Category: Luxury

The Peninsula Hotel + Jing Restaurant Beijing

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date February 4, 2026

Peking Pie

“Jing” has multiple Mandarin meanings including peacefulness, reverence and essence. And as it turns out, marvellous restaurant. Welcome to The Peninsula Hotel where no man is an island.

It’s a bit like eating in a super posh Westfield if you’re a Londoner or Macy’s for New Yorkers. The lower and much lower ground floors of The Peninsula form one of Wangfujing District’s finest luxury shopping malls for well dressed interiors and citizens. Basement Level I: Arc ‘Teryx, Chanel, Giorgio Armani, Jenny Packham, Louis Vuitton, M L Luxia, Minotti by Domus Tiandi, The Peninsula Boutique and Zilli. Basement Level II: Baxter, Domus Tianti, Giorgetti, Henge, Living Divani, Oluce, Onno, Poliform, Promemoria and Salvatori. Jing Restaurant is on Basement Level I. Its little sister Huang Ting Brasserie is on Basement Level II.

We’re celebrating life in a rather literal way having dodged the ubiquitous duvet clad mopeds which swerve and keep going rather than stop at pedestrian crossings. All those inflight Baduanjin exercises on China Southern Airlines possibly made us more supple at dodging oncoming traffic. At this rate we’ll be up for some postprandial synchronised dancing later in Ri Tan Park. Front of house, or rather front of retail unit, beckons us to the bar. A card awaits: “Dear guest, welcome to Jing. Before starting a gastronomic journey we invite you to enjoy one glass of apéritif at the bar. Bon appetit! Jing team.” The apéritif is a Kalimotxo which originates from Basque Country and is a combination of red wine and cola. A bottle of Domaine de la Taille Aux Loups, Montlouis Sur Loire Remus, 2023, swiftly follows.

Hand painted wallpaper and gigantic circular semi transparent silk embroidered screens cocoon guests in luxurious surrounds. French born Chef de Cuisine William Mahi is redefining modern French cuisine with Basque and Asian creativity. Mang-mang sik! He teases out the essence of food sourced from the China Sea, Chongqing farms, Sichuan Lakes and Yunnan Mountains with precision, sincerity, refinement, purity and harmony. We get around so what are our cornerstones of a beautiful meal? Easy. Hervé This defines three out of four of them in Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavour, 2002. All non calorific.

Champagne: “When we hear the unmistakeable sound of the cork popping off a bottle of Champagne, we stop talking and look closely at what happens as it is poured into our glass. If the foam subsides slowly, if the frill of bubbles is delicate and persistent, and if the liquid is effervescent, the wine is considered to be of good quality.”

Truffle: “The black diamond! An immense amount of ink has been spilled in singing its praises. No food writer fails to mention its appearance on a menu, and no chef neglects to feature it when he aims for stars. In Europe there are 10 sorts of truffles, which is to say mushrooms of the Tuber genus. The black truffle, also called a Périgord truffle, is harvested principally in Spain, France, and Italy, but its gastronomic qualities vary from region to region.”

Foam: “Low in fat because they are essentially made of air – foams came to prominence with the rise of Nouvelle Cuisine in France in the 1960s and then gained broader popularity as a consequence of the growing interest in lighter foods on both sides of the Atlantic. Today, with the advent of molecular gastronomy … they are very fashionable among gourmets.”

Caviar.

Dom Pérignon. Champagne, tick. A waiter appears with a bread trolley and gives a performance of firmly slicing the freshly baked offering while pointing out the yeast jar on display. The staff to client ratio is high although it is a random Wednesday lunchtime. Piped easy listening jazz contrasts with the formality of service. Sweet pea tarte amuse bouche. The Brie Truffle (Normandy Brie D’Isgny, Yunnan black truffle, pear). The black stuff, tick. Spider Crab Tart (spider crab, shiso, sea urchin, basil oil, oxalis flower, citrus confit, crab foam, horseradish, dill flower). “The crab consommé has been simmered for 24 hours,” the waiter explains. Foam, phew. Scallop Blanc de Noir (pan seared scallop, brown butter, pear). Ya’an caviar and chive salmon tartar amuse bouche deliver the fourth cornerstone of a beautiful meal.

The dining space as subterranean capsule. Underworldliness. A sanctuary of taste. Who needs windows when you’ve priceless contemporary art to admire? Chi! Chi! Chi! Such is the importance of food that while Europeans count heads per population, Chinese count mouths. Spinning plates: Maître d’ Oliver Huang and his waiting staff are as deft and elegant as ballet dancers, effortlessly weaving round the tables with extravagance of grace and posture in a timeless duration of curation for this is not mere service.

Edible flowers are scattered over one course. Ah! Could this be our fifth cornerstone of a beautiful meal? Fig walnut toast with brie truffle mascarpone followed by a glass of Americano egg foam tick two of our current cornerstones once more. Peartree and cinnamon clove ginger tea is the ultimate palate cleanser. The waiter dons white magician’s gloves for handling the silverware – a drawer full of cutlery appears and disappears throughout the meal. The stiffly starched linen tablecloth covering the round table as big as the silk screens is regularly hand vacuumed. Steaming hot hand towels keep our hands clean.

Protein forward Chinese truffles come from the foothills of the Himalayas where they are harvested at an altitude of about 2,000 metres. The main production areas are Yongren County in Yunnan Province and Panzhihua in Sichuan Province in very southwest China. They are planted at least a dozen centimetres below ground. The Chinese truffles have a bumpy dark brown surface covered in low scales displaying an inverted pyramid form with a square base similar to the Périgord truffle. Lunch in Jing is all about gourmet satisfying fashionable molecular gastronomy.

Oh and for good measure, “Bei” like “Jing” also has multiple Mandarin meanings including preciousness, treasure and north. Jing relishes in preciousness of cuisine in an artistic treasure trove north (east) of Tian’anmen Square. Nothing too tenuous there.

Tags chef de cuisine william mahi, china southern airlines, hervey this, jing restaurant, oliver huang, peninsula hotel beijing, stuart blakley, tiananmen square

Architects Architecture Art Design Developers Hotels Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

Lavender’s Blue + Beijing

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date January 31, 2026

Like You Never Went Away

You’re everywhere. Empirically attractive, imperially gorgeous. Positively pulsating with pulchritude. And as for this current megalopolis: it’s the acme of urban aspiration and cultural inspiration. Amongst the jade and jardines and jacquard silks; amidst the mist shawled vales and curlicued dragons and parasol clutching mandarins; centrist centring on the premier international consumption hub to the east of the world’s longest central axis, we’re doing our germane best for Sino Anglo Irish relations. Recalling the sinistral Ming and Qing dynasties; admiring the syncretic Xi Jinping era. Our very own white lotus revolutionary revelation has begun. Focusing on the glimmers. Hypnogogic mesmerisation; pedagogic realisation. We’ll always remember you dancing under city lights.

In years to come, looking back over Lavender’s Blue, reflecting on its modest commission to simply brighten the reader’s day, this record of a midwinter’s visit to Beijing – pics and prose capturing the paradigm of a paradisal time – will surely be seen to have delivered that meek mission. Although the ending of Marcel Proust’s 1913 The Way by Swann’s does caution, “The places we have known do not belong solely to the world of space in which we situate them for our greater convenience. They were only a thin slice of contiguous impressions that formed our life at that time; the memory of a certain image is only regret for a certain time; and houses, roads, avenues are as fleeting, alas, as the years.”

Wherever there’s the high life there’s Lavender’s Blue. Especially on days ending with a Y. Perhaps it really is then an infrangible storehouse of exquisite epiphanies with a strong dose of chimerical aestheticism. A finely hewn form of winsome writing and formidable photography. Savour each missive from our Champagne fuelled truffle laden foam light caviar heavy production line of epigrams and epiphanic imagery. Dithyrambic ramblings are us. Think Felicità. Like very fine wine, Lavender’s Blue is an acquired taste. But – health warning – those who remain intellectually alert enough to sup at this fountain will end up addicted. We’re talking opium level.

Tags beijing, felicita, lavenders blue, marcel proust, stuart blakley

Architects Architecture Design Developers Hotels Luxury Restaurants

Michael Manser Associates + Hilton Hotel Heathrow London

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date January 28, 2026

So Glad

If Ada Louise Huxtable said you’re good, you’re good. She was the American queen of architectural criticism (died in 2013). The visual counterpart to her literary excellence was Deborah Turbeville the American monarch of the camera (died in 2013). United States creative royalty. “The high priest of High Tech” is how she described Norman Foster (still going strong aged 90) in On Architecture, 2008. The first architecture critic of The New York Times (reigned supreme from 1963 to 1981), Ada was blessed with good looks and a way with words: “The English architect Norman Foster is a master of fine tuned exquisitely honed minimal technology. In his choice of materials and structure he uses, with remarkable eloquence, a fastidious aesthetic that derives from engineering but quietly makes it clear to the viewer (as with the 1991 exhibition rooms of the Royal Academy of Arts in London) that a series of highly intelligent choices has been made.”

Hilton Hotel Heathrow looks like it was designed by Norman Foster. It wasn’t. It’s unknown if Ada critiqued Michael Manser Associates but if she had it may well have been along the lines that they are the high priest acolytes of High Tech. Completed in 1990, the hotel (formerly known as the Sterling) gets a mention in Flying in the Face of Mediocrity, an article scribed by Alan Powers for the 28 February 1991 edition of Country Life. He applauds how the transparency of High Tech architecture recaptures the romance of travel. The hotel gets a mostly positive reception:

“The question of the traveller’s psychology in relation to buildings comes into play with the recently completed Sterling Hotel by Michael Manser Associates, linked to Terminal 4 at Heathrow. The architectural and planning record of Heathrow is not distinguished, and the hotel occupies an awkward pocket of land in the crook of a spur road. Its dazzling whiteness is impressive, and one immediately reads the skewed plan, with a full height atrium between two banks of hotel rooms. The detailing is High Tech rather than the Miesian style associated with this firm. Interesting effects of shadow and light are achieved with the cutaway end façades, but the whiteness is too insistent, and the way the skew is carried through the plan too diagrammatic and unrelieved. The result is that the sitting spaces feel overexposed in a great hotel ‘landschaft’, and one of the major functions of such a building – to calm and reassure the stopover traveller and provide a human scale in relation to journeys of thousands of miles – seems to be lost.”

Over to the architects, “The requirement was for a four star four hundred bedroom hotel on the south side of Heathrow Airport adjacent to Terminal 4. Our client specifically wanted a landmark building on a tight budget. A very clear spatial and organisational brief from the client allowed us to produce an extremely efficient plan where two blocks of bedrooms flanked a large atrium within which were all the public areas. The hotel was designed, built and opened in 27 months, including the planning process. The hotel was the first in the UK planned around a central atrium, was the first to use cement particle board for partitioning and developed an entirely bespoke but economic external cladding system. The huge atrium, with extensive views east and west creates a dramatic effect. The arrival at the hotel certainly sparks a level of theatre and drama not normally seen at airport hotels.”

Moving on, central lounge as airport hangar, a spectacular solid plane to glass expanse ratio, making a virtue out of fire escapes as elegant as Art deco diving pool spiral staircases, the Heathrow Hilton Hotel is a bold statement aging well. That’s the thing about architecture ahead of its time: four decades later it looks contemporary. There’s been a recent atrium refurb by Hirsch Bedner Associates. Associate Director and project lead Matteo Pace states, “All too often airport hotels lack character and imagination, so we were thrilled that Hilton were open to us being creative, allowing us to design a welcoming space that is connected to nature. Located at one of Europe’s busiest airports, the public spaces at the Hilton need to cater to all guests. Be it leisure or corporate visitors, we wanted to create somewhere that they can really enjoy and that enhances their travel experience through inspiring, thoughtful design.” A sculptured chandelier radiating over reception and wooden walls echoing “the undulating British landscapes” are resultant highlights.

What’s it like to stay in these days? Well there’s a catwalk straight from the hotel to Terminal 4 Departures. A Planet Burger (plant based patty, tomato chutney, gem lettuce, smoked Applewood, red onion, pickles, potato bun, plant mayo, fries) in the atrium restaurant is a good distraction from onward destinations. As is the gaggle of gorgeous Emirates airhostesses gathering in reception. The diamond shaped plan means the atrium is sandwiched between two cliffs of sleeping accommodation. A backlit pixelated map of Europe takes the place of meaningless art in each guest room. Crabtree and Evelyn toiletries encircle a Porcelanosa teardrop basin in the en suite bathrooms. A triangular wedge of precious green and blue outdoor space is attached to the rear of the hotel offering fresh produce. Ada Louise Huxtable would approve: to her sustainability was always more than just design.

Tags ada louise huxtable, deborah turbeville, hilton hotel heathrow london, hirsch bedner associates, lavenders blue, matteo pace, michael manser associates, norman foster, sterling hotel, stuart blakley

Architecture Developers Luxury People Restaurants

The Inner Temple Garden + The Middle Temple Garden + The Garden Room Restaurant Temple London

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date December 9, 2025

Paper Buildings Real Flowers

Sophie Tatzkow, Deputy Head Gardener of The Inner Temple Garden shares the evolution of the high border: “Over recent years, it has been undergoing a transformation moving away from the resource intensive management that heavily relied on annual bulbs in spring and various seasonal display changes throughout the year. The adaptation of the border is based upon detailed observation and evaluation of environmental conditions to blend beauty with sustainable cultivation.”

The Garden is only open to the public for a few hours each weekday. She elaborates, “One of the keys to this evolution is layered biodiverse planting where reliable trees and shrubs form the backbone, underplanted with resilient perennials, grasses and self seeding plants. This structure reduces the need for replanting which lessens soil disturbance. Undisturbed soils consist of a network of billions of beneficial organisms such as bacteria, fungi and earthworms which together create a wonderful environment for plant health and wildlife.”

“The High Border is now a living breathing ecosystem that thrives on resourcefulness,” Sophie relates. “The long season pollinator friendly planting with repeating patterns creates an ever changing yet harmonious space where nature and cultivation coexist. The greatest satisfaction I take away is the cultivation of a border by blending beauty with ecological responsibility. As custodians of this Garden it is important to champion a conscious approach of reducing waste, conserving resources and creating beautiful biodiverse and wildlife friendly ecosystems.”

For Sophie’s Victorian counterpart, the smog of London proved challenging and so Samuel Brome favoured hardy plants. In his 1861 bestseller Culture of the Chrysanthemum as Practised in The Temple Gardens, he recommends balsam, calceolaria, scarlet geraniums, snowdrops and tulips. He explains that shrubs do not fare well in pollution while some varieties of dwarf roses, being close to the ground, are less affected by smoke. The Plane Tree is one of his recommendations as it sheds bark each spring and “by doing, it gets rid of the soot, which sticks to other trees like varnish, and which there is no getting off”. Plane Tree allergy sufferers of the 21st century would come to regret his arboricultural allegiance.

The Middle Temple Garden is the smaller of the two green spaces. Tudor Hall dominates its northern side. The Garden Room restaurant spills onto a terrace on its eastern side. This area was once part of the River Thames. In the 1530s the land south of the Temple was drained and reclaimed to create more space for the expanding Societies. The earliest record of landscaping of The Middle Temple Garden is a 1615 “Gardener’s bill for the new knott”. At this time the level of the ground was raised and a vogueish geometric knot garden created filled with scented plants like rosemary and sweet briar.

The Temples Conservation Area includes one Scheduled Monument, eight Grade I Listings, 12 Grade II Listings and five Grade II* Listings in Inner Temple; seven Grade I Listings, four Grade II* Listings and nine Grade II Listings in Middle Temple; and two Grade II Listings on Victoria Embankment. Unsurprisingly this forms one of the greatest concentrations of historic protected buildings and structures in London.

In Roman times, the western route out of the City approximately followed what is now Fleet Street and the Strand on the higher ground north of the marshy margin of the Thames. The slope from Fleet Street to the Strand and downwards to the Thames remains a prominent feature. The religious Order of the Knights Templar was established in Holborn in the 1160s before relocating to the Temples. In 1185, Temple Church was consecrated. The Templars were suppressed by Parliament in the early 14th century and Parliament voted to handover the property to the Order of St John. At that time, parts of the Estate were already leased to law students.

After Henry VIII’s Dissolution the property went to the Crown which granted freehold to the Benchers of the Temple in 1608. The Inns of Court would become fashionable places of education during the Reformation. The other two Inns of Court are Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn, both in Holborn. They are the four professional associations for barristers in London. These historic collegiate institutions provide education, training and social networking for emerging and established barristers. Membership is mandatory for anyone wishing to practise as a barrister. There is no visible physical distinction between Inner and Middle Temple Inns except many buildings in the former display the symbol of Pegasus and in the latter, Agnus Dei.

A few buildings survived the Great Fire of 1666. Tudor and Tudoresque architecture intermingles with Georgian. The construction of the Embankment in the 19th century extended The Inner Temple and Middle Temple Gardens. Buildings damaged in the World Wars were sympathetically rebuilt in the mid 20th century. The Gardens, only open during restricted hours or when let for functions, are very much part of hidden London.

Tags garden room restaurant temple london, inner temple garden, lavenders blue, middle temple garden, samuel brome, sophie tatzkow, stuart blakley

Architecture Art Design Developers Hotels Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

The Secret Garden + The Witchery by the Castle Edinburgh

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date November 29, 2025

Know Your Stuff

March 2016. Getting stuffed. Maundy Thursday, quail’s eggs on a watercress stuffing nest at Mayfair regular Hush. Resurrection Sunday, fried duck eggs at Holborn favourite The Delaunay. And so a procession of lunisolar led lunches, moveable feasts, begins. An extended Easter Triduum. When a man is tired of London, there’s always Edinburgh. Easter Wednesday, squared hen’s eggs on board Virgin. York, Durham, Newcastle, Berwick-upon-Tweed … everywhere looks better when viewed from the 1st Class carriage. Rows of distant gambrel roofs punctuated by chamfered dormers announce to the visually aware the proximity of the Border.

