Welcome to the T List, a newsletter from the editors of T Magazine. Each week, we share things we’re eating, wearing, listening to or coveting now. Sign up here to find us in your inbox every Wednesday, along with monthly travel and beauty guides, and the latest stories from our print issues. And you can always reach us at tmagazine@nytimes.com.
TRY THIS
In Hong Kong, Inventive Ice Cream Is Everywhere
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| Left: at the Hong Kong chef Vicky Cheng’s gelato shop Liz & Tori, Cheng serves flavors like strawberry cream swirl and mango yogurt swirl dusted with makrut lime powder. Right: the Hong Kong bar Snack Baby’s seasonal menu includes fruity hits like blackberry cinnamon gelato, with cocktail pairings to match. Left: courtesy of Liz & Tori. Right: courtesy of Snack Baby |
In a snack-obsessed city like Hong Kong, there’s always room for a dessert craze, the latest being weirdly wonderful flavors of ice cream. Six new gelato specialists have opened over the past year or so within a few blocks of the Central District alone, each vying to one-up the Australian-import Messina, which kicked off the trend with its locally inspired milk tea and egg tart creations when it opened on the steps of Pottinger Street in 2021. To sample more outrageous concoctions, start on nearby Wellington Street with a cone of salted duck egg milk jam gelato topped with puffed black quinoa at Liz & Tori, from the celebrated chef Vicky Cheng, who’s otherwise known for his French-inflected Chinese restaurants Wing, VEA and Medora. Then walk up to Gough Street for a tropical fruit float from the Ice Cream & Cookie Co., which originated in Singapore. Farther down that street is Sleep Well Eat More, where the often-changing menu highlights seasonal and exotic ingredients — recent flavors have included Musang King durian, juniper berries with black grape and cinnamon blended with bits of dried persimmon. For a taste of Japan, try Tokachi Milky’s soft ice cream made from the famed milk of Hokkaido, then go for an Italian aperitivo next door on Aberdeen Street at L’antico, which for two days this past April featured a limited drop of black truffle gelato spritzed lightly with whiskey. End at the retro-styled Snack Baby on Hollywood Road, which stays open late serving cocktails that complement its biweekly specials, such as a rum daiquiri that was paired with kaya toast gelato in June. Certain signature flavors, like the smoky vanilla, are always on offer.
GO HERE
Artisanal Birdhouses on View in Blue Hill, Maine
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| Left: the interior of Working Loose, a boutique, gallery and community center in Blue Hill, Maine. Right: “Bird Ho Sue” (2025), a sculpture made by the artist Katie Stout, on view in “Birdhouse,” a Working Loose exhibition curated in collaboration with the gallerist Nina Johnson. Left: courtesy of Working Loose. Right: Dan Rajter |
For much of her career, the entrepreneur and ceramist Em Gift has supported other people’s projects, working behind the scenes at the San Francisco-based boutiques Gravel & Gold and Reliquary, where she is currently CFO. But last year, when a friend told her about an available commercial space on the central thoroughfare in Blue Hill, Maine, “I thought, ‘Why not?’ ” Gift says. She arrived in Maine 12 years ago to do a residency at Watershed, a center for ceramic arts, and loved the area so much she stayed; she lives in Brooklin, another town on Maine’s Blue Hill Peninsula, about a three-hour drive north of Portland. In June 2024 she opened Working Loose, named after a ’70s Quaker-inspired book about the importance of vocation over work. “I wanted to create a hub that was about art and community,” she says. “Commerce is definitely secondary.” In the 1,600-square-foot space that was originally a pharmacy, Gift sells everything from Hyperlite Mountain Gear camping equipment to Captain Blankenship bath products, a selection of ironic bumper stickers and Maine-friendly clothing, including wide-legged cotton pants from the Los Angeles brand Meals. Over the past year, Working Loose has hosted concerts, a community karaoke night and a leather-sandal-making workshop. At the back of the boutique is an exhibition space. Last month, in collaboration with the Miami-based gallerist Nina Johnson, who lives nearby during the summer, Gift opened a show featuring birdhouses created by artists including Katie Stout and Minjae Kim. The display has sparked other events: On Saturday, Aug. 2, the expert birder Evan Obercian will lead a late afternoon walk to identify local bird species. “Birdhouse” is on view through Sept. 1 at Working Loose, Blue Hill, Maine, workingloose.com.
