A Taste of Summer

Clickable treats + Rome's best restaurant

The Things

Athleta sun shield suit When my friend Julia Leach was turning Athleta around the summer before last*, I decided to give the brand a spin. This rash guard suit, bought to stave off sunburn, jellyfish and cold water, was a summer-saver, quickly dubbed The Bond Mom. Designed by women and tested by athletes, it flatters and performs, refusing to ride up while you swim or surf. (*I was lucky to work on the brand room Julia led. The “Find Your Movement” motto? Taking full credit.)

Dries Van Noten mesh ballet slingbacks Fell for these flattering summer flats at La Garçonne last month and have been combing the sales for the black and army green (!) pairs since, telling myself that they’ll be daily drivers from April until…climate-change October?... NB: Order a half-size down.

Can You Forgive Her? Anthony Trollope couldn’t have had summer novels in mind when he wrote this in 1864, but he delivered a solid beach read with this tale of messy engagements, greed and Victorian London politics. Written with generous wisdom and breathtaking economy (albeit at 830 pages), he can say more about a character in a few sentences than some get across in an entire book. Waiting for this, the first of six Palliser novels, to be made into a series…

Enzo Mari Bambù vase This week in Venice (guide coming next month!), I came across a tiny gallery selling a few gems from the late Italian designer and thinker Enzo Mari. The subsequent wormhole led to Danese’s 2015 ceramic reissue of his 1968 design, which grew out of his experiments with PVC pipes. Also love his reversible Pago Pago vase.

Marie Veronique Colorfree Zinc Sunscreen Mineral sunscreen: chalky, drying, no thank you. This, however, is clear, lightweight and moisturizing. (I.e., great for non-tanners of a certain age.) Find another Marie Veronique staple here.

Salsa Daddy: Dip Your Way into Mexican Cooking, by Rick Martinez Tasting Rick Martinez’s food every day in the Bon Appétit test kitchen was pure joy. How lucky that his new cookbook, written with the always-entertaining Alex Beggs, is out in time for summer, when a good salsa should always be on the table. Don’t miss his recipes for charred and creamy tomatillo and avocado salsa, fresh fava salsa, and crunchy plum salsa with chicharrones.

CAP hojicha Sit out the TikTok-generated matcha shortage with CAP’s new hojicha. The powdered sencha tea froths into roasty/nutty iced lattes (with less caffeine), and is also delicious swirled into yogurt, dusted over vanilla ice cream or into the ice cream base itself, if that’s how you summer. Also try Aran Goyoaga’s recipe for hojicha miso mountain cookies.

Oribe Mirror Rinse Glass Hair Treatment Full disclosure: I’ve been naming products for Oribe since the hair care company launched 17 years ago. Of the new releases in 2025, this 60-second glossing treatment is the one I’m restocking first. Used in place of conditioner, it leaves your hair supernaturally shiny for a week.

The Table | Trecca
Via Alessandro Severo, 222
Rome

Really good, heartfelt food in Rome is an elusive grail, to the point that I only booked two meals on a recent three-night trip. Luckily, trusted food travelers Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover pointed me to this mostly-locals trattoria, a 25-minute taxi ride from the center. Here, the attitude, like the food, has a casual, well-earned swagger. The menu doesn’t cater to tourists looking for fried artichokes and cacio e pepe — though you can get the former in late spring. Instead, they serve traditional dishes you either haven’t heard of or are ideal versions of classics, simple and soulful. Imagine Roberta’s if it landed in a dingy apartment block nuzzling up to the suburbs rather than the L, and everyone ordered the tripe and fried veal brains. This wasn’t just the best meal in Rome; it was a highlight of a two-week trip.

The tight menu features market vegetable starters you’ve likely never tried; offal “per palati fini,” or discerning palates; three handmade pastas; several hard-to-choose-from meat dishes; and desserts so good, your first choice will probably be sold out by the time you get to it — if you have room.

The dishes change often, but in early June, I enjoyed sautéed chicories with chile and garlic, beef tongue with salsa verde and anchovies, an incredibly correct buccatini alla amatriciana, and a snug little casserole of roast chicken with potatoes that I’ll be thinking about for years. A tart of ricotta and sour cherries was gone too soon.

The wine is natural. The staff is tattooed. The crowd is a wonderfully mixed bag. It’s not exactly a secret — Trecca’s IG account is followed by a who’s-who of the international food world — but luckily it still feels like one. Book a few weeks before you go. And download the FreeNow taxi app so you can actually get there and back without tears. You’ll want to save them for your meal.