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Every day the world presents you with hundreds of headlines. What do you believe? Who do you trust? The Financial Times cuts through complexity with clarity, accuracy and global perspective. Its journalism is guided by independence, not agendas. That's why leaders in business, policy and culture turn to one trusted source for facts, for insight, for what matters next. Source FT Read more and subscribe@ft.com you're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 21 November 2025 on Monocle Radio.
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How ceased is the fire in Lebanon? Have the lessons of the Nuremberg Trials really been absorbed? And which startups are Helsinki's most switched on? Investors investing in? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts. Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily. Coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. Our in house guests Leila Malana, Allan and Petri Birtsoff will check in from Lebanon and Finland respectively. We'll reflect on the 80th anniversary of one of the most momentous courtroom speeches ever given and we'll have our weekly wrap up of what we've learned. Stay tuned all day and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller. We start in Lebanon. In no other context has the word interim done the heavy lifting it does in United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon or UNIFIL, which first deployed 47 years ago. While UNIFIL has often been criticised in the ongoing interim since, fortunately for taking a somewhat relaxed attitude to implementing or enforcing the UN Security Council resolutions which are supposed to have ensured the removal of all non state armies and armaments from the area of Lebanon it patrols. It has at least been keeping count of violations of the latest ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah agreed in late 2024. UNIFIL reports over 10,000 such violations by Israel, mostly by air, along with the discovery of more than 360 abandoned weapons caches, presumably once the property of Hezbollah, which have been handed over to Lebanon's army. Well, I'm joined now by Leila Malana, Alan, Monocle's Middle east correspondent. Leila, first of all, what are they counting do we know as a violation? Because 10,000 does seem like an awful lot.
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It is an awful lot, but it's actually not an awful lot, both if you are familiar with the behavior of the Israeli armed forces in Lebanon and also if you've seen what's been happening over the last year. So what UNIFIL has catalogued is 7,500 airspace violations, which means Israeli military jets coming into Lebanese airspace and 2,500, nearly 2,500 ground violations, which is Israeli troops and tanks on Lebanese territory. Now, even before the war last year started, for many years, and I, of course, lived in Beirut for many years, it was daily practice that Israeli jets would come, they would fly over Beirut, which they're not supposed to do. They would do practice bombing runs, which many people in Lebanon felt was in order to intimidate the Lebanese population. There would be a complaint registered with the UN and absolutely nothing would be done. Now, what's been happening since the ceasefire was signed nearly a year ago is that firstly, Israel has still had five outposts, military outposts that it's put down in the south of Lebanon. It's occupying a significant amount of territory on the Lebanese border, which it calls a buffer zone. And it currently says it has no intention to pull back from, and has not agreed to pull back from. And as I say, many, many, many air violations, many of them resulting in airstrikes. Just this week, there have been several across the south of Lebanon. On Tuesday, there was one, the Ain Al Helwe Palestinian refugee camp where 13 people were killed. And these strikes continue. And what the Israeli army always says is that they are either a Hezbollah weapons cache or a Hamas military base or a Palestinian is like Jihad military base. And often the people in those areas say, no, we're just civilians. Now, we know that at least 100 civilians have been killed since the ceasefire deal was signed, potentially more.
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On the subject of those weapons caches, though, if unifil have found 360 of them in the last year or so, does that suggest that Hezbollah has not been able to reconstitute itself in this area, where, of course, under the terms of security council resolution 1701, it wasn't supposed to be operating anyway, but are they kind of done in that part of southern Lebanon?