EAT HERE
A Barcelona Restaurant That Offers a World Tour of Food and Wine
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| Left: at the new Barcelona restaurant Pompa, the daily salad changes with the seasons and also with the whim of the chef in the course of a night; no two are exactly alike. Right: wine is the focus of the airy corner space in Barcelona’s Gracia neighborhood. Left: Beatriz Janer. Right: Laura Muñoz |
Barcelona is home to dozens of fine-dining restaurants with impressive cellars and countless lo-fi natural wine bars. What the city lacked was something in the middle: a wine bar with comfortable seating, a broad library of bottles on offer and excellent, unfussy food. Chef Carles Pérez de Rozas filled this hole in the food scene with Pompa, which opened in May. Its wine list caters equally to traditional and adventurous palates with obscure natural bottles, old-world staples and two full pages of Champagne. “There’s something for everyone,” Pérez de Rozas says, “in terms of variety, style and price.” The menu reads like a greatest-hits list of global drinking snacks, compiled and remixed by a well-traveled chef. Bite-size fried polenta, a Northern Italian staple, is topped with cured Iberian pork jowl and grated Montforter, a rich, semihard Austrian cheese. A rillette of mussels in escabeche is served on housemade seeded rye toast in a winning mix of French technique, Spanish seafood and Nordic baking. There are larger plates, too: Roasted guinea fowl with crisp skin is served in a sauce of reduced vino rancio. The oxidized Catalan wine is not actually rancid but is nutty, acidic and umami-rich (it’s also available by the glass and by the bottle). There’s no standing room at Pompa, but the open kitchen and records spinning on a turntable combine for a chill barroom atmosphere. “We tried to do a wine bar but ended up with a restaurant,” Pérez de Rozas says. pompabcn.com.
WEAR THIS
Knit Dresses for Summer Days
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| Casasola Violeta Dress, $445, casasola.com; Lisa Yang Olivia Dress, $500, lisayang.com. Left: Olivier Kervern. Right: courtesy of Lisa Yang |
“I want to make women’s lives easier — but also more beautiful,” says the Florence, Italy-based designer Barbara Casasola, who relaunched her namesake collection of knitwear essentials last fall. Now, extending that impulse to warm-weather wardrobes, she’s turned her attention from classic crew necks and cardigans to a series of lighter-weight weaves. The line includes fluid natural linens and loosely knitted cotton fabric shaped by Italian artisans into simple shifts and long-sleeved polo dresses — all of which are meant to offer understated elegance, no matter the temperature. They reflect a sentiment that’s echoing far and wide this summer, thanks to the likes of the Brazilian swimwear brand Haight, whose sheer, highly pigmented viscose pieces can be worn both on and off the beach; Stockholm’s Lisa Yang, which counts a one-shoulder design, cut from a jersey-inspired blend, among its seasonal cashmere offerings; and the New York-based label Attersee, whose fine-knit T-shirt dress marries the relaxed silhouette with a subtle sheen for day-to-evening versatility.
GIFT THIS
A Beauty Line Made With Greek Herbs
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| Left: hand wash from the Greek brand 10AM Apotheke’s new line of Incense & Myrrh amenities. Right: 10AM Apotheke’s incense charcoal, made by hand at the monasteries on Mount Athos in northern Greece. Hana Jelovcan |
Eva Papadaki, the Athens-based co-founder of an art management agency, grew up on the island of Crete. When she launched 10AM Apotheke, a collection of beauty and culinary products, in 2023, its fragrances were inspired by the scents she grew up with at her grandmother’s house in the village of Sellia, overlooking the Libyan Sea. “All the herbs I use are sourced from a small organic producer who cultivates them on Crete in the White Mountains,” she says. Papadaki initially sold the line, including candles and balms, from a space in 10AM Lofts, a set of minimalist apartments that she operates as vacation rentals in the fashionable industrial neighborhood of Gazi in Athens. Now, she’s also launched a pop-up store (open until September) in a former folklore museum on the island of Antiparos, and is selling a collection of incense and myrrh hand wash, lotions and hair care products. The new items are available online, and Papadaki plans to offer them at some of her favorite hotels in Greece. The first to receive them is Ammos, a beachside resort on Crete. From about $20 for bar soap, 10amapotheke.com.
FROM T’S INSTAGRAM
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| Laura Dart |
For our Summer Entertaining issue, we asked three Bay Area chefs to share foolproof but impressive recipes that can be scaled up, prepped ahead or pulled together in a flash — ideal dishes, in other words, for feeding a crowd on vacation.
When cooking for his friends, Geoff Davis, the chef and owner of the soul food restaurant Burdell in Oakland, Calif., serves family-style platters that highlight summer produce, like blackened fish with sweet corn grits and tomato vinaigrette. Click here for all three recipes and follow us on Instagram.
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