Pasta That’s Almost Too Pretty to Eat
Plus: illuminated sculptures inspired by Indigenous motifs, elegant ballet slippers and more from T’s cultural compendium.
Artisanal Noodles in Acid-Trip Colors
David Rivillo’s rainbow ravioli is equal parts art and science. The 45-year-old Venezuelan, who’s now based in Porto Alegre, Brazil, started making colorful patterned pasta in 2019 in homage to his favorite artist, Carlos Cruz-Diez, a Venezuelan known for his chromatic relief murals who died that year at the age of 95. Putting his Ph.D. in chemistry to good use, Rivillo experimented with natural dyes (such as spirulina and paprika) to find those that would maintain their hue even when dried or cooked and posted his work on Instagram. Now, Rivillo, who recently left his job as a nanotechnology researcher to pursue the project full time, sells his creations (from $40 for 2.1 ounces, plus shipping). And he isn’t the only noodle maker playing with psychedelic designs. The Sydney, Australia-based artist Jennifer Tran, 39, makes candy-striped rigatoni and checkerboard tortellini, as well as floral-print pasta sheets that look more like textiles than food. And in California, Fiona Afshar, 57, takes visual inspiration from her local farmers’ market and from her Malibu garden, adorning paccheri with yellow and purple blooms and ravioli with tiny images of lemons and limes. Employing highly pigmented ingredients like beet powder, activated charcoal and harissa, she sells multivariety gift boxes (from $95) through her website. The only problem with these Technicolor carbs? They’re almost too pretty to eat. Says Rivillo of his pasta: “People take a long time to get the courage to cook it.” @david_rivillo; @_papetal_; fionaspasta.com. — Ella Riley-Adams
The Thing: An Illuminated Totemic Sculpture From Klove Studio
Designers increasingly celebrate Indigenous forms but often confine themselves to a single cultural inspiration. Prateek Jain and Gautam Seth, a couple in their 40s who founded Klove Studio 17 years ago in New Delhi, take a very different approach. Their Totems Over Time are created to gently illuminate not merely a room but the ways in which so many primordial civilizations employed surprisingly complementary motifs, no matter how geographically or historically distant from one another they might have been. Each of the gigantic symmetrical sculptures, made of blown glass, metals and stones including onyx, is a mind-bending tour — from classical Rome and aboriginal India to Aztec and Native American lands. In Totem of Beauty, which is nearly 10 feet tall, jade-dipped laurels give way to a third eye, a pair of lit buffalo-like horns and arrows tipped with small glass globes. “Some people say it seems futuristic, as though it were sent from another planet,” says Seth. “Which is proof to us that the symbols are truly eternal.” Klove Studio Totem of Beauty, price on request, klovestudio.com. — Nancy Hass
An Amsterdam Hotel Inspired by the Colors of Its Surroundings
The De Durgerdam, a 14-room inn housed in a newly restored 17th-century building, sits five miles east of central Amsterdam in the historic fishing village of Durgerdam. Here, new technology — solar panels, sustainable heating, a recirculating water system — is paired with bespoke furniture inspired by the surrounding architecture, and there are nods to local folk traditions like sky blue-colored closet interiors, whose hue is thought to repel insects. The walls of the restaurant, De Mark, which serves modern European comfort dishes — pan-fried local fish with sauerkraut, mussels, XO sauce and beurre blanc; a vegetarian take on steak tartare made with slow-dried tomatoes — match the colors of the nearby IJmeer lake, which also inspired the arrangement of the blankets in the bedrooms: Velvet throws in a variety of jewel tones are tossed, rather than neatly folded, atop the beds. Says Brecht Duijf of Buro Belén, who designed the interiors along with her co-founder, Lenneke Langenhuijsen, “The wrinkles are like the waves.” Rates from $250, dedurgerdam.com. — Gisela Williams
Another Thing: Hermès Rings That Play With Darkness and Light
Hermès’s polymathic shoe and jewelry designer, Pierre Hardy, has been responsible for the brand’s haute joaillerie line since it was introduced in 2010, creating pieces defined by a supple, swooping sense of abstraction that evokes the work of Cy Twombly. These rose gold rings, part of the Les Jeux de l’Ombre collection, reflect Hardy’s current fascination with the relationship between light and dark. Large faceted gems in classic configurations seem to cast shadows realized in the form of mirror-polished black jade, irregularly shaped like rain puddles. Hardy chose the stones — pinkish-brown and green tourmalines, an orangy imperial topaz — for their saturated luster; paired with diamonds, the colors burst from the ebony surface. “The paradox is that without light you have no shadow,” he says. “And when you emerge from the shadow, everything seems more alive.” Hermès Les Jeux de l’Ombre rings, price on request, (800) 441-4488. — Nancy Hass