“Oh yes I stayed in The Witchery by the Castle years ago,” a brave journalist whispered to us during the recent Making Africa press briefing in the Guggenheim Bilbao. Admittedly an unlikely moment for such a muted conversation. It was undoubtedly a memorable stay. “I woke up in the middle of the night in the most frightful sweat! It was like the bed was on fire! I was boiling alive!” She got an uninvited roasting, so to speak. The next day at breakfast the journalist voiced her concern to a waitress. “That’ll be the witches,” came the nonchalant reply. “They used to burn them at the stake on Castlehill right outside.” Presumably it wasn’t the effects of a wee dram nightcap.

Our Easter Thursday lunch in the restaurant turns out to be slightly less steamy but still hot stuff. Dr Samuel Johnson and his biographer James Boswell used to eat here. Well if it’s good enough for Sam and Jamie, both made of stern stuff … The schlep up the Royal 1.6 Kilometres past winding wynds and claustrophobic closes to the foot of Castle Rock is so worth it. We’ve arrived. Physically and metaphorically. Bewitchingly charming certainly; hauntingly beautiful definitely; ghoul free hopefully. Think Hunderby (Julia Davis’s pricelessly hysterical period comedy) without Dorothy. Or Northanger Abbey’s Catherine goes to town.

Owner James Thomson, Scotland’s best (known) hotelier and restaurateur, is evidently a follower of the Donatella Versace school of thought: “Less isn’t more. Less is just less.” An eclectic dose of ecclesiastical remnants, Gothic salvage and Jacobean antiques is healthily apropos for this 16th century building. Candlesticks galore flicker flattering light across The Secret Garden, a space even with its panelled walls and trio of fanlighted French doors and timber beamed ceiling would still induce the envy of Frances Hodgson Burnett.

The interior may flurry with wild abandon but thankfully the service and place setting don’t. Our Milanese waiter makes sure of the former. Tradition takes care of the latter. Linen tablecloths, phew. China plates (slates are for roofs), double phew. Unheated pudding (always a dish best served cold), triple phew. After a bubbly reception, the feast unfolds. Palate seducing grilled sardines followed by lemon sole with brown shrimp butter preceding chocolate orange marquise with espresso jelly raise spirits further. The huggermugger harum scarum of a prowlish ghoulish night owlish postprandial prance on the mansard tiles of Edinburgh’s Auld Toun awaits. The only way is down (hill).

November 2025. Still not sweating the small stuff. Random Friday, sôle poêlée aux graines de moutard in Mayfair’s La Petite Maison next to music producer Mark Ronson en famille. Remembrance Friday, baked Ragstone goat’s cheese gnocchi up the BT Tower in Soho. And so a procession of dinners towards the waxing crescent moon, moveable feasts, begins. An extended Advent. When a man isn’t tired of London but needs a weekend change of scenery, there’s always Edinburgh. Feast of Christ the King of the Universe Eve, double devilled hen’s egg on board LNER. Newark-on-Trent, Doncaster, Northallerton, Darlington … everywhere looks better when viewed from the 1st Class carriage. The snowcapped Cleveland Hills announce to the observant the proximity of the North York Moors.

Nine years ago the three course Table d’Hôte Lunch Menu at The Witchery was priced at £35. Today, we’re after the two course Light Lunch Menu, £34.50. Packed agenda: so little time, so many galleries. After a bubbly reception (déjà vu; déjà ivre; plus Bourgone Blanc Domaine Leflaive Burgundy 2017 – a good year), the feast unfolds. Appetite satisfying basket of bread rolls with smoked butter accompanying celeriac velouté then salmon, cod and smoked haddock fish pie. We’re stuffed. But as the great Scottish aristo actress Tilda Swindon (first seen in three dimensions dining at L’Ambroisie Paris; last seen in two dimensions in her ex partner John Byrne’s painting in the Edinburgh National Portrait Gallery) would say in her hushed dulcet tone, “This lunch is delicious!”

Our driver Eleftherios Galouzidis pulls up outside on Castlehill. The only way is downhill. We’re just in time for the brilliant recital of Moonlight Sonata by Candlelight in St Gile’s Cathedral. British impresario Ashley Fripp’s fingers dance across the grand piano. He opens with Johannes Brahms’ Intermezzo in A Major. “Next I will play a pair of Chopin Nocturnes – tone poems,” he states. “E Flat Major which was influenced by the Irish composer John Field followed by C Sharp Minor. The latter was fortunately discovered by one of Chopin’s students after he died.” There’s wild applause for Sergei Rachmanioff’s Prelude in D Sharp Minor, the Moscow Waltz. “And now for the one you’ve all been waiting for!” Ashley takes a bow after the dramatic third movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata climaxes to its conclusion. Nothing quite completes an evening of culture like prawn toast and chilli tofu at Jimmy’s Express Chinese Restaurant on South Bridge.

At last week’s St Martin in the Fields London Informal Eucharist the Right Reverend Oliva Graham preached, “Holy omnipresence is not a casual knowing. It is impartial and unconditional. We are called to live fully and love faithfully.” We’ll soon discover Chessel’s Court, a rare survival of 18th century tenements hidden behind Canongate on the slope from The Witchery by the Castle. The mansion blocks, to use a befitting but more southern term, were assertively restored in the 1960s. A heart shaped ivy enlivens the ground floor of one of the blocks. Always living more fully, loving more faithfully.

Architects Architecture Design Hotels Luxury Restaurants

Festive Afternoon Tea + The Caledonian Hotel Edinburgh

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date November 28, 2025

Sword Fight

Fun and games at The Cally. Afternoon tea has never been this exciting. Or dangerous. Table for two vegetarians in The Court – a covered over former courtyard of this gargantuan temple of Edwardian hospitality interior designed by Fox Linton. Drawings by John More Dick Peddie and George Washington Browne, the original architects of the red sandstone building, line the bathroom walls in place of the usual cartoons. There are seasonal twists and tales to this festive version of the 7th Duchess of Bedford’s favourite meal from a Santa Claus’ belt to wish list letters all in icing.

The full works. Lapsang Souchong smoked Chinese Tea, Fujian Province. Curried chickpeas, mango chutney, carrot slaw, spinach. Nut roast sausage roll, spiced apple. Sweet potato fritter, roasted red cabbage, maple and mustard. Vegan cheese, pear and candied pecan quiche. Vegan chicken, chipotle mayo, pickled cucumber, avo. Vegan club sandwich. Plain and double chocolate and orange scones, three fruit marmalade. Chestnuts Roasting: chestnut, blackcurrant and whisky, pâté de fruit. Holly Jolly: winter spiced butterscotch, treacle travel cake. It’s Cold Outside: coffee, hazelnut financier and dark chocolate tart. Jingle Bell Rock: tonka bean, green apple confit, Speculoos cheesecake. Merry and Bright: yuzu ganache, black sesame, praline macaron. Mistletoe: kirsch mousse, sour cherry compôte, flourless chocolate sponge.

So far so genteel. Then the restaurant manager strides over to our table and declares, “You look game! Fancy taking part in our art of sabrage?” To mere mortals that’s slicing off the top of a chilled bottle of Laurent-Perrier La Cuvée Brut with a full length ceremonial sword. “We’re one of the very few establishments left in Scotland licenced to do this,” she comfortingly adds. Holding the bottle at a 35 degree angle as instructed: sliding the sword down the bottle towards the top first time round; sliding it a second time; then sliding it down a final time and keeping going. Hey presto … slice! The cork and glass rim ricochet across the floor. “Perfect!” admires the restaurant manager turned martial art instructor. A swashbuckingly useful addition to the arsenal of party tricks. Celebratory glasses of Laurent-Perrier are poured.

Tags caledonian hotel edinburgh, festive afternoon tea, fox linton, george washington browne, john more dick peddie, lavenders blue, sabrage

Architecture Art Design Hotels Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

East Walls Hotel Chichester West Sussex + Civilisation

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date November 7, 2025

No Inelegance

A Waitrose opening used to be the sign a place is going places. Now it’s The Ivy. Chains like The Ivy (Grade II Listed Building) are architecturally elevated in Chichester: the building housing Pizza Express has two Palladian windows and four blind parapet windows. Zizzi has three blind windows under a pediment dated 1791. New Look is in old architecture – a neo Grecian temple. The city has plenty of independent restaurants as well. Jorge Kloppenburg recommends fine dining at Purchases on North Street or Piccolino on South Street.

The Barn restaurant on the corner of East Street and Little London has a notice on its flank wall: “All Goodwood produce can be traced every step of the way from field to fork. They are totally committed to the care of their livestock and to the preservation of the countryside. They use no pesticides of fertilisers at Goodwood Home Farm, ensuring that the wildlife, hedgerows and centuries old natural ecosystem is protected. Goodwood Home Farm is four miles from here and therefore as local as you can get. The farm is set at the heart of the 12,000 acres Sussex estate.” You guessed it: Goodwood Farm Shop is its number one supplier. A plaque on the façade of The Barn is dedicated to fabulous clientele including Lawrence Olivier and Elizabeth Taylor. There’s still plenty of fabulosity in Chichester.

Jorge should know about good food: he’s been cooking since age 12. After a successful international sustainable business career, three years ago he bought East Walls Hotel which he runs with his wife Anywhere Thompson. “We don’t call it a hotel it’s a home from home,” Jorge relates. “In Germany I trained in Chinese, Indian and Thai cooking at night classes. We personalise breakfast here. One New Yorker guest likes her scrambled egg made with cheese. After spending 2,000 nights in 30 years staying in hotels across Europe I recognise what I like and dislike.”

He reckons, “A nice bathroom and excellent breakfast are crucial – that’s what you need to start the day.” The bathroom products are Elysl. Bedding of course is also important. All the beds are fitted with Mitre Linen’s Savoy Collection. “Fresh flowers on the dining tables are a must. I would describe our cooking as bespoke international food.” On cue, delicious halibut and salmon (with the subtlest hint of spice) is served alongside fresh greens and Finger Post wine. “Everything is freshly made. You need 35 minutes for potato dauphinoise. Air frying not deep frying is much heathier. Our breakfast homemade bread is 50 percent brown 50 percent white – fluffy, not too heavy. We buy food at the market two to three times a week.” The tomatoes and herbs were picked two metres away two minutes ago. Forget farm to fork. This is patio to plate.

There are chillis in the garden. “We have a 37 acre chilli farm in Zimbabwe near where I was brought up,” shares Anywhere. “It provides employment for locals and supports 50 children in education. We are in the process of buying another 37 acres. We are both very committed to our philanthropic endeavours. Education is so important whether you end up as a doctor or truck driver. We want to give others a chance in life to do well.”

East Walls Hotel gets its name from the turn of last millennium Roman city walls. Its Grade II Listing dating from 1950 states, “Suffolk House, 3 East Row. 18th century. Three storeys. Four windows wide. Red brick. Eaves bracket cornice. Sash windows in reveals in flat arches; glazing bars intact on ground and first floors; rubbed brick voussoirs. Doorway with Doric columns, pediment and semicircular fanlight. Six panel moulded door with four panels cut away and glazed; door in panelled reveals. Stone coat of arms over the doorway.” A blocked Gothick arch on the first landing and a blind rounded arch on the landing above hint at structural alterations down the centuries.

Anywhere explains, “We can’t keep up with demand! So we’ve bought 1 East Row, the house next door, to expand our guest accommodation.” Its Grade II Listing, also dating from 1950, states, “18th century. Two storeys and attic. Three windows and extension of one window on ground floor. Red brick. Brick stringcourse. Wooden cornice. One dormer. Sash windows in frames, those on ground floor with slightly curved headings; glazing bars intact. Doorway with Doric pilasters, pediment and semicircular fanlight. Six panel moulded door set in panelled reveals.”

There’s no escaping the influence of Goodwood. The hotel was once the townhouse of the country house estate owners the Dukes of Richmond. A chubby Duke’s face cast in plaster protrudes over a French door on the rear elevation. “We always have guests staying for Goodwood Festival of Speed,” says Anywhere. “And businesspeople from Rolls Royce – their plant is only two miles away and employs 1,700 people. Our repeat guests book now for next year.”

A black and white photograph of Goodwood Tourist Trophy 1959 hangs in the bar next to pictures of Aston Martins and prints of Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor. “This is a men’s space,” Jorge suggests. “We’ve 75 whiskeys and 15 gins to choose from.” Burgundy chesterfield armchairs bolster the masculine ambience. The adjoining Art Deco style restaurant is more feminine. “The collection of teapots on display – Twenties, Thirties, Seventies, Nineties and 2000s – shows how time goes on.” This year is the centenary of Art Deco: the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes was held in Paris in 1925.

One of the many cultural highlights of Chichester is Pallant House Gallery, a Grade I Listed early Georgian house famous for its modern art collection. Here’s a random sample of delights. Frank Auerbach’s Reclining Head of Gerda Boehm (1982), a lesson in portraiture. Jean Metzinger’s L’Echaffaudage (1915), a diagonally determined dynamic scaffolding. Tracey Emin’s Roman Standard (1949), her first public art project. Standing tall in the courtyard, this cast iron variation of a Roman standard is topped by a small songbird rather than a triumphant eagle. Lucien Freud’s Portrait of a Girl (1949), a study of skin surface. John Piper’s Redland Park Congregational Church (1940), a rich hued and black lined depiction of the collision of the pastoral past with the brutal bomb wrecked present.

Five minutes away from East Walls Hotel – everything is five minutes away actually – lies Priory Park. This open space is a layering of history from medieval walls on Roman foundations to a Norman mote to the 13th century Guildhall, formerly the Chapel of the Franciscan Friary. The spire of the 11th century Chichester Cathedral can be seen from the second floor bedrooms and garden cottage suite. The cathedral and its precincts are a beautiful pocket of civilisation.

“We really believe in living in the hotel and doing the cooking ourselves,” confirms Anywhere. “That way the quality becomes how it should be.” She has a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Science and a Master’s in Medical Biotechnology both from the University of Portsmouth, now balancing a career as a clinical pathologist with co running a hotel. “All 12 of our rooms are different but they all have antique pieces and beautiful bathrooms. Work hard – it pays off.”

Chichester: England’s finest small city. East Walls Hotel: England’s finest small hotel.

Tags duke of richmond, east walls hotel chichester west sussex, elizabeth taylor, goodwood home farm, jean metzinger, john piper, jorge kloppenburg, lavenders blue, lawrence olivier, lucien freud, pallant house gallery, rolls royce, sophia loren, stuart blakley, tracey emin

Architecture Country Houses Design Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

Barberstown Castle Straffan Kildare + Lavender’s Blue

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date November 1, 2025

No Pale Comparison

An article appeared in The Irish Times on 23 November 1974: “Two Historic Castles Now on Property Market”. It states, “Two of the country’s most interesting castles are currently on the market – Barberstown, Straffan, County Kildare, which is being run as a hotel, and Portlick near Athlone, County Meath, which will be sold with its lakeside estate complete with planning permission for an extensive new holiday village. Barberstown’s lands were granted to Lord Fitzgerald in 1172, and it was about this time that the keep (which is still in use) and the halls (long gone) were built. Later, it was the home of the de Capella, Fanning, Perkinson, Sutton and Dillon families before the entire estate was confiscated under what is euphemistically known as the Cromwellian Settlement.”

There’s more, “It was during the Sutton family occupancy that the Elizabethan wing of the castle (still in use) was built. The castle, house and grounds were valued at £200 in 1640. In 1703, Bartholomew van Homrigh bought the property, and although he achieved considerable political and social stature in his own right, he is mainly remembered today as the father of Vanessa, the girl immortalised in Dean Swift’s writings.”

And more, “One of Barberstown’s legends concerns a man said to be interred between the top of the main staircase and the roof of the tower. His family held the castle by a lease which expired when he was ‘put underground’ and they sought this novel method of postponing that day. Barberstown, standing on five acres, is at present being run as a fully licensed hotel and restaurant. It is to be sold (by private treaty now, or auction later) by Keane Mahony Smith and the solicitors with carriage of sale are Kennedy and McGonagle of Molesworth Street. The accommodation at Barberstown includes 13 bedrooms, six bathrooms, two bars, lounges, two dining rooms, large kitchens, plus the Norman tower keep. Outside there are two furnished penthouses, stabling, garages and well kept grounds. Barberstown, only 15 miles from Dublin, is a property with great potential, Keane Mahony Smith’s Robin Palmer declared. It will be sold as a going concern, with full seven day licence.”

Five years later, the musician Eric Clapton would buy the castle. Then in an article “£500,000 for Eric’s Castle” the Evening Herald reported on 12 July 1984, “Big excitement in the international property market with the tale that popstar Eric Clapton has at last found a buyer for his restaurant. Three years ago Clapton bought Barberstown Castle after many stays and banquets there – commuting from his Surrey home. However, after spending just under £400,000 buying the stately home restaurant in County Kildare, Clapton lost all interest – as popstars do – and has not appeared at all in the Castle. Now Clapton, apparently, has a buyer for Barberstown. The buyer is said to be German, no less, and the price is said to be in excess of £500,000, no less. One way for a popstar to shake off the Irish connection.”