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Now, it's clear that they haven't been able to reconstitute themselves at the level of strength at which they were. That's for multiple reason, of course. The majority of Hezbollah's leadership, both political and military, was wiped out during the war. So many of their weapons caches were wiped out. But the other major reason, of course, is the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Assad, Syria had essentially become a puppet government for Iran and the land through which they would funnel weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. They, of course, have not been able to do that, or at least struggled to do so since December and not been able to do so officially. So even recouping and re and reinst weapons stocks has been very difficult. And of course, Iran's been facing its own struggles as well, both with the war it had with Israel and economically as well. So they certainly haven't been getting the same level of dollar flow and of weapons flow as they had before. It has also been extremely difficult for them because they are now under significantly more pressure to disarm than they were before. Previously, while people were very angry that they had never imposed resolution in 1701, that came in after the end of the 2006 war in which they were meant to pull back behind the Litany river and disarm and hand over to Lebanese armed forces. The no one really expected them to do so, certainly not politically and especially after they became increasingly powerful in Lebanon's government in the mid 2000 teens or whatever we want to call them. So that really wasn't an expectation until it became clear in this war that Hezbollah had once again become a huge liability for the Lebanese people and Israel was going to keep attacking until Resolution 1701 was imposed. The fear, however, of many Lebanese is that even if Hezbollah is disarmed, which they're currently saying they don't agree to, and does pull back, firstly, the Lebanese armed forces is not strong enough to defend the south of Lebanon, which has always been the argument why Hezbollah needs to be there, and that secondly, Israel will not pull back from this buffer zone and won't stop attacking Lebanese territory in the south as they do continue to attack Palestinian bases, as we've seen, as well as Hezbollah ones.
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I'll try and figure out which way around to phrase this question. Is there a perception among Lebanese people, especially those, and it was not a small number of them who previously supported Hezbollah, that Hezbollah are no longer the force they once were, they're unlikely to become that again. And as a consequence, is there any sign of Hezbollah becoming less powerful and less popular?
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There is a vast array of people that support Hezbollah. You know, it's one of the problems here is, of course, is they're sort of presented as a monolith, ironically, the way the Iranians are also presented as a monolith in Iran, the same way as sort of, you know, black chador wearing people who worship this militant group and, and have no other aspects as personality. That's simply not the case. Firstly, in the suburbs of Beirut and the south of Lebanon, Hezbollah has been a very, very powerful, uniting and empowering force for the Shia population and other populations that live there as well. During the 2006 war it was Hezbollah that rebuilt churches in the south that Israel had destroyed. And those Christians will still say that nothing was done for them by the central government in Beirut. The same thing happened in 2016 when ISIS was coming across the border into Lebanon. It was Hezbollah that push Lebanese armed forces which weren't strong enough to do so, and they worked side by side with Lebanese soldiers in order to get rid of ISIS in that area. So there are a lot of people who feel very faithful to them for that reason, not just ideologically. Also, they are really the most functional government group in Lebanon, unlike all the other sects which are led or have been for many years by essentially the same warlords that ran the Lebanese civil war and just take the resources of Lebanon for themselves and don't help the people. Hezbollah is actually a social force that distributes a lot of money and social support to people who are living in its communities. And whatever else the criticisms of them, they are not corrupt within Lebanon like the other parties are. So there are lots of reasons why they're supported. And the other is that for disenfranchised, unemployed young Shia men in the south, it is the best way to make a good salary because they pay in dollars. And Lebanon, of course, has been going through an incredible financial crisis for the last few years. So all those reasons still remain. However, the reality is that Hezbollah has been so severely decimated and also the risk of living in the south right now is so great that there are some people who not necessarily have lost all their ideological support for Hezbollah, but certainly are starting to think maybe the weapons aren't worth it now. And particularly because right now, of course, Lebanon, for the first time in many years, has a government that at least seems to be trying to do something for the people.
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Well, that last point is a theme of an article you have in the current edition of Monocle magazine, which should be on newsstands near our listeners now or now abouts. Just finally, while we have you here, and without giving away the ending or too many spoilers, introduce the piece.
