COLUMN PUBLISHED IN FAMILY STYLE

What Is a Delicacy? 

For the magazine Family Style, I had a column dedicated to defining this elusive term. Each story began with a personal reflection, followed by answers from visionaries around the world — icons like fashion designer Norma Kamali to chef Jose Andrés, artist Devin B. Johnson to Hauser & Wirth’s Manuela Wirth.

What is a Delicacy?

We live in an era of immediacy and overflow. Things once hard or slow to procure are now a blink away. Given this limitless accessibility, what in modern life can still be considered special, rare?

I HAD A PAINKILLER (cocktail, not pills) for the first time on the Caribbean island of Anguilla. Made with dark rum, coconut cream, a lot of pineapple juice, a bit of orange juice, piles of crushed ice, and a dusting of nutmeg on top—the tipple is true to its name: it takes the pain away. It’s dewey air, lilting reggae, and lapping waves in a glass. When I got home to New York, I craved it bad—that rich, tropical, juicy sunburst. It’s a hard drink to find in the city. Nicher than, say, an old fashioned. Less cosmopolitan than, say, a cosmopolitan. Its obscurity only stoked my thirst. 

I ultimately found my painkiller, one Sunday evening, in a semi-subterranean bar on the Lower East Side called Lullaby. Sugar Town by Nancy Sinatra thrummed through the low-ceilinged space, all candles and creamy white walls, lustrous as an eggshell. Painkillers weren’t on the menu, but the bartender told me he’d see what he could do, visualizing the ingredients high up in the air and silently mouthing through each one. 

The bartender had an inky, ornate tattoo of laurels, like that which crowned Caesar, across his neck. Nestled under his jaw, it licked up to his ears. Or was it on the back of his neck, beneath that dark hairline? His image is at once crystal clear and completely fuzzy, like an aura photograph: dim, vague features yet blotched in vibrant color. He was, in short, beautiful. Exceedingly elegant in his movements, with the face of young Javier Bardem, though finer, a bit less bullish. He embodied the bar itself: narcotic, smooth, beguiling—like a lullaby. 

My boyfriend and I, dually dopamine low and a touch tender after a long weekend, watched him float between bottles—completely aligned on his agreeable countenance, his soothing, ungendered energy: feminine and masculine in equal parts. “I don’t think he’s American,” my British boyfriend murmured to me upon hearing the bartender’s untraceable accent, expat clocking expat. An oversized white tee hung from his lithe frame like the billowing sails of a ship. As for his painkiller? It’s the best I’ve had in the city. Silken, tart, sublimely frosted. I guzzled mine then ordered a second. 

Contemplating the notion of a delicacy, I couldn’t help but return to this memory. Is my greatest pleasure… a tiki drink? No. But something about that evening resonated, in the larger quest to understand this elusive word. The pent-up hankering, the ethereal showmanship, the undeserved occasion; Sundays are for admin and penance—not cocktails. But much like lore, or longing, I think a delicacy is something that takes on a life of its own. I think, right now, a delicacy for me is something shrouded in fantasy. Here’s what 15 others had to say on the matter.

Jean-Georges Vongerichten
“To me, education and exploration is the pinnacle of delicacy. Having the ability to travel the world, uncover new foods, connect with new people and create lasting memories is a treat every time. Whether I’m trying a skewer made of a chicken’s kneecap, sampling a new type of lettuce from our friends at Halal Pastures Farm, tasting a new spice for the first time, it can come in so many different forms. But the act of exploration and education is, to me, the most exhilarating.”

Mickalene Thomas
“The concept of delicacy transcends the realm of taste, encompassing all senses—from the gentle touch to the feast for the eyes. Delicacy is about honoring the essence of shared experiences, where we connect with others while nourishing our bodies and spirits in the warm company of loved ones. It's about finding beauty in the way we come together, savoring every moment and every sensation.”

Norma Kamali
“My delicacy is very simple. Soak raw, unsalted almonds in water overnight. Drain in the AM and then put ice on the almonds and put in the fridge. Serve with crushed ice on top! Delicious.”

José Andrés
“On the rocky coast of northern Spain, you will find the world's greatest delicacy. Fishermen brave the crashing tides along jagged cliffs just to reach them, the jewel of the Asturian coast: percebes. These gooseneck barnacles may look very strange but just one bite fills your mouth with the flavor of eating the ocean.”

Yola Jimenez
“Limón (lime) is my delicacy. Mexican limes taste different from limes elsewhere; they are small and potent, the perfect combination of sweet and sour, and with only a couple of drops you can enhance every flavor. We use it on everything, from fruits and vegetables to tacos and every possible liquid. A beer in Mexico is not complete without its lime and what a perfect marriage it is. My favorite is just to put a pinch of salt on half a lime and squeeze it all in my mouth.”

