not cook the sage for long or it will become very bitter.

What would you like to see in this series? Let me know in the comments.

Torre de L’oro

On Monday, April 20th, I will join my friends from the early music ensemble L’Arpeggiata in Vienna for a very special concert that will celebrate the launch of a new CD called “Torre de L’Oro”, featuring music and musicians from various parts of Latin America (with a strong presence of Venezuela). We recorded this album in June 2025, and it was so much fun to create this project with this incredible group of people and musicians. Check out the album promo video and look out for the album on April 17th.

If you find yourself in Vienna and want to know more about the concert, click here.

This piece was copy-edited for grammar and syntax with AI; the voice and content are 100% mine.

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Gentle ponds, Swollen Corn y más Cariño

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 14:50:40 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing.

The majority of my posts are free but there is additional content for my paid subscribers at the bottom of this post. If you enjoy my writing please consider becoming a paying subscriber.

Dido’s last words

Last week we visited Indiana University in Bloomington for a concert with the Silkroad Ensemble and, as part of our workshops and community activities, Rhiannon offered an open vocal masterclass in collaboration with her current singing teacher Brian Gill (who happens to be a professor there).

The idea was to have an open class where they both show how they go through a singing lesson, from warmups to working on opera repertoire, and then how they apply technique to all the different styles that Rhiannon is able to sing (which are many, many!).

As part of this “show and tell” Rhiannon and I performed a couple of songs from our repertoire, and I wanted to share with you, as a little treat, an extract of our version of Purcell’s Dido’s Lament, quite different from how it is normally performed.

Coffee on the move

As you know, I travel with a fair amount of coffee gear these days, but there are moments when I do not have time to make a fancy AeroPress coffee in my hotel room and I still want to have something tasty. So lately I have been investigating the most up to date options for coffee made quickly and only with the addition of hot water. These are the options I have come across in the world of specialty coffee.

On the left you see good old classic instant coffee, but made fancy by Dublin roasters Cloudpicker.
In the middle, a coffee teabag made by Dutch roasters DAK.
On the right, a drip bag by Anywhere Coffee, something that seems to be like a mini pour over.

I will go through these three options in the next few weeks, but for now I want to take a look at the last option, the coffee drip bag. These were apparently developed in the early 90s in Japan and they look like teabags, but in practice they mimic a portable pour over coffee.

After opening the external bag, you rip off the top of the filter and fix it onto a cup (the design is actually genius). The advantage of this method is that it is the closest thing to an actual pour over and you can proceed with a bloom and a few pours (see instructions in the second picture). The disadvantages of this system are the fact that the coffee has been preground, so it has a limited shelf life, and also the fact that you have very limited pour control given the small surface of coffee, which can easily lead to under extraction and channeling.

I have honestly had mixed results with these bags. Sometimes they work better than others, and a couple of times I felt the coffee had some bitterness that could have been caused by either of the aforementioned issues. I think a lot depends on the manufacture date, the roaster, how much information they provide on the bags, and whether they include a specific recipe for best results. When it works it is pretty good, but the cup does not have the depth and complexity of a proper pour over.

Cariño

I am not gonna lie…the first part of this tour was in locations that did not quite shine on the culinary front, so you can only imagine how happy and excited I was to arrive in Chicago at the beginning of our second week on the road. There I had some truly fantastic food, including an amazing experience at Cariño. If you want to know more please read below (for my paid subscribers).

Gentle Rain

I do listen to quite a lot of music while on the road, sometimes while we travel and sometimes even just to cleanse the ears after rehearsing and playing the same material all day long. Something that has helped me a lot with ear cleansing is listening to Bach’s lute music, especially last thing at night before bed.

First of all, it is the nocturnal sound of the lute, a gentle caress to the ear. Secondly, there is a certain inevitability in Bach’s music that I personally find very soothing. It is incredibly complex and dense, but at the same time it flows naturally and leaves me with a sense of calm that I seldom get anywhere else. I have a whole playlist of Bach on the lute, but for now I just want to share one recording that I play often.

This is just one track, but go and look for the whole recording of the violin sonatas and partitas arranged for the lute. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote three sonatas and three partitas for solo violin (BWV 1001 to 1006) in Köthen, around 1720. These are the original versions, and later he reworked them for lute, but they are not simple transcriptions. Bach recomposed them to fit the different possibilities of the instrument, enriching them with extra harmony.

Here they are performed by the legendary lutenist Hopkinson Smith, a master of elegance, precision, restraint, and clarity. His playing of Bach has been described as gentle rain on a quiet pond, and this definition somehow fits perfectly with what I was trying to say above.

Bay Area Asian treats

After Chicago we traveled west to California and we have spent a good few days in the Bay Area. This is one of my favorite food places and I have had some truly amazing meals, as you can see from these pics.

Rintaro on left, Li’s noodles in the middle and Kiraku on the right

I always gravitate towards Japanese food when I am here, as I know there is a big community and amazing ingredients are easily available. If you want to know more about the restaurants I tried and my recommendations, please read below (for my paid subscribers).

This piece was copy-edited for grammar with AI; the voice and content are 100% mine.

Incredible contemporary Mexican food at Cariño

A few months ago I noticed an interesting TV show on Apple TV called Knife Edge Chasing Michelin Stars. I was intrigued and started watching it, and found myself going back to it, especially during my travels.

Live chat with John McKenna

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 14:46:43 GMT

Delighted to share with you a wonderful chat I had a couple of weeks ago with John McKenna, author of the McKenna guides and the 100 best restaurants guide (together with his wife Sally). We discuss the Irish food scene and the revolution in the food culture that has happened over the last 50 years. We also chat about coffee, music and Irish restaurants.

On the Powerful Aisha, Mineral Water Content and Lots of “Filin”

Francesco Turrisi — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:15:46 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing

Gnawa

Silkroad Sanctuary tour is in full swing and we had our first concert in Bowling Green, OH and are moving on to Bloomington, Indiana tonight.

I have mentioned previously that we have two special guests for this tour. One of them is Moroccan musician Mehdi Nassouli. Mehdi is a traditional musician who comes from a Gnawa heritage and he sings and plays the guembri.

Gnawa music is a Moroccan musical and ritual tradition that blends sub-Saharan African heritage, Islamic spirituality, and local North African culture. It is both a musical style and part of a healing ceremony. The Gnawas are descendants of enslaved West Africans who were brought across the Sahara between roughly the 16th and 19th centuries. Their spiritual practices retain clear sub-Saharan features but are also connected to local Sufism. From a musical point of view the way the rhythm is organised also has very clear sub-Saharan features, including a very swinging feel in the pulse, syncopated driving bass lines and rhythmic cycles built around claves that often do not emphasise the one. The singing style has clear call and response patterns and the leader sings in an improvisational melismatic style that is very connected to Arabic aesthetics.

Mehdi plays the guembri, a three-string bass lute with a deep percussive sound. It acts as both bass line and rhythmic driver and it is a distant cousin of the banjo. In fact it is almost shocking to see this instrument next to Rhiannon’s early banjo and notice how the sounds and the technique are incredibly similar and related. Mehdi also plays the qraqeb, large metal castanets that are traditionally the percussion instruments in Gnawa rituals.

If you have 7 minutes in your day please listen and watch Mehdi lead his group in this extract from the Gnawa ritual, it’s quite mindblowing…

It has been incredible to be able to learn this complex, rich and alive tradition directly from a master and on the first day he gave us a clear overview of the ritual where most of Gnawa music comes from.

The Lila is their healing ritual. It’s often organised by a local priestess according to the needs of her community and she is responsible for hosting the ceremony and for calling the musicians. During the ceremony the music cycles through different rhythmic and melodic sections. Each section is associated with a specific spirit, often linked to colours. Participants may enter trance states through repetitive rhythm and dance.

For our performance Mehdi has taught us two parts from the very end of the ritual, usually played at sunrise and dedicated to Aisha, a powerful female water spirit. Here a little extract.

Home songs

If you want to look further into Gnawa music this is a great intimate record that I have loved and listened to for many years.

“Gnawa Home Songs” was released in 2006 by the French label Accords Croisés and it’s a project featuring many different artists, conceived by journalist and producer Emmanuelle Honorin together with drummer and producer Karim Ziad. The idea was to capture Gnawa songs in a very intimate setting, almost like private music rather than ritual performance. The recordings were made like field recordings in a house in Tamesloht, an important Gnawa pilgrimage location. Instead of documenting the full ceremonial sound, the producers deliberately stripped things down. There are no qraqeb, mostly voice, guembri and some clapping. The record gathers several important schools and traditions, including Hamid El Kasri, Hassan Boussou, Abdelkebir Merchane, Abdelkader Amlil and Amida Boussou.

More info and links to buy the CD here on the website of the amazing French label Accords Croisés. If you are into CDs I recommend buying the physical copy as it has so much amazing information about Gnawa music.