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So it was rather wonderful when I emailed my editor at Monocle saying you'll never guess what, I've got a positive Lebanon pitch for you. After so many years living in the country and reporting on the insufferable woes that people there have had to endure, the incredible Lebanese people have had to go through horror after horror. And earlier this year, suddenly, after three years without a government, which is not an unusual thing in Lebanon, there have actually been more times during the last decades that Lebanon hasn't had a functional government than it has. Suddenly a president was elected by the parliament and then very quickly he nominated a prime minister. And very quickly after that, that prime minister brought together a cabinet. And that cabinet is largely made up of people who have not previously served in government and who are not running for election, and so are not mostly thinking about currying favour with the votes of the people, but actually trying to move things forward. Now they have brought in a crop of young chiefs of staff and people within government offices who are trying to really fix the very basics of the corruption problems, or the fact that none of civil society works for Lebanese people. And that's actually attracted many expats, young expats who have fled out in the brain drain over the last few years back to Lebanon, which is really inspiring a lot of people. The medical system is starting to work a bit again. We're suddenly seeing improvements in electricity and roads. Incredibly, there are things like traffic tickets being handed out on the streets. Now, these may not sound like the sexiest changes in the world, but the reality is that basic functionality in Lebanon has not worked for years, if not more than a decade. And these changes are making people believe that actually this is a government that might be able to do something for them, or at the very least is trying to fill the holes in the foundation. They have not got long. They've only got until spring next year because they only got 18 months in power, because for most of the term it had been a caretaker government unable to agree on a new president and thus a new government. But they are doing their best, and that sets the scene for the people we speak to in the piece, trying to see if, even in the atmosphere of ongoing Israeli strikes, the problems with Hezbollah, all the issues that Lebanon faces. There is for the first time a lot of hope that Lebanon might be taking a new step forward.
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Leila Milana, Alan Monocles, Middle east correspondent, thanks for joining us. You're listening to the D with me, Andrew Muller. Eighty years ago today, a new age and a new idea of justice was given life. Robert H. Jackson, an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, addressed a German courtroom as a prosecutor representing, as he put it, the struggling and imperfect thing called civilisation. The Nuremberg Trials had begun. The privilege of opening the first trial.
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In history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility.
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The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish.
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Have been so calculated, so.
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Malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being Repeated Robert H. Jackson launching the Nuremberg trials 80 years ago today. And I'm joined with more by Kristen McMahon, president of the Robert H. Jackson Center. Kristen, also later in that speech, he described what they were doing at Nuremberg as one of the most significant tributes power has paid to reason. This being the idea of putting the vanquished enemy on trial rather than than just up against a wall, which is what many had advocated. Winston Churchill, not least among them. How important do you think it was to put the Nazis on trial rather than just deal with them in a more summary manner?
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So for Robert H. Jackson, this was a way to hopefully encourage countries in the future to think of any other way to solve their challenges except by going to war. And so there's a couple of reasons here. One, they also describe it as justice that the Nazis probably wouldn't have given their enemies if the Nazis had been successful. Two, it was clearly an international effort. So you had all of these countries of the world, not just the four that actually were active prosecutors during this case, but up to, I think it was 15 others who signed on to this work. And so really having beginning that understanding of as a unit, the global country system has a way to move forward with hopefully deterring things like this in the future.
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Is it clear how nervous Jackson and the other prosecutors were about what they were doing? Because there was certainly a lot of controversy about it. I mean, the then Supreme Court Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone referred to the trials as Jackson's high grade lynching party. The defendants themselves thought it was a show trial. The Soviets, who were all for the trial, actually might have intended it for, for it to be a show trial because they were very fond of such things. But how important did Jackson think was punctiliously adhering to due process?
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He thought it was really the crux of this. You know, his opening statement is three and a half hours long. And part of that is because he knows that these questions are out there. And so part of his opening statement, and because it is recorded and broadcast to the world he knows everybody is listening, is to help them understand why this trial, why this fashion of a trial, what they hope to show with the evidence and all of that, and as you as your audience heard, you know, because we can't, we can't survive these continuing to be repeated over and over again. That the line that you quoted about the four great nations flushed with victory who are voluntarily submitting their captive enemies is one of my favorites in his entire opening statement and it's in paragraph two. So it really lays out for you what why they are doing this. He is well aware of all of the criticisms about it. He had had a lot of conversations during the negotiations with the Russians and with Great Britain and the French representatives as to how this trial should be structured, why it needed to be structured this way. And ultimately, when you get to the verdicts, which not all 22 of the defendants were found guilty, really validated the system that he set up and I think helped curtail a lot of the criticism as to, isn't this just Victor's justice?
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I mean, that criticism keeps being made about, I guess, what we might think of as descendants of Nuremberg, because we have seen it now happens reasonably frequently. Current or former heads of state or government indicted, in some cases tried and even imprisoned for crimes committed while they were serving. Is it clear in retrospect that that's what Jackson and others putting the trial together, hoped to accomplish, that they wanted to establish some sort of architecture which would pursue even people at the highest levels for the biggest crimes?