Aditi Dugar
“A true delicacy for me is the arrival of the Alphonso mango season. These first fragrant mangoes are cause for celebration in our household, transforming every meal into a mango-fuelled daze! We savor the fruit in all its forms: as aamras (a luscious mango puree), simply as sliced fruit, or even integrated into curries. Raw mangoes make for the most delicious drink, aam panna. Mum ensures huge pickling jars are filled with various spices and oils to preserve this mango goodness through the year. Our terrace is dotted with steel plates as she diligently prepares aam papad (“fruit leather”), preserving the essence to relish year-round. Remarkably, even the skin finds its place in a Marwari savory dish—chilke ka saag. This annual ritual, rich in flavors and memories, defines a delicacy for me.”

Brendon Babenzien
"To me, a delicacy is ice tea with sparkling water. It reminds me of summer. It means I am in an environment that is fresh, leaning into my favorite time of year. It is less about the thing, more about what it represents."

Dominique Crenn
“The forest is a delicacy waiting to be explored. Its beauty lies not only in its sprawling expanse but in the myriad of sights, smells, flavors, and textures that embrace you with every step. Every organism, from the towering trees to the tiniest insects, contributes to its enchanting allure—a feast for the senses, with sweet berries, rich mushrooms, and even the delicate sweetness of fog on the trees. It is a sanctuary for me, where life thrives abundantly. The forest is a delicacy for the soul.”

Martina Mondadori
"It has an allure that somehow is much more than just its constituent parts. It could be something as simple as pasta al pesto with a scattering of olives and toasted almonds—the freshest and finest ingredients, but then what elevates it all is, in my mind, the occasion itself, multiple generations of the family getting together, reminiscing over past dishes and fond memories."

Dustin Yellin
“Delicacy is the surface of desert earth where it has not rained for 500 years, patterns of wind accumulating over centuries. Delicacy is moss after a thundering rain where greens go alarmist in their chlorophylled dreams. Delicacy is a ceramic urn sitting beneath the dirt during The Crusades and The Renaissance, undisturbed by civilizations chaotically stirring above. Delicacy is electricity still pulsing through our brains seven minutes after we die.”

Estelle Bailey-Babenzien
"A delicacy is something that makes the taste buds dance and the heart beat faster. "

Enrique Olvera
“A delicacy is a representation of nature’s interconnectedness. Cooking with ingredients that share context—and therefore flavor profile. For example, we normally cook ant eggs, escamoles, with vegetables that also grow underground. These ingredients like leeks and parsnips are natural compliments. This understanding of flavor harmony is knowledge accumulated over generations, passed down through stories and practice, perfected through observation of what the earth offers.”

Suzie de Rohan Willner
“A delicacy to me is simple, high-quality produce all set on an outdoor summer’s table under the shady branches of a big tree, surrounded by friends. With the sorts of things I buy at my local market in France. Locally made cheeses and bread, hams and cold cuts of meat, fresh sardines, tomatoes, peppery and sweet. To some, these would just be ingredients, but enjoy them off antique wooden boards and from crafted ceramics—it beats any fine dining experience.”

Chakaia Booker
“When I think of a delicacy, rarity comes to mind first. And what I find so rare is that work of art that completely changes your preconceived notions of what art is—or can be. It is an experience that won’t leave you. A delicacy marks you.”

Philippe Perd
“Refinement and sensitivity—something that is so beautifully done, it whispers at you. It does not shout at you.”

Is Delicacy a Choice?

The search to understand our collective desires may lie in the psychology of decision.

I’VE LOVED SHRIMP SINCE I WAS A KID, after my first plate of scampi at our local Italian restaurant, Borgo Antico on 13th between 5th Avenue and University Place. Their ability to absorb salt and olive oil, both of which enthralled me, was a delight. Richer than Häagen-Dazs. Less gristly than steak. And no blood! All I did was beg for shrimp. I had tried prawns before, shrimp’s (typically) bigger sibling, surely. But never in a way that marked me. Until this summer. 

There is a British seaside town called Hastings. Less fashionable than the now long hipster-fied Brighton or the buzzy Margate. Hastings is a true bug in amber—a sepia-toned snapshot of coastal life in Victorian England. These towns, grand getaways for Brits once looking to escape the industrializing sooty cities, now carry the spirit of ghost ships. The empire’s coast grew forgotten when flights became more available to the exotic beaches of Spain, Italy, and Greece. The food there was better, the water less murky, and its locals were tanned and very sexy. Their faded glory is no more visible than on the facades of Hasting’s old hotels—columned and stately, fluttering with striped awnings—now rusted and worn.