All the bedrooms in the 2015 wing (currently draped in a cloak of reddening leaves) are named after previous owners and the date they took over. On the first floor in clockwise order the bedrooms are Maurice Fitzgerald 1170, Eric Clapton 1979, Norah Devlin 1973, Mrs Todd 1971, Robert Middleston 1941, Sandham Symes 1908, Mr Littleboy 1881, Edward Smith 1842, Admiral Robinson 1836, Hugh Barton 1826, Hugh Cairncross 1780, Joseph Cairncross 1780, Hugh Henry 1716, James Young 1660, Bartholomew van Homrigh 1703, Nicholas Barby 1300, Richard de Penkinson 1289, Sir John Fanning 1288, Thomas Fanning 1275 and Robert de Copella 1250. Amanda Torrens 2021 can be the name of the next new bedroom. The Barton Rooms Restaurant is named after Hugh Barton who added a wing in the 1830s. Battlefield Car Park is a reminder of the strategic location of this castle within The Pale.

“Smurfit in Talks to Buy Barberstown” roared the headline in The Irish Independent on 19 January 1990. “Business tycoon Michael Smurfit is believed to be negotiating the purchase of Barberstown Castle,” exhales Cliodhna O’Donoghue, “the former Irish hideaway home in County Kildare of rockstar Eric Clapton. Just a mile away from the 17th century Straffan House, which was purchased by Smurfit in September 1988 for £4 million, it is understood that if the deal goes ahead Barberstown will become an exclusive annex to Straffan’s palatial Georgian mansion and grounds.”

There’s more, “Standing about 15 miles from Dublin, the 1172 built Barberstown has had a series of notable owners including Sir Richard Talbot, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and more recently rockstar Eric Clapton who purchased the property from the current owner of nearby Moyglare Manor, Mrs Devlin. Barberstown again changed hands for around £300,000 and its existing owner, Ken Healy has extensively refurbished and extended the premises. Barberstown is presently being run as a hotel and is extremely popular as a wedding venue. Smurfit is expected to spend about £4.5 million transforming Straffan into an exclusive gentlemen’s club and is converting the 40 stables in Straffan’s Queen Anne Yard into luxurious bedroom suites as well as building a golf course in the 300 acres of grounds.”

And more, “To encourage industrialists to take membership of the Straffan Club the property will also contain a conference centre to attract investors, particularly Japanese and Americans, who plan to take occupation in the Financial Services Centre. Straffan, which has also had a chequered history of owners over the years, was sold for £4 million in September 1988 by Scots born businessman Alan Ferguson who bought the property from the liquidator of Patrick Gallagher’s estate. Market authorities believe that Mr Smurfit is considering the purchase of Barberstown with a view to extending the Straffan Estate further and it is estimated that the historic castle will cost between £700,000 and £1 million.” Clodhna’s exclusive did not come to pass. There is no Michael Smurfit Room.

In fact the previous owner, businessman Ken Healy, had purchased Barberstown in 1987. He transformed it into a 58 bedroom hotel, more than doubling the size of the original building, adding extensions in a sympathetic neo Georgian style. Norah Devlin first converted the castle to a 10 bedroom hotel in the 1970s. It is worth more now than the £1,033 the Dutch merchant Bartholomew van Homrigh paid for it at the beginning of the 17th century. A two or three storey Georgian house attached to a taller castle is not uncommon in Ireland. Other examples are Ballymore Castle in Lawrencetown, County Galway; Blackwater Castle in Castletownroche, County Cork; and Sigginstown Castle in Tomhaggard, County Wexford. The 18th century portion of Barberstown Castle originally had a thatched roof. Later rendering has been removed from the keep exposing rubblestone which contrasts with the smooth rendering painted a lighter shade of pale on the rest of the building.

Barberstown Castle is now the setting for high society weddings (Champagne sorbet) and high energy getaways (Champagne). On a random Thursday night in October, dinner might be panfried halibut, scallop ravioli, grilled asparagus and lobster bisque preceded by Jerusalem artichoke velouté, crispy egg milk and wild mushrooms. An amuse bouche might be crab salad with lemon jam on a scalloped crisp. Fashionably flavoured butters, garlic and seaweed, are sure to make an appearance. Photogenic puddings might include The Apple (Velvet Cloud yoghurt and white chocolate mousse, Irish Black Butter apple preserve, chocolate soil) or Gianduja and Pear (chocolate and hazelnut sabayon with caramel pear, Champagne poached pear). Anyone up for a Pale Rider cocktail at 2am on the terrace?

Tags amanda torrens, ballymore castle, barberstown castle hotel straffan kildare, blackwater castle, eric clapton, ken healy, lavenders blue, sigginstown castle, straffan house k club, stuart blakley

Design Developers Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

Glas Restaurant Dublin + History

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date October 18, 2025

Dayhawks

It’s a torn newspaper cutting (The Irish Times? The Irish Independent?) that makes for fascinating reading. The article is long, but is worth taking the time to consume. “Head waiter laments the passing of the good old days of eating out” shouts the headline. “‘They have all closed – Red Bank, Dolphin and Jammet’s – restaurants that gave Dublin its Lucullan reputation up to the mid 1960s. That era has passed away. There is not the same discrimination in food,’ says Jimmy Beggan, for 40 years a water and finally head waiter in Jammet’s as he talks about the good old days to Conor O’Brien.”

Jimmy Beggan would undoubtedly be impressed by the contemporary restaurant scene in Dublin. There’s the British invasion of The Ivy and Ivy Asia (close neighbours as per this chain’s double branding location strategy) and Marco Pierre White Grill all on Trinity Street as well as Hawksmoor opening on College Green. It’s an international scene: spinach paneer in Baggot Street’s Kerala Kitchen, frequented by the urban elite on Friday evenings, is pure Patna on a plate.

At least one restaurant has made a comeback. The Unicorn, an Italian restaurant down Merrion Row was established in 1938. It was The Place to Be Seen at the turn of this century thanks to its flamboyant flame haired owners Simon and Christian Stokes, known as the Bang Brothers after their beautician mother Pia Bang. The restaurant was the victim of the Great Recession – and some extravagant spending. Chef Patron Kristian Burness has reopened The Unicorn.

In contrast to Hawksmoor’s carnivorous draw, Glas has a majority vegan minority vegetarian completely gluten free menu. This Michelin recommended restaurant is on Chatham Street under the shadow of St Stephen’s Green Centre. A three course €30 lunch (Carrot Mosaic, Hazelnut Gnocchi, Chestnut Mousse) is as joyful as the slightly nutty interior. Every colour is the new black in the maximalist decoration. Prints of Edward Hopper paintings add a sense of calm to the bathroom walls.

The article on the restaurant that had a strangely placed apostrophe continues: “Nothing, perhaps, illustrates the change in eating and drinking as Jimmy’s move from gracious living at 46 Nassau Street to the French Wine Centre in the basement of a Georgian building in Baggot Street. The basket chairs have been replaced by functional benches, the starched table linen by bare tabletops. Food takes the form of snacks but the wines, chosen by the French Ministry of Agriculture, form the main attraction. The Centre, in fact, represents France’s effort to cultivate an interest in the wines for which it is so famous. And that suits Jimmy Beggan, a member of the Guild of Sommeliers, a group dedicated to ‘the better service of wine’ as he puts it.”

“But it is in reminiscing of the old days that Jimmy’s eyes really light up. The shock of living in a Dublin devoid of its former famous restaurants has left him bemused, as if he had woken up one morning to find St Stephen’s Green replaced by a supermarket. ‘Dublin can ill afford to be without a restaurant like Jammet’s,’ is his verdict. Jimmy reflects a loyalty for the restaurant which he will never lose and which comes through in his conversation, laughing as he remembers the shouts of the French head chef and the pride with which he points out that all game served in Jammet’s was wild, unlike the great Tour d’Argent in Paris, where, he hints darkly, ‘Some of the duck is domestic.’”

“All dishes on the menu were à la carte; no question of table d’hote. And even though the list would not form a 10th of the Tour d’Argent’s, it had its speciality, Sole Jammet, steamed on the bone and serviced with a white wine and lobster sauce Americaine. Jammet’s I learnt has contributed greatly to gastronomic history, but in a rather obscure way. Lobster Burlington, lobster baked in the shell with a cheese sauce, owes its origin to the original Jammet’s known as the Burlington Restaurant and Oyster Saloons which was run by two brothers, Louis and Michel, at 26 St Andrew Street. That was before Louis moved to Nassau Street and Michel bought the Hôtel Bristol in Paris. Louis had previously been Chef to Lord Cadogan at what was then the Viceregal Lodge, now Áras an Uachtaráin.”

“In contrast with the present day, when a shop can turn into an office block overnight, the survival capacity of Jammet’s through the Great Depression and the stringencies of the Economic War are to be admired. The restaurant set its standards and kept to them. The international reputation helped so that wealthy visitors like the ‘old’ Aga Khan always dropped in. Jimmy reels off the names of the famous – Grace Moore the actress and opera singer who bought a special bottle of sherry there two days before she was killed in an air crash, Tyrone Power, Robert Donat, Burgess Meredith and of course, William Butler Yeats and his family. Yeats, his wife, daughter Anne and son Michael, were waited upon, Jimmy remembers, by Tom Kavanagh, whose claim to fame lay in his attending the Irish delegation to the Treaty signing in London in 1921 as official food taster. ‘Just to make sure they were not poisoned by the British.’”

“Jimmy Beggan first went to work in the restaurant as a commis waiter in 1928 and had progressed to head waiter by the time the place closed in 1967. He had been trained by a Swiss instructor in the first waiters’ course at the Technical School in Parnell Square. In 1932 he made an exploratory foray to Paris, but that was in the depths of the Depression so he decided to remain on in Dublin and Dublin certainty had its advantages. How did a top class restaurant obtain its supplies, the whitebait for instance, and the gulls’ eggs served as an appetiser? The whitebait came from ‘a family in Ringsend and they would be jumping out of the bucket when brought into the kitchen’. The gulls’ eggs came strangely enough from Raheenleagh in the Midlands. Lord Revelstoke sent some too from Lambay Island. But the really exotic foods like caviar and escargots were, naturally, imported.”

“The War brought changes and in fact Jimmy blames that conflagration for the change in eating habits. Gas rationing meant that the cooking had to be done at a certain time and this put an end to the long, drowsy meals which used to stretch into the afternoon. ‘People had to eat and drink by the clock,’ he says. There is art and skill in being a waiter, as Jimmy demonstrates. In the first place you had to time your dockets for the chef so that the dishes appeared in the correct order, and that was not always easy when things were busy. Then you had to know how to prepare the crêpes suzettes at the table – ‘the less butter the better and six pancakes at a time’.”

“The ingredients were exotic – kirsch, crème noyaux, brandy, Curaçao. You’d reel out satisfied after that. And then there was the caneton à la presse, duck compressed in the handpress and served in a kind of pâté with the legs, fried diable, on the plate. Recalling the routine made one’s mouth water. Jammet’s were fortunate, too, in that both Louis and Madame Yvonne, his wife, were the descendants of restaurateurs. Madame Jammet had other talents too as an artist, sculptress and woodcarver, producing the Stations of the Cross for churches in Dun Laoghaire and Limerick. She was also a dress designer and patron of the theatre.”

“Yes, undoubtedly talent of that sort and the easy sophistication of those days is sadly missing. Just think of the care which went into preparing a dish which we take for granted, the ubiquitous prawn cocktail. In Jammet’s it was Prawn Cocktail Marie Rose made with their own mayonnaise, tomato purée, white wine and a little fresh grapefruit juice. Nor did Jammet’s make any concessions to Women’s Lib. All the staff, except for the cashiers, were male. The head chef until shortly before the closure was always French. Then there were the others, the sauce, vegetable and entremets chefs, the kitchen porters, commis and full waiters, bar staff and doorman, all fitting into place, all part of a crew.”

“The minimum price of a meal at the Tour d’Argent is now something over £20 a head. To provide food and service of the quality of Jammet’s might well cost that amount in a comparable restaurant here. Slightly inhibiting, perhaps, which makes it all the more pleasant to recall the days when one could actually afford, about once a year or so, to try the rable de Lièvre sauce grand veneur after a dozen huitres Galway and followed by bombe glacée accompanied by a good burgundy. Jimmy recalls that the wine buyer was a Burgundian from Dijon, a man who had been a cooper in his youth. ‘And what could be better than that?’ he asks. What, indeed.”

Jammet’s was Ireland’s finest French restaurant from 1901 to 1967 run by two generations of Jammets: brothers Michel and François and then Michel’s son Louis supported by his wife Yvonne. A regular customer, the painter and broadcaster John Ryan, recalled “the main dining room was pure Second French Empire with a lovely faded patina to the furniture, snow white linen, well cut crystal, monogrammed porcelain, gourmet sized silver plated cutlery and gleaming decanters”. Opposite the side entrance to Trinity College, 46 Nassau Street is a central location. Lillie’s Bordello nightclub opened on the site in 1991 and for the next 28 years was The Place to Be Seen Dancing after dining in The Unicorn. Ever since, various pubs have taken over the premises.

It’s easy to become misty eyed about days of yore but the reality is that 60 plus years ago the choice of restaurant in Dublin was thin pickings and Jammet’s closing was a big loss. More poignant is the ephemeral nature of fame highlighted by this newspaper cutting. Only one of the mid 20th century celebrities is still a household name: William Butler Yeats. What about the actress and opera singer Grace Moore? Did she get to enjoy her special bottle of sherry before tragically dying? Now – in place of Red Bank and Dolphin and Jammet’s – fresh memories are being made in Kerala Kitchen and Glas and a myriad other restaurants. Some day some writer will reminisce on the Lucullan Twenties restaurant scene in Dublin below the parapets and pediments, namedropping long forgotten celebrities. Tour d’Argent is still going strong under third generation ownership.

Design Luxury People

Autumn Collection + Kartell South Kensington London

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date October 9, 2025

Intelligence Service

Trust Phillippe Starck to be ahead of the curve. The trailblazing French designer has collaborated with leading Italian brand Kartell to produce the first ever chair design to be conceived and drawn up by AI. Philippe asked the computer programme Autodesk: “AI, do you know how we can rest our bodies using the least amount of material?” The outcome is a stylish curvaceous seat based on an injection moulding production that uses 100 percent recycled plastic.

Generative design is an explorative technology that allows creators and engineers to input their goals along with parameters such as materials, manufacturing methods and cost constraints. Autodesk then explores all the possible permutations of a solution to generate design alternatives. The software tests and learns from each iteration what works and what doesn’t. The AI Chair is a fitting addition to the Kartell London store. Kartell’s Autumn Collection includes Philippe’s sleek super glossy HHH Chair. Also made of recycled plastic, the seat is available in reused leather or Liberty fabrics. The initials stand for Her Highest Highness. A dauphine worthy piece of furniture.

The flagship London store is fittingly opposite Brompton Square where Min Hogg, the innovative Founding Editor of The World of Interiors, once called home. There are instantly recognisable pieces on display (Philippe’s Louis Ghost and Victoria Ghost Chairs) as well as new pieces (his Cap Table Lamp). Other designers represented include Ludovica Serafini and Roberto Palomba (Albert Table) and Patricia Urquiola (Aaland Pouff). Rodolfo Dordoni, Ferruccio Laviani, Piero Lissoni and Fabio Novembre are the masterminds behind the Kartell Eyewear Design Collection.

AI continues to affect every aspect of modern life. Leana Wen wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post 7 October 2026 “AI might be our best hope to fix healthcare”. She stated, “Now, however, the country has a new reason for hope: artificial intelligence. That’s the big idea in health informaticist Dr Charlotte Blease’s new book Dr Bot: Why Doctors Can Fail Us — and How AI Can Save Lives. ‘The medical community needs to show leadership here,’ Blease told me. ‘We’ve got to stop sticking our heads and stethoscopes in the sand.’” Philippe Starck and Kartell are sticking their heads above the AI designed parapet.

Tags ai chair, autodesk, charlotte blease, dr bot, fabio novembre, ferruccio laviani, her highest highness chair, kartell eyewear design collection, kartell south kensington london, leana wen, ludovica serafini, min hogg, patricia urquiola, philippe starck, piero lissoni, roberto palomba, rodolfo dordoni, washington post

Architecture Art Design Fashion Luxury People Restaurants

Supporters’ House + The National Gallery Trafalgar Square London + Christmas

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date October 1, 2025

The Art of Buying

In 2023 it was the reboot of the National Portrait Gallery. This year it’s The National Gallery which holds the world’s preeminent collection of paintings made in the Western tradition starting in the early 13th century. Following the landmark reopening of the Sainsbury Wing in May came the launch of Supporters’ House and two newly created retail spaces. The Christmas 2025 range features many products designed inhouse and available exclusively at The National Gallery. Consumerism with a conscious: every purchase directly supports the art collection

The entrance door to Supporters’ House is to the immediate left of the portico overlooking Trafalgar Square. A rabbit warren of offices, stores and stock rooms have been opened up into four large spaces: a lounge and bar, restaurant, private dining room and salon event space. Interior designer Job Hoogervorst of Studio Linse says, “We wanted it to feel like it’s always been there. The initial wish was that it has an echo from The National Gallery.”