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I believe so. He was very clear in his statements about this trial that they were setting up a system for the future. He even says at one point that the system that we are established here today to judge others is how we will be judged in the future. And so he really was, I think, intending this to be a legacy act that this was. And while not perfect, you know, there's no legal system is absolutely perfect. This was at least enough of a roadmap for the world to move forward with, if they so choose, in these types of tribunals. To your point, when you take a look at when was the next time we had an international Tribunal, it's almost 50 years after this with the former Yugoslavia. And so that was really the next time that there was enough of atrocity happening that the world community thought, gosh, we didn't really learn our lessons 50 years ago. We need to continue to keep this momentum going.
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Well, on the subject of lessons learned, I mean, there are a lot of great lines in that opening address, and long though it is, I do commend a revisit to our listeners. It's where he says, civilization can afford no compromise with the social forces that would gain renewed strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom these forces now precariously survive. Unfortunately, those forces that he described have proved fairly durable. So on that score, do we assess Nuremberg as a failure?
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I don't think so. I think it was the mechanism at the time, and it was a very successful mechanism for 1945, 1946. I think where the challenges come in is how it has evolved into our modern era, how seriously the leaders of the world's countries view it today, the deference that they give to the concept of international justice. You know, as with all courts, they sort of suffer from an enforcement mechanism that's just not something that's built into the judicial system. So the power of the courts is really reliant on leaders of countries believing that they have force and effect. To your point, there are a lot of questions about the international justice system today and whether it is still functioning in the way that it should, and if it's not, what are the possible solutions to that?
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I mean, we are now in the extraordinary position where relatively senior American lawmakers have felt it necessary to remind American troops of, I guess, what is the key lesson that we derive from Nuremberg, which is that following orders is no defence. Is the fact that that has become conventional wisdom in itself perhaps a useful legacy of these trials?
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100%. I think that. That, you know, and you see it through conflicts around the world. You know, when. If we go back to Vietnam with the American forces there and the My Lai massacre and, you know, this. This was conversation, so this is a repeatable and a repeated conversation as well, that with each generation. And I think this speaks to history in and of itself. With each generation who hasn't lived through this time, there's a duty and an obligation to educate them. And so, you know, whether it's speaking to the people who did actually do that, or places like the Jackson center where we offer programs to do this, we have short memories as people. And so all of this is that we need to constantly and consistently be reminded of these challenges and the solutions or opportunities or continuing challenges, depending on how that moves forward with these, in the hopes that we don't continue to repeat our mistakes.
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Well, just finally on that thought, our collective memory is about to be jogged again by a big blockbuster film on Nuremberg, not the first. As somebody who probably understands this better than most, what have you made of the fictional representations?
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So I think it is, you know, very well acted. I think that. And it's based on a book that really had nothing to do with the trials themselves. It was about the psychiatrist and his relationship with the Nazi defendants. I think that in terms of making that book as it was into a movie would have felt more like a documentary as opposed to a big Hollywood drama. And so adding the trials in to that discussion was not at all surprising. You know, can you deal with the Nuremberg trials in what is essentially about 30 to 40 minutes in the movie itself. No, and I think that, you know, that that becomes just, it's, it's. The trial itself was more than 200 days. How do you condense that down to 40 minutes? So there definitely are some historical accuracy challenges with it, but that dramatic license makes perfect sense to me in terms of how they, how they got to the product that they got to.
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Kristen McMahon, president of the Robert H. Jackson center, thanks for joining us. And seeing as how she mentioned Nuremberg, the film. Tomorrow's edition of the Foreign Desk, premiering at midday. UK Time takes a look fictionalised accounts of diplomacy, politics and history and looks at whether there's anything actually to them. You're listening to the Daily. This is the Daily on Monocle Radio. Slush, which bills itself as the world's most founder focused startup event, opened in Helsinki yesterday, drawing more than 13,000 attendees, 6,000 company founders and some three and a half thousand investors, overseeing a combined US$4 trillion in capital. Monocle's Helsinki correspondent Petri Birtsoff is there now. Petri, what actually goes on at this thing when you actually go into Slush? What can you see?
