Bloomberg Businessweek

THE FOOD ISSUE March 11, 2019

D.O.M

HOTEL
São Paulo

If you’ve tried
the aligot at Alex
Atala’s D.O.M, you
know the chef
has a flair for the
theatrical. The
potato-and-fondue
concoction is
finished tableside,
with a steward
stretching the
blend as tall as
his arms can
reach. But Atala’s
next project
will aim even
higher—35 stories,
to be exact.
Opening in 2021
in São Paulo, the
$50 millionD.O.M
Hotel will include
five restaurants,
some run by Atala
and some by his
local chef friends.

CASA

CACAO

Girona, Spain

Pastry chef Jordi

Roca, one of three

brothers behind

Spain’s legendary

El Celler de Can

Roca, never

dreamed about

becoming a hotelier.

He wanted to run

a bean-to-bar

chocolate factory,

á la Brooklyn’s Mast

Brothers. But when

he found the ideal

location in Girona’s

Plaça de Catalunya,

it came with three

extra floors above

the street-level

space for the

chocolate shop.

So Roca added

15 rooms to his

new confectionery.

The boutique hotel

opens late this year.

Coming Soon

PHOTOGRAPHS: MAUREEN M. EVANS FOR CASA TEO

150-year-old oak trees that’s perfect for

lambrusco at sunset. Gilmore’s small farm—

her pet project—will be open to visitors

who want to pick radishes or tomatoes,

and pieces from the couple’s impressive

art collection will be scattered throughout.

(Look for Damien Hirst’sThe Last Supper

in the dining room and Mimmo Paladino

sculptures in the garden.)

Just don’t expect Bottura to show up to

man the pizza oven. “We want to encourage

people to go to town, to visit the trattorias,”

says Gilmore, who thinks of the property

more as a bed and breakfast with a casual

all-day menu but no dinner service. “I tell

he’s building another residence like it in

Oaxaca, behind the garden of his restaurant

Criollo. Scheduled to open in late April, it

will be the same, with two bedrooms and

an enviable kitchen. His dream is to bring

a Casa Teo to every city where he has a

restaurant. In September that will include

Los Angeles, when he opens Damian

restaurant. “I’m a frustrated architect,”

Olvera says, but “I don’t want to be Nobu.”

While he does plan eventually to open a

bigger property on land he can farm, he

doesn’t need a sprawling hotel empire. “It

will be an inn in an avocado forest,” says the

chef.From $350; teo.casa

Olvera; a simple, light-filled room at Casa Teo

in Mexico City

everyone how much I love Emilia-Romagna,

but now I want to share that with a broader

audience—the landscape, the food, the

people. That’s what it’s all about.”

From €450; casamarialuigia.com

CASA TEO

Mexico City

The chef: Enrique Olvera, whose restaurant

Pujol ranks high on the World’s 50 Best

Restaurant list

The place: A bright apartment rented out to

guests and visiting chefs

Don’t miss:Breakfast, which is provided

byOlvera’s cooks, includes satisfying fare

such as artichoke omelets

Some chefs spend years searching for a

space to accommodate overnight guests.

Enrique Olvera simply shifted things

around. When Mexico’s most acclaimed

cook decided to move his flagship Pujol

to a new location, he turned the second

floor of the original space into Casa Teo,

an Airbnb-style residence. (Olvera has

made the bottom floor into a bonatera, a

lively bar that also serves food—unusual in

Mexico.) Casa Teo isn’t a hotel: There are

just two bedrooms in the airy, plant-filled

apartment. Not surprisingly, there’s a stellar

home kitchen, with serving pieces made

in Oaxaca, as well as a dining room and a

culinary library that includes books on the

indigenous cuisines of Mexico.

“The kitchen is simple but made with

things I love that aren’t economically

intelligent for a restaurant,” says Olvera

of such equipment as a La Marzocco GS3

espresso machine. He imagines Casa Teo

as a kind of artists’ residence, an intimate

place where visitors can be immersed in a

new location and inspired to experiment. He

occasionally uses it as a base for visiting chef

friends such as Frederic Morin and David

McMillan from Montreal’s Joe Beef. But it’s

open to the public as well; guests have the

option of having a chef cook dinner.

Olvera is so pleased with the model that

The

Modern

Hotel

Chef

Timeline

1987

Chef Patrick

O’Connell pioneers

this era of modern

chef-owned hotel

properties with the

opening of the Inn

at Little Washington

in Virginia

2008

Gordon Ramsey’s

York & Albany

hotel in London

makes its debut

2013

Twenty-five years after

the first Nobu restaurant,

Matsuhisa’s Nobu Hotels

collection begins in

Las Vegas

2018

Olvera’s Casa Teo,

a B&B in Mexico

City, welcomes its

first guests

2019

Bottura opens

Casa Maria Luigia, an

inn outside Modena

1995

Michelin three-star chef Alain

Ducasse creates Bastide de

Moustiers in Provence; it’s his

first country inn

2019

D’Une Ile, a country house

hotel in Normandy, reopens

with Grébaut at the helm