I stepped off the train from London to the wail of seagulls. Hastings’ blustery, briny air has a gatorade effect: electrolytes plumping the skin, the lungs, the eyeballs through osmosis. Lined with slanting pubs, as if tired and drunk themselves, old fishing boats, fragrant fish and chip shops, and rickety antique stores topped with hand painted signage—the town epitomizes the meaning of charm: “To affect by or as if by magic,” writes Merriam-Webster. In a word, spellbound. The place had me spellbound. 

I met friends near the shore, whose waters in bright sunlight go from murky gray to milky aquamarine, a color not at all unpleasant. Pretty and soothing rather, like the pastels of a nursery. Someone opened a thin plastic bag weighed down by a pile of—breathless pause—prawns. They looked like so many little gems in there! Exoskeletons of blush pink and coral, black pearls for eyeballs. Ice clung to their shells, like the thin, glassy shards floating atop a fine martini. And the flesh within? Sweet, far sweeter than a shrimp, whose name conjures little tenderness at all for me now. The sweetness of these prawns evoked the flavor of malt, whose addition to something like soft serve can bring a savory, almost caramel depth. Creamy even, dairy conflating like the malolactic fermentation of white burgundy or chardonnay. The snap in bite was finer, juicier. Think slicing open a thin-skinned grape. We sucked the heads for last drops, mineral rich as dashi. 

Could a delicacy be something like a platonic ideal? Elevating a category you thought you knew? Obsession taken to the next level? I’ll find my way back to shrimp. But it’s hard now knowing the taste of prawn. Maybe there’s something here to the idea of choice: a delicacy is the undeniable pick. It’s incomparable. Here’s what 10 others think.

Devin B. Johnson
“I think of fine treats and exquisite finds. Something like Italy’s pasta, Senegal's Cheb ou Jen or even Morocco’s tagine dishes. Food brings people together from all over the world. Perhaps it’s the first entry point to connecting with various cultures.”

Priya Ahluwalia
“It’s about the traditional foods my Nani makes from Punjab, and the delicious dishes we enjoy together. I remember the warmth of parathas, the sizzle of tandoori chicken, and the vibrant flavors of chaats. To me, a delicacy is more than just exceptional food; it’s a taste that evokes special memories.”

Jordan Kahn
"Raw materials from nature represent the most profound delicacy of our modern time. Of the many ancient trees incorporated in our cooking, the California Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is amongst our most esteemed. We harvest the young sapling tips in the spring and summer which are tender enough to consume raw. Their fragrant, resinous, and yuzu-like quality represents the flavor of our region, creating a singular flavor memory that only exists here in California."

Suzie Kondi
“My mother’s Tiropita, Greek phyllo pastry filled with oozy creamy delicious feta. Mixing that very first handful of flour with warm water, delicate kneading forms the dough. I’d watch my mother carefully cut the dough into thirds, then place each in its own cloth-covered bowl. The dough would rise along with our anticipation and appetites. Taking a skinny wooden dowel, she’d prepare to work its magic. With strong, beautiful hands scented with oregano, lemon, and olive oil, she’d roll the dough into a huge, paper-thin circle, carefully mending any holes, then drizzle melted butter and crumbling feta over the whole. The final magic were the coils she’d twist, snaking the most beautiful pattern around the flat stainless pie dish. Into the oven it would go, emerging, 20 minutes later, as the definition of the word.”

Francisco Costa
“Kaia is a delicacy. It’s food for your skin! It’s a product of the Sapucaia tree. Packed with proteins and amino acids, it’s known as the fruit that makes your eyes light up.”

Simon Kim
“I think of specialty Chinese ingredients like a bird's nest or dried sea cucumber. A delicacy is not something you use or eat every day. It stands out and brings a certain delightfulness and joy to any experience.”

Anna Polonsky
“I like to think that a delicacy’s etymology combines both ‘delicate’ and ‘advocacy’—advocating for delicateness, working hard to preserve beauty, taste, and traditions. A delicacy is the almond-orange blossom amygdalota cookies at the port in Spetses, Greece. It’s the fine veal pastrami at Maison David's butcher shop in Le Marais, Paris. It’s the fresh hot churros made à la minute and served with a very tall hot chocolate at the Andean market in San Juan, Argentina. It’s the salty, briny mullet roe bottarga Tunisians cut into thin slices for apero. It’s the Gewurztraminer-infused Munster cream that a particular vendor sells exclusively at the market in Epinal, near Alsace. It’s all the products made by The Deligram in New York City. These little luxuries, passed down from generation to generation, are unassuming yet unforgettable. They are not made for Instagram but for the moment itself. Delicacies are an act of love that connect us to the past and present.”