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Hi, Andrew. So I'm pretty much the only one here who isn't with millions and millions of dollars to invest. So basically what goes on here? Think of it as a speed dating. Two days of speed dating for those people in the world who have all the money and those people in the world who have all the best ideas for how to save, let's say how to save humanity or how about just making a lot of money very, very quickly. So it's basically, it's an event for founders to find money and it's an event for those with money to find nice companies to invest in.
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Does it have a, or whether deliberately or otherwise this year, a particular theme? Do you notice anything about what people are especially excited by?
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Yeah, well, it doesn't have a, you know, they don't pick a theme for each year, but obviously, I mean, I've been speaking to a lot of investors, I've been speaking to a lot of founders. And you know, a lot of this, a lot of it is about AI. But I have good news for you. It's not only about AI, it's also about this thing called, in the tech community, they call it deep the tech. So this is basically tech that is not tech for the sake of tech, not technology for the sake of technology, but technology that is actually solving problems. You know, I've met Founders of companies who specialize in solving foods and security problems. There's quantum computing, there's all kinds of biology related inventions and we have a couple of clips actually, so I'd like to play this clip. This is the founder of a Finnish company that is able to produce egg protein without chickens in a lab. Let's hear what she had to say.
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We are actually producing animal protein without any animals. So we have a fungus that is able to produce chicken or Valbumin in a bioreactor. We have now scaled up to manufacture into 62,000 liters. So it's quite nice scale already. We recently got the FDA approval or the no questions letter from the fda. So we are ready to start the commercialization.
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This is one of the holy grails which people discuss the idea of meat free meat. Did they give any sense of how close they thought it was to market?
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Yes, well they ash my aid corner. The company is called Oner Gobayo and as she said there, they have FDA approval so I think they're ready to go to market in the US But I think what I remember from my discussions with Maya was that this is not necessarily for humans to replace eggs. But she was telling me I don't have the precise numbers but a large chunk of all the egg protein produced by chickens in the world today actually go feed other animals that then produce meat that humans eat. And this would at least solve that problem. So it will be sort of fed to animals instead of. And Andrew, this is a Friday show so if I can make a small joke here, I'm afraid after also now, now we know which one came first, egg or the chicken? We have that answered.
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It's obviously not necessarily the most hospitable time of year to be holding an event in Helsinki doesn't nevertheless draw venture capitalists from all over it. It does.
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And I actually, I think that's the reason why it, why it draws. I mean think about it. Helsinki was now it's about minus 1, it was minus 10 yesterday. It was snowy. It was, it was actually slushy. It's slushy even today. And you know we have people flying in with their private jets from the Silicon Valley. It's not like they don't have good startup ideas in the Silicon Valley. But the pitch is so, so crazy, so nuts that, that you know, nobody in their right mind would come to Helsinki in November. It's dark, it's cold, it's miserable, Nobody smiles. I mean mind you, we don't smile in the summer either. But you get the point. I think it, because it's so extreme, you know, they have pitching competitions in an ice bucket, they have saunas, they, they have, they have all this crazy stuff. And I get, I guess it just grabs people's attention. So, you know, they all, all the biggest venture capitalist funds in the world are present. And I actually spoke partner of one of them called Accel, and this guy was called Senya Loginov. And he was asking, I basically asked him where the smart money is going to. And his answer was AI but let's hear what he said.
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This is the big change. So as a vc, you're looking for what are the big things that are shifting in the world and what are the big things that can produce great return on investment and also great kind.
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Of productivity gains for the humanity.
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And I think for the, the current five to 10 years, the AI is the biggest shift and we are looking.
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For how it's going to manifest itself.
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Across all layers of what we do as humans.
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Petri just finally, I do understand that people at a thing like this are mostly going to be talking about AI but just looking through your notes before you go, I do have to ask you, are we all going to be wearing potatoes next spring?
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No, we're not. But there were some companies also doing some innovative, innovative stuff with potatoes. And, and that's, that's the thing. As we, as we heard, as we, as we heard from my earlier clip about the egg protein and you know, it's about much more than AI There was also a company I interviewed that who that makes micro robots. And when I say micro, they're really micro. So these are robots that go inside and I'm not kidding you, Andrew, these are robots that go inside your brain when, when, you know, doctors do brain surgery and instead of using these blunt instruments that they still use for brain surgery, you know, these are robots that can carry out these, the surgery for you. I think the company was called Robote. It's a French company, one of the most promising ones that I met. So, yes, a lot of it is AI but there's so much more. Thank God.
