Grapes have been associated with pleasure since ancient times, a symbol of Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry. These days, clusters of plum Concords, oval autumn royals and dusky kyohos grace dinner tables, doubling as antler decorations and low-effort snacks. “You can get a beautiful, imperfect grape,” says interior designer Colin King, 35, who overflowed a marble urn with a generous mound of them for the launch of his furniture collection, a collaboration with Future Perfect, in New York last fall. Although she uses green grapes for daytime parties, for evening events she prefers the “moody, sensual vibe” of dark varieties – like the faded, elongated moon drops that artist Laila Gohar, 35, mixed with red orbs and flames to form an edible monolith for the recent opening of clothing store Essentiel Antwerp in New York. Chef Mina Stone, 42 — who runs Mina’s, the cafe at MoMA PS1 in Queens, and is a frequent caterer for art gallery dinners — prefers Thomcords, a sweet, seedless hybrid that she often serves with dessert to “provide weight and colorful scenery’ for more delicious confections. She also likes to roast grapes alongside roasted duck breast. In London, pastry chef Claire Ptak, owner of Violet Bakery, offers what she calls fragolina cupcakes, named after the fragola grapes (Italian for “strawberry”) that she cooks, then purees and adds to buttercream frosting. Currants “taste like a Concord berry,” says Ptak, 49, who tops each cake with a small fruit cluster. The frozen treats “take you back to childhood when you take the first bite,” she says, “and then you realize they’re really old, too.” — Loren Joseph
A new hotel and restaurant on Sweden’s rural coast
Swedish chef Daniel Berlin opened his first eponymous restaurant in 2009, when he was just 27 years old, in his native Skåne, a rural area bordering the sea about five hours by train from Stockholm. An unassuming place where his mother often came in as a server and his father was the sommelier, it earned two Michelin stars before closing in 2020 after Berlin’s wife, Anna, was diagnosed with cancer. She died in 2021, leaving behind 2-year-old twins. Now the 41-year-old Berliner is back in the kitchen having recently opened Vyn, his restaurant, wine bar and hotel on an 18-acre former farm. The 30-seat dining room offers dishes such as crab with pork cheeks and caramelized Belle de Boskoop apple with milk and wood plantain, while the 15 sunny rooms feature locally handcrafted beds and glass sculptures by Ellen Ehk and Markus Åkesson. This spring, Berlin will add a Scandinavian-style sauna and a cold plunge pool overlooking the ocean. “Vyn is about distilling life down to the simplest yet most important things,” he says. “We don’t save lives, but we can create memories.” — Gisela Williams
