It had always been there. Since birth, maybe. A gnawing, unquenchable hunger to eat, and to eat quite well. Perhaps my grandmother triggered it, with her freshly baked bread and a yard full of mango, avocado, citrus, and pecan trees. Or maybe it started over enormous seafood dinners at causeway seafood shacks. Either way, by fifteen I was cooking most of my own meals. I had already outgrown my mother’s limited culinary offerings.
Early Days: Broke, But Never Hungry for Long
At eighteen I was on my own, working fast food jobs and delivering pizzas, with barely a pot to piss in. Somehow I still scrounged together enough money to host dinner parties, or take girls out on dates. By twenty-two, I’d landed in the wine business and started making real money. That’s when I began frequenting the great French restaurants in my hometown. Le Belle Verriere. Le Cordon Bleu. Park Plaza Gardens. Café de France. Jordan’s Grove. These became my regular date-night spots.
Soon after, monthly trips to Bern’s Steak House in Tampa followed. Back then, you could raid their legendary cellar and walk out with a 1961 Cote Rotie or Hermitage for $30.
Opening a Wine Bar and Chasing Fine Dining Across the U.S.
In 1989, I left the wine bar in Orlando — but not before a trip to Washington, D.C. for dinner at Jean Louis at the Watergate. From there, I moved to Tampa to open a wine bar a few blocks from Bern’s. I became a regular in their Irish Rebellion Room, eating steak sandwiches and caviar, and drinking Ridge Zinfandels from the 60s and 70s. Mise en Place and Café Creole became regular haunts too.
Then the 90s hit, and I shifted from working on-premise to a marketing manager role for a wine broker covering the Southeast U.S. My territory was the entire state of Florida, so I was constantly on the road. I bought lunch for wholesalers during work-withs, then dinner for myself most evenings — which meant access to the best restaurants in the state. (And racking up a fair amount of debt.)
Going National: New York, San Francisco, and Beyond
By 1995, I had my own wine brokerage and was representing an importer based out of midtown Manhattan. With more money, and a week in New York every spring for sales meetings, I was dining at Aquavit, Le Bernardin, and the great old French bistros — many of which are gone today.
Every December, I’d take a food journey to burn through my year-end bonus. The first year, I hit the top 15 restaurants in San Francisco and the top 10 in Atlanta. Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., and Portland followed in the years after.
In 1998, one of the wineries I’d represented as a broker hired me as a regional manager, covering Texas to Virginia. Armed with an expense account and a roster of exclusively “A” accounts, the fine dining meals kept coming — along with roughly 140 flights a year.
Trading the Road for a Retail Wine Career
After a decade on the road as a winery marketing manager, I moved into retail and finally started sleeping in my own bed. I worked as a wine manager and buyer Monday through Friday, saving weekends for food-focused trips around the country.
By this point, I’d spent twelve years traveling for food. I’d checked off the best restaurants in New York, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, New Orleans, Boston, and D.C. — including a memorable meal at Minibar (then inside Café Atlantico), seated next to Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema, who couldn’t figure out how I afforded to fly around the world for food. I’d also covered the entire Southeast.
By then, I was burned out on American food. Outside of Alinea in Chicago, most of what restaurants were serving I could already cook at home.
Falling for Europe, One Michelin Star at a Time
Europe called, and I answered with my two weeks of annual vacation. It started with a 2002 road trip through Northern Spain — about 2,000 kilometers of driving and eating. I dined at Zalacaín and the Casino de Madrid, then hit the roast suckling pig and lamb houses of Segovia. From there, Arzak, Akelarre, Mugaritz, and Martín Berasategui in San Sebastián. After an eight-hour drive, I finished my food journey at El Bulli in Roses. The remarkable thing was Martín Berasategui was actually more memorable than El Bulli. That trip sealed my love affair with the Basque Country.
From 2002 to 2008, I returned to Spain almost every year, always circling back to my Basque favorites. But other cities got their turn too. London brought me to The Fat Duck, Gordon Ramsay, St. John, Nobu, and the dining room at the Ritz (2003). I visited Dublin multiple times for Patrick Guilbaud, Chapter One, Pearl Brasserie, and King Sitric in Howth. Montreal delivered Au Pied de Cochon, Joe Beef, and DNA. Mexico City introduced me to Pujol, Quintonil, Sud 777, Astrid y Gastón, and Nobu.
Opening Park Wine Merchants and Traveling Bigger
Between 2000 and 2005, life stayed busy with big trips. Then in 2005, I opened my own wine store, Park Wine Merchants. Now I could travel on my own schedule — and the trips got bigger and grander. I was now combining dining locations in multiple cities around a country.
In 2008, I got divorced. The woman I met next loved travel even more than I did. She had far less fine-dining experience, but she boarded the “travel for food” train fast. Together, we explored Montreal, Mexico City, Ecuador, Spain, and Ireland.
Then came an epic food journey to Barcelona, the Costa Brava and Copenhagen. In Barcelona, we ate at all four of Albert Adrià’s restaurants, plus ABaC and Carme Ruscalleda’s Moments. From there, we traveled up the coast to Llançà for Miramar, then to Girona for El Celler de Can Roca — the day before it was named the #1 restaurant in the world. We closed the trip in Copenhagen, dining through the Noma alumni scene: Relæ, Radio, and a soon-to-be #1 restaurant, Geranium.
At Geranium, a woman dining solo at the next table struck up a conversation with us. She turned out to be a VP at San Pellegrino. I told her, right there at the end of the meal, that Geranium would be #1 one day. And sure enough, it happened.
Circling the Globe for Street Food and Michelin Stars
Shortly after this trip, we decided to put Europe on pause as it’s a great big world with lots of things to experience. So we booked two round-the-world trips — one east to west, the other west to east. We ate our way through South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Penang, Malaysia, and Vietnam, mixing Michelin stars with street food. We hit the best restaurants in Seoul and Bangkok, and enjoyed Gaggan Anand’s restaurant in its original form, before the accolades really piled up.
Moving to Mexico and Discovering Latin America
After twenty years in the retail wine business, we moved to Mexico. We began taking food trips around Mexico while going down into Mexico City several times a year to eat. We dined at the best restaurants in Guadalajara and Puebla, in the Valle De Bravo and Queretaro/Guanajuato.
Peru came next. We dined at the top 10 restaurants in Lima, including Central, Maido, and Kjolle — just two weeks after Kjolle opened. That’s two more restaurants we ate at before they earned their #1 titles, with Kjolle well on its way. We also dined at Chez Wong before chef Javier Wong retired, and yes — we ate our share of guinea pig along the way.
Building a Wine Tour Business — and a Dream Kitchen
By this point, our wine tour business in Mexico was fully up and running. In 2019, we squeezed in a trip to Malta, Sicily, and Madrid, closing it out with the Hiša Franko pop-up in Madrid so I could finally check chef Ana Roš off my list of great female chefs.
We landed back in Mexico right at the end of December — just as COVID seemed to be chasing us home. We moved into the house we’d built while we were away, and I finally got my dream kitchen: essentially a restaurant kitchen of my own. For the next two years, I cooked nonstop. I made vinegars from home-fermented exotic fruit wines, cured hams, salami, and coppa, and pickled everything possible using my homemade vinegar. I basically wore out my Noma Guide to Fermentation and Charcuterie/Salami books.
Back on the Road: Spain, Turin, and Beyond
Eventually, it was time to travel again. We drove back through northern Spain — Castilla y León, Asturias, Cantabria, Rueda, Ribera del Duero, Toro, and the Basque Country. Etxebarri and Azurmendi finally got crossed off the list, alongside return visits to Rekondo and Alameda. From there, Navarra and Rioja, before jetting to Turin and back to Madrid. Six weeks total, mostly one-Michelin-star spots, with a few two-stars, two three-stars, and several Bib Gourmands mixed in.
The following year we leaned heavily on Mexico City, with a trip to New York for good measure.
New Passports, New Ventures
This year introduced a new path to our travels. We gained Croatian citizenship in January and celebrated with lots of great Champagne. In the spring, we spent sixty days driving through France, Italy, and Spain, visiting around 90 wineries across the Southern Rhône, Piedmont, and Rioja — all in service of creating our European wine and food tours. Along the way, plenty of Michelin-mentioned, Bib Gourmand, and starred restaurants made the list, including my eighth visit to Martín Berasategui and a return to Alameda in the Basque Country.
Thirty-eight years traveling solely for food and wine, entirely on my own dime. And I’m just getting started.
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