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Petri Birds off Monacle Helsinki correspondent, thank you for joining us. You're listening to the Daily on Monacle Radio. The Italian chef Francesco Mazzi is widely recognized as leading promoter of Calabrian cuisine. Born and raised in Calabria, he has built his career on showcasing the traditional rustic flavors of southern Italy. This week, Mezzo Giorno by Francesco Mazzi opens its doors at the prestigious Carinthia London, drawing on Italian regional Classics Monocle's Tom Webb sat down with Francesco ahead of the launch here at Midori House to talk about what mezzo giorno means.
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So excited because I'm already doing something with the same group in Malta. And after Malta, they decided to give me the opportunity in London as well. And as you know, London has been my house, my professional home, where I really made my name. So what I bring back to London now is my heritage, my Calabrian style of cooking. So my mama cooking with chef hands.
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Calabrian cooking is what you're famous for. What is so special about it?
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But the special thing is that nobody knows about it. So there's space for it. No, they call me the King Ondhuja because I bought nduya to this country when I did this collaboration with pizzas press back 20 years ago. And I introduced this beautiful salami to the wide market in uk. And also because Calabria is known for bergamot, which is probably one of the most interesting ingredient, mainly used for perfumes, but now is using on cooking as well, and also licorice. But it's a great time for me to really showcase what we are good in in terms of food, but also in terms of hospitality. Calabrese hospitality is very warm, very nice and family orientated.
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And would you say that southern Italy in general is a little bit still undiscovered from a culinary perspective?
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Yes, absolutely agree. It's still a world to discover. And I think London is the best place in the world to start to do this because you guys do not understand the regionality of Italian cuisine. So you do know that the risotto is from north. You do know that orecchiette is from south. So I think London is ready for this. And also London needs more knowledge about South Italian cooking. And I think it's the best, the best place, the best spot. But there's a lot of work to do, but we get in there.
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F
And how does Calabrian style difference within southern Italy? What's special about it?
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Well, we are we using a be a lot of more spices, spicy food in general. And there is a lot of salumi. We're doing lots of vegetables. That's why it's been called like the region of the Mediterranean diet. I know, I understand that nobody likes the word diet, but this is very healthy for you. It's very good for you. And there's a less fat involved, less butter, a lot of exterior boil. So it's actually healthy.
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You know, one thing that southern Italy is famous for around the world is hospitality. And A sense of warmth and bringing people in to eat and share. How are you bringing that to London?
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First of all, it's still a five star hotel. So the first thing we do, we don't want to intimidate people with a very high price or charge 200 pounds for a main course or stuff like that. So try to source food locally in order to welcome people to come to our restaurant without think they pay a low amount of it is also some kind of self Italian hospitality.
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F
You mention the element of spice that you're bringing. Do you think that the British menu, the British home, is missing a particular spice or a particular ingredient from your hometown?
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D
Yeah, yeah. As I said, there is quite a lot of ingredients that they're missing. For example, to give an example, we use this wild anise seeds, which we use fava taralli, which is something that probably nobody knows about it yet. But also, as I said, the bergamot, the licorice. Then do we still. People need to know more about this kind of ingredients. But the fact that we're using a spicy food, you don't necessarily associate Italian cuisine to spicy food, but Calabria food it is. So I think the spiciness, a demolish element of the style of cooking will be something we should bring to London that has never been experienced in Italian cooking before.
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F
Well, you're opening this week. You're going to find out for those who are thinking about it, who are already booked up, walk us through the experience that they're going to have at your restaurant.
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D
Well, I think and the fact I'm much more excited about, of course, is the cooking, is the food and the service. But, you know, when you go through my doors in the restaurant, you go to my kitchen first and then you go to sit down. You know, people talk about chef table, open kitchen, which is beautiful concept, but my one is slightly different because you come through my kitchen and so when you leave the restaurant, you come through my kitchen again. So if something goes wrong, you can talk to me directly or how you meet with me directly. So. So I think that makes it very special. So you got access to part of the restaurant experience that usually don't have. Right. It's the first time, I believe one of the only time that restaurants go and enter through the kitchen first and not from the back door where the kitchen usually is. So that makes, I think, the experience special. So you see all the Italians talk with their hands, the chaos, the Milanese frying, the Bolognese cooking. I mean, you go the smell, the way the very well Organized chaos, I would say, in Italy, going through my kitchen. And I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to see people faces.
