Editor's Note
By Irene Lacher 07/01/2010
Who knew that ice — one of life’s simplest pleasures — needed to be fixed?
Artisan bartender Michel Dozois did, noting that conventional ice melts so fast it dilutes your expensive drink (well, yes) and can be enhanced with the addition of flavors, fruits and flowers (okay, sure). Bradley Tuck spoke to the owner of Névé Luxury Ice, which services a couple of discriminating Pasadena establishments, to find out why “luxury ice” isn’t an oxymoron. And he reports on the frozen substance’s fascinating history, looking back at the days when it really was “natural,” a costly treasure that took winter weather and back-breaking labor to produce.
That attention to detail is what makes the Pasadena area such an interesting restaurant town. As the peripatetic Nancy Spiller notes, the selection here is so culturally eclectic she can sample delicacies and menu staples from Lebanon, Vietnam, France and Mexico without stepping on a plane. Spiller offers her picks for global dining around town.
To make a vibrant dining landscape, it takes a village. Noela Hueso introduces you to one of the dynamos behind Pasadena’s — Jack Huang, a former rocket scientist who found his calling in creating restaurants like Bar Celona, Villa Sorriso and Ixtapa, which help keep Colorado Boulevard crawling with locals and visitors on any given night.
This month also brings pleasures of a more cerebral sort. The California Design Biennial returns to the Pasadena Museum of California Art. And as B.J. Lorenzo discovered, innovators in the fields of fashion, graphic design, architecture, industrial design and transportation are borrowing from the best of the past to help forge a better future for all of us.
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