A cheese omakase shouldn’t work. Or at least that’s what I told myself as I sat down in the polished back room of Roucou, Jeremy Evrard’s exuberant new restaurant-slash-love-letter to dairy. Course after course of … cheese? Surely that’s a recipe for indigestion, even for the lactose tolerant. But then came a thick smear of Brillat-Savarin wrapped in nori and topped with caviar. Next, a tower of Parmigiano Reggiano crisps with herring and a whisper of lemon. Then a savoury shellfish bisque with uni and halibut, showered in Beaufort d’Alpage. And yes – this one surprised me most of all – creamy Camembert sidled in next to a slab of toro seared with a charcoal stick. It was delicious. I might have walked in a cynic, but I left a convert.
So I was happy to read more about
what kick-started Evrard’s passion in My Obsession, our new column about collectors and their beloved ephemera. It turns out his love of cheese began, like many great passions, with something deeply uncool: a childhood hoard of Laughing Cow labels. He has more than a thousand now, many tucked into drawers at home, some finding new life at Roucou as hand-scrawled menus or little gifts for diners to take away. Like his restaurant, it’s charming and a little eccentric – which is to say, completely delightful.
In our cover feature, former racer Matthew Marsh takes us trackside at
the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where two Hong Kong drivers joined one of motorsport’s most gruelling races. There’s no glamorising here – just the brutal choreography of a race that starts in daylight and finishes – if you’re lucky – a day and 5,200km later. Marsh captures the madness and muscle of it all, from the Tricolore flag drop to crowds buzzing well past midnight.
Back in Hong Kong, Fionnuala McHugh speaks with
Rocco Yim Sen-kee, the architect responsible for some of the city’s most iconic spaces, about his new monograph,
Looking to Hong Kong. Yim is softly spoken, allergic to hype and utterly unmistakable in a portfolio packed with malls, cultural landmarks and government buildings. Whether you know it or not, you’ve walked through his ideas.
In the classroom, writer and lecturer Karen Cheung is reckoning with a very modern crisis: grading student essays and slowly realising
some were written by bots. Her piece is sharp, confessional and just unnerving enough. She doesn’t panic – not really – but she does ask hard questions about authorship, originality and what’s at stake when we let the machines do the messy, human work of thinking for us in this new era of the em dash.
If that’s too unsettling,
let us take you to Bordeaux, where John Brunton finds natural wine, medieval chapels and the odd Ayurvedic massage in between tastings. Chickens wander between the vines and clay amphorae stand where oak barrels once ruled. It’s not your grandfather’s Bordeaux – and that’s the point.