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What is he doing?
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What is that? Or maybe say, oh, this is amazing, or it's terrible. So, you know, I'm excited about that part.
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And is that by design or you're just having to work with that format?
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D
To be honest with you, it wants to be that format. And that's why I liked this idea. That's why when I did, when I presented the concept to the family, to the board, I think it will work very well. It's my style of cooking. The kitchen is on my hands. It feels like I'm home. So when you come home to my home, you come to my kitchen and then you eat in my kitchen. So it's the same in Medogiorno. So it's gonna be the same, I mean, at least the same feeling. Hopefully the food's gonna be better than my kitchen at home.
- [35:08]
F
Can you walk us through some of the highlights of your food that you're going to be presenting?
- [35:12]
D
Well, there is, yeah, of course there is a few family favorites dishes. Dishes like the filet with Costine, which is like 100 hand made, hand rolled pasta shape. It's a bit like a, like a ziti or long bucatini with this lovely rich tomato sauce with spare ribs, basil esmocricotta. This is a dish that we usually do on a Sunday at home, but Amazon John is available every day. Then I've got my Auntie Zamaria meatballs with a giant gigantic meatball with this kamorce in the middle. Middle with a lovely tomato sauce as well again. And that's some of the covered, the rustic dish. And then you've got some crazy items on dessert like chocolate and aubergine cake, which sounds terrible. I trust me, it's very, very good.
- [35:56]
F
How are you pairing this with wine? What kind of drinks are you bringing?
- [35:59]
D
Well, I've got a lovely wine list. I've got the classic, I got the Barolos, I got the Valpolicella, I got the Ripasso, I've got the Gabi de Gavi. But I've got lots of Calabrese wines, you know, I mean, I've got at least 12 going up to 13, 14 different wine from Calabria. And also my older brother, he makes wine, so he doesn't make any money out of it. So I need to help him. He makes some lovely wine, some orange wine in the area where we grow. So there is an Element of a strong emphasis on rose wine, lots of wine again, the first time, a wine list will love more than 10 Calabrese wines, which I'm very proud of. As you know, Calabria is a very poor region. So for me, promoting this region is also an element to bring a bit of good economy to this part of the world. So I do my bit also. You will find the classics, you find the vermentinos, all the wine from Italy. And of course, I've got some international wine too, I have to say, which I love it.
- [36:52]
F
And then just finally on that point, talking about the young entrepreneurs, the people coming up in Calabria, what's exciting you in the culinary scene there.
- [37:01]
D
But there is lots of new kids on the block doing fantastic Calabrian food and they're putting Calabria food on the map now. It's becoming a fantastic area for traveling, for tourism, but not just for the beautiful landscape, for the beautiful seaside like Torpea or Pizzo, but also for the good food. And they bring the tradition up, of course, with a twist. And it's becoming more and more interesting, more and more versatile, and more and more an appeal for people to go and spend some time over there because the food, as you probably know, is a part of the experience. You know, the gastronomic holidays, they always make people, especially foodie people like us, more and more in a way to go and visit this beautiful part of the world.
- [37:47]
B
That was Tom Webb speaking to Francesco Mazzi at Mezzo Giorno. You are listening to the Daily with me, Andrew Muller. And finally on today's show, our weekly review of what the last seven days have taught. We learned this week that J.D. vance had been sent to prison for two years. Not that J.D. vance, though, @ least not yet. We learned that Michigan citizen J.D. vance of Grand Rapids, big hello to all our listeners in Grand Rapids, hello. Had indeed earned himself two years in the clink. Four. And here is where it gets confusing. Threatening the life of Ohio citizen J.D. vance of the Vice Presidency of the United States. We learned that J.D. vance had menaced J.D. vance and other public figures in a series of ill advised and intemperate social media posts. However, we learned upon further research that J.D. vance, not the Vice President, the other one, one, may not be entirely with us and therefore perhaps not strictly representative of any trend to the effect that people sharing names with public figures may be more likely to represent a danger to said public figures, which would have been a statistically alarming development for, for example, Congressman Chris Smith of the New Jersey fourth. But perhaps reassuring for the less usually named likes of Olethophone Faust Goudot, a member of the Kansas State Senate. And what an absolutely excellent name that is, as all right thinking people will surely agree. Although given that we spent all afternoon researching distinctive names of American politicians, would be remiss not to elicit a few cheap laughs from the more easily amused sections of our audience by acknowledging this guy President Trump needs you. On April 1, vote Trump Trump endorsed businessman Randy Fine. Randy Fine will help President Trump save Social Security, although Congressman Randy Fine is not and can never be any match for the sadly retired.
