USD 
Written by Paul Chai
Bump it up: all caviar menu at La Madonna is perfectly indulgent
Executive chef of La Madonna restaurant, Jacopo Degli Esposti, thinks caviar gets a bad rap in the food world, considered only as something expensive you put on a blini. But his new five-course Caviar After Dark tasting menu is designed to show how versatile and elegant fish roe can be.
It sounds like a concept so over the top you could get gout just thinking about five iterations of caviar on a plate, but Esposti is a master of balance and we finish the night actually thinking we could have another bump or two.
The star dish is a point of contention amongst our table with three dishes vying for top honours: the tuna tartare topped with Anna Dutch Baeri Caviar; the spaghetti dish with Anna Dutch Baeri Caviar and a lemon butter; and the plump piece of marron served simply with caviar and a Champagne sauce.
The menu was shaped in collaboration with caviar expert Glenn De Leonardo, whose deep understanding of provenance, sustainability and flavour has informed the selection and presentation of the Anna Dutch range throughout the degustation.
“Caviar is a product where quality and traceability genuinely matter,” De Leonardo said. “Working with one of the world’s best producers in Anna Dutch Caviar, and seeing the time, technique and origin story of the caviar translated into a menu like this, where caviar is truly the hero across every course, is something very special.” Located on level three of Next Hotel Melbourne in the city’s Paris end, La Madonna is a modern French-influenced Italian restaurant that blends refined technique with the simplicity of quality produce.
Caviar After Dark will be available 5:30pm-9:30pm Tuesday-Saturday from 12 May until 31 July, 2026, for $220 per person, with optional wine pairing for $110 per person.
Snow business: take a BMW for a spin in icy Queenstown
The BMW M Snow & Ice Experience is returning to Queenstown this August. This is an adrenaline-fuelled day out where drivers get behind the wheel of BMW’s latest M models on snow and ice tracks in New Zealand, supervised by expert instructors.
Set at the Southern Hemisphere Proving Ground, guests will take part in precision drifting, motorkhana, braking challenges, and high-adrenaline drag sprints. It’s an immersive experience designed not only to teach control on icy terrain, but also to unlock confidence and performance behind the wheel.
A Premium package ($4,900pp) sees guests have a full-day experience, catering, 4WD transfers from Millbrook Resort and BMW M jacket. The Luxury package ($7,600pp) contains all of the above plus 2 nights at Millbrook Resort, hosted functions, airport transfers and a helicopter return from the mountain.
Time travel: HX Expeditions debuts its historically accurate 1896 Cabin
There is a romanticism to the early day of expedition travel, when not every corner of the world had been discovered.
HX Expeditions, the world’s longest-running expedition cruise company, is seeking to tap into that nostalgia with the launch of its 1896 Cabin an immersive overnight experience inspired by a 19th-century expedition cabin, designed to recreate the atmosphere of early exploration at sea. The experience is now available aboard MS Fridtjof Nansen, HX Expeditions’ first hybrid-battery powered expedition ship.
On 8 July this year, HX Expeditions marks 130 years since it pioneered the world’s first expedition cruise. Operating a fleet of five vessels, the company takes guests to some of the most remote regions on earth, among them the Arctic, Antarctic, and the Galápagos Islands. In celebration of this legacy, the 1896 Cabin has been created as a limited-edition experience, inviting guests to step back into 1896, the year the company pioneered the world’s first expedition cruise, and to experience its founding spirit of exploration.
“This cabin was always meant to honour our origins, and what our teams and partners have delivered is extraordinary” said Gebhard Rainer, CEO of HX Expeditions. “The 1896 Cabin has surpassed everything we first envisioned. We hope it gives guests a real sense of what life at sea was like 130 years ago. History, after all, is best remembered when lived.”