Revealed internal arches add a strong sense of structure to the corridor and spaces. Deep colours inspired by the permanent collection are used to saturate each space from the walls and window shutters to the ceiling. Job comments, “The place is quite architectonic so it is as if each room has been dipped in a colour.” Furniture from the archives has been repurposed and reupholstered. The original parquet floor has been restored. Studio Linse’s cultural hospitality space designing experience includes the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

The Gallery is also launching an international architectural competition for a new wing. This has already attracted £375 million of cash pledges including the two largest ever publicly reported single cash donations (£150 million each) to a museum or gallery. Director Sir Gabriel Finaldi states, “We are hugely excited by this development and are immensely grateful to our donors for their support – on an unprecedented scale – as The National Gallery steps into its third century. We look forward to an ever closer collaboration with Tate on this significant new initiative.”

The Painter’s Tree is a set of Christmas decorations handcrafted by Cambodian women. Felt figures include Caravaggio, Gainsborough and Rubens. The new scented edit offers soaps and hand creams traditionally made in Sussex with wrapping based on details from National Gallery paintings. Scents include Fig and Grape, Pine and Eucalyptus, and Jasmine. Details of paintings also feature on this season’s fashionwear such as Van Gogh’s famous hat embroidered on a jacket.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year … to visit The National Gallery and get shopping!

Tags christmas shop, job hoogervorst, lavenders blue, sir gabriel finaldi, stuart blakley, studio linse, supporters house national gallery trafalgar square london

Art Design Luxury People

Raw Echo + de Le Cuona Design Centre Chelsea Harbour London

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date September 18, 2025

The Poetry of the Earth is Never Dead

“A love of linen and attention to detail first fired my desire to create beautiful fabrics,” says Bernie de Le Cuona. The Founder, Chief Executive and Creative Director of the luxury textile house de Le Cuona grew up in rural South Africa, developing an early love of nature. All of de Le Cuona fabrics are woven in European mills using the world’s finest natural fibres: alpaca, cashmere, flax, silk and wool. Established in 1992, there are now two showrooms in London (Design Centre Chelsea Harbour and Pimlico Road) and one in New York (Design Centre 200 Lex).

“This collection is called Raw Echo,” introduces Lisa Dunlop, Field Sales Executive at the Design Centre Chelsea Harbour showroom, “and it’s all about the juxtaposition in nature between something brutal and something soft. So if you think of the Sahara Desert it has beautiful soft sand but it’s a hard environment too – that’s the inspiration for the collection. All our colours are derived from nature. We don’t use unnatural dyes.”

Lisa explains, “Four of these eight new designs are sheers. We’re findings sheers are really popular for clients at the moment because they want that lighter look. They are all 97 or 100 percent linen. All our linen is from Belgium. Sustainability is a big thing for us. Linen itself is highly sustainable. It’s very biodegradable yet lasts a lifetime. That’s the cool thing about linen! You can use lots of our fabrics on the reverse. Sahara is a reversible stonewashed linen with subtle twills. It’s rub tested on the back at 20,000 rubs and 25,000 on the front.”

As well as Sahara, there’s Desert Etching which is a linen sheer with an eroded carvings style motif; Mirage, a jacquard sheer with a texture ombré stripe; Petra, a linen jacquard with space dyed warps; Saba, a linen alpaca blend sheer with rippling threads; Sandstorm, a sheer in multi shaded mélange yarns; Strata, a linen wool blend with twisted yarns; and Tumbleweed, a linen upholstery fabric with interlaced yarns.

The company also has a bespoke interior tailoring service which covers made to measure bedspreads, curtains, cushions, throws and upholstery. Everything is crafted in Britain by inhouse specialists. The sustainability ethos doesn’t stop with the original textile making. The company also has a revitalising service which transforms vintage de Le Cuona fabric furnishings and accessories into upcycled pieces.

Bernie de Le Cuona concludes, “Raw Echo is a collection about emotion as much as it is about materiality. It captures that moment in nature where everything is both powerful and peaceful, where the landscape feels alive but still.” The Design Centre Chelsea Harbour showroom of de Le Cuona, minutes from the busy Kings Road, is an oasis filled with exquisite fabrics inspired by ancient terrains, golden sands, wilderness landscapes and weathered stone.

Tags bernie de le cuona, de le cuona textile house, design centre chelsea harbour, john keats, lavenders blue, lisa dunlop, new york design centre, raw echo collection, stuart blakley

Architects Architecture Art Design Developers Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

Joia Restaurant + Rooftop Bar Battersea Power Station London

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date September 2, 2025

Yarden

It’s a table with one of the best views in London, rivalling that of Decimo in King’s Cross. The bricks of Battersea Power Station are practically within touching distance while PLP Architecture’s Nova development across the Thames in Victoria appears as an improbable pyramid. On the 15th floor of Art’otel, the chain with a penchant for lower case font and upper end modern art, Joia brings Portuguese food to the English Capital. Head Chef Henrique Sá Pessoa is known for his two Michelin starred Alma restaurant in Lisbon.

The Joia vibe is The Great Gatsby or at least Baz Luhrmann’s film version of the novel. Luxury hotel specialist Russell Sage Studio uses a peach and pink led palette of pastels which works especially well under the glow of sunset. It’s an updated Twenties look chiming with the construction date of the Power Station. Porthole like circular mirrors reflect the view. The curved northeast wall is distractingly fully glazed. A sweeping staircase fit for Daisy Buchanan to descend in style links the 85 cover restaurant to the double height bar.

Stretching the literary metaphor, the food is up to East Egg meets West Egg party standards with a heavy dose of Iberian flavour. Somehow the modish plates (as opposed to three standard courses) work in this setting. As the mercury lowers Henrique’s kitchen proves its salt with Padron peppers, asparagus, monkfish, patatas bravas, and crema Catalana with burnt orange ice cream. Surely Henrique will be awarded coveted étoiles en Angleterre. A rooftop bar and infinity pool above Joia is straight out of a Jazz Age book.

Head Sommelier David Nunes explains, “Our wine list offers a wide selection that celebrates the rich heritage, diverse terroirs and centuries old winemaking traditions of Portugal and Spain. Each bottle tells a story of craftmanship and passion from the sun drenched vineyards of Douro valley to the rolling hills of Rioja. Each bottle tells a story of craftmanship and passion. Savour the bold structured reds of Ribera del Duero. Explore Portugal’s distinctive varietals from the deep complexity of Touriga Nacional to the crisp freshness of Vinho Verde.” Or Gaintza Txakolina, Basque rosé colour coordinating with the pink sunset.

Local estate agent Gabriel Cunningham of Dexters sums up the 17 hectare regeneration site, “The Battersea Power Station redevelopment is now the epicentre of the wider area. It ticks every box in terms of bars, restaurants, shopping, children’s activities and social events.” Monumentality on a modest scale is a contradiction so everything about the blocks surrounding the Power Station is big. Really big. Frank Gehry’s two trademark tipsily topsy turvy twisting towers are like his Düsseldorf RheinHafen Arts and Meda Centre on steroids.

Adam, Pugin, Wyatt … the great British architectural dynasties. Plus the Gilbert Scotts. Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811 to 1878) designed St Pancras Renaissance Hotel which has been recycled and upcycled. The output of his grandson Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (1880 to 1960) has fared just as well. Liverpool Anglican Cathedral still serves its original purpose. His Bankside Power Station on London’s Southbank is celebrating its 25th anniversary as Tate Modern. After closing in the Eighties, Battersea Power Station is now one of the largest multipurpose buildings in Britain.

Tags alma restaurant lisbon, baz luhrmann, chef henrique sa pessoa, dusseldorf rheinhafen arts meda centre, frank gehry, gabriel cunningham dexters, george gilbert scott, great gatsby, joia restaurant rooftop bar battersea power station london, lavenders blue, liverpool anglican cathedral, plp architecture nova, russell sage studio, sir giles gilbert scott, st pancras renaissance hotel, stuart blakley, tate modern

Architects Architecture Country Houses Design Luxury People Restaurants

Squerryes Court + Winery Westerham Kent

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date August 25, 2025

The Summer Garden of England

Apart from the parkland surrounding the house, the rest of the 1,000 hectare estate until the beginning of this century was used for agriculture. Now 21 hectares are under vine. Our joyful vintner explains the vineyard uses the double fermentation Champagne method for the sparkling wine it produces. She says, “We blend Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier to create our balanced and complex final signature wines. Chardonnay brings elegance and finesse; Pinot Noir delivers structure and depth; and Pinot Meunier adds a fruity profile.” Located high on the North Downs in Kent, the vintage wines of the Squerryes Estate are a distinct expression of the terroir – such a great French word – and winemaking methods.

But first we spin by Squerryes Court to get a glimpse of the house and lake and parkland. The house is at the top of a gentle rise to the south of Westerham (the Winery is to the east). The two most famous sons of this historic town are General James Wolfe and Sir Winston Churchill. Both gentlemen were friends with the owners of Squerryes Court. John Warde and Anne Warde signed the interwar visitors’ book at Chartwell, the Churchills’ nearby residence. Squerryes Court is the quintessential English country house. The Pevsner guide to Kent: West and the Weald by John Newman (1980), states, “The epitome of the hipped roof house, as popularised by Sir Roger Pratt’s Clarendon House, Piccadilly, handsome in its proportions and unusually craftsmanly in its warm red brickwork.” Sir Nicholas Crisp bought the estate in 1681 and completed the house five years later. In 1731, John Warde bought the house and estate.

We head off to the Squerryes Winery Restaurant in time for the last of the summer sparkling wine. Our ebullient vintner tells us the Head Chef is from the west of Ireland. Seamus McDonagh trained at the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology. “A lot of my food is based around the French cooking classics,” he shares. “I just like to add a bit of a modern twist.” We’re fine wining and dining and reclining on the terrace on a sunkissed evening watching shadows creep across the vines. Marmite butter, smoked cod roe, Scottish King Scallops, barbequed aubergine marinated in chimichurri, chocolate sponge cake … everything we love.

Vintage Rosé 2021 is the perfect accompaniment to our meal. This vegan wine disgorged in August last year is 75 percent Pinot Noir and 25 percent Pinot Meunier. Laura Evans, Squerryes Master of Wine, describes its tasting notes, “Delicate pink. On the nose crunchy red fruits, redcurrant, sun ripened strawberries and raspberries. On the palate, notes of strawberries and cream pink grapefruit and minerality.” The warm climate and chalk soil of Kent are ideal for such high quality sparkling winemaking.

Henry Warde is the eighth generation of the family to live in Squerryes Court. He relates, “‘Licet Esse Beatis’ is our family motto, meaning ‘permitted to be joyful’, so we like to say that we’re in the business of creating joy! Treasured letters tell how my ancestor Sir Patience Warde traded wool from the Estate with the French for red wine which he then sold to the hardworking people of London bringing some pleasure to their days.”

He continues, “It felt like the tides were changing when centuries later a very well known French Champagne house came to Squerryes looking to buy some of our land on which to grow their vines. My father John and I decided to walk away from those negotiations and instead set about planting 36 acres of vines ourselves back in 2006. The ‘long thirsty wait’ that my father spoke of when the first vines were planted has been well worth it. We are already enjoying recognition for the quality of our vintage wines.” Our jubilant vintner tells us the Winery now sells 100,000 bottles a year.

Wine GB’s 2025 Industry Report states that there are now 1,104 vineyards (totalling 4,489 hectares under vine in England and 91 hectares in Wales) which together produce 9.1 million bottles a year (6.2 million of sparkling and 2.9 million of still). Plantings are up 510 percent since 2005. The most planted grape varieties in descending order of dominance are Chardonnay (31 percent of the total hectarage), Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Bacchus, Seyval Blanc, Solaris, Pinot Gris, Reichensteiner, Rondo and Pinot Blanc (one percent of the total hectarage). Actually there are now 99 grape varieties in England and Wales including just three hectares of Merlot and a lonely two hectares of Riesling.

England now has 10 wine growing counties. Again, in descending order of scale is Kent (almost one third of the total hectarage), West Sussex, Essex, East Sussex, Hampshire, Surrey, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Devon and Suffolk (below two percent). Squerryes Winery is in line with the regional breakdown: the top Southeast varieties are Chardonnay followed by Pinot Noir and finally Pinot Meunier. Champagne watch out!

Tags general james wolfe, head chef seamus mcdonagh, henry warde, lavenders blue, master wine laura evans, sir winston churchill, squerryes court winery westerman kent, stuart blakley, wine gb

Architecture Art Design Developers Luxury Restaurants Town Houses

Passage des Panoramas + Musée Grévin Paris

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date August 13, 2025

A Lesson in Skiagraphy

It’s a diorama come to life. The past is present in Passage des Panoramas. A timeline as permeable as an Alice Rohrwacher film (La Chimera, 2023). It’s straight out of an Émile Zola novel. Literally (Nana, 1880). Built in 1799, this was the first covered arcade in Paris, oozing period character and historic authenticity. It combines beauty with functionality with rarity. Elegant white arches support the glazed pitched roof over rows of exquisite wooden shopfronts with colourful painted panels. Passage des Panoramas is a shortcut between Palais Royal and Montmartre. Only 17 such arcades have survived Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s rebuilding of the city.

There’s quirky and there’s Victoria Station Wagon Restaurant which is like a railway coach derailed at the entrance. A winged wolf and a bejewelled lynx peer through the windows of Caffè Stern in the centre. Philippe Starck designed the interior of this petite restaurant owned by the Alajmo group which runs the three Michelin star Le Calandre in Padova. Postcards of flooded streets and reclining kittens can be found in Maison Prins. On the opposite side of Boulevard Montmartre is Musée Grévin which opened in 1882. It’s where celebrities come to life – in wax.

Tags alice rohrwacher, caffe stern, emile zola, la chimera, lavenders blue, maison prins, musee grevin, nana, passage des panoramas paris, philippe starck, stuart blakley, victoria station wagon restaurant

Architecture Art Design Fashion Luxury Town Houses

Paris + L’Art de Vivre

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date August 7, 2025

Releasing the Pressure

A dash across Paris can easily turn into a Coco Mademoiselle Chanel ad style escapade. Sipping morning coffee on a balcony of Le Milie Rose Hôtel teetering over Rue des Petites Ecuries (Street of Little Stables). Popping into Pleaseness for an 80s retro retail kick. Saying salut to François (Mahé) and Nico (Francioni) in La Mâle d’Effeenne. Lighting a candle in St Paul and St Louis Church. In an increasingly byzantine world, the French Capital never fails to elevate the body and soul.

Tags coco mademoiselle chanel, francois mahe, la male deffeene, lavenders blue, le milie rose hotel, nico francioni, pleaseness paris, st paul st louis church le marais, stuart blakley

Art Design Hotels Luxury People

The Rembrandt Hotel Knightsbridge London + Ade Bakare Fashion Show

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date July 31, 2025

Whatever Happens

We love surprises. Who would have guessed Mexican and Japanese cuisine fuse so well? Not us, till after six hours of midweek lunching on ajo chipotle edamame and seabass ceviche in Los Mochis on Liverpool Street. Later, we will ask the bemused waiter at Annabel’s, “Where’s the rooftop terrace?” He will respond with glee, “You’re in it!” and immediately will press a button to slide back the ceiling, revealing a cloudy sky. Next, we’re filled with excitement when Queen Camilla arrives at Ascot but perhaps it shouldn’t be that big a surprise as she is handing out The King George VI and Elizabeth Stakes £668,400 prize to French favourite Mickael Barzalona riding Calandagan. It’s the 75th running of the race. Helicopter on standby of course.

We’re not at all surprised when Mary Martin receives her Damehood. Long overdue. On a hot Saturday evening we find ourselves in the front row of Ade Bakare’s summer show as Mary’s guests. It’s the Eighth Edition. We’re very Knightsbridge (think Giovanni or The Franklin) although The Rembrandt Hotel is new territory to us. Mary and Brenda Emmanus OBE are holding court in the lounge. That red sports car of Mary’s sure is raving up the kilometrage. The Queen of Fashion needs a helicopter! Ade speaks to the glamorous crowd: “I look forward to you wearing my latest collections. And that includes the exquisite perfume line that is available too. The T shirts have been inspired by African flowers. The jumpsuits come in vibrant pinks, blues and yellows.” It’s an eclectic show from casualwear, eyewear and millinery creations to the grand finale bridalwear. To quote Elizabeth Bowen in Bowen’s Court, 1942, “Like all stories told with gusto, it has its variations … I will give the version that most appeals to me.” In modern parlance, this is our authentic best selves’ truth. As always, we’re channelling our inner Deborah Turbeville.

The eponymous designer launched Ade Bakare Couture in 1991 with the assistance of a loan from the Prince of Wales Youth Business Trust and has grown it to a notable name in the global fashion industry. He had just majored in Salford University College Manchester following a history and education degree from the University of Lagos. The following year the fashion designer produced his first of many prêt-à-porter collections. He opened a high end boutique in Lagos in 2006. Ade was born in Britain to Nigerian parents: these two worlds combine in his clothing which fuses the elegance of British tailoring with the vibrancy of Yoruba culture.

London’s fashion scene is renowned for its eccentricity and inclusivity but in the past black designers have often had to carve their own careers. Then in 2011 along came Africa Fashion Week London and everything changed. Led by Queen Ronke Ademiluyi-Ogunwusi, this event promotes and celebrates black fashion excellence. Ade Bakare Couture makes frequent appearances on the annual catwalk. Headlining fashion artist Dame Mary Martin says, “Africa Fashion Week London is a fantastic launchpad for new collections and has become the go to event of the season. I’ve launched many of my collections at the show from The Hidden Queens to The Return.” As for Mary’s next collection, she shares, “It will be a surprise. A huge surprise!” Whatever it is, we know Dame Mary Martin will always obey Luann Countess de Lesseps advice, “Don’t be uncool. Be cool.”