- [40:07]
E
Now live from Manchester, New Hampshire, a US Senate candidate's debate between incumbent Republican Bob Smith and former Democratic Congressman Dick.
- [40:14]
B
Sweat, or indeed the also former Butch.
- [40:17]
D
Otter, our future our governor.
- [40:22]
B
Tempting though it would obviously be to while away the rest of this monologue and perhaps the rest of this week chuckling at the lexicon of Americans elected to public office over the years by their fellow citizens. Despite being encumbered with names that seem a sort of open ended license to stuff them into lockers, one thinks, as one often does, of Wiley, Nicol, Ruffin, Pleasant, Napoleon B. Thistlewood, Xenophon, Wilfley, Outerbridge Horsey, Furnifold Simmons and Young Boozer iii. And we made up none of these these. We learned that many more contemporary follies were here to command our attention, including an example of a head of state bursting into song.
- [41:02]
D
Oh no.
- [41:03]
B
And not just any song. The worst song ever written. It absolutely is and you know it. Musically inane, lyrically vacuous and culturally pernicious has spent half a century reassuring total fatheads that they are good people for insisting that the world's problems can be solved by everybody somehow simply getting along, no thinking or learning required. We learned that the latest politically and actually tone deaf karaoke est to seize a microphone and honk his way through John Lennon's regrettably inextinguishable anthem for the medically half witted was Venezuelan President as of this recording, Nicolas Maduro. But sticking with the subject of eccentric demagogues known for an almost fetishistic relationship with a 1970s hit by New York City based artists exalting in a prospective utopia of brotherly love, we learned another lesson in media management from U.S. president Donald Trump, who does not not, we learned, care for follow up questions, especially from women. There's growing controversy today over the President's treatment of a reporter aboard Air Force One.
- [42:31]
D
Quiet, quiet, Piggy.
- [42:33]
B
Yep, he really did call a female reporter piggy as she was peppering him with uncomfortable questions about the Epstein files. However, we learned, as we invariably do, that the President is in no way accountable for his own behavior. The White House is defending the President today and blaming the reporter, Kathryn Lucey of Bloomberg News. This reporter behaved in an inappropriate and unprofessional way towards her colleagues on the plane. A White House spokesperson says in a statement, if you're going to give it, you have to be able to take. And we learned, after tinkering with this section of the script for longer than you'd believe, that it is no easy thing to engineer a seamless link from the ongoing debasement of public life in the highest places to someone stuffing matchsticks up their nose. So let's just have some silly Scandinavian folklore music. For we learned of a new benchmark in the to be honest, not hotly contested field of stuffing matchsticks up one's nose. Actually, hotly contested. That's pretty good. And we only just spotted it. We learned that the previous world record for stuffing matchsticks up one's nose, 68, by Denmark's Peter von Tangenbuskov in 2024, had been convincingly smashed by Swedish usurper Martin Strobe, who crammed not fewer than 81 matchsticks into his clearly capacious nostrils. We learned from subsequent questioning by agog local reporters that Mr. Strobey had embarked on this venture for the most honourable of reasons, as will now be voiced by Monocle's people. Stuffing matches up their noses. Desk chief Chris Church.
- [44:15]
A
As a father, I want my children.
- [44:17]
B
To look up to me with that in mind. I really wanted to make them proud and think that they have a cool dad. If it's any consolation, he does have 81 matchsticks stuffed up his nose. And that is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Today's show was produced by Hassan Addison and researched by Joanna Moser. Our sound engineer was Steph Chungu. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. London the Daily is back at the same time on Monday. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend.
- [45:08]
C
Sam.