Gero Fasano
“A delicacy is education, culture, sweetness, cool, and elegance. As David Byrne says in 'Psycho Killer': ‘I hate people when they are not polite.’”

Mary Attea
“No ingredient matches the singular essence of sea urchin. And while there are many varieties, Hokkaido uni reigns supreme. Imagine the perfect bite: warm sushi rice, perfumed with a dash of rice wine vinegar. Sweet, creamy lobes of roe, a delicate indulgence. Crisp sheets of toasted nori. Nothing compares. I once stood in awe while visiting the Nijo Fish Market in Sapporo, stalls brimming with this oceanic delicacy. Abundant, but still singular.”

David Prior
“My definition of a delicacy is never one of those status symbol products flown around the world, slapped with an absurd price tag, and greedily coveted. Instead, a true delicacy is about the opportunity to taste something in the place of its origin and amidst the culture that celebrates it. They can be fleeting, even fragile, or everyday and ubiquitous. With an openness to the unfamiliar, we not only expand our palettes but also our minds and in so, protect a delicious kind of diversity.”

Is Delicacy a Matter of Chance?

A study of taste continues with the cosmic confluence of events.

I WAS COMING UP ON DRUGS in the back of an Uber, appraising the sensation of an egg being cracked atop my head and dripping down my body, when a friend played this song. A woman’s voice, clear as a river, poured through the car speakers. Punctuating her chorus was the whistle of a pan flute. It was melancholy and ethereal, a dive through the frigid neon night into the cosmos. Then we arrived at our destination and I shuffled out in my winter puffer like a hippo.

Months later. I watched the trailer of a Swedish film Paradiset brinner (“Paradise is Burning”). I watched it over and over again. I sent it to my friends and teammates, watched every single cut to absorb the subtly different facets of emotionality. The scenes are abstract. But from what I could surmise: three sisters, a barely teen and two younger, living lawlessly. Physical fights in the school yard, pool parties, coughing on a blunt, chugging wine, robbing a supermarket. Some moments allude to the outside world: A call from social services, or, “Have you talked to mom lately?” One version builds to a breaking point: “You always leave, so leave!” screams the younger. “I’d do anything for you two!” screams back the older. “Would you?!” the younger shrieks. Another version goes tender: “I’m a bad person,” the older murmurs. “You’re my favorite person,” the younger replies. Bug-eyed, I’d play it again, welling with tears.

The realization came later: The song in the trailer, faintly pulsing between dialogue, was the original track sampled in what I’d heard months before. These notes had stirred the synapses without fully waking them, used old neural pathways to build an entirely new web. And greater it grew. I was in London at this point, exactly one year since my last visit and tenderly taking stock of everything I had lost and gained in between. The song became the soundtrack of hunger itself—the expansion and compression of life’s craving, aching belly. 

I’d walk endlessly to the track on loop. Endlessly, endlessly. Passing old homes, some stately, some derelict, leafy overgrown squares, sartorial gentlemen, swaggering youth. And when the sun would slant a certain way, the chorus aligning just so—I would feel without sadness, fear, or pain. This, I believe, was a sort of divinity. A most delicious flow state.

The anecdote invokes temporality. Is a delicacy the result of a certain butterfly effect, an inimitable confluence? Would you have loved it this much, savored it so—had not drugs, nor chance, nor loss, nor love, sparked this fleeting alchemy? Here’s what 10 others had to say on the matter.

Jean-Pierre Villafañe
“Delicacy is often a fleeting moment—a whisper of a sensation that vanishes before we fully grasp it. For me, it’s distilled in the rich, buttery caress of fine oil pigments. These pigments, much like a truffle or an aged wine, are the ultimate indulgence for the senses. They're a feast for the eyes and the soul. They glide across the canvas, layering flavors of color and texture that dance between figuration and abstraction. In the act of painting, these pigments are my medium of excess, where the boundaries between desire and restraint blur. It’s an artful indulgence, a way to consume without consumption, savoring every brushstroke as if it were the last bite of a sumptuous feast.”