Tags ade bakare couture, africa fashion week london, bowens court, deborah turbeville, elizabeth bowen, franklin hotel, giovanni restaurant yeomans row knightsbridge london, lavenders blue, los mochis restaurant, luann countess de lesseps, mary martin london, queen ronke ademiluyi ogunwusi, rembrandt hotel knightsbridge, stuart blakley

Architects Architecture Art Country Houses Design Luxury People Restaurants

Waddesdon Manor Buckinghamshire + Pablo Bronstein + The Temple of Solomon

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date July 27, 2025

Because Your Love Is Better Than Life

There are two principal Biblical temples: Solomon’s in the past; Ezekiel’s to come. God provides descriptions of both in the Old Testament. For example, Ezekiel 40:24 to 27, “Then he led me to the south side and I saw the south gate. He measured its jambs and its portico, and they had the same measurements as the others. The gateway and its portico had narrow openings all around, like the openings of the others. It was 50 cubits long and 25 cubits wide. Seven steps led up to it, with its portico opposite them; it had palm tree decorations on the faces of the projecting walls on each side. The inner court also had a gate facing south, and he measured from this gate to the outer gate on the south side; it was 100 cubits.”

King David was a man of war; his son, a man of peace, would be chosen to build the Temple. II Samuel 7:5 to 12, “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: You are not the one to build me a house to dwell in. When your days are over and you go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for Me, and I will establish his throne forever.’” I Kings 6:1 states that in the month of Zif in the 480th year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, Solomon began to build the Temple. It was the fourth year of his reign, which likely spanned from around 1,015 to 975 BC.

The Bible provides dimensions and details and decorations. I Chronicles 28:11, “Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms and the place of atonement.” The foundations were 60 cubits by 20 cubits (II Chronicles 3:1). The interior was covered with pure gold according to I Kings 6:21, and pots, shovels and sprinkling bowls were of burnished bronze (I Kings 7:40). Upon completion of the Temple, Solomon summoned the leaders of Israel to bring the Ark of the Covenant from Zion, the City of David, to its final resting place in the Temple on Mount Moriah.

Artist Pablo Bronstein (who was born in Argentina and lives in London) believes, “The reconstruction of ancient and Biblical structures says more about the societies that reconstructed them than it does about any long gone originals. My reconstructions of the Temple explore idealising tendencies in architecture across porous boundaries of styles relevant during a defining era of archaeology – roughly the 18th to 20th centuries. That’s precisely the time when nationalisms sought to tie themselves to particular architectural traditions and during which nascent professional archaeology informed our understanding of the past. I’ve tried to inhabit the ambitious contestants entering the Prix de Rome as they set about reconstructing the Temple entirely in their own image.” And where better to host such an exhibition rooted in the Tanakh than that most Jewish of English country houses, Waddesdon Manor?

Mark Girouard was a prominent country house architectural historian of the 20th century. His grandfather Henry Beresford, 6th Marquess of Waterford, owned one of the top estates in Ireland: Curraghmore. He records in Historic Houses of Britain (1979), “Baron Ferdinand, like other Rothschilds of the later generations, had largely detached himself from the Rothschild banks, except as places through which to invest his money. He was able to devote himself to sport, politics, philanthropy and pleasure. Like all Rothschilds he entertained lavishly. Waddesdon was meant for use, not just as a repository for treasures. Edward VII, who had a fondness for Rothschilds, came there frequently, and once fell down the staircase. Victoria was there for the day in 1890; her visit was something of a triumph for she was much less partial to Rothschilds than her son, and Waddesdon was the only Rothschild house she ever visited.”

He continues, “It is easy to envisage house parties at Waddesdon. It is harder to think of children playing there, or in general, to envisage a Rothschild nursery. Indeed there never was a nursery at Waddesdon. When Baron Ferdinand died childless in 1898 (he caught a chill on one of his regular visits to the grave of his wife), he left Waddesdon to his sister Alice, who never married. When she died in 1922 she left it to a French Rothschild, her great nephew James. James de Rothschild was married but had no children. It was he, on his death in 1957, who left the house, all its contents and an endowment to the National Trust – a legacy of almost unequalled munificence.”

Soon after they inherited the house, James de Rothschild and his wife Dorothy installed an electric servants’ bell system to replace the traditional manual bells. The indicator panel includes connections to Baron’s Room, Blue Dressing Room, East Hall, Low White Room, Portico Bathroom, Smoking Room, State Entrance, Tower Drawing Room, Turret Bedroom and many more. They also installed hot and cold water plumbing. The tradition of entertaining continues at Waddesdon with the Manor Restaurant on the ground floor of the Bachelors’ Wing. The wine list includes Waddesdon Rothschild Collection Viognier 2024 with hints of peach and apricot, sourced from the hills of Languedoc in the south of France.

In 1870, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild had bought 2,500 hectares near Aylesbury (favoured family territory) from George Spencer-Churchill, 6th Duke of Marlborough, to build a country house designed by a French architect (the gloriously named Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur) filled with French furnishings (coordinated by interior design company Decour) and surrounded by gardens planned with the assistance of a French landscape designer (Elie Lainé). More Loire Valley than Aylesbury Vale. His wife had died in childbirth after a year and a half of wedded bliss: they had met at their mutual relatives’ London residence of Gunnersbury Park House. Cartoonist Osbert Lancaster even included Le Style Rothschild in Homes Sweet Homes (1939), referring to “heavy golden cornices” and “damask hung walls” and “fringed and tasselled curtains of Genoese velvet”. The tradition of supporting the arts continues with the Rothschild Foundation. CEO Roger White states, “There are still remarkable philanthropic initiatives happening at Waddesdon.”

Senior Curator Janet Carey introduces The Temple of Solomon and Its Contents exhibition: “In this room are Pablo’s two different versions of the Temple of Solomon. In order to create them he has imagined himself in the personae of prize seeking students of 19th century architecture. We have extraordinarily detailed instructions from God written down in the Bible but of course nobody actually knows what the Temple looked like. So what Pablo has done is read those instructions and make these incredible works of art conjured up from the hands of imagined individuals.” Divine design.

Erudite quotations range from the portico of Palais Garnier in Paris to William Blake’s painting The Great Architect. Styles include Adamesque, Indo Egyptian and Persian. “Pablo uses the famous spiralling Solomonic columns,” Janet notes. Or is he inspired by the spiralling copper pipes of Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur’s architecture? “His Veil of the Temple is quite provocative: here it is interpreted as a very froufrou Waddesdon style curtain with glorious red tassels. The Veil separated the world from the Divine and was torn in two at the moment Christ died.” And what about the Greek key tile pattern around the courtyard? A nod to Sir William Chambers, perhaps? She smiles, “The pattern comes from the band around those ubiquitous New York takeaway coffee cups! It’s this blend of high and low references that is really fun.”

There are also acrylic on paper paintings of specific Biblical objects. Janet states, “You can read in the Bible how God gives very precise instructions to Moses about how the candelabra should be designed and Pablo follows to incredible detail how many branches and so on should be on this. It is an oil lamp, not a candle lamp, so God specifies that each of the cups for the oil at the tops of the seven branches must be almond shaped. Pablo interprets that very literally as a cast for an almond. He’s really obeyed the Divine instructions in the Bible while deriving some detailing from the objets d’art of Waddesdon.”

“In the space adjacent is this extraordinary selection of drawings and books from Waddesdon’s permanent collection,” she adds. “They’re mostly 18th century French works of art which Pablo chose himself from about 1,000 design and architectural works. The moment you see those works you will understand why he has chosen them. Each one has some very clear visual relationship with Pablo’s own work. Some of the drawings have never been displayed before.”

Another attraction feature of the exhibition space is a model of the Supreme Court in Jerusalem made by James Burke. Completed in 1992, the building was designed by Ada Karmi-Melamede and her brother Ram Karmi. The Supreme Court was proposed and funded by the Yad Hanadiv Foundation established by Dorothy de Rothschild in 1960 and chaired by Jacob 4th Lord Rothschild until his death in 2024. In the gallery on the floor above, 18th century Jewish Italian embroidered hangings from the Rothschild Collection depicting the Temple of Solomon and the Second Temple (built after the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II in 586 BC) are on display. Waddesdon Manor continues to evolve and expand.

Design Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

Eels Restaurant Paris + Le Déjeuner Le Plus Magnifique Imaginable Sérieusement

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date July 23, 2025

In Honour of Anguilliformes

It’s a restaurant to design a weekend around. Eels. On the corner of Rue d’Hauteville and Rue Gabriel Laumain in the Grands Boulevards district, rows of windows lighten the interior and brighten the pavement. This establishment has the electric atmosphere of a new venue but it’s actually been going strong for eight years. So strong that the owner has opened another restaurant on Rue du Faubourg Poissonnière which runs parallel with Rue d’Hauteville. On a Saturday lunchtime Eels is a microcosm of Arrondisement 10 society. The beautiful people – staff and patrons – are out in force.

The dining room exudes that effortless chic Parisians somehow manage to pull off with aplomb. Decoration is kept to a bare minimum. Exposed brick and stone columns add patina. The vertical tubes of the radiators resemble rows of shiny white eels – or at least they do after the second glass of Vin de Savoie Domaine Chevillard 2021. Piped pop music adds to the electricity in the air as the staff set about making gastronomic magic. “I started to cook at the age of 15 right after secondary school,” says owner Chef Adrien Ferrand. “I then went to train at a catering college and after a few days I knew I wanted a career as a chef.” No man is an île and Adrien has left a pool of talent in charge today.

He comments, “Eels is a bistronomic or semi gastronomic restaurant – you can call it what you want! The menu of Eels takes inspiration from Asia and the Mediterranean as well as French cooking. It was my father who introduced me to Asian cuisine. I love Asian food so much I have opened a fully Asian restaurant nearby – Brigade du Tigre.” The name of his first restaurant comes from Adrien’s fascination with the ray finned fish. The English word was chosen as it is a little easier to pronounce than the French “anguilles”. Most of the eels are sourced from Greece.

“The connection I make between cooking and smell is the rising of images and emotions,” Adrien relates. “My aromatic catalogue includes Thai basil, lemongrass and galanga which is a rhizome and a cousin of ginger. I also use cardamon and Voatsperifery pepper which comes from Madagascar.” It would be rude not to order his signature dish of charcoal smoked eel, liquorice, apple and hazelnuts with roasted butter sauce. All the right ingredients – scent, taste, texture, beauty, impact, originality – are present in abundance.

Marinated Corsican meagre, samphire, kohlrabi with elderflowers, dashi vinaigrette and sea lettuce followed by white chocolate crunch, rhubarb, rose marmalade and Bronte pistachio pralines continue this elevation of Franco Asian cooking status. The stars they are aligning. Starters range from €19 to €22 and mains from €33 to €43. Puddings are all priced €17. There’s a midweek two course lunch menu for €37. Plenty of bottles on the wine list will tempt the connoisseur: Échezeaux Domaine Jean-Pierre Guyon 2021 pinot noir for €1,053 or Bourbogne Domaine Arnaud Ente 2019 Chardonnay for €430. But there are reasonably priced wines too such as the Vin de Savoie at €62. Meals at Eels live up to the hype and eclipse the rave reviews.

Tags brigade du tigre restaurant, chef adrien ferrand, eels restaurant paris, lavenders blue, rue dhauteville, rue du faubourg poissonniere, rue gabriel laumain, stuart blakley

Architects Architecture Art Country Houses Luxury People

Dunmore House + Gardens Carrigans Donegal

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date July 16, 2025
9 Comments on Dunmore House + Gardens Carrigans Donegal

Northern Dancer

Wiling away endless days during the sunniest Irish spring while County Donegal opens up as a new front of the western riviera. Gnomons cast their shadows across plates of 1930s stone sundials. A drawing room lit by tall windows on two sides. The French door ajar to country air. Alexander Moore’s mother in Jennifer Johnston’s 1974 novel How Many Miles to Babylon? lyricises, “The evenings are so beautiful. Ireland should be renamed, I always think, the Island of Evenings. Don’t you agree?” Lounging in the wing of a country house. How many kilometres to Derry?

“When I arrived in Ireland I couldn’t read or write English,” says Amelia McFarland, châtelaine of Dunmore House. “I was brought up in Moscow until I was 10. I learnt to ride with the Russian Cavalry stallions at the age of seven.” Both sets of grandparents lived in Ireland so her parents returned and eventually took over Dunmore House. Her grandfather, Sir John Talbot McFarland, 3rd Baronet of Aberfoyle, died in 2020. He’s buried in St Fiach’s Church of Ireland Church in the village at the end of the avenue, Carrigans.

After living abroad, the 35 year old has returned to open her family’s ancestral pile as a setting for weddings and corporate events. She admits, “I love travelling and I love Dunmore. It was always well known for its hilarious parties and welcoming atmosphere and I wanted to bring all of that back again. I wanted to share this beautiful house and its gardens with everyone. So I came home to Donegal for a whole new adventure.” A converted barn is perfect for nuptials and there is overnight accommodation in the east wing and log cabins in the grounds.

As for wedding photographic opportunities, where to start? The conscious coupling of the seven bay house and 1.3 hectare walled garden is a match made in heaven encircled by woodland. Architecture, texture, horticulture, culture. “We try to be sustainable,” explains Amelia, “and encourage wildlife like bats and hedgehogs. As well as providing a wedding and events venue with accommodation we have a 100 acre farm and estate.”

“There are actually no records of Michael Priestley’s involvement with the house,” she confirms. “A large servants’ wing at the back of the house was knocked down some time in the 20th century. When the porch was added the area in front of the house was filled in. That created tunnels going nowhere under the house. You can see the top of two basement windows that were blocked up. The house is actually quite compact and not that hard to heat.” In between hosting, Amelia farms, rides and plays rugby for the City of Derry.

Wedged between Derek Hill by Bruce Arnold (2010) and Derry and Londonderry History and Society by William Nolan and Gerard O’Brien (1999) on a Georgian bookcase in the drawing room of the wing is Agatha Christie’s The Complete Short Stories (2008). The crime novelist was related by marriage to the McClintocks who formerly owned Dunmore House. A bedroom over the drawing room is also lit by windows on two sides. “This wing was added by the owner in the 19th century for his own use,” Amelia explains. “We let it out as one self contained space with its own door off the terrace.”

Identifying Michael Priestley as the architect of the main block is on stylistic grounds. The giant Palladian window was his trademark. His certified work of Lifford Courthouse, County Donegal, has a particularly fine example on its riverside elevation. St John’s Church of Ireland Church in Ballymore Lower, County Donegal, is attributed to Michael and has a vast Palladian window on its east front and a smaller version on its west front. The first floor central Palladian window of Dunmore House over the entrance hall – all 42 panes of it – lights the landing of the staircase hall. Confident handling of architectural components is another subtler clue to design ownership.

The entrance elevation of the 1742 block is five bays wide by two storeys over (hidden) basement and (hidden save for gable windows) attic with a high pitched slate roof. It’s a rebuilding of a 17th century house. Walls are roughcast rendered with ashlar sandstone quoins. A 19th century smooth rendered porch is painted dark yellow: Doric pilasters support an entablature with triglyphs to the frieze and mutules to the cornice. The Doric order frieze and cornice are repeated in the drawing room of the 19th century wing. This south front, elevated on a rise, can just about be glimpsed from the road between mature trees. The informal north elevation with various projections backs on to a courtyard surrounded by outbuildings.

A book of newspaper cuttings in the drawing room includes this intriguing undated unattributed piece, “Missing deb says: I want to marry. Reported missing earlier in the week from her home at Blessington, County Wicklow, Eire. 19 year old [sic?] debutante Miss Ann Daly turned up in London, yesterday, with Mr Robert Knowles of Sneem, County Kerry, Eire, 25 year old son of Lady Farquhar of Blandford, Dorset, and said: ‘We want to get married.’ They had been staying at the home of Lady Farquhar and her husband Lieutenant Colonel Sir Peter Farquhar at Turnworth, Blandford. The Farquhars are a well known hunting family.”

“‘I met tall dark Miss Daly with Mr Knowles as they arrived together at Waterloo Station, London, late yesterday on the train from Blandford. ‘I can’t understand all this mystery and fuss,’ Miss Daly told me. ‘We have come up to London to try and persuade mother to let us get married. There is no real mystery about me leaving home, and I am sure my mother and father must both have guessed where I was. Robert and I met nearly three years ago. We have been racing, hunting and point-to-point riding together many times since then.’”

“‘We want to get married but I am still a minor and my parents have objected. But I feel sure that if mother gives her consent now father will agree readily.’ Robert Knowles said, ‘There has been no objection from my family, and we should both be happy if it were possible for us to be married soon.’ Mr Knowles and Miss Daly went off to meet Miss Daly’s mother, who has been staying at a West End hotel. Miss Ann Daly is regarded as the most beautiful girl in Irish society. Although only 18 years of age she is such a good horsewoman that she rides at many point-to-point meetings in Ireland, and competed in such events during the past season. She is a member of the fashionable Kildare Hunt and has ridden to other packs in Ireland. She is tall, dark and athletic and is expected to be one of this year’s most popular debutantes.” Go Ann!

Tags agatha christie, amelia mcfarland, ann daly, derek hill, dunmore house gardens carrigans donegal, jennifer johnston, lavenders blue, lifford courthouse, michael priestley, robert knowles, sir john talbot mcfarland 3rd baronet of aberfoyle, st johns church of ireland ballymore lower, stuart blakley

Art Design Luxury Restaurants

Belmond British Pullman + Venice Simplon-Orient Express + The Golden Age of Travel

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date July 4, 2025

Saudade“I love the way you captured the light in detail and the heartwarming reportage of your last visit. Rest assured that we will do our best to make your new journey with us a most memorable one,” confirms Florentin Partenie, Belmond Travel Curator. We’re back on the groovy train. No murder cases to solve this time. The only mystery is which station will we stop at for a platform recital.

We’re going nowhere again. The Belmond British Pullman Golden Age of Travel is a sublime day doing a loop of Kent. Departure and arrival: London Victoria. The day trip isn’t cheap but really it works out not much more than a Southeastern commuter ticket by the time you count up the food and drinks bill. And what price a vocal trio of flappers?

The Vault Beverage Menu sums up the experience in card: a geometric cover of an angular cocktail glass with a stepped profile. Art Deco indulgence with more than a hint of naughtiness. The midday rule is most definitely broken as Veuve Cliquot Reims Yellow Label is already flowing upon embarkation. Simpsons Wine Estate Derringstone Pinot Meunie (2022) will grease the wheels, so to speak, over lunch.

“This year, the seventh since the restoration of the legendary Orient Express, we review the programme,” announced the 1988 brochure Venice Simplon-Orient Express with delicious relish. “The now famous English Day Excursions, magnificent sorties by the fabulous Pullman carriages of the English train, also take place in winter as well as summer.” And spring. “Though widely believed to have been one train travelling one route, the Orient Express was in fact scores of interchangeable dining and sleeping carriages, privately owned, variously named and travelling south and east on routes that varied almost seasonally.”

“Originally conceived by two men, Georges Nagelmackers and George Mortimer Pullman, and built to standards of outrageous luxury late last century and early this one, many carriages were lost during the War. The remainder fell into disuse and finally in 1977 the service was discontinued.” American entrepreneur James Sherwood restored the carriages and the Venice Simplon-Orient Express is currently owned by Belmond.

“Today’s passengers’ first sight of the train is of the magnificent Pullman cars waiting at London’s Victoria Station for their prompt departure. Make your way from car to car if you have time (and even from loo to loo, individual masterpieces with the carriage’s name picked out on each mosaic floor) and note the polished wood, the stunning marquetry, the glowing brass. Magic. Luncheon is about to be served. Your lunch, as you diddly-dum through the ever pleasing scenery of Kent … exquisite food flawlessly served in surroundings of laid back opulence.”

Those words written 27 years ago still ring true. Lunch is served. All afternoon. Nobody is in a rush: we’ve nowhere to go. Our chef mixes the main menu and the vegetarian menu then goes off menu with a main course Atlantic trout and spring greens. We’re barely past Clapham Junction before spinach soup and White Lake feta are being served. Cornish hake, Windsor beans, red pepper and warm tartar sauce will follow.

Hours fly by against a blur of marquetry framed Kent countryside. “This is the air conditioning!” says the steward, sliding back the top windows. The flappers appear and serenade an enraptured carriage. Glazed lemon tart with hazelnut praline is served as well as a British cheeseboard with warm fruit bread. Anne’s hand rolled truffles accompany Higgins coffee. And then we stop. A railway platform at Dover is the surprise setting for mid afternoon hijinks. The flappers up the tempo and – keeping it local – Simpsons of Canterbury sparkling wine flows.

“Minerva carriage was a favourite of Sir Winston Churchill,” our steward explains. “This carriage was used by Churchill’s closest family members to travel to his funeral.” Just as a lot of Düsseldorf potatoes have female names, so do Pullman carriages: Cygnus, Ibis, Ione, Perseus and Phoenix (19 seaters); Audrey, Gwen and Vera (20 seaters); Lucille and Zena (23 seaters); and Minerva (25 seater).

A ribboned stepped profile note reads, “Enjoy this farewell gift of the book London in the Wild, 2022. The British Pullman team is delighted to support the incredible work of the London Wildlife Trust and the wider Wildlife Trust’s Network.” The perfect end to a perfect day. It’s like Lou Reed’s hit song without the zoo visit.

Tags belmond british pullman, dover kent, george mortimer pullman, georges nagelmackers, golden age of travel, james sherwood, lavenders blue, lou reed perfect day, sir winston churchill, stuart blakley, venice simplon orient express

Art Design Luxury People Restaurants

Royal Hospital Chelsea + Treasure House Fair London 2025

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date July 2, 2025

Masterpiece Revisited

Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport at the ready, it’s the third edition of Treasure House Fair at Royal Hospital Chelsea London. Edmond Joy’s 1709 construction is a surprising component of the Sculpture Walk directed by Harvey Horswell and curated by Dr Melissa Gustin, both from National Museums Liverpool. Brought to the show by Thomas Coulborn and Sons, it is a child’s wardrobe masquerading as a Dutch style doll’s house. It meets the accepted definition of sculpture as a work of art in three dimensions while also being a functional object and one of architectural interest. This magical wardrobe with its bewitching façade deserves to be lionised. Little did Edmond Joy know three centuries ago that he would be creating the ultimate collector’s item with his Kew Palace in miniature.

There are first editions at Shapero Rare Books such as Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night (1934) and Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1845). And there are newly signed editions at Potterton Books: Blenheim 300 Years of Life in a Palace (2024). Blenheim Palace is the most visited of all of Britain’s stately homes. Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill, renowned interior designer and author is on standby with her Sharpie pen. She grew up at Blenheim: it is now lived in by her brother Charles, 12th Duke of Marlborough. “I was always the one who was interested in art and architecture and the history of buildings,” Henrietta relates. “That, coupled with working with my father on the restoration because of my career in interior design meant I’ve more interest and knowledge of the house than perhaps other members of the family.”

Galerie Marc Maison is a canine art collector’s paradise. Two life size sculpture groups guard the entrance to the room. In 1893 banker Jacques Stern commissioned Auguste-Nicholas Caïn to replicate his hunting dogs in dark green patina bronze for outside his Château de Fitz-James in Oise. The room is dominated by Augustine Ricard’s monumental oil painting Après la Chasse dated 1885. She was one of the few female artists to exhibit her work in the fashionable Parisian salons. A dozen dogs are pictured resting in their kennel. “We are located in Rue des Rosiers, St Ouen sur Seine. Everyone comes to Les Puces in Clignoncourt!” declares Daisy Maison.

“Huon Mallalieu has an incredible depth of knowledge as an art and antiques historian,” is how Country Life Interiors Editor Giles Kime introduces one of the magazine’s long term contributors. Huon begins, “The 50s were rather important because there was a change of American tax law which encouraged people to buy art to hang on their walls during their lifetime but was tax exempt after their death if they donated it to a museum. This meant they were looking for new markets and so were dealers. And that was how the Impressionist market actually began on a major world stage.”

He continues, “I mention that because people are worried markets are collapsing. The art market has a circularity about it. One thinks that in 1962 Lord Leighton’s most famous work Flaming June was sold for £62 and it’s now worth millions. It had been out of fashion for 50 years. This happens regularly and there is no need to panic. One must remember that what was cutting edge for one generation is old hat for the next generation and old master for the one after that. Things go round and round. What people want now is completely different compared to the 70s and 80s. And that’s no bad thing. Markets dry up; contemporary artists become less contemporary. And once they are being resold on the secondary market their original dealers can no longer control them by waiting lists and the like. At that moment prices may well drop and if you want to that’s the moment to start buying them.”

Huon recalls the brown furniture market in the 80s, “It was focused on the Fulham Road and Kings Road but also Bond Street in a very big way. Again, it was partly driven by American fashion of the 20s which had been all for the grandest of 18th century furniture and that continued. There were big collectors in Britain as well and when their collections came through in the 80s and 90s that was the peak – and the end of it too. After that people thought brown furniture was far too grand. They wanted simple mid 20th century stuff – the generational shift occurred.”

Writer and Executive Director of the Design Leadership Network Michael Diaz-Griffith comments, “I think if we look at the market for high style traditional English material, the US was offset just a bit from the UK. If you think of some of the great sales of the 70s like the Mentmore sale, the great houses were being decanted of this wonderful material and it was often Americans who were scooping it up and taking it back to Fifth Avenue. So there remained a great deal of excitement about that high style really through the 80s and into the 90s. The baby boomers of the early 2000s became very excited about contemporary art and in the US at least that was the driver of collecting and tastemaking really until the millennials – the generation that I am trying to be a cheerleader for – began to come of age and exhibit a different type of taste.” Exhibitor Philip Mould’s room features both old masters and modern British artworks.

“The pendulum swings back and forth always,” New Yorker Michael believes. “The pendulum is swinging back in the direction of antiques, of historic decorative arts, and that is a very good thing indeed. You are searching for your own taste, what is comfortable, enjoying history and what it has to offer but also being at home in the world as it is today.” Fresh from Marrakesh, interior decorator Henrietta von Stockhausen reckons, “Christopher Gibbs and Robert Kime started this type of decorating. They managed to go much deeper into that story of a home and the most important thing is comfort. They were very bravely mixing styles and the stuff owners had collected.”

Henrietta recollects, “Christopher mixed some incredibly important things with some really not important things but everything was beautiful and told a story. I think that juxtaposition created great energy and developed a much less precious way of decorating which is really very much where we are now I believe. My clients now are much braver at telling their story, much braver at choosing things that they want. It’s not about show anymore – it’s about actually enjoying your pieces and looking at them. Sometimes you have this beautiful antique piece which along with another 100 beautiful pieces feels like you’re in a museum. But if you place it opposite some incredible contemporary piece it really begins to sing and creates this energy and this is what is required these days.

Firmdale Hotels have a collection of top spots in London and New York. What better way is there to celebrate their 40th anniversary than launching this year’s Brasserie at Treasure House? It’s also the 25th anniversary of their Charlotte Street Hotel in Fitzrovia. Smart menu main course choices include asparagus and artichoke salad with toasted almonds and pan seared seabass with lobster bisque. Puddings vary from baked chocolate cake to strawberries and rhubarb with shortbread and ice cream. Next door, Ostra Regal Gold Oysters in the Oyster Bar are fresh from Clew Bay in County Mayo and full of joyful surprise.

Treasure House Fair 2025 has plenty of heroic moments, some of epic grandeur, and an immaculateness of purpose.

Architects Architecture Art Design Developers Fashion Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

St Pancras Renaissance Hotel + Victor Garvey at The Midland Grand Dining Room St Pancras London

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date June 26, 2025

No Rotten Tomatoes

So long ago. Back in 2011, we interviewed Harry Handelsman, the visionary replacing ossification with revivification at the majestic St Pancras Renaissance Hotel. Rewinding 14 years: a Polly Morgan taxidermy of a fox snuggled in a glass dome in the reception is a sign this is no ordinary office block. The Edison Building on Old Marylebone Road is named after the world’s most prolific inventor Thomas Edison. Its 1930s Art Deco exterior has been reinvented by architect David Adjaye who’s cloaked it in his trademark charcoal grey rendering. The client was Harry Handelsman of Manhattan Loft Corporation, the property developer who brought loft living to London before reinventing the Capital’s best Victorian railway hotel.

“This could have been a cool apartment building but I wanted to do something more exciting,” starts Harry. He’s clad in a charcoal grey suit, no tie, sitting in his charcoal grey top floor corner office. So far, so suave. Sliding doors open onto a huge decked terrace. “I called on my friend David. He designed an amazing transformation.” Adjaye Associates now occupy the ground floor of the Edison Building which has filled up with design companies. Munich born Harry worked as a financier in New York before arriving in London in 1984. He soon realised the potential for American style loft living in Britain. “Lofts are the concept behind giving buildings a new lease of life – they’re exciting and wonderful places,” Harry enthuses. He set up Manhattan Loft Corporation in 1992. To date around 1,000 apartments have been completed in the UK and Germany.

“We’ve no concerns about building something new though,” he adds. “Even our first scheme in London – Bankside Lofts next to what is now Tate Modern – was part newbuild. So much other new development seems too simplistic. It needs to be more energetic, more dramatic. We want to give our developments a bit of punch!” There’s nothing unenergetic or undramatic about St Pancras Renaissance Hotel. And it literally has punch – as we will discover later.

Two decades after he brought loft living to London, he’s also the best man to know what’s next in the residential development world of 2011. “High rise apartments. That’s the way things are going,” states Harry. “London is the most exciting city in the world. Development can make such a positive contribution. It’s not all about commerce. Each of our projects is different. An exciting thing is that we can make a positive difference to the cityscape. We are incredibly privileged. My team is second to none, combining creativity and commitment. I wish the planning regime would be simplified but any issues aren’t insurmountable. There’s enough appreciation of design quality. If it was all smooth sailing I wouldn’t have any grey hairs!”

Also in 2011, a busy year, we reviewed the hotel opening for Luxury Travel Magazine. Paris in two hours. Amsterdam in four hours. Lobby in 2.4 minutes. Those are the travel times from the First Class platform of the Eurostar train in London to St Pancras Renaissance Hotel … and so we continued, the excitement lifting off the screen. The motif of the hotel is the peacock which represents rejuvenation – and not just vanity (although with such architectural beauty that would be justifiable). When a peacock loses a feather it grows back perfectly. St Pancras is more like plume replacement. In 1865 Sir George Gilbert Scott won a competition held by Midland Railway to design a hotel for St Pancras Station. The client’s vision was for an understated building. The architect had other ideas.

A Gothic Revival extravaganza, his gargantuan fairytale confection of towers, turrets and terracotta tiles overwhelmed visitors when it opened in 1873, did once again in 2011, and still does in 2025. The verticality of a 72 metre high clocktower is balanced by the horizontality of a sweep of 150 metre wide frontage and the third of a kilometre depth including engineer William Barlow’s railway terminus behind the hotel. If the hotel is all about design and detailing, the terminus with its 800 cast iron columns and 2,000 wrought iron girders is a pure expression of structure and function – the sort of thundering modernity captured on canvas down the line in Joseph Turner’s 1844 Rain, Steam, and Speed: The Great Western Railway.

Sir George’s design incorporated all the latest fittings too: the first lift in a British hotel; the first revolving door in Britain; 40 centimetre thick fireproof walls. The latter was to contribute to its downfall. Time stands still for no architect or builder or hotelier. Not long after it opened, en suite bathrooms became all the rage for grand hotels. Thick internal walls did not adapt well to the insertion of bathrooms. The hotel eventually closed after just 62 years of operation and was downgraded to British Rail offices. It was even threatened with demolition in the 1960s before Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman successfully campaigned for its retention.

This Grade I Listed Building was finally saved by Harry Handelsman. A labour of love, albeit an expensive affair. His company Manhattan Loft Corporation spent £100 million converting the three upper floors to 67 apartments and a further £150 million rejuvenating the remainder of the building back to a hotel. It’s a physical embodiment of joie de vivre. The peacock’s feathers have truly regrown. Such rare and colourful plumage! The original entrance hall is now a bar with a polychromatic corniced ceiling, encaustic filed floors and walls dripping in gold leaf. Upstairs, the Renaissance inspired ceiling of the Ladies’ Smoking Room cost nearly £1 million to restore. It was the first place in Europe where females could acceptably smoke in public. This room now aptly leads onto a smoking terrace (or at least did until the boring ban was introduced).

The St Pancras Railway Terminus designed by engineer William Henry Barlow was – wait for it, another record breaker – the single largest railway structure of its time. The former taxi rank between the railway shed and original hotel (originally the pedestrian entrance to the railway platforms) has been converted into a cavernous glass roofed lobby lounge. The adjacent Booking Office is now a brasserie and bar serving traditional English delights such as quail’s eggs with anchovies. Victorian drinks like Garrick Club Punch and Moonlight White Tea are served on neverending bar. The grand staircase is the interior pièce de resistance. It’s a cathedral of colour with hand painted fleur de lys walls framed by Midland Stone arches and vaults. Exposed structural ironwork under the flights of stair fuses romance and technology. Harry’s workforce even aged the carpet on the dizzying array of fanciful flights of stairs. In 2011, we observed that the limestone pillared Gilbert Scott Restaurant looked positively restrained in comparison. Celebrity Chef Marcus Wareing’s team offered its own take on nostalgic classics such as Queen Anne’s Artichoke Tart and Mrs Beeton’s Snow Egg. The Gilbert Scott Restaurant was the setting of our first lunch with Dame Rosalind Savill, then Director of The Wallace Collection, London’s best museum.

Harry carved 38 bedrooms out of the old building and inserted 207 into a new sympathetically designed extension. Once more, the hotel caters for the demands of five star guests. A subterranean spa occupies the former steam kitchen. Our Luxury Travel Magazine 2011 article ended with Stairway to Seven (Facts). A double storey apartment is housed in the clocktower. English Heritage only allowed a 20 colour palette which includes Barlow Blue and Midland Red. The latter hue has a tomato tinge to it, an augury of our 2025 dinner. On Thursday nights in 2011, DJ Eloise rocked the Booking Office and on Friday nights it was the turn of DJ Zulu. The diamond shape is another motif of the hotel and 725 can be found in the Booking Office.

In 2018, Harry reminisced, “I always knew that St Pancras would be a challenge. The complexity of the structure and the Grade I Listing by English Heritage allowing only minimum intervention in the creation of a 21st century hotel was always going to be difficult. Many of my business compatriots thought that I was mad for undertaking such an ambitious project. At times I thought they were right. It was the sheer excitement and privilege of being given the opportunity and responsibility for this most fascinating building that kept me from desperation.”