Go Basque part 2

If you read my post last week on Basque cheesecake you might want to know how I got on with my first experiment. I did a bit of research online and compared a few recipes. As previously mentioned I wanted to make a small one for myself, my daughter and a couple of her friends so I decided to use my tiny 15 cm detachable ring mould. The only issue with this mould is that it’s not quite deep enough for this style of cheesecake. My instinct was to lower the temperature a bit given that my cake was thinner, but in retrospect I think it might have been a counterproductive move. With a thinner cake you probably want to make sure you achieve caramelisation more quickly since you might end up overcooking the cake faster. It did in fact take quite long to brown and in the end I had to remove it before it was completely dark as I could feel the centre had already set.

My idea was to try to recreate the texture of the cake I had at Kicky’s in Dublin just before Christmas and I didn’t quite get there this time around. That cake was creamy and very custardy in consistency, mine was creamy but more in the direction of a regular cheesecake. I ended up only using cornflour instead of normal flour and I suspect that could have been one of the reasons.

It needs to be said that it was actually delicious and the flavour profile was perfect. I used high quality dairy products from Ireland, more specifically Killowen cream cheese (softer and more lactic than Philadelphia) and Village Dairy organic cream. I also used my Thermomix to mix and incorporate the ingredients one at a time, as suggested in many recipes I saw online.

I am still in the process of figuring out a perfect recipe and then I will share it with you here, but until then I shall keep experimenting with it. If you have tips let me know.

Road Coffee Survival

I have mentioned before that when I go on tour I bring with me a little survival coffee kit that allows me to make some great coffee in my hotel room. Here you can see my coffee setup this time around.

• small portable kettle with temperature control (you don’t really want to brew your coffee at boiling water temperature)

• my beloved Comandante grinder, which is what I use at home too

• a small tiny scale for precise measurements of both water and coffee. This is not essential as you can eyeball things on the Aeropress but it gives more consistent results

• obviously I bring some nice coffee with me and or look for interesting roasters on the road

• I buy bottled water and try to research which brands work best for this type of coffee, because remember that 99 percent of coffee is water the mineral content is going to affect very dramatically the taste of your cup

It might seem like a lot of stuff to carry around, but when it’s all packed it looks like this.

I have spoken about the Aeropress before so I won’t get into it again. I just want to reiterate that it’s a very effective and powerful brewer. I have the “Go” version, which is a bit smaller than the regular one (so you might have to adjust your recipes), but it is designed to be very self contained when packed up.

I have been using many different recipes for it. Usually I have worked around the James Hoffmann standard recipe. Lately I have been experimenting with the Lance Hedrick recipe and I have to say it is very effective and I feel it gives me a better And cleaner cup. This recipe includes a 45 seconds bloom and that’s the reason I prefer to have a scale to make it. It is quite hard to pour water properly and in a controlled way from a kettle like the one I bring on the road but I think the Aeropress is quite forgiving in this respect compared to a V60 or to my beloved Orea V4.

Here the recipe I have been using. I adapted it to the Aeropress Go using 12 grams of coffee and 200 ml of water.

In case you don’t know Lance’s channel, it’s possibly the nerdiest one…lol

More Filin

Last year I had the luck to meet the wonderful saxophonist Melissa Aldana as we were both teaching faculty at Sligo Jazz Week. I had admired Melissa’s talent and music for a long time and it was a great pleasure for me to be able to hang out with her, learn from her and play together a little bit. She has the most incredible dark, breathy, big tenor saxophone sound, steeped in the tradition and the result of countless hours of practice and an obsessive perfectionism that have made her one of the most important saxophonists of her generation.

Melissa was born in Santiago, Chile in 1988 and comes from a family of saxophonists. As a teenager she moved to the United States to study at the Berklee College of Music, and after graduating she settled in New York, where she became active on the jazz scene. In 2013 she won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition, becoming the first woman and first South American to win that competition. The prize included a recording contract and brought her international recognition.

I remember Melissa Very excitedly telling me about her upcoming album that would feature the incredible Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Now the wait is over and “Filin” is out on Blue Note Records. I did listen to the whole album on my way to the US a few days ago and loved the sound of it so I wanted to share it with you here.

Filin (a phonetic spelling of the English word feeling) was a Cuban songwriting movement that developed in Havana in the 1940s to 60s. It blended Cuban trova and bolero traditions with harmony and phrasing influenced by American jazz. For Melissa the project started as the idea of making a ballads record, inspired by albums like “Ballads” by John Coltrane. When she approached the Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba he suggested exploring the filin repertoire instead and she found that these songs felt very close to the Great American Songbook ballad tradition, but with Spanish lyrics and Latin-American melodic sensibility, which I guess gave her a stronger personal connection.

Check out the video of the recording session that features the song “La Sentencia”.

This incredible quartet includes:

Gonzalo Rubalcaba – piano
Peter Washington – bass
Kush Abadey – drums
guest vocals from Cécile McLorin Salvant on two tracks.

This piece was copy-edited for grammar and syntax with AI; the voice and content are 100% mine.

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On Controlled Chaos, Jerusalem Artichoke Ice Cream and Burnt Cakes.

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 16:02:36 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing

Éire

It is crazy. As I write this post, I realise that today marks the twentieth anniversary of my move to Ireland. I remember when I first arrived from the Netherlands (where I studied) and felt immediately at home: “nothing works, everyone is late, the church messed up everything and people like to hang out and party… I’m basically back in Italy… apart from the food and the weather”.

I cannot believe it has been that long and I wonder if that officially makes me a little bit Irish too. I laugh at and understand all the in-jokes in Father Ted, I wave my index finger and mumble “howya” while driving along country roads, and I cannot stop complaining about the weather, so I suppose I would pass. It reminds me of that classic video by Foil Arms and Hog about getting through Irish immigration.

Jokes aside, I want to thank Ireland and its beautiful people for always making me feel welcome during these twenty years. I genuinely think this country is one of the few places that currently gives me hope for humankind. There are, of course, plenty of problems here too, but there is a level of humanity that I have rarely seen elsewhere on this side of the world, despite recent efforts from certain world class individuals to undermine it.

Before I become too sentimental, let us move on to this edition of Take Five.

In search of Sanctuary

All the beautiful humans of the Silk Road Ensemble

I am writing while packing all my stuff and instruments for a long tour in the US. he time has finally come for a new and very exciting project with the Silkroad Ensemble called “Sanctuary”.

We will be out for most of March and you can hear this incredible group of musicians here:

As you can see from the tour schedule, we are not performing a huge number of concerts given the length of the tour. That is because, on the days in between, we will engage in activities with local communities, schools and open public events.

It is a new way of touring envisioned by our artistic director Rhiannon Giddens, and we hope to bring some positive energy and a sense of sanctuary to communities that need it across the US.

We will perform entirely new material composed and arranged by the whole ensemble (also a first time!) and the band features:

Rhiannon Giddens (US), banjo, voice
Shawn Conley (US-Hawaii), bass
Sandeep Das (India), tabla
Haruka Fujii (Japan), marimba, percussion
Maeve Gilchrist (Scotland-Ireland), harp
Karen Ouzounian (Armenia-Canada), cello
Mazz Swift (US), violin, voice
Niwel Tsumbu (Democratic Republic of Congo), guitar, voice
Francesco Turrisi (Italy), frame drums, accordion
Kaoru Watanabe (Japan-US), Japanese flutes, percussion
Mauro Durante (Italy), percussion, violin, voice*
Mehdi Nassouli (Morocco), guembri, voice*

*guest artist

Keep an eye on my Substack for updates from the road and find more information and tickets on Silkroad’s website.

Bastible

A couple of nights ago I met my friends Nick and Aoife for dinner at Bastible, a Michelin starred restaurant in Dublin. Bastible was opened in 2015 by Barry Fitzgerald and his partner Clare-Marie Thomas. It focuses on seasonal modern Irish cuisine presented as a tasting menu in a relaxed setting with an open kitchen (my favourite!). Bastible was awarded a Michelin star in 2022 and has retained it since, something that should not be taken for granted given how often restaurants I see restaurants lose the distinction.

When we sat down, we were not given a written menu. Instead, we were told that the dishes would arrive as a surprise and that only at the end would we receive a menu describing what we had eaten (pictured above). Having said that our servers did explain in detail each dish as it arrived.

The food was really impressive, incredibly well prepared and presented. It had flair and technique and tons of flavour. I particularly enjoyed the chef’s craving for acidity, present throughout the menu, pungent but always well balanced and never overpowering.

Possibly my favourite dish was described as: Cod, liquorice, hibiscus, kohlrabi (pic. 3). It sounds very adventurous but it delivered in a sophisticated way, where the tenderness of the cod, no idea how they cooked it, it literally melted in the mouth, maybe steamed or sous vide is my guess, was nicely counterbalanced by the crunchiness of the kohlrabi. The liquorice was a subtle, colourful presence that did not impose in the way you might expect.

Another sensational touch was the Jerusalem artichoke ice cream (pic. 5), which tasted very much like…erm…Jerusalem artichokes, not something you would usually expect or even want from an ice cream. But here it was served as a side to the main ginger based dessert, also paired with a delicious yuzu ice cream, and the combination of all these flavours was perfectly balanced and complementary.