Richard Christiansen
“There is a small town on the north side of Mount Everest named Namche Bazaar. It’s a ramshackle place that appears after a steep climb. The town lovingly hugs the mountain at 11,286 ft, popular with climbers for altitude acclimatization. It’s the gateway to the high Himalayas and the trading center for the villagers who live a life above the world. We arrived at the end of a long day, after a storm, wet and tired. The air was thin and crisp like paper. The next morning, I smelled the aroma of fresh, warm croissants from my sleeping bag. It was confusing to me, high in the frost of Nepal. Until that point I had been living on dehydrated food and water. I followed my nose to the Namche bakery, discovering a family up at sunrise to bake chocolate croissants. They remain the best chocolate croissants I’ve ever tasted. Hot and crunchy, with a velvet chocolate filling. It was a profound delicacy, in the most unlikely place on earth.”

Tatjana Von Stein
“It is a rare gift, one that pauses a moment with silence. It’s a shared experience of the exceptional.”

Jungsik Yim
“As a Korean, the first thing that came to my mind is gukbap (“soup rice”). The best gukbaps in Korea are often very affordable—under $10. Not only does it fill your stomach, it’s also a remedy for curing a cold or hangover. After having drinks with friends, I always end the night with gukbap. Because I grew up in this culture, I never realized how special it was until I lived in the States. My favorite type is gomtang, beef based gukbap.”

Glenn Pushelberg
“Sharing an ocean view, the smell of the sea breeze, listening to birds with a mix of old and new friends over a beautifully cooked meal. During a visit to Tokyo, we serendipitously discovered a gallery featuring Yoshitomo Nara's work. The joy we felt from his art was overwhelming, and we knew these paintings had to be part of our lives. Now, 30 years later, we are sharing these works at the Guggenheim Bilbao for his retrospective. To us, delicacy lies in the act of sharing.”

Alex Raij
“Duraznos en almíbar: canned peaches in syrup, very typical in Argentina and also in Spain (where Aragon has a protected denomination of origin). Nothing was more succulent and refreshing than Argentina’s peaches chilled in the can or ordered for dessert. The fresh ones were good as well, their fuzz getting under my nails, caked with their juices and making an itchy mess. But canned? Pure pleasure. Peeled. A tip of the bowl to take in their syrup. Others… Mirugai ("geoduck"), the most beautiful word maybe ever. Almeja chocolata (“chocolate clams”) from Mexico. Chinese seafood during the high holidays.”

Carla Sersale
“Landing in Positano 30 years ago triggered the discovery of Neapolitan cuisine for this Milanese girl. It was a heart-moving, slow understanding of how much more sophisticated the Southern palate was than the Northern. I fell in love. The simplicity of a fresh sea bass cooked in the oven with potatoes, olives, and capers. The Neapolitan meatballs, immersed in tomato sauce. A frittata di scammaro: cooked spaghetti sautéed in a pan with capers and olives to make a flat cake. Broccoli rabe in the winter, simply stewed with garlic and red pepper. Sweet green peppers in the spring. My favorite remains La pastiera, a cake served in Naples at Easter time. The filling of this sublime delicacy is made with the following ingredients: ricotta cheese, cooked wheat, candied citrus fruits, orange blossom water, lemon rind, honey, and eggs. The outer shell is a soft dough that contains all the above. All ingredients need to be still distinguishable inside the mixture. The wheat mixes with the ricotta cheese and absorbs the divine scent of the orange blossoms.”

Manuela Wirth
“For me, the simplicity and joy of finding wild strawberries in our walled garden and woodlands at home—eating half of these tiny, sweet berries while picking them, before even getting them back to the kitchen—is better than anything you could ever hope to buy. The ultimate delicacy. We use them for our birchermüesli in the morning, reconnecting to so many wonderful memories of childhood and the pleasures of our Swiss rural upbringing.”

James Knappett
“I think it’s dependent on culture and tradition, and is often very personal. I'd consider Yorkshire rhubarb a delicacy—I get mine from a longtime supplier Robert Tomlinson (a.k.a. Rhubarb Robert) a fourth-generation farmer who harvests the vegetable by candlelight on his farm in Pudsey. It's something that can only come from a specific region of England and for a short season that I love to feature on our menu when there's supply. In the past, we've served a dessert of forced rhubarb poached in its own juices, infused with Tahitian vanilla, alongside a rhubarb compote and jelly, ginger-infused ice cream and a black pepper meringue, which is burnt with English charcoal. The dish is finished with rhubarb juice, split with house-made blackcurrant leaf oil.”

Lauren Kelly
“It’s having the luxury of time to enjoy life in singular moments. To spend time laying with my kids in the sun imagining animals in the clouds. Listening to music while wandering The Met’s galleries without a set agenda or time limit. Spending hours cooking a meal that will be devoured in minutes solely for the pleasure of the process. Being able to enjoy life on my schedule is the ultimate delicacy.”