That was then and this is now: 2025 to be precise. We’re staying in a modern bedroom of St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, dining in the restaurant and late night drinking in the hotel opposite. Bedroom furniture was graduated by wood when our hotel first opened. The best rooms on the first floor contained pieces made of oak or walnut. Second floor rooms had oak or teak furniture; third floor, mahogany; poor old fourth floor, ash. Decoration is more democratic this time round. Our fourth floor room is elegant simplicity: pattern free, clutter free, bad artwork free. The view is of the British Library, another vast red brick building (designed by Colin St John Wilson in the 1990s) although not quite so beloved as its neighbour. Our two paned rectangular window is set in a Gothic arch on the exterior: contemporary inside, traditional outside. Richard Griffiths’ architecture hits all the right notes. RHWL was the overseeing design practice of the development. Encaustic tiles on the floors of the long bedroom corridors draws the original hotel into the extension which fits neatly between the rear of the hotel and the side of the station.

The Gilbert Scott Restaurant closed in 2021. Two years later, The Midland Grand Dining Room by Patrick Powell (an Irish chef) opened before closing last year. And that brings us to The Midland Grand Dining Room by Victor Garvey (a mostly American chef). His CV includes working at two of the world’s most famous restaurants: El Bulli in Barcelona and Noma Copenhagen. Victor’s maternal grandmother was a personal chef for Charles de Gaulle so it makes sense the rebooted restaurant offers French haute cuisine even before you hop across the Channel on the Eurostar.

“There are only a few times in a chef’s life when they get handed a dining room,” says Victor, “and I’m extremely honoured and privileged and excited to be able to embark on this journey in something like this. The idea behind the menu here stems from respecting tradition but innovating and making it lighter and making it more streamlined and making it more concise and finding a way to tell the story of that incredibly deep French culinary heritage and respecting it but updating it. Old world, new ideas.” The sausage shaped Dining Room has a robust neoclassicism of the mid Victorian muscularity ilk befitting its original use as the Smoking Room. The Midland Grand isn’t the only French newcomer in town: a week later we will venture to the wildly popular Joséphine Bouchon in Fulham for cabillaud au beurre blanc à l’é chalote. Chef Claud Bossi of Bibendum South Kensington fame is once again putting the Lyon into lyonnaise in the English Capital.

Tick tock. It’s Pimm’s O’Clock on the Champagne Terrace (we’ve worked up a thirst strolling through the wetland habitat of Camley Street Park). One of London’s hidden gems, the Champagne Terrace is perched below the back of the hotel entrance tower and looked down on from the modern bedroom wing. Oysters are only to be consumed in months with an R and Pimm’s are only to be downed in months without an R. James Pimm’s recipe of liqueurs and herbs remains a warm weather winner 185 years after it was trademarked. In The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook (1982), Peter York and Ann Barr order, “May: at the first sign of summer, Pimm’s.” But no accompanying oysters.

We’re all on for tenuously excused partying and it doesn’t come much better than the 5.05pm Punch Ritual in the Booking Office for guests to celebrate the 152nd anniversary of the original hotel opening. It’s a few days off the actual date (5 May) but we don’t fuss about detail. Historic fountain penned letters from the hotel’s archives are shared while the sommelier stirs his cauldron of elixir. We’ve barely ordered more drinks in the main hotel bar when we’re ushered to our window table in The Midland Grand Dining Room. Oh the anticipation! The à la carte caters for the carnivorous so our waitress suggests vegetarian alternatives. In between pretty amuse bouches and freshly baked bread we’re served a sliced tomato starter and a diced tomato main. We’re all on for retaining our Parisian waistlines. Minimalist plates in maximalist architecture. Pudding is l’Opéra which turns out to be a delightfully deconstructed coffee cake.

A quick dash across the road and we’re soon zooming up 11 storeys in the external lift of The Standard Hotel to Sweeties bar for Power Play cocktails (Belvedere Vodka, Dry Vermouth, Sweeties Savoury Brine). We skip the Bloody Marys: enough tomato for one day. Sure enough, against a darkening pink sky, St Pancras Renaissance Hotel looms in all its pinnacled silhouetted glory. But it’s not over till the fat lady sings or the slim girl walks: before stepping onto the First Class Eurostar to post paschal pastures anew in Paris we’re off to Lightroom (a Louboutin’s throw from the hotel and Central St Martin’s Art College) for a Vogue installation. A tomato red Mercedes roars up and the fashion artist Dame Mary Martin emerges to join us – from the hemline to the frontline of fashion. So now.

Luxury People Restaurants

Ole + Steen + Trine Hahnemann

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date June 26, 2025

Summer Solstice Celebration

“We opened in St James’s nine years ago and that was the introduction of Ole and Steen to London,” announces Joachim Knudsen, Ole and Steen Group CEO. “Today we have 26 stores in Greater London. We believe we have a good understanding of how Londoners think when they want to enjoy pastries, sweet breads and rye bread. Our new Open Rye range is a collaboration with the celebrated Danish chef Trine Hahnemann. Her deep knowledge of Scandinavian food and love for honest, seasonal ingredients makes this partnership a perfect fit.” Ole Kristoffersen and Steen Skallebaek combined 35 years’ experience of running bakeries when they joined forces opening Ole and Steen in 2008. Ole comes from Copenhagen; Steen, Jutland.

Trine shares, “I am especially happy and proud to be here for this partnership because it is about rye bread. I am rye bread! I use this every day. Rye bread really is at the heart of Danish food culture. It started in the 1800s when it became a trend. You could go into shops and take it home and invite people over. Rye bread can be used with whatever you have in your fridge: potato, sausage, cheese. Rye bread is made out of flour of course and then it has seeds and has a very high percentage of fibre. So this is a really healthy bread and very tasty. It was the first fast food – the first takeaway food.”

She starts a demonstration making one of the new Open Rye range. “We want all the five flavours in fast food. Umami, salty, bitter, sweet, sour. As a human being if you eat something that has the five flavours you get so satisfied. That’s why we love burgers! Smørrebrød, the traditional Danish open sandwich on rye bread, can have all five flavours. The other important thing of smørrebrød is the structure. When you eat something it has to have different textures. You need something soft, something chewy, something crunchy.”

The demonstration is in full swing. “You cut rye bread thinner than say sourdough bread. The first thing I do with a slice is smell it! Rye bread has this wonderful bitter, sweet and also flowery smell – a sense of nature. Smørrebrød actually means butter, bun, bread. The butter is very important because when you put all these toppings on you need something to protect the bread so that it doesn’t get soggy. It is a tradition to always use salted butter and it is part of the flavour combination. We have here cream cheese and I have put some yoghurt, dill and chives in it. Fresh herbs are extremely important for the flavour but also for the decoration. In Scandinavia we are obsessed with fresh herbs! Of course everyone knows salmon is a Scandinavian thing too.”

The layering continues. “Put some slices of salmon on for texture and balance of taste. I chose fennel because it goes so well with salmon and dill. Just raw fennel because you don’t want any more flavours in there. We have all that already combined in this smørrebrød. You get a bit of crunchiness from the fennel. Black pepper is the spice – it has to come from a mill. I just want to say rye bread, salmon and pepper is a match made in heaven! And then I am going to put dill on top. You can never have too many herbs – never. And then cress: this is a purple one. We are obsessed with crest as well. Cress has a sharpness which goes really well with the sweetness of salmon. So we have all the flavours in there.”

“We also get to celebrate my new cookbook Eat Copenhagen,” Trine reveals. “In it is a guide to my Copenhagen. All the stories, all the things I love above my hometown, all the traditional food. It’s an insight into the culinary culture you can experience as a local Copenhagener. Food you can bake and cook at home. Then you can go to all the fancy restaurants! And there’s a little story in there about Ole and Steen. I have worked with them since I was very young. When I was 19 or 20 I used to see Ole in a bar. Copenhagen is a very small town. That whole gourmet revolution in bread that you see in Copenhagen now came from Ole and Steen. They were the pioneers and still make the best rye bread and very good cakes.” Bon appétit! Velbekomme!

Tags eat copenhagen, joachim knudsen ole steen group ceo, lavenders blue, ole kristoffersen, ole steen, open rye range, steen skallebaek, stuart blakley, trine hahnemann

Architects Architecture Art Country Houses Design Luxury People

WOW!house 2025 + Design Centre Chelsea Harbour London

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date June 14, 2025

Always

It’s the perfect single storey neoclassical villa. And there’s just one month to experience it. “The façade draws on early Georgian architecture amplified in a Chelsea London context,” explains Darren Price, a Design Director at Adam Architecture. “Its refinement embraces contemporary minimalism and reinterprets the language of classicism in a way that feels both timeless and relevant to modern sensibilities. The neoclassical design relies on lines and arches rather than columns and pilasters.”

WOW!house is back in the Design Centre Chelsea Harbour for another year to inspire, educate and thrill. One of several new elements is a Town Garden designed by Alexander Hoyle and delivered by Artorius Faber. Stone materially links Adam Architecture’s façade and the garden: a Portland limestone plinth; reclaimed sandstone cobbles and walling; and reclaimed flagstones for the portico and arcades flooring. Walking through Darren’s portico, under the oculus in the Soaneian pendentive dome, over the corresponding tiled circle, leads into a procession of eight rooms, a Courtyard, 10 further rooms and onwards and outwards to a Grand Terrace. It’s like wandering through a stationary Venice Simplon-Orient Express with side carriages. International collaborations of interior designers, architects, design brands and suppliers stimulate the senses. Even smell: each room has its own dedicated Jo Malone London fragrance from Pomegranate Noir to Red Roses.

Victoria Davar of Maison Artefact perfectly captures a sense of arrival in the Entrance Hall sponsored by Cox London. A five metre ceiling height adds an extravagance of volume allowing for a floating staircase to spiral up towards an imaginary upper room. Victoria reckons, “We have designed a modern day cabinet of curiosities including a cast bronze and iron chandelier from Cox London.” A Robert Adam plaster frieze from Stevensons of Norwich draws on the neoclassicism of the façade. In contrast, Chad Dorsey’s members’ clubby Drawing Room, sponsored by Fromental, is Arts and Crafts. Fromental’s Kiku wallcovering wraps the room (and ceiling) in panels of stylised chrysanthemums and sunflowers. Chad continues the nature theme with Kyle Bunting’s chequerboard leather rug featuring birch and wheat emblems.

“The Phillip Jeffries Study is designed to be visually compelling but also should enhance the way someone lives and interacts with their environment,” suggests Staffan Tollgård. The Creative Director of Tollgård selected a striking abstract artwork formed of slices of oak and paulownia wood as a wallcovering by Phillip Jeffries. Another cosy space is the Nucleus Media Room designed by Alex Dauley. This Myrrh and Spice Jo Malone London aroma filled cocoon is swathed in Zinc Textile’s suede wallcovering and incorporates Nucleus’ seamless home automation.

“A space to intrigue, inspire and spark conversation,” is how Spinocchia Freund describes The Curator’s Room. The designer has a commitment to working exclusively with women. She collaborated with Ashley Stark, Creative Director of the room’s sponsor Stark, on a bespoke rug. Spinocchia explains, “This rug is a celebration of 87 powerful creative women such as Élisabeth Garouste, Zaha Hadid, Charlotte Perriand, Faye Toogood and Vanessa Raw. Their names are woven into it. My biggest issue was deciding who to include as there were so many suitable names!”

Tommaso Franchi of Tomèf Design collaborated with three of Italy’s leading heritage brands for the Primary Bedroom. Fabric house Fortuny, rattan furniture company Bonacina, and Venetian glass masters Barovier and Toso have all contributed pieces to a room embracing Italian craft. A Primary Bedroom that could be in Venice or Verona is not complete without some Murano: a Tomèf designed coffee table contains a collection of objets d’art made from offcuts of Barovier and Toso’s Murano glassware. Alisa Connery of 1508 London based the House of Rohle Primary Bathroom on reflection, ritual and reverie. The fluid shape of the freestanding bath and standalone shower by the room’s sponsor embodies the energy and movement of water.

Hurrah, Treasure House Fair has come early this year! Or at a least a foretaste has popped up. The Season fixture is Daniel Slowik’s Morning Room sponsor. The interior designer and antique dealer sourced furniture, paintings and objets d’art from contributors to the Treasure House Fair. Daniel’s imaginary client Richard Wallace. The 19th century art collector’s London home, Hertford House in Marylebone, is now The Wallace Collection. This museum and art gallery was reinvented by the brilliant symbiotic force of the late Director Dame Rosalind Savill and the neoclassical architect John O’Connell. A Bardiglio marble chimneypiece by Jamb provides a focal point for the Treasure House Morning Room. Set pieces include a George III pedimented bookcase from Ronald Philipps and a portrait by the 18th century artist Maria Verelst from Philip Mould.

The second of three (or is it four?) open spaces at WOW!house, the Perennials and Sutherland Courtyard designed by Goddard Littlefair combines the best of Andalusian gardens and Moorish architecture. Jo Littlefair compliments Perennials and Sutherland’s technological advancement, “Their outdoor Crescent furniture uses powder coated aluminium as a finish. It’s perfect in hotter climates because the coating has good thermal stability.” The Sims Hilditch Courtyard Room is firmly back on British soil. Country house specialist Emma Sims Hilditch has created a very smart behind the green baize door space. A coffered ceiling and antique furniture elevate this space from back of house to front of courtyard. A dog room and a boot room are set behind glazed internal partition walls in two corners of the Courtyard Room.

The perfect neoclassical villa must contain at least one fourposter bed and American Alessandra Branca comes up trumps with the Casa Branca Bedroom. Drawing on eclectic sources from David Hicks to Lee Radziwill, the sponsor and designer’s own brand of textiles, wallpapers and furniture fill the room. A border stripe framing curly motifs wallpaper is echoed in the striped bed curtains. Murano vases provide hints of Alessandra’s Italian heritage.

“It all began with a pair of taps,” reveals Samuel Heath, the exclusive bathware designer and manufacturer sponsoring the Bathroom by Laura Hammett. The stepped profile, chamfered corners and bronze finish of the new taps could belong to only one style of full bathroom design: Art Deco. “This year is the centenary of l’Exposition des Arts Décoratifs à Paris which launched Art Deco,” Laura relates. “We are really reimagining the 1920s style with gusto and have included a San Marino marble rolltop bath and matching double vanity unit.”

No world class display of interiors is complete without the Pre Raphaelite tour de force that is Kelly Hoppen CBE. Her moody Living Room, sponsored by Visual Comfort and Company, is all that is to be expected from the design powerhouse. She confirms, “Visual Comfort’s collection gave us the freedom to create atmosphere and rhythm through lighting.” Kelly has selected an earthy palette of rich brown, terracotta and muted neutrals. Vintage furniture sits cheek by jowl with bespoke pieces. She notes, “The Living Room blends asymmetry, history and personal storytelling.”

Curvature is a theme of the interiors and reaches a geometric climax in the Dedar Library by Pirajean Lees which is encircled by bookcases. Designers Clémence Pirajean and James Michael Lees discovered something they have in common with the cutting edge (no pun) fabric house of Dedar: a love of music. A440 Hz, the tuning standard of musical instruments before a concert, provides an unlikely source of inspiration for patterns in the painted dome ceiling and the rug made by Jennifer Manners. A pitch perfect room. The Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges imagined Paris as a library. And as the American journalist Maureen Callaghan warns, “If you ever go back with someone after a night out and they’ve no books in their home, run! Run!”

Drummonds backed Nicola Harding’s jewel box inspired Powder Room. The Art Deco style collection includes a marble top vanity and storage units reflected in antiqued mirrors in a glazed ceramic tiled setting. “For the Powder Room you have to be more dramatic,” Nicola opines. “It’s a space where you’re likely to be alone so it can be an escape. We wanted to create an intoxicating atmosphere rich with colour and texture.” The colourway includes ruby, turquoise and jade. In contrast, Toni Black of Blacksheep uses a palette of soft blush, terracotta and taupe for her Home Bar. The scheme is centred on Shepel’s handmade joinery and furniture. A curvaceous bar follows the rounded rectangle room shape.

“The application and finish of the paint is paramount to the finished look and feel of any room, so we’re thrilled to work with Benjamin Moore, the best paint brand out there,” exclaims Peter Mikic, the designer of the Dining Room. A vast abstract artwork by Billy Metcalfe and trompe l’oeil panels by Ian Harper – using Benjamin Moore paint of course – provide sweeps of colour across the walls. Vintage Lucite leopard skin fabric metal framed dining chairs contrast with a circular dining table bejewelled with semi precious stones made by Kaizen.

Atmospheric lighting is another theme of this villa so who better than Hector Finch to sponsor the Thurstan Snug? “We were inspired by Hector’s enthusiasm for designing and crafting his lighting,” says the room’s designer James Thurston Waterworth, Founder of interiors practice Thurstan. “So we imagined a practical creative space where he could draft sketches, test samples and immerse himself in books.” Blue lime plaster walls painted with marble dust bound by varnish and a d’Ardeche parquet floor bring rich patinas to the Snug.

Ben Pentreath Studio is one of King Charles’ favourite architectural design companies. The Studio’s Rupert Cunningham, Leo Kary and Alice Montgomery have come up with the Kitchen built by Lopen Joinery which would definitely persuade Queen Camilla to don her cooking apron. Grecogothik is a novel portmanteau the team jokingly use to describe the genre of this unfitted room. Octagonal shaped cabinet legs reflect the shape of the octagonal rooflight. Art should be in every room in the house and paintings in the Kitchen include Tallisker Isle of Sky bye by John Nash (Paul Nash’s younger brother, not the architect).

His Majesty would certainly enjoy the Garden Terrace designed by Randle Siddeley which leads off the Kitchen. This exotic garden under the glass sky of the Design Centre Chelsea Harbour is filled with lush planting and framed by formal trellis in the style of an orangery. Randle believes, “The Garden Terrace is an immersive escape where one can pause, entertain and connect with nature.” Bespoke aluminium outdoor furniture by the space sponsor McKinnon and Harris includes scalloped dining chairs and an Italianate table. Mental note: every space deserves a crystal chandelier. Things get really wild … in the same collaborators’ Secret Garden filled with Oxenwood outdoor furniture.

This year, WOW!House truly is La Nouvelle Exposition des Arts Décoratifs de Londres. WOW!House 2025 deserves its own chapter in the sequel to Peter Thornton’s 1984 authoritative tome Authentic Décor The Domestic Interior 1620 to 1920.

Tags alessandra branca, alex dauley, alexander hoyle, alice montgomery, alisa connery 1508 london, artorius faber, ashley stark, barovier toso, ben pentreath studio, benjamin moore, billy metcalfe, blacksheep, bonacina, casa branca, chad dorsey, clemence pirajean, cox london, dame rosalind savill, daniel slowik, darren price adam architecture, david hicks, dedar, design centre chelsea harbour london, drummonds, emma sims hilditch, fortuny, fromental, goddard littlefair, hector finch, house of rohle, ian harper, jamb, james michael lees, james thurston waterworth, jennifer manners, jo malone london, john oconnell, jorge luis borges, kaizen, kelly hoppen, laura hammett, lavenders blue, lee radziwill, leo kary, lopen joinery, maria verelst, maureen callaghan, mckinnon harris, nicola harding, nucleus media, oxenwood, perennials sutherland courtyard, philip mould, phillip jeffries, pirajean lees, randle siddeley, ronald philipps, rupert cunningham, samuel heath, shepel, spinocchia freund, staffan tollgard, stuart blakley, tommaso franchi tomef design, toni black, treasure house fair, victoria davar maison artefact, visual comfort, wallace collection, wow!house 2025

Art Design Luxury People Restaurants

Yugo Restaurant Belfast + Graffiti

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date June 12, 2025

A Sandbar Near a River Mouth

In the 1980s the choice was Speranza or Capers? Italian or Italianate? Those were the two stalwarts of the Belfast restaurant scene. More of a still than a scene. It would have been hard to imagine back then that the city would become a gourmet destination. Belfast eventually found its forte. Graffiti art replaces sectarian slogans in the city centre. Klaus Rosskothen who runs Pretty Portal in Düsseldorf, one of Europe’s leading urban art galleries, argues, “Graffiti art is a sign of vitality and life in a city.” Actually there’s a café on Ormeau Road called Graffitti [sic] which is famous for its tzatziki.

There certainly was no Michelin commended restaurant, let alone an Asian one, 45 years ago. “Behind an unassuming façade is this buzzy industrial restaurant,” records the Inspector, “where powerful music plays and a super friendly team bring the dishes as and when they’re ready.” That unassuming façade is on the grandly named Wellington Street which is actually a short laneway to one side of the City Hall.

Lunch in Yugo is fusion at its best: Buzen meets Baishan meets Belfast. Panko prawn, gochujang (£8.00). Tempura spinach maki (£11.00). Aubergine, hot honey, chilli, yoghurt, pomegranate, mint (£10.00). Dulce de leche ice cream, brownie crumble (£3.50). The aromatic crispness of Domaine de Menard Cuvee Marine Sauvignon 2023 (£30.00) with notes of tropical fruit is the perfect accompaniment to the flavour and texture of the savoury and sweet dishes.

Seasoned restaurateurs Gerard McFarlane and Kyle Stewart opened in Yugo in 2019 and it has proved to be popular ever since. The restaurant was, “Born out of an idea with Far Eastern roots and a modern aesthetic. At Yugo we bring you a selection of modern creative and traditional Asian styles of cooking with a Belfast Bushidō attitude.” There’s a lot to unpack in the Japanese term Bushidō. It’s a Samurai moral code that embraces virtues including benevolence, courage, honour, justice, loyalty and politeness.

The restaurant is laid out in two areas flanking an entrance lobby: the main dining room (with a kitchen to the rear) and a smaller dining room and bar. A dark moody atmosphere is heightened by lots of black surfaces – especially atmospheric on a rainy Saturday lunchtime. Vintage slides of the Far East are projected onto one of the internal walls. Yugo has a great vibe and when it comes to top notch nosh of the Asian persuasion there’s no beating round the Bushidō.

Tags capers, gerard mcfarlane, graffiti, klaus rosskothen pretty portal dusseldorf, kyle stewart, lavenders blue, paul muldoon, speranza, stuart blakley, yugo restaurant belfast review

Art Design Fashion Luxury People

Hiroyuki Murase + Suzusan

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date June 4, 2025

Looks At Us Now

We’re on an exploratory journey led by top German journalist, stylist and trendsetter Ilona Marx. The city is our oyster on a spring Saturday. In an early 20th century former bakery in Ronsdorfer Strasse amidst music recording studios is the most discreet atelier imaginable. Low key, high fashion. We’re here to meet Hiroyuki Murase, the inspiring CEO and Creative Director of Suzusan. His fashion and interior pieces are for sale in 125 stockists worldwide from Ireland to Israel and Lithuania to Lebanon. He is bringing a new elegance to storied lineage.

“I found this building space five years ago,” Hiroyuki begins. “My office and workshop are here too. I studied fine art when I was 20 at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham Surrey actually! Tuition fees are so high in the UK a friend of mine in Germany told me that studying here is for free. So I researched the art scene in Germany and came to Düsseldorf’s well known Kunstakademie. I didn’t study fashion or textiles: I still studied fine art.”

We’re intrigued how his business came about. “Well, my family has been doing this dyeing technique for 100 years in Japan. It’s a very traditional handicraft called Shibori and where I am from – a village called Arimatsu between Tokyo and Kyoto – is well known for this. The Shibori technique is over 400 years old and was used mainly for making kimonos. Every family in our village was once involved in this industry. I am the fifth generation now practising Shibori. Initially, I didn’t want to do what my family does so I escaped. After spending some years in Europe, I recognised actually this is beautiful.”

Hiroyuki continues his story, “Dyeing was dying! There were no young generations making it. There once were more than 10,000 Japanese artisans but when I was studying my father was one of the youngest and he was over 60. In Japan when you talk about Shibori people think of their grandmother’s kimono. It’s like talking about the past or old things. But a show in Europe was a turning point for me. My father came to the UK and showed his textiles at a fair he was invited to. He couldn’t speak any English so he called me to support him to I went to the UK.”

Hiroyuki’s female pet tortoise Ken ambles past us across the tiled floor. “People saw these fabrics from my home village and how beautiful they are – I also saw how people reacted to the Shibori. It was all new to them. Then I met Victoria Miro at her huge art gallery near Old Street in London. I met her by chance and showed these textiles to her. And she said well they’re beautiful and she wanted them immediately. Victoria Miro is like the godmother of contemporary art and I studied contemporary art! Eastern handicraft is right now.”

He started his own brand in a student flat in Düsseldorf in 2008. And the rest is history. And the present. And the future. Young people are now working for Suzusan in the artisanal studios of Arimatsu, making exclusive much sought after clothing with individual contemporary designs. It takes three to four days to make one garment and one to two months to make a kimono. Silk and cotton are traditional Shibori materials but Hiroyuki also uses luxury materials like cashmere. He sits down on the floor next to Ken and gives us a demonstration of the tying and sewing methods which are the initial stages of the process before dyeing takes place. Outside, the rose clad terrace is gaining colour to the day.

Tags arimatsu, dusseldorf, hiroyuki murase, lavenders blue, shibori, stuart blakley, suzusan, victoria miro

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Düsseldorf +

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date May 31, 2025

Completing the Circle

“He made a circle out of a lake; he formed two rivers from the circle; he flooded and destroyed an island, creating a sea,” writes Gore Vidal in The City and the Pillar (1949). “Dorf means ‘village’ and Düssel is a tributary flowing into the Rhine,” announces the well informed tour guide Katja Stuben. The origins of the city may lie in 7th century farming and fishing settlements where the minor River Düssel flows into the major River Rhine. In 1288 the ruling Count Adolf V of Berg granted a town charter to Düsseldorf. “Today there are around 700,000 people living in Düsseldorf but it still resembles a village. It is a friendly local community with all the benefits of a city.”

“Düsseldorf mainly developed on the east side of the Rhine,” Katja explains. “Only about 10 percent of it is on the west side in Oberkassel, Niederkassel, Lörick and Heerdt. During World War II much of the city was damaged or destroyed but the Art Deco residential buildings in Oberkassel were relatively unscathed. These are now some of the best properties in the city overlooking the riverside Rheinwiesen Meadows.” There is a surprisingly large restored and rebuilt Old Town known as Altstadt. “The cobblestoned square of Burgplatz connects the banks of the Rhine to Altstadt. In the middle of Burgplatz is Schlossturm, the remaining medieval tower of the ducal palace.”

Two of the oldest and grandest buildings in Altstadt are the Catholic Churches of St Lambertus and St Andreas. Founded in 1288, St Lambertus overlooks a courtyard behind Burgplatz. Its wonky spire, one of the many idiosyncratic glories of the city’s exhilarating skyline, is the result of an 1815 reconstruction which was too heavy making the roof tiles gradually twist. In contrast to the red brick walls of St Lambertus, the exterior of St Andreas is painted lemon yellow and pepper grey. This Baroque ecclesiastical edifice founded in 1622 stands further to the east of Burgplatz. HeimWerk is the best brasserie in Altstadt to sample schnitzel. The vegetarian option is vegetable and potato rösti in a marinade of horseradish and mustard topped by carrot flakes.

“Japanese people settled in Düsseldorf in the middle of the 20th century,” records Katja. “They came to establish businesses in the steel industry. The population of this city is now around one percent Japanese. Little Tokyo is the Japanese business district. The Michelin starred Nagaya is one of the best Japanese restaurants in Europe. There are still traditional Eastern travel agents in Little Tokyo.” Heading westwards geographically and culturally, Königsallee is devoted to luxury fashion houses and hotels. The glitzy five star Steigenberger Park Hotel overlooks this verdant boulevard. Its retail concessions include Dolce Gabbana, Givenchy, Stefano Ricci, Catherine Sauvage and Wellendorff. Everyone and everything in this postcode is preened to perfection, even the posing pondside ducks.

“Let’s go up the 240 metre high Rheinturm – the Rhine Tower!” suggests Katja heading back to the river. “The penultimate floor viewing gallery of the tower rotates a full circle once an hour like it’s on rollerblades.” Slanting windows frame an eagle eye’s view of the Landtag North Rhine-Westphalia Parliament building completed in 1988 to the design of Eller Maier Walter. Its floorplate of overlapping and concentric circles draws on an aspiration for openness and transparency in politics. A decade younger is Frank Gehry’s RheinHafen Arts and Media Centre on Am HandelsHafen in his “where’s my T square gone” trademark idiom. Each of the three curvilinear concrete volumes is individually finished. The northernmost block is white painted render. The southernmost, red brick. The middle block is coated in stainless steel. Using identical rectangular windows set in deep surrounds (except for the ground floor windows which are similar but taller) demonstrates the architect’s functionality of fenestration amidst whimsy of form. Later, the moon will rest on this tricoloured trio.

She points out, “Look down again and beyond RheinHafen is MedienHafen, the Media Harbour which was the old riverside industrial area. It mostly accommodates media, communications, IT and fashion companies now. Many of the big international architects have designed buildings there: Will Alsop, David Chipperfield, Steven Holl, Helmut Jahn, Renzo Piano. Ok, let’s go shopping now. Schadow Arkaden on Schadowstrasse is one of the large shopping centres in Düsseldorf.” The nearest subway station is a work of art. A screen over the line records anonymised images of passengers entering the building with a few minutes delay, deriving geometries – many circular – from their movements. Called Turnstile, this installation was designed by local artist Ursula Damm.

Borrowing the words of Gore Vidal “On the warmest and greenest afternoon of the spring” Carlsplatz is where everyone aesthetically pleasing is hanging out for food and wine. It’s a downtown upmarket market. “Three guys – Philipp Kutsch, Björn Schwethelm and Nico von der Ohe – started Concept Riesling in Carlsplatz in 2017. They source from young to vintage wineries. There are 1,500 bottles to choose from priced right up to €7,000,” Katja confirms. Prost! Sláinte! Cartwheeling is the urban sport of Düsseldorf. Happiness is the city’s default disposition. Next to Concept Reisling is a potato stall; many varieties have girls’ names. Adretta, Gunda, Laura, Marabel, Rose, Theresa and Violet all vie for attention.

“Twilight and the day ended,” prompts Gore Vidal. There’s so much promise and pleasure in the air. Destination: The Paradise Now on Hammerstrasse. Co owner Garciano Manzambi shares, “I wanted to bring the holiday vibe of Mykonos to my hometown. We can accommodate 800 people who come early and stay late. Come with me and check out the nightclub.” But first there is caramel and truffle pasta to enjoy on the vast terrace. And bread. “This butter is heated and whipped to give the taste of nut and truffle,” explains the friendly waitress. Everyone is friendly in Düsseldorf. “Your wine is from the Pfalz, one of the famous regions of German vineyard production.” Sorbet is Stilllebenmalerei. The Paradise Now is open till 3am on weekends. The hot DJ is already mixing cool tunes. Everyone here is genetically blessed and materially privileged. Dining, drinking and dancing in the same venue till dawn or at least the wee small hours will unfold as a theme of this city. Fast forward 24 hours and cruising up the Rhine on the KD (Köln-Düsseldorfer) is what it’s all about. Good food, good company, good music and thank goodness two discos to shape those midnight grooves.

On another day, leading journalist and trend consultant Ilona Marx cuts a dash as she shares her creative passions under the constant blue velvet sky which is crisscrossed by white streaks, a reminder that the airport lies in the city itself. Five years ago, goldsmith and jewellery designer Lisa Scherebnenko took over as Director of Orfèvre. The gallery and workshop is on the prestigious Bastionstrasse. She relates, “I use classy materials for jewellery: silver, gold, platinum but also tantalum which is a very special one. Do you know about it? Tantalum is a super nice material and not a lot of jewellers use it because it’s very hard to work with. But it’s very beautiful and really lovely on every skin.” Very fine jewellery has been made in Orfèvre since it opened in 1969. Her Rope Collection uses intertwined circular forms. Further down Bastionstrasse is Constanze Muhle’s eponymous atelier. “This is a hidden gem with collections from the likes of Nasco, Neni and Bruno Marnetti inside,” Ilona observes. “Constanze is incredibly well informed.”

Ilona states, “Ruby Luna is one of our trendiest hotels. The name comes from the popularity of the moon landing in the mid 20th century. This building started life as a Commerzbank drive through in the 1960s. It was designed by architect Paul Schneider-Esleben. You can still see the control panel of the bank which is now the breakfast bar of the hotel! Come on up to the rooftop terrace for a view of the city and the Rhine.” Upstream is Kunstpalast which celebrates art history. Mid 20th century Arno Breker figurative sculptures line the lawn. Midtown is K20, another museum, known for its modernist art such as Andy Warhol’s 1962 silkscreen ink and pencil on linen A Woman’s Suicide.

Lunch of porcini mushroom ravioli is on the stylish terrace of Schillings overlooking Hofgarten. This restaurant is on the ground floor of Schauspielhaus. The theatre with its white ribbed concrete exterior forms an enigmatic volume resting on pilotis (The City and the Pillars pluralised into physicality?) in front of the partly glazed ground floor. It was built to the design of local architect Bernhard Pfau in 1970 and has an enigmatically timeless quality. The dining room is as monochromatic as the exterior. Previously, Katya had discussed some local cuisine. “Himmel und Erde is a traditional brewery dish. It is mashed apple and potato. The name means literally ‘sky and ground’! Then there is Sauerbraten which is made of hot brown raisin. Adam Bertram Bergrath mustard or ‘ABB’ dates back to 1726. It comes in a refillable ceramic pot. Van Gogh included a pot in one of his paintings.” A circularity of existence.

Cultural hours with creative Düsseldorfers don’t come any better than learning about art and fashion and life with Hiroyuki Murase, Kaoli Mashio and Klaus Rosskothen. CEO and Creative Director of the internationally successful fashion and interiors label Suzusan, Hiroyuki has a studio in a historic former bakery building in Ronsdorferstrasse. He relates, “My family have been doing the dyeing technique called Shibori for 100 years. This traditional craft is usually for making kimonos but I use it in a contemporary way for a range of clothes as well as cushions and other items for the home.” Hiroyuki’s wife Kaoli’s studio is hidden at the end of a wisteria clad mews in the Grafenberger Wald area. Her critically acclaimed paintings and mixed media art are borne of an intense study of simplicity, nonduality and infinity. Across the city, former graffiti artist Klaus established Pretty Portal on Brunnenstrasse in 2007. His influential gallery represents emerging and established urban artists across Europe.

Later, architect Micky Damm of Studio Baukunst in the Bilk quarter will complete the circle. “We always try to develop circles. We want a client to have a bigger benefit than he would usually expect. And at the end of every project we want everyone to look with their eyes and say we would like to do another project. So that’s it. Those are the terms of the circle. We are developing properties for clients but we also support the subculture of artists and musicians. So you need the creatives and clubs to have this special space. And the other ones who pay full rent. This keeps a space alive. If you make these circles work then everyone is happy.” Everyone is happy. This is Düsseldorf turning full circle.

Tags adam bernhard bergrath, altstadt, arno breker, bernhard pfau, bjorn schwethelm, concept riesling carlsplatz, constanze muