What was your most memorable trip this
year? The Pacific Northwest in the U.S. and Canada, and hot cities like Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. The seafood is fantastic.
Your most memorable meal (not necessarily
on the same trip)? Voluptuously aromatic white truffles on
feathery buttered taglionlini at Osteria Lalibera in
Alba, in the Piedmont region.
What was the most exciting thing that
happened close to home? The Winter Olympics in
Turin. They're gone, but the city's Museo del Cinema
is a knockout—worth the trip.
Did you stay in, or visit, a hotel that
particularly wowed you? The Hotel Caruso in Ravello, overlooking the Amalfi Coast. An endless, $30 million restoration of this luxury hotel, originally an 11th-century
Moorish mansion, turned out to be spectacular.
What place did you find overrated or
disappointing? The Radisson SAS Golden Sands Resort & Spa, in Malta--not worth five stars.
What was your worst (or funniest) travel
experience? My packed Ryanair flight was kept in the air for
three hours, waiting for the arrival of Tom Cruise and Katie
Holmes, who were headed to Rome via private jet for their wedding.
2007: RING IN THE NEW
What's going to be hot this year?
Croatia.
What is going to be the big-deal hotel
opening? The Molino Stucky Hotel in Venice, a Hilton International
top-of-the-line property, and the Town House Galleria, in Milan.
Is there a restaurant or a chef whom
everyone is watching? Carlo Cracco, chef at
Milan's Cracco-Peck restaurant, who is experimenting all over the place—with
dried vegetables, marinated egg yolks, and nitrogenized fruit that's frozen on
the spot at the table.
What trips do you have planned for 2007?
Transylvania, in Romania.
Where do you most want to go in the world
that is still a dream away? Bhutan.
Where wouldn't you go even if you won an
all-expenses-paid, first-class trip? Albania.
I was in Tirana for a day, and it was a dreadfully depressing wasteland.
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