Bastible was impressive in technique and delivery, adventurous but never felt like show off cooking. It was always about flavour. The open kitchen energy transpired into the room and the service was lovely. I would definitely recommend it for a fine dining experience in Dublin.

Ah Um

I might be stating the obvious, but Mingus Ah Um is possibly one of the greatest jazz records ever made. It is a record I have known well for a long time, but I recently rediscovered this CD box of Mingus albums on Columbia, designed like the original LPs but in CD format, so I started listening to them again with my fancy Grado Labs headphones. The Columbia recordings from this era actually sound incredible, the spatial placing of the instruments, the detail, so much so that I feel I can hear the breath coming out of the saxophones.

Mingus Ah Um was recorded and released in 1959 and it captures Mingus with one of his most cohesive ensembles, including players such as John Handy, Booker Ervin, Jimmy Knepper, Horace Parlan and Dannie Richmond. Richmond in particular sounds glorious on this record and his volatile drumming never ceases to surprise me. He is the perfect counterpart to Mingus’s grounded bass sound and I feel he is definitely one of the unsung heroes of jazz drumming.

One of my favourite tunes ever is the second track “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”, an elegy for Lester Young, who had died earlier that year. It is a winding, bluesy, slow melody presented in the most minimal way. The two tenor saxophones play it in unison the first time and an octave apart the second time around, and this incredibly simple arrangement is very powerful. My personal favourite moment is at 0’28” when for just one note the two saxophones abandon the unison and play a semitone apart, creating a passing, almost unnoticed, very bluesy dissonance. The genius is in the detail. And it is not a mistake, as I first thought, because they do it again when the melody comes back later.

I could spend hours talking about this album but if you do not know it please check it out. Every track is a masterpiece and an unrivalled example of Mingus’s unique balance between written material and controlled chaos. Mingus often used tightly arranged ensemble passages that suddenly open into collective improvisation, reminiscent of early jazz. There is a clear lineage from church music and the blues, but also a sophisticated sense of form that pays homage to Ellington. Furthermore it combines protest song, humour, spirituality, raw energy and experimentation without ever feeling avant garde.

Going Basque

I have been observing the popularity of Basque cheesecake with a certain degree of suspicion. It seems to have the same fate as all things that become trendy, for example hummus, pesto, burrata, focaccia. All delicious things for sure and they deserve to be known worldwide, but usually with fame comes all sorts of watering down and bastardisation of the original concept. And don’t get me wrong, I am not a purist and I am very open to modification and improvement, but that is not usually what happens when something becomes “TikTok popular”.

So for years I have kept my loyalty to New York style as my favourite kind of cheesecake…until recently. During a visit to Kicky’s restaurant in Dublin a friend and I were given, we did not even order it, a slice of their Basque cheesecake and it was honestly insane. The picture does not quite convey how creamy and custardy it was. The slightly bitter burnt top in contrast with the sweet creaminess of the filling, balanced out with a sprinkle of salt, made the experience irresistible. I could not stop eating it. I was actually surprised by the fact that it felt much lighter than I expected and in general lighter than any New York cheesecake I have had.

Basque cheesecake, also known as Burnt Cheesecake, was created in San Sebastián in the late 1980s by Santiago Rivera at La Viña, a small bar in the old town. Rivera was apparently experimenting with cheesecake recipes and chose to bake the cake at a much higher temperature than usual. Instead of aiming for a pale, delicate surface like a New York style cheesecake, he allowed the top to caramelise deeply, essentially burning it. The result was a dark, slightly bitter exterior with a custardy, barely set interior. Unlike classic cheesecakes that sit on a biscuit base and are often cooked in a water bath, the Basque version is intentionally simpler: cream cheese, eggs, sugar, cream and a small amount of flour. For many years it remained a local speciality but around the mid 2010s it began gaining international attention, helped by food media and social platforms. It seems that its popularity is also due to the fact that it is technically forgiving compared to traditional cheesecakes, no water bath and no concern about cracks.

So since I needed a celebration for my 20th Irish birthday, in a slightly impromptu manner this weekend I decided to give Basque cheesecake a go.
After all Ireland is known for having some of the best dairy in the world, so I went to the shop and armed myself with these.

I only have a tiny 15 cm tin here at home so I decided to make a mini one, much better anyway as it is only two of us at home and I would not want to be stuck with a massive cheesecake two days before leaving for tour, as I would probably be perfectly able to eat it all by myself.

Do you want to know how I got on with my first mini burnt cheesecake? I will follow up next week and hopefully we can go through the process together of learning how to make the perfect Basque cheesecake.

This piece was copy-edited for grammar and syntax with AI; the voice and content are 100% mine.

If you enjoy “Cooking by Ear,” please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber

Croissant Wars, Napoleonic Hazelnuts and Coffee Omakase

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 16:42:30 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing.

Writing from Turin, Italy, where I have come to spend a few days visiting family with my daughter Aoife, here are a few highlights from Piedmont’s capital.

Folk Notes

A couple of weeks ago I played two shows with Rhiannon Giddens here at the Folk Club. FolkClub was founded on 16 April 1988 by Franco Lucà as a dedicated space for live music with a focus on folk, world, acoustic, blues, jazz, and singer-songwriter traditions. It has become a tradition for us to do a yearly appearance at this legendary small underground music venue, but for the first time this year, we presented two different shows on two consecutive nights.

The first show was a brand new one that also featured two amazing Turin-based jazz musicians, Federico Marchesano on double bass and Mattia Barbieri on drums. I have had for a very long time the idea of creating a more jazz-oriented rhythm section to support Rhiannon’s extraordinary voice through a series of my own arrangements of some of her older songs and some more piano-oriented songs from our first album “There Is No Other.” I enjoyed this concert immensely, as I rarely feel as free as when playing in a jazz trio context, and because I think it cast a very different light on Rhiannon’s singing and repertoire. I am hoping we will get to do it again very soon. As a little treat, I want to share a short fragment from the concert featuring a heart-wrenching song by our friend Leyla McCalla, “Song for a Dark Girl” (written on a Langston Hughes poem), here reimagined as a slow, bluesy waltz.

Crema Pasticcera dreams

When in Turin, I always try to visit my favorite café, Caffè San Carlo, a historical spot that has the most incredible baked breakfast pastries. After trying all the different kinds over the years, I realized that the reason I keep coming back is the custard-filled croissant, which I think is fair to say is the best I’ve ever had. The tradition of filled croissants (sometimes called cornetti or brioche) is a very Italian thing. In fact, the way croissants are made here is quite different from the French version. Italian cornetti are softer, sweeter, and less buttery than the French ones. While French croissants are all about the butter and the lamination, Italian ones focus mostly on the filling, most often crema, jam, chocolate, pistachio, etc.

Another very Italian obsession is “Crema Pasticcera” (mostly just called crema). This is a kind of thick pastry cream that appears almost everywhere as a filling for treats (from north to south), cakes, pastries, and more. When I moved out of the country at 19, I was first shocked to realize that the word “crema” would not translate directly into the English word cream. I also realized that the rest of the world seemed mostly interested in cream and didn’t care much for “crema,” which in fact didn’t really exist in many places. After some investigation, I concluded that custard was the closest word in English, but when I finally tried it, I had to admit it’s a different thing.

Crema Pasticcera is made by gently cooking milk with egg yolks, sugar, and starch (usually cornstarch or flour) until thick and smooth. Unlike many French pastry creams, it traditionally contains no butter, relying instead on the richness of yolks for body and flavor. The texture is dense yet silky, and it’s often perfumed with lemon zest or vanilla. I understand that English custard is mostly thickened only with egg yolks and is smooth and pourable, like a sauce.

I have a very fond childhood memory of crema, as my mom made it often for her famous cakes. She didn’t use any thickening starches (so was it technically a custard?), and it came together slowly on the stove. At the end of the process, she would leave me with the spoon to lick and the pot to clean. I think this childhood memory imprinted a craving for crema for life. So the first time I bit into one of the Caffè San Carlo croissants, I nearly cried: the perfect consistency, the almost overwhelming freshness of lemon, the speckles of the finest quality vanilla. And of course, it helps that the pastry itself is of the highest quality (not always the case with Italian cornetti), light and fluffy, not too buttery, but covered with a crunchy glaze. This cornetto is truly a work of art for me. I couldn’t eat it every day, but once every few months it is like a pilgrimage.

Guido Castagna’s chocolates

Speaking of Turin treats, I have mentioned in these pages before that my favorite chocolatier here is Guido Castagna, and this time I finally managed to visit his small chocolate lab.

Turin’s association with chocolate dates back to the 17th century, when imported cocoa became a luxury in the city’s cafés, leading to the rise of artisan chocolatiers. It is considered Italy’s chocolate capital (with a yearly festival) and one of the most important chocolate cities worldwide.

Did you know that the chocolate paste called “Gianduia” (in honor of Turin’s carnival mask) originated in Turin in the early 19th century, when cocoa was scarce and expensive due to the Napoleonic Wars? Local chocolatiers blended chocolate with finely ground Piedmont hazelnuts to stretch the cocoa, creating a smooth, sweet paste. Gianduia is the base of what became the industrial hit “Nutella” (also originally produced locally), so it’s known worldwide. But high-quality Gianduia (nothing to do with Nutella, trust me) is also the basis of much chocolate confectionery, especially the cioccolatino symbol of Turin known as “gianduiotto.” Spending much of my childhood in Turin, I have eaten millions of gianduiotti, so it usually doesn’t excite me that much. Nevertheless, a few years ago my mother received as a present a box of chocolates made by Guido Castagna, a chocolatier we weren’t familiar with. I tried his gianduiotto, which he calls “Giunott.” It felt like I had never had a gianduiotto before. It melted slowly, coating my mouth with powerful toasted hazelnut nuttiness and chocolate aromas. I honestly didn’t think I could be moved by a gianduiotto, but this did it. I made a post about it and tagged Guido in one of my stories on Instagram. He followed me back, we started a conversation, and I discovered he’s a big music fan. He also invited me to visit his main production facility in Giaveno, about an hour west of Turin.

It was very interesting to visit Guido and understand more about the challenges of producing small-batch, super high-quality chocolate in a world dominated by commodity “supermarket” chocolate, while truly trying to respect and pay farmers and producers (like coffee, it’s a very exploitative world) and survive as a small business. Guido has been recognized by the industry with many prizes and has innovated the art of chocolate making by designing new machinery, such as the one that allows him to create the very special shape and consistency of his own Giunott. Guido doesn’t make a huge variety of chocolates (unlike many in Torino), and none of them are flashy or extravagant. His work is all about respect for the high-quality ingredients, technique, and sustainability.

Oishii Coffee

One of my new favorite Turin hangs is Oishii Coffee. Chiara opened this specialty coffee shop last year after spending some extended time in Japan working as an au pair. The inspiration for this unique café is the coffee omakase culture that is very developed in Japan. The idea of omakase is normally associated with food (especially sushi) and is the concept of letting the chef cook for you whatever they feel like and whatever is freshest, a sort of multicourse tasting menu selected by the chef on the spot. Chiara applies this idea to coffee by offering smaller portions of very high-quality filter coffee brewed by herself and served in crystal wine glasses, giving you a chance to try a few different beans without going into caffeine overload. She’s very enthusiastic and knowledgeable and she talks you through the whole process, so if you are into coffee, it’s a great spot to spend time and learn.

Outros Ventos

This week I am leaving you with some music I have been listening to while traveling (the time when I usually check out new music). Outros Ventos is a 2025 album by Brazilian vocalist Vanessa Moreno and pianist Salomão Soares that revisits classics from the música popular brasileira (MPB) songbook with very funky arrangements and intimate interplay between voice and piano. The highly rhythmic approach of both performers characterizes the music on this album, with very percussive and adventurous piano playing and even more adventurous vocal percussion effects throughout. I discovered Vanessa Moreno’s beautiful, crystal-clear voice and perfect intonation a few years ago during the pandemic, when I saw some of her home videos. I was very impressed by her rhythmical agility and ability to improvise, literally playing “grooves” with onomatopoeic sounds. Check out their version of the 1959 classic song “Chiclete com Banana,” a playful samba that celebrates the fusion of Brazilian rhythms with North American rock and calypso influences.

This piece was copy-edited for grammar and syntax with AI; the voice and content are 100% mine.

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Egusi, South American Geshas and The Old Lady

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 15:52:13 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing

The Old Lady

Over the last year I have had the honor of playing and curating, together with Rhiannon Giddens, her residency at Wigmore Hall in London.
Wigmore Hall opened in 1901 and it’s a small recital hall that seats about 540 people, designed in a Renaissance inspired style with a domed ceiling. Over more than a century it has become one of the leading venues for Lieder, early music and small ensemble performances, and it is considered a temple of classical chamber music. I’ve had the luck to perform there a couple of times in the past with the early music ensemble L’Arpeggiata and now with Rhiannon Giddens, and in my humble opinion it’s one of the best sounding acoustic rooms I’ve ever played in.

Wigmore Hall is only around the corner from the London headquarters of Steinway & Sons, and I always used to say that the Steinway D at Wigmore was the best piano I’d ever played. When I mentioned this to my piano tuner in Ireland recently he said to me, “but did you ever play the old lady?” So thanks to that question I came to know that there is a much older Steinway D that lives under the stage of Wigmore, affectionately known as “the old lady”… and it’s a special one. It’s pretty much as old as me, built in 1979, and it’s the only piano that has been in Wigmore for that long (the other Steinway D changes every few years).

I feared I’d have to be a famous pianist to be able to ask for it, so I was surprised when, at my request, I was given the opportunity to play it for our piano and voice recital last week. I was a little nervous as I approached this venerable instrument, which has been caressed by the hands of so many legendary pianists, and as I sat at it I asked the technician which pianists normally request it. I was told it’s often requested by pianists of the older generation such as András Schiff and Murray Perahia, and very often by accompanists (lots of Lieder recitals are performed here).

After playing it for five minutes, this made total sense. It’s a soft spoken piano with a beautiful singing voice and a dark tone, and a very transparent una corda pedal… exactly my type of piano. So I imagine this instrument works so well for early repertoire such as Bach or Mozart (for which both Schiff and Perahia are known), and perhaps it doesn’t quite have the power for fireworks repertoire such as Prokofiev or Rachmaninov. The best Steinway technicians from next door take care of this instrument and it’s in impeccable condition. I don’t think I have ever played a piano so perfectly regulated, where the evenness and the control of the pppp dynamic were so easy. Here is a little video of a composition from my upcoming album called “onde” (waves).

Spending the day with the gentle old lady has been one of the most beautiful and intense pianistic experiences of my life, and honestly I don’t think I’ve ever played a piano that made my playing sing in a more beautiful and lyrical way than she did. Forever grateful for this experience.

If you are a total piano nerd and want to learn more about the incredible Steinway pianos at Wigmore, watch this video.

Chishuru once again

This is the second concert Rhiannon and I have played at Wigmore for her residency, and one of the things we both love so much is the fact that only a ten minute walk from the hall there is one of my favourite restaurants in London: Chishuru.

I have written a few words about this beautiful place before, so I won’t talk about it too much here. All you need to know is that it’s run by Nigerian chef Adejoké (Joké) Bakare and it has held a Michelin star since 2024. Her cuisine is inspired by traditional West African ingredients and preparations but delivered with adventurous modern techniques and flair. I am not incredibly familiar with Nigerian cuisine and ingredients, so this was a journey of discovery for me, and I have to say that I very much enjoyed the feeling of having no idea what I was putting in my mouth.
It’s unpretentious and incredibly delicious and, last but not least, they offer a £55 lunch menu, which is incredibly good value for food at this level.

This was the lunch menu that day (pics in order):

Àgbèlì kaaklo Cassava & salted pollock fritter, uda mayonnaise
Èkuru Egusi & black eyed bean cake, pumpkin seed pesto, hibiscus, Scotch bonnet sauce
Danwake Bean & moringa gnocchi, caramelised yoghurt & baobab, malt crumb, yaji peanut spice
Frejon Red mullet with brown shrimp, black eyed bean & coconut sauce, brabisco
Aridan crème caramel, plantain crumb, plantain chips

Special Guest

A few blocks away from Wigmore you can also taste amazing coffee by Special Guests Coffee. I had tried some of their beans before, as they were in stock at my favourite coffee spot (Mantle) in Dublin, so I was excited to pay a visit. Their shop is super modern and minimal, and I had some lovely chats with one of the baristas. Their menu is very extensive, with some seriously fancy coffees, and I ended up trying one of their Panama Geshas (supposedly one of the most prized varieties). It delivered exactly what I expected: bright acidity, tea like body with floral aromatics and a very clean cup… super delicious.
I also bought a couple of their beans, an anaerobic Ethiopian and a natural Gesha from Bolivia, which I haven’t tried yet but will report back.

The Guardian

A day like that in London, with an incredible meal, beautiful coffee, and a duo concert with Rhiannon Giddens and my favourite piano ever, is a hard one to beat. We were also incredibly lucky that a reviewer from The Guardian was at our concert and she seemed to like it. It was a special concert and very rarely do we get a review that really understands what we are trying to do, and this happened that day. Read the whole piece here.

Roundwood House

I spent most of the week recording a new album with an incredible team of musicians in an incredible location in Ireland.
This is a new project by Rhiannon Giddens that also features Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu, Irish percussionist Eamon Cagney and Italian percussionist and violinist Mauro Durante. I can’t say much about the music and the project yet, but all I can say is that it’s going to be an incredible album and an incredible band. I played mostly accordion and my new mandola, and I am very happy and excited about this instrument (first on the left in the picture below), as I can feel it will be a companion for many adventures.

We recorded in the library of Roundwood House, a historic Georgian country house and guest accommodation set in County Laois, Ireland. Our favourite sound engineer Ben Rawlins had discovered the beautiful acoustics of this library a few years back and he created this opportunity for us to record there while staying at the beautiful house as guests (see the room I stayed in below).

Hannah (who inherited this estate from her parents) and Paddy (next to me in the picture above) are the lovely couple who run this beautiful place.
Paddy is a musician himself and a really good chef, so we were also very lucky to taste his beautiful food every day, made with ultra local ingredients in their kitchen.
See below some delicious duck breast, some of the tastiest lamb I’ve ever eaten and a salted caramel brownie with ice cream.
If you find yourself in the area do pay them a visit and spend the night at the house, it’s a special place.

This piece was copy-edited for grammar and syntax with AI; the voice and content are mine.

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Twin Mandolas, Liquid Gold and High Fidelity Ear massages

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 15:53:15 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing

1- Mandola

Please allow me to introduce you to my newest baby:

My beautiful new Mandola in gorgeous pic by Karen Cox

It’s a mandola made for me by the amazing Dublin based luthier Frank Tate. Frank is a very respected luthier here in Ireland, especially known for his bouzoukis, mandolins, and tenor guitars, and I have been visiting his Dublin city centre workshop for many years. He has been doing maintenance and improvement work on all of my stringed instruments (of which I have a…erm…few). Frank is an excellent Irish bouzouki player himself, and during a visit a couple of years ago I noticed an oddly sized instrument on his bench and enquired about it. He explained to me that it was his own instrument, a slightly larger than usual mandola that he designed for himself after growing tired of carrying around a large bouzouki. I played a few notes on it and fell in love immediately with the size, the playability, and the tone of the instrument. I literally ordered one on the spot. It took a long minute to get it made but finally, last October, Frank presented me with this new instrument, an exact copy of his own.

In fact, he told me that it’s the only other one, as I am the first and only person who has ordered one from him. I am crazy excited for this instrument, as I have been looking for a picked stringed instrument in this kind of alto range for quite a while. As you know, I own many instruments, but I also always strive to find ones that will allow me to play across all the very varied musical contexts that I take part in. After only a couple of months, and with some fine tuning still to be done (strings etc), I have a feeling this will be the one I will be playing extensively, as it feels incredibly versatile, easy to play, and actually relatively small to carry around.

In a couple of weeks I will take it into the recording studio with Rhiannon Giddens, and I will also take it with me on the road in April and May. Watch this space for further mandola adventures.

2- Duck Breast Cooking Tip

I love duck breast, it’s one of the tastiest bird meats and it’s rich and decadent. If you love cooking duck breast, you should try this technique that I learned from chef Ivan Orkin. You basically add 1/4 cup of water to your pan, place the duck breast skin side down, and cook on medium heat until the water evaporates. By then, a lot of the fat contained in the skin will have melted, and the skin will crisp up and caramelise in it. You cook this way for about 10 to 15 minutes, until the skin is golden, and only then do you turn it around and cook the rest of it. Do use a thermometer to check when the meat is done according to your preference (I usually go for medium for duck breast).
Also make sure you save all of that duck fat as it’s liquid gold (in Ireland it gives great results with roasted potatoes).

I am actually thinking of making a series of short videos where I share cooking and music tips in this kind of format.

3 - Piano Solo at IIC

On January 13th, I was invited to play a short piano solo concert at the Italian Institute of Culture in Dublin. The event was organised by the new director, Michela Linda Magri, and the Italian ambassador, Nicola Faganello, and conceived as a semi official opening of the Institute’s cultural activities for 2026. You can see a short video of the evening made by Francesco Dominoni below, which contains some extracts from my performance and a few interviews (in Italian).

4- Grado Labs Headphones

One of the simple life pleasures I indulge in when I am at home is sitting down in my reading and music corner and listening to ECM CDs with my Grado Labs headphones.

Yes, I do listen to CDs. I have a few thousand of them, and they still sound so much better than most streamed music, even more so with these fantastic headphones that I picked up a few years ago. I wanted to buy some high quality wired listening headphones and, as you might know, once you go into the audiophile rabbit hole there is almost no limit to the crazy amount of money you can spend. So I went into a fancy audiophile shop here in Dublin and tried pretty much every headphone they had up to 800 euro. I wasn’t intending on spending that much money, but I wanted to try for myself if there really was such a big difference. I found myself going back over and over to these Grado Labs headphones, which were, if I remember well, around 350 euro.

Grado Labs is a small, family owned American audio company based in Brooklyn, New York, best known for its high fidelity headphones, which are largely hand assembled. The brand was founded by audio innovator Joseph Grado, who originally made phono cartridges and later helped define the high end headphone market with dynamic, open back designs prized for their clarity, detail, and musical accuracy rather than heavily processed sound. In fact, the reason I kept going back to these headphones was that they sounded incredibly clear and crisp, with a lot of detail. I love their clarity so much that I even use them to mix music on my computer sometimes. Listening to really well recorded music on high quality headphones makes all the difference, it’s like a ear massage, and I do encourage all of you to try it.

5 - Remembering Ralph Towner

As you can see in the picture above, I am holding a Keith Jarrett CD called Radiance, released by ECM. As a matter of fact, I almost exclusively listen to ECM records in my music corner, and that’s because their albums are so beautifully recorded. Here, though, I wanted to talk about another ECM artist who unfortunately passed away only a couple of weeks ago, the incredible guitarist Ralph Towner.

Ralph Towner (March 1, 1940 to January 18, 2026) was an American guitarist, composer, and multi instrumentalist whose work explored and expanded the capabilities of the acoustic guitar in jazz and contemporary music. He combined elements of jazz, classical, folk, and world music into a highly original style, usually on nylon string guitar but also often on 12 string guitar. He released more than twenty albums as a leader or co leader on ECM, and many of his compositions have become new standards and are studied by jazz students all over the world. Interestingly enough, Towner lived much of his later life in Italy and continued performing and recording until his death in Rome at the age of 85, leaving a massive legacy of genre blurring recordings and a deep influence on generations of guitarists.

One album that has been on my player this week is Chiaroscuro, recorded with Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu and released on ECM in 2009. The set features Towner playing classical, 12 string, and baritone guitars alongside Fresu’s lyrical trumpet and flugelhorn. The repertoire consists of a mix of Towner originals, duo improvisations, and a delicate rendition of Miles Davis and Bill Evans’s “Blue in Green,” which makes this record a gem of intimate interplay and lyrical melodies and textures. Here you can hear Ralph’s beautiful baritone guitar on his own composition “Sacred Place”.

You can hear me in concert next week here:

Click on links for info and tickets. The Turin concerts will be streamed live, more info at link.

Feb 4th – With Rhiannon Giddens and Seckou Keita
The Anvil, Basingstoke, UK

Feb 5th – With Rhiannon Giddens
Wigmore Hall, London, UK

Feb 6th – With Rhiannon Giddens, Federico Marchesano & Mattia Barbieri
Folk Club, Turin, Italy

Feb 7th – With Rhiannon Giddens
Folk Club, Turin, Italy

This piece was copy-edited for grammar and syntax with AI; the voice and content are mine.

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To AI or not to AI?

Francesco Turrisi — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 14:52:22 GMT

that is the question…

My first interaction with ChatGPT ever was many years ago, when a musician I know posted on their stories a sentence written by AI using the prompt “roast” followed by their own name, and the result was hilarious. Curious and intrigued, I timidly proceeded, prompting “roast Francesco Turrisi,” and this is what I got back.

I was entirely new to the world of AI, and I remember thinking to myself, “At least if nothing else ChatGPT can create comedic material”… but maybe it’s just me that finds this funny and strangely to the point!

(You have no idea how much time I have spent in my own head debating which instrument I should really be playing, with the fear of not being able to focus on one long enough…)

But the real reason why I decided to start writing this post is the fact that after I published my last Take Five post on Substack, I was made aware through a comment by a reader that a couple of AI lines were accidentally pasted into the text.

This is the classic mistake that has betrayed and AI-outed many students, and even university professors, or so I was told, and my very valued reader was disappointed at discovering this in the text of my Substack. So we started a series of back and forth messages, which sparked a conversation and gave me the idea to write about it, reflect further on it, and also ask your opinion. I will include those exchanges later on in this post, but let’s start from the beginning:

Can AI be used as a tool that helps practical tasks?

A few years ago, I was having a chat with a friend of a friend who is a public speaker (that’s what he does for a living), and I remember being a mix of terrified, horrified, and pleasantly intrigued when he stated that he used AI to create drafts for his speeches. He said that he would go over everything AI generated to really define the speech through his own voice, and that this process would save him an incredible amount of time in the day-to-day process of writing speeches. For me, the shocking part was giving AI so much of the creative process, but he mentioned that at that stage AI had learned much of his writing style and that, with proper fine tuning, every speech sounded exactly like his own.

This was quite shocking to me a few years ago, but I do realise that this type of conversation now seems fairly normal.

There is a lot of very justifiable hate about AI, especially when it comes to creative usage, and I suspect the most crucial part of it all is the fear that it will replace human creativity and ultimately replace what humans can do (although I personally believe that it will be very hard to get there). But pretty much every time I bring up the AI conversation with random people, I discover that most use it in one way or another. So many people seem to use it in their daily jobs to write emails, formal communications of sorts, and help write reports, etc. So many people also seem to use it for very personal stuff, like psychological advice (!), advice on relationships, and human interactions.

Do you use AI? (This is a safe space and don’t worry, I and everyone else can’t see who votes for what!)

I am sure there are many more functions people use it for in everyday life, but these are the first few that came to mind. Personally, I seem to get ads mentioning that I should use AI to become a millionaire (quite comical that a jazz musician is targeted for these ads!).

Can AI wash my dishes?

I remember when author Joanna Maciejewska wrote:

This was a very clever way to frame the problems with the creative usage of AI. I was reflecting on putting AI to work on the tedious everyday jobs and leaving us more time for actual creativity. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that being a creative involves a quite serious amount of tedious work that is closely associated with being a creative.

So if you are a musician at a very high level, you might have a PA, people in your management who will arrange your day to day schedule, and someone who oversees your creative career (taking a percentage on your every income, mind you), someone who does your socials and plans ahead on what to post (pretty much a full time job these days), and someone that works on PR for your projects and will make sure that a new album has a proper campaign, etc. That’s possible if you are at that level, but most musicians, even those doing quite well in the middle range, are not. Basically these days we are expected to do all of those jobs ourselves if we want to continue to work. And even if you are willing to pay (and most of us can’t afford that), it is quite hard to find people who will do those jobs for small scale projects (trust me, I have been trying).

So I started thinking to myself, is there any way that I could use AI for the equivalent of the “washing dishes” in my line of work, i.e. the jobs I didn’t have much time for, the ones I didn’t want to do, and the ones that I struggled with? Could AI be a kind of assistant, planner, PA type of thing? And if AI couldn’t do all of that for me, could it at least help with some of the processes and cut some of the time of the more tedious jobs?

The Dreaded Bio

My first attempt was to ask ChatGPT to make a short bio for me, something that seems so simple but that I have always really hated and was so bad at (don’t forget, I don’t write in my own language). The result was so and so. It was not crazy up to date, but it wasn’t bad, and I soon realised that with a bit of post production tweaking I had a pretty decent bio. In other words, I realised that taking an input from ChatGPT and modifying it to make it fit could be a model that would work for me in general.

This is a bio Chat GPT wrote for me yesterday and it’s honestly not bad!

The Struggles of new Technology

This process somehow reminded me of the early days of satnavs. When I started driving in Ireland about 18 years ago (way before Google Maps), I was struggling enough with learning to drive on the other side of the road, and I couldn’t also concentrate on unknown roads with messy maps, so I decided to buy a satnav. The technology was already quite good, but using a satnav was not super easy like it is nowadays with Google Maps. I remember conversations with frustrated people discussing how imprecise and unreliable satnavs were, especially in Ireland. But I was really happy, and it really worked for me! I am a person who is generally very open to new technologies and finds it quite easy to integrate them into my daily life, even when they require an active effort at the beginning. I think that the thirst my brain has to learn new information sometimes spills over into these processes (as much as it does into the skill of learning a new instrument).

So using a satnav for me didn’t mean just sitting in the car and expecting to be brought “there.” It meant doing a bit of research on the roads beforehand, making sure all my maps were up to date, making sure the satnav wouldn’t bring me on crazy tiny country roads (thinking it was quicker because of the distance calculations), etc. Yes, it took a bit of extra time at first, but the overall driving experience felt much easier in the end, and it made it worthwhile for me.

ChatGPT felt like this to me. It felt like it could help me with some tasks, but I also knew that it was never really going to fully “do it for me,” no matter what the task. If anything, it was going to speed up some of the processes, but ultimately I was going to be the person and the voice defining both the original input and the final output. So it started to be clear that for me AI meant inputting something very clear to start with and also partially reworking the output.

Social media void

My next experiments came with social media organisation. I asked ChatGPT to analyse my socials and give me a posting schedule based on set parameters and on how much time I was going to have to dedicate to socials. This one worked better, as it literally gave me a weekly schedule (and don’t I love schedules!). It also suggested a few ideas for posts, and those were terrible, actually. But the schedule was pretty good, and it also took into account what the most current trends are across the various socials and the posting times.

So the idea of the schedule went further, to the point of recently asking AI to make an integrated schedule for my days at home that takes into account my parenting schedule (basically Uber driving), my work schedule (between music and computer work), my writing, and even my cooking planning.

And yes, my brain functions really well with schedules, probably one of the only musicians who loves Master Tour! So much so that basically I asked AI to create my own Master Tour for when I am at home. (Master Tour is an app most musicians use on the road for scheduling. It tells you where to be at what time, hotels, travel, etc.)

Master tour in all its glory

Can AI be used in a way that doesn’t erase your voice?

With these early experiments, a few things started to become clear for me. When it came to creative outcomes or even brainstorming, AI never fully satisfied, but for “washing dishes” it actually worked pretty well. Luckily, I always felt I have too strong an opinion and a clear idea of what my voice is and what the output should look like.

It’s only recently, while being tired of getting stuck while writing my Substack, that I had the idea of trying to use AI to help fix convoluted sentences. I started inputting troubled paragraphs into ChatGPT, and it gave me back something completely different. It wasn’t me, and I didn’t like it. It took me a while to figure out how to input the proper prompt, and also for AI to learn not to mess with my writing style. I was born in Italy, after all, and learned English as a grown-up, so obviously I will never sound like a native English speaker in my writing. I have always embraced that, thinking it can create an original style, but at the same time I have always feared grammar mistakes or sentences that make no sense and are plain ugly (and getting a sense of that in another language is really, really hard!).

So I started asking AI to only help me improve grammar and syntax. This worked, although it took a few further trials and errors. At first, I was put off by the usage of dashes, something I still don’t fully understand and something I don’t think we use very much in Italian. The other thing is that I like using parentheses (probably too much) in my writing, and maybe wrongly so, but I believe it is part of my style.

So I eventually came to the fine-tuning of my prompt being:

After I get the result, I read through the text and change everything that feels like “I couldn’t have written that,” and finally paste it into my Substack. Most of the time, the changes are quite minimal (as you can see from the example above). In fact, I have to admit that very often I use AI as an editor and fixer of spelling and syntax more than anything else.

As my reader suggested:

In that sense, the way I see it, you are skipping steps if you just feed a rough draft into AI and don’t revise and edit it yourself. But based on your description of your process, you are editing the AI’s edit of your rough draft?

And I guess that’s kind of what I do.

It’s a tool that helps me streamline my work and doesn’t necessarily save me a huge amount of time, actually, but it’s a safety net that makes me feel a bit safer in my grammar and syntax. In the end I don’t think it has changed my writing style one bit.

Ultimately, my life is pretty busy and crazy, and I struggle from time to time to find the time and mental space to keep the writing going. So I am happy if I can find tools that help me in a practical way to keep this going. This is not technically the “washing dishes,” but it’s definitely a help in that direction.

Can AI be used in an ethical way?

My instinct is to answer, “No way!!”

I am fully aware of the countless ethical issues behind AI, especially when it comes to data collection, privacy, use of resources, discrimination, misinformation, authorship, and ultimately power and control.

I am also aware of the immense ethical issues behind Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Spotify, YouTube… pretty much every streaming service out there, not to mention most of the devices we use right now to read and write, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the coffee we drink. All of these tools do help with my work as an artist and my life as a human, and ultimately we can all do what we can do and what we feel comfortable doing with the knowledge we have. The everyday life ethical struggle is real and the fact that I am here writing about this in the first place probably speaks mostly to my own privilege in such dilemma.

I also think that AI is a piece of technology that is here to stay, surely it’s everywhere already. Like many controversial and revolutionary things such as the TV and the Internet, it has the potential to be great and the potential to be incredibly destructive. So it is very much about the use we make of it.

As a matter of fact, I think the main issue boils down to transparency and the fact that AI certainly needs a heck of a lot of regulation, but much of the same could be said about all the above-mentioned, now widely accepted tools and services.

What is the transparency required when using AI

So on that note, I think it is important to clarify for you all, my readers, that I do use AI regularly in my writing. If you had the patience to read all the way through this piece, you will have an idea of how I use it. I am fairly confident that it doesn’t alter my speaking or writing voice, but ultimately it helps me streamline a lot of my work. I hope you will not feel cheated on and be disappointed by this, and as always, I am open to a conversation, so do feel free to leave some comments below.

Paradoxically, I asked ChatGPT to help me craft a sentence to add at the end of my Substack to express how I use AI in my writing, and this is what it suggested:

This piece was copy-edited for grammar and syntax with AI; the voice and content are mine.

Finally I am including the full interaction I had with my reader as I think it was an interesting conversation.

me:
Yes terrible mistake on my behalf…I blame the jetlag…

On the other hand I have never made a secret of the fact that I am using AI to help with grammar and syntax (I have certainly discussed it with many people and happy to continue that conversation). I have written most of my life without using it, and English is not my first language, it’s something that I learned as an adult. I don’t know if you ever had that experience but it is incredibly hard to do, and the amount of time spent on reading and re-reading used to drive me demented on simple sentences that looked convoluted, and in the end I had to erase and start from scratch. I used to sometimes send things to friends to read over when I was really stuck, but that started becoming also difficult as it felt like was always begging for favours.

I will never ask AI to generate text for me, and I think it’s pretty clear from my (probably still quite messy) writing. All I am asking AI to do is to look over grammar and syntax (as stated)…something that I struggle with doing, given that I didn’t go to school in the english language. The changes are really minimal, sometimes it’s pure spelling or capitals, commas and punctuation (English punctuation is so so different from Italian I still struggle to understand it). I always look over and re-read over everything and change what I don’t like. That is for example the reason I am asking AI not to use dashes (because I have never used them in my writing) and to keep parenthesis (because I like them and that’s my writing style).

Unlike the students you mention, I did not go to school in the english language and writing in a language that I learned as an adult is a very intense effort. So I use AI to assist me with trying to make my writing smoother, that’s all. I don’t think that necessarily can be defined as a shortcut and that it cuts time or effort, it feels more like a safety net for me.

I am not ashamed about it, this is the way I feel and I am sorry you are so disappointed in this, and I hope that there is value in my content other than grammar corrections that are AI assisted.

my reader:
There is a lot of value in your work, in spite of your using AI to help with language issues associated with being a non-native or unschooled English speaker. That said, the deviations from standard English that show you are writing in a language that’s not your first are, to me, some of the most charming aspects of your writing. I understand the desire to smooth and polish, and using whatever tools are available, but that polish might rub out something that makes your voice unique—again, from my point of view. I mean, how do you feel about autotune? Ha. (Possibly that’s a bad question because it may hinge on what one thinks of as a legitimate tool to achieve a desired result, as well as exactly what the desired result is.) Anyway, thanks for engaging on this issue. I’m not such a purist that I would unsubscribe and deprive myself of the joy I get from reading your posts. I very much enjoy and appreciate the expertise and perspective that you share here, and I applaud you for undertaking to write in a language that’s not your first and that you haven’t been schooled in—I certainly couldn’t do it. Because many of my students are immigrants whose first language is not English, think about this a lot, how I would feel if I were trying to communicate in a different language and how awe-inspiring it is when I encounter people who can carry on their daily lives in a new language (especially in the U.S. where a certain portion of the population can be really awful to non-native English speakers). I understand the temptation of AI for those students, since they feel at a disadvantage. Still, I beg them not to use it, since the only way for them to improve is to practice (maybe a music analogy would also be appropriate here?), and it’s my job to help them learn.
I know others aren’t like me, but I would rather read (or hear! if we were talking about music) something rough and real rather than something (artificially) polished just for the sake of polish. I trust that you are using AI to help you in a way that doesn’t erase or undermine your voice. You’ve gone a step beyond my students if you even glance at the revised text you get from AI.
As you can see, I like both dashes and parentheses. ;)

me:
Thanks for your reply and I totally hear what you are saying. This actually gave me some inspiration to write a post, it as it is something I am very interested in having a conversation about.

Hopefully we can take it further and get deeper into it, but I would love just to mention here that I am pretty sure (100% basically) that I have not been in a single recording session where pitch correction was not used in post production. Further to that, crazy amounts of editing, rhythm shifting, re-recording parts a ton of times etc…

These are all tools that are widely accepted in the recording praxis and they are just “tools”. Like everything, when badly used or overused they are awful and also quite noticeable. Believe it or not they are often overused in the genres that you’d think they don’t belong to…like classical music!!

So the skill becomes about how to just polish certain things that bother us as musicians, but without changing the nature of the recorded track and without sounding un-natural or not like us.

Autotune in itself has a very fascinating history as it started as “fixing” tool and then it became a musical effect to the point of being a “sound” and not a tool anymore.

So I am trying to do the same here and using this AI function to polish something without losing my unique voice…if that makes sense

Here for example what AI changed in the last paragraph of my latest post

Isn’t this what editors used to do?

my reader:
Yes! This is the kind of work that editors used to do. And the fact that editors seem to be in short supply is a real problem. For me, editors and AI editing tools are not equivalent. I guess I see AI as inherently dehumanizing (because an implication of its use is that a machine can do things that only humans can do—think, consider, compose, make informed suggestions).
If you published that paragraph as it is in the first instance, I think that was sloppy because you didn’t bother to edit (i.e., re-read and correct the missed space and typo—the capitalization and punctuation would not stick out as wrong, rather I would read it as a stylistic choice, even if I thought it was a poor one, ha). In that sense, the way I see it, you are skipping steps if you just feed a rough draft into AI and don’t revise and edit it yourself. But based on your description of your process, you are editing the AI’s edit of your rough draft?
Thanks again for engaging on this topic. I would enjoy reading more of your thoughts, so I’ll look forward to a post on this topic at some point!

New York Diaries

Francesco Turrisi — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 15:49:23 GMT

Take five is a a weekly postcard from my world for my free subscribers: what I’ve been hearing, tasting, making, and sharing

New York, New York!

I have been on the road working on some new music with the Silk Road Ensemble for the whole of last week. Most of the time was spent in Haymarket, VA, just outside of Washington, DC, developing and workshopping repertoire for the upcoming March tour entitled “Sanctuary”. I won’t say too much just yet about this incredible and innovative program, but here I want to share a little amouse-bouche of a new piece by Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu:

After three days of rehearsals, seven members of Silkroad travelled to NYC for a special one off performance at Winter Jazzfest in Williamsburg (Brooklyn).

I was very relieved, as Haymarket definitely did not feel like the culinary capital of the world, and having almost three full days in NYC meant some exciting food explorations.

Nami Nori

I casually popped in for lunch at Nami Nori in Williamsburg. I had been to their other location in the West Village a couple of years ago, and I have to say I enjoyed the more chilled vibes of the Williamsburg restaurant. The concept is pretty much the same: high end temaki in a casual setup with a few sides. They also have a pretty good lunch set deal that comes with three temaki, a miso soup, some salad or fries, all for $29.

Temaki are Japanese hand rolled sushi cones made with nori, rice, and fresh fillings, meant to be eaten immediately by hand. They can also come “taco” shaped (as here), and Japanese people often make these at home when they feel like eating sushi. In fact, most Japanese people would never even attempt to make sushi, and when they want to enjoy sushi like food at home they have a temaki party, where every single person creates their own temaki on the spot… but I digress.

The temaki you can choose from on the lunch set menu are the simpler ones, so I went for salmon and cucumber, crispy tofu with chimichurri (here made with yuzu and shiso), and spicy tuna. I had a little craving for an extra one, so I ordered a super delicious maitake and truffle temaki. I need to mention that they forgot to add that last one to my bill, so I did point it out to them. They were so impressed by my honesty that they actually did not charge me for it, which I thought was very nice of them. Nami Nori has mostly counter seating (three separate counters), so you are seated right in front of the chef, and this is definitely part of the experience, since you can see the food being prepared and chat with the chef.

La Cabra

When I am hunting for good specialty coffee spots, I am so used to working with the incredible app “European Coffee Trip”. As the unfortunate name suggests, it is about specialty coffee shops in Europe, so it does not cover the US, and there I am a bit lost. Sure, you can type specialty coffee into Google Maps, but you still have to go through and investigate every single result, as most of them are pretty regular coffee shops. It gets even more difficult when I am trying to find places that have pour over coffee (which they seem to call hand brew). Even in a place like NYC, which these days seems to have a ratio of one coffee shop per inhabitant, it is not always easy to find good pour over spots.

So after reading a few articles and doing some proper research, I came across La Cabra on the Lower East Side, known for both its high quality coffee and its amazing baked goods (it is technically speaking a bakery). And the hype is real. It was so good that I ended up going there twice, even though I was staying in Brooklyn. In the pictures here you can see their display, a ham and cheese croissant, some delicious gesha coffee, and an incredible peppercorn, date caramel, and orange choux. The unlikely peppercorn here was a stroke of genius, as it added depth and warmth to the filling without being overpowering.

The Silkroad Ensemble is always amazing, but this particular “Sanctuary” lineup is one of the best ever, and it features beautiful people from every corner of the world.

• Rhiannon Giddens (US), banjo, voice
• Shawn Conley (US-Hawaii), bass
• Sandeep Das (India), tabla
• Haruka Fujii (Japan), marimba, percussion
• Maeve Gilchrist (Scotland-Ireland), harp
• Karen Ouzounian (Armenia-Canada), cello
• Mazz Swift (US), violin, voice
• Niwel Tsumbu (Democratic Republic of Congo), guitar
• Francesco Turrisi (Italy), frame drums, accordion
• Kaoru Watanabe (Japan-US), Japanese flutes and percussion
• Mauro Durante (Italy), percussion*
• Mehdi Nassouli (Morocco), guembri*

*guest artist

8282

One of the nights off, I headed to restaurant 8282 with a friend. This Michelin Bib Gourmand spot is a modern Korean restaurant known for its fresh, inventive take on Korean flavors, blending tradition with contemporary culinary creativity. The name 8282 refers to South Korea’s country code (+82) and also evokes the Korean slang meaning “quickly” or “faster”, hinting at the energetic, get things done vibe behind the concept. The menu is shared plates style, with small anju (Korean snacks to enjoy with drinks) and larger banju plates meant for sharing.

We had (pictures in order)

MUSHROOM PARTY
Roasted assortment of mushrooms, portobello tempura, cashew, tofu yogurt, and mushroom purée

TUNA TARTARE + KIM BUKAK
Bluefin tuna, sesame oil aioli, served on house made fried seaweed chips, uni, capers, and egg custard

JJAJANG BORI-BAP
Seared scallops and shrimp over barley mixed in black bean sauce and truffle paste, mushroom paste

PERILLA OIL PASTA
Angel hair pasta tossed in soy sauce, seaweed and sesame seed crumbs, Korean perilla oil, topped with seared branzino

Everything was super delicious, full of umami and it was a very fun and quirky dinner.
The lighting was very difficult, so forgive the poor quality photos.

The Penny

We stayed in a really hip hotel called The Penny in Williamsburg, and I rarely talk about hotels here, but I really loved this spot. First of all, I should mention that each room has a gooseneck kettle and a little pour over coffee setup… something that really blew my mind and that can only happen in Brooklyn, I guess.

The rooms are small but incredibly well designed, with lots of funky details. It reminded me a bit of some hotels in Japan, where the rooms are tiny but never feel small because they are so incredibly functional. One of my favorite features was that the bed was right under a very large window, and lying down in it you could only see the Brooklyn sky. I hadn’t booked the hotel in advance, but I did a little research online, and it seems to be very moderately priced for NYC too, so I will definitely be back.

Another great thing about The Penny is that it has a beautiful restaurant. ElNico is a rooftop, Mexican-inspired restaurant and cocktail bar with sweeping views of the Brooklyn and Manhattan skylines. We ate there on the day of the show, and I had a super tasty dish called Mushroom Asada (Maitake, beech mushrooms, sesame, avocado), which came served with delicious handmade corn tortillas.

This was coincidentally the second time in two days I ate maitake, and it is definitely one of my favorite mushrooms! Maitake is a wild mushroom, also known as hen-of-the-woods, prized for its earthy, savory flavor. It has a feathery, clustered shape and an almost meat like texture. It’s delicious pan fried, roasted, or in soups in Japanese and East Asian cooking.

Later, after the show, we came up again to ElNico for some drinks, and I had a fantastic mezcal negroni (their tequila and mezcal selection is huge!). And the greatest thing of all is that it was very quiet on a Saturday night.

WJF

The set at Winter Jazzfest was pretty epic. We played mostly new repertoire, and as you can imagine, these plug-and-play (I baptise them plug-and-pray!) shows are quite difficult to manage when you have a crazy instrumentation like ours. But despite the technical challenges, the energy was amazing, and everyone played their arses off. Here is a little recap:

So very excited about our US march tour with the full band. Here the dates and more details

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Take 11

Francesco Turrisi — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 14:03:41 GMT

2025 has come to an end, and I guess it is time to take stock and appreciate all the amazing things that I have lived through, both in music and food.

2025 has also been a very challenging year in my life for personal reasons, and although I am not going to delve into that here, I want to make sure I mention it, as I do realise that social media and platforms like this one tend to depict lives made only of fun and exciting things.

But the main purpose for this post is to acknowledge my privilege in being able to do what I do and live the way I live, and I am forever grateful for my luck and for all the hard work I have been able to put into it. I am also forever grateful for you my readers and followers, and for having this space where you allow me to ramble about all things that make me excited.

This selection is an amplified version of what you normally read in my Take 5 weekly updates, so a mix of amazing gigs, meals I had, and food I cooked at home, so without further ado is my top 11:

1. Rhiannon Giddens

In 2025, Rhiannon and I took a bit of a break from working together, but we still managed to play a few amazing shows and projects. The first picture is from our incredible residency at Blue Note Tokyo in March, where we performed for three nights (2 sets each night) with our regular collaborator Jason Sypher and special guest Kaoru Watanabe on Japanese flutes and taiko drums.

The second picture was taken backstage at the legendary Wigmore Hall in London, where we performed in September with special guest Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita. We did two shows with Seckou (the other one at NCH in Dublin), and they were so magical that we think we might have to cook up something again in the future, so watch this space.

2. Tokyo

I was so excited about being in Japan in March because of the gigs at blue note but also because of the Tokyo food scene, and it is fair to say that it did not disappoint. I had so many incredible meals, and if you follow this page, you have probably read some of my recollections of the incredible variety and high level of Japanese cuisine. Here above you can see pictures from the best unagi (eel) meal, one of the highest rated ramen shops in Tokyo, the most amazing meal at kaiseki restaurant Kikunoi (2 Michelin stars), and finally the most perfect piece of sushi I have ever eaten (the medium fatty tuna chutoro at Yaesu Sushi Umi). Read about my Japanese adventures here:

3. L’Arpeggiata

2025 also marks the year I picked up again my collaboration with early music ensemble L’Arpeggiata. This is the group I started working with when I was still a student at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, and therefore the ensemble I have been playing with on and off for the longest time in my life. The first picture is from a very big 25 year celebration at the Salle Gaveau in February in Paris, and the second one is from a recording session in June in St. Michel en Thiérache in France. Watch out for a new album, which will come out in 2026 and features musicians from Venezuela, Chile, and Argentina, and a mix of traditional music from Latin America and baroque music.

4. Piazza Duomo

Arguably one of the best meals of my life, and my first and only time at a three Michelin starred restaurant. The incredible Piazza Duomo in Alba is about one hour from my mother’s house in Torino, and I had been dreaming of visiting this place all my life. I finally had the chance to experience Enrico Crippa’s art and take advantage of a special limited edition lunch menu at a more approachable price compared to their regular menu, and it was so so incredible. I am saving for the full meal.

Read about this meal here:

5. Volo Meglio Solo

I have had the luck to play quite a few piano solo concerts this year in Italy, Belgium, France, and Ireland, and here you can see a few favourite shots from those shows. Speaking of piano solo, I have a new album coming out in late 2026, and it is going to be mostly piano solo, with some guests. Watch this space, as the music for this very special and personal project will slowly unfold over the next year.

6. Irish Tuna

This year I have been enjoying the discovery of Irish tuna. Bluefin tuna is occasionally caught in Irish seas in the autumn, and I have been enjoying eating it in many different ways. Here you can see a tuna tartare with pistachio and fried egg yolk, and a Japanese inspired pasta cooked in dashi and finished with tuna tartare and raw egg yolk (almost a sea carbonara). I also got lucky to be around when Gannet Fishmongers had fresh swordfish caught in Irish waters, and it was incredibly delicious, especially here in a tomato sauce with pasta and in juicy steak version.

7. Sligo Jazz

These days I don’t get to play jazz very often, so being one of the teachers at Sligo Jazz Week was an amazing opportunity to reconnect with my first love, jazz, and to play with some of the incredible musicians who were also tutors at the summer school. Here are some pictures by Lieve Boussauw from various concerts I played there, with, among others, Rufus Reid, Melissa Aldana, Kush Abadey, Sasha Berliner, Sun Mi Hong, Gareth Lockrane.

8. Chishuru

One of my favorite meals of the year was a lunch at London’s Chishuru, a beautiful and unpretentious one-star restaurant run by Nigerian chef Adejoke Bakare. The meal featured incredible new (for me) and bold flavors, with perfect technique and presentation, all in a very relaxed setting and with a very convenient price of 50 pounds!

9. Kilkenny

Being artist in residence at Kilkenny Arts Festival in August was such a privilege and a unique opportunity to curate and present many of my old and new projects. I also got so lucky to collaborate with so many incredible Irish traditional musicians, such as Martin Hayes, Aoife Ní Bhriain, Lucia & Maria, and others.

10. Home Cookin

These are just a few of the things I have enjoyed cooking this year:

1 – Ridiculous côte de boeuf from James Whelan Butchers

2 – Pasta with kale and anchovies

3 – Wampoa wok eggs with mixed rice

4 – Farinata

5 – Classic caponata

6 – Temaki party!

Would you like to learn how to make some of these dishes? Let me know in comments

11. Silkroad

The year started and ended with two incredible projects with the Silkroad Ensemble:

1 – Percussion All-Star in January

2 – American Railroad with Wu Man in November

I feel so privileged to be part of this incredible organisation and group of musicians. Watch this space, because we will have so many amazing projects in 2026.

I hope you all had an amazing 2025 and I can’t wait to share more stories in 2026.

Tanti auguri per un felice anno nuovo!