Despite some difficulties in 2023, the United States is by far the leading market for Italian wine. After a record 2022, at €1.86 billion, 8.3% over 2021, in the first 11 months of 2023, imports to the U.S. stopped at €1.6 billion (down 6% over the same period in 2022, Istat data analyzed by WineNews). A negative figure, to be sure, but an improvem...

Exciting news! The Italian Cultural & Community Center is now accepting applications for our Merit Based Scholarship! Graduating high school seniors of Italian descent may be eligible to apply for this $1,000 renewable scholarship. Applicants must have a family history of ICCC membership. If you don't have a family history with the Italian Cultural...

"Sono molto orgoglioso delle mie origini italiane," David Manica said in Italian before switching to English for the rest of the presentation. It was 2019 and Manica, the most important and successful architect in the world when it comes to designing stadiums, was in Milan to present his proposal for Milan's new stadium. After that, Manica began wo...

Tavola is setting the table as a new restaurant for Post Oak Boulevard's dining scene. The upscale Italian eatery from restaurateur Benjamin Berg of Berg Hospitality Group and The Bastion Collection replaces French restaurant La Table at 1800 Post Oak. Tavola's interior was designed to be intentionally intimate, according to a Dec. 7 news release o...

Until I visited the new incarnation of La Griglia, the popular Italian restaurant that has been around since 1991, I had completely forgotten about something that used to be intrinsic to understanding Houston.  Once upon a time (starting when I moved here in the metazoic year of 1976) the past was a country no respectable Houstonian would bother to...

Formerly known as the Houston Sommelier Competition, this year’s sommelier faceoff has shifted gears and changed names: The Italy-America Chamber of Commerce Texas is thrilled to announce that the “Houston Italian Wine Ambassador Competition” will be held on the occasion of the 10th annual Taste of Italy Houston trade fair and festival (Sunday-Mond...

Esquire snubbed Houston among its recent 50 picks for best new restaurants in America, but a Montrose restaurant did get a nod as the country’s “Pizza Joint of the Year.” If readers scroll about halfway down the digital version of the magazine’s story, they’ll find Nonno’s Family Pizza among a trio of special category winners. The entry praises...

Italy meets Miami at a new restaurant in Uptown Park that turns from day to night with an expansive patio and speakeasy-esque back room. Lombardi Cucina Italiana opens its doors on Friday at 1101 Uptown Park, the second location from Dallas-based restaurateur Alberto Lombardi. The owner of 11 restaurant brands in his namesake restaurant group, incl...

Walking into Il Bracco, a current of déjà vu can sweep your neural system. You’ve been here before, in this dim, low-slung room with its clubby booths, its womblike walnut paneling, its prosperous crowd of grown-ups. To one side the travertine bar beckons, like the world’s longest and skinniest horseshoe. The place seems buffered from reality. Neit...

Have you heard of the Italian American Christmas Eve dinner called the Feast of the Seven Fishes? Maybe that season-two episode of The Bear started you thinking about it. Where did it come from exactly? Is this a widespread thing? Could it possibly become your new favorite Dec. 24 tradition?  To answer that third question: It can! And you don't nee...