NYC’s Le Bernardin nabs No. 1 spot on list of world’s best 1,000 restaurants

Published

2 years ago

November 24, 2023

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Seafood-heaven Le Bernardin is king of the sea in the La Liste ranking of the worlds 1,000 best restaurants for the second year in a row.

Having loved the place since my first meal in 1987, I can testify that the honors well-deserved.

Eric Ripert and Maguy Le Cozes 37-year-old piscine paradise bested every other US restaurant, even the fabled French Laundry, in La Listes rankings of the worlds 1,000 best eateries which are algorithmically derived based on a global database of critics reviews, media articles of all kinds, guidebooks and millions of online reviews such as from Yelp and Tripadvisor.

Why is it so popular among tough-minded critics and ordinary, birthday-celebrating customers alike?

Simply, Le Bernardin offers the most perfect blend of consistently great and creative cuisine not just fish and service so seamless, it might have come from an earlier era. Not only flawless, but personal, unlike at competitors where you feel like the floor squad just came out of a football huddle.

The luxurious dining room is anything but institutional-feeling. Many long, large tables and round ones carry the buzz and laughter of cozy, old-time Chinese restaurants.

The warmth flows from every person on the team, down to the lowliest employees who know when to take empty plates off the table without asking if youre still working.

The menu, which sometimes can seem as Japanese or Southeast Asian or French, is an ever-changing collaboration between Ripert and his Martinique-born executive chef Eric Gestel.

Austrian-born head sommelier Aldo Sohm runs the citys most gracious, unpretentious wine service. Le Coze trains every new service person down the last napkin fold.

Le Bernardin has one more extraordinary, rare strength: Unlike in the global empires of such competitors as Daniel Boulud, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Thomas Keller, its Riperts only restaurant other than a seasonal one in the Caymans. Le Bernardin has his full attention which cant be said of any other fine-dining American restaurant with a rock star chef.

The La Liste recognition couldnt come at a happier time for the place. The Paris-based ratings are more closely followed abroad than in the US, where Ripert said its catching on more slowly.

Thirty percent of dinner guests come from Asian countries, mainly from South Korea and Japan, followed by once-No. 1 China.

Ripert wouldnt cite specific data, but he said this years revenue would surpass last years record volume. Were doing 10 more covers each day [for lunch and dinner] than in 2022, he said.

Le Bernardins basic four-course dinner menu is priced at $208, considerably lower than the least expensive options at its super-class competitors Daniel, Jean-Georges, Per Se and Eleven Madison Park.

Another trend he noted was that, even at Le Bernardin, people are eating earlier than they did before the pandemic.

We now open at 5 p.m., compared to 5:30 in the past. The dining room is full by 6 p.m., he said.

US

James Craig: Dentist in Colorado poisoned wife’s protein shakes with cyanide, murder trial hears

Published

47 mins ago

July 16, 2025

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James Craig: Dentist in Colorado poisoned wife's protein shakes with cyanide, murder trial hears

The trial of a dentist accused of murdering his wife by poisoning her protein shakes has begun in the US state of Colorado.

James Craig denies using cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient in over-the-counter eye drops, to kill Angela Craig in a suburb of Denver.

During the trial’s opening statements on Tuesday, prosecutors claimed the 47-year-old was having an affair with another dentist, had financial difficulties and may have been motivated by the payout from his wife’s life insurance.

Assistant District Attorney Ryan Brackley told the jury at Arapahoe District Court that the 43-year-old victim – who had six children with her husband – had been suffering worsening symptoms including dizziness, vomiting and fainting.

She died in March 2023 during her third trip to the hospital that month.

Mr Brackley accused Craig of poisoning her protein shakes – then giving his wife a final dose of poison while she was in hospital, and said: “He went in that [hospital] room to murder her, to deliberately and intentionally end her life with a fatal dose of cyanide … She spends the next three days dying.”

Craig, who shook his head at times during the prosecution’s opening statement, has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including first-degree murder, solicitation to commit murder and solicitation to commit perjury.

Prosecutors said Craig had tried to make it appear his wife of 23 years had killed herself. His internet history showed he had searched for “how to make a murder look like a heart attack” and “is arsenic detectable in an autopsy”.

In an argument, captured on home surveillance video, his wife also accused him of suggesting to hospital staff that she was suicidal.

After Craig’s arrest in 2023, prosecutors alleged that he had offered a fellow prison inmate $20,000 (£14,993) to kill the case’s lead investigator and offered someone else $20,000 to find people to falsely testify that Angela Craig planned to die by suicide.

Craig’s attorney, Ashley Whitham, told the jury to consider the credibility of those witnesses, calling some “jailhouse snitches”.

Ms Whitham argued that the evidence didn’t show that he poisoned her, instead seeming to suggest she may have taken her own life.

She described Angela Craig as “broken”, partly by Craig’s infidelity and her desire to stay married, since they were part of The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints.

Hospital staff had said Craig had been caring and “doting” while Angela Craig was in the hospital, said Whitham.

The defence argued prosecutors had overdramatised Craig’s financial problems and dismissed the prosecution’s suggestion that Craig was motivated to kill because of an affair he was having with a fellow dentist from Texas.

“That’s simply not the case,” Whitham said, adding that Craig had many affairs over the years that his wife knew about. “He was candid with Angela that he had been cheating.”

The trial continues.

Politics

Michigan town puts pre-emptive curbs on crypto ATMs

Published

1 hour ago

July 16, 2025

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Michigan town puts pre-emptive curbs on crypto ATMs

The town of Grosse Pointe Farms has no crypto ATMs, but has regulated them anyway, requiring registration, warnings and limits on kiosks.

Technology

Chip giant ASML says it can’t confirm that it will grow in 2026

Published

2 hours ago

July 16, 2025

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Chip giant ASML says it can't confirm that it will grow in 2026

An icon of ASML is displayed on a smartphone, with an ASML chip visible in the background.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

ASML reported second-quarter earnings that beat estimates with the its key net bookings figure ahead of consensus.

However, the chip equipment giant missed analyst expectations for revenue guidance in the current quarter and warned of the possibility of no growth ahead.

Here’s how ASML did versus LSEG consensus estimates for the second quarter:

Net sales: 7.7 billion euros ($8.95 billion) versus 7.52 billion euros expected
Net profit: 2.29 billion euros vs 2.04 billion euros expected

In its own previous forecast issued in April, ASML had said it expected second-quarter net sales of between 7.2 billion euros and 7.7 billion euros. In a pre-recorded interview posted on ASML’s website, the company’s Chief Financial Officer Roger Dassen said the beat was due to revenue from upgrading currently deployed machines as well as tariffs having a “less negative” impact than anticipated.

Analysts anticipated net bookings — a key indicator of order demand — would come in at 4.19 billion euros over the April-June stretch. ASML reported net bookings of 5.5 billion euros.

ASML is one of the most important semiconductor supply chain companies in the world. It makes extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, which are required to manufacture the most advanced chips in the world, such as those designed by Apple and Nvidia.

Companies like Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. are customers of ASML.

2026 warning

Like many companies in the semiconductor industry, ASML has been grappling with uncertainty created by U.S. tariff policy.

The company forecast third-quarter revenue of between 7.4 billion euros and 7.9 billion euros, which was shy of market expectations of 8.3 billion euros.

ASML said it expects full-year 2025 net sales to grow 15%, narrowing its guidance from a previously announced forecasts of between 30 billion euros to 35 billion euros.

However, the Dutch tech giant was less certain about the outlook for 2026.

“Looking at 2026, we see that our AI customers’ fundamentals remain strong,” ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet said in a statement.

“At the same time, we continue to see increasing uncertainty driven by macro-economic and geopolitical developments. Therefore, while we still prepare for growth in 2026, we cannot confirm it at this stage.”

The Veldhoven, Netherlands-headquartered company has released its next generation EUV tools known as High NA, which stands for high numerical aperture. These machines, which are larger than a double-decker bus and can cost more than $400 million each, are key to ASML’s future growth plans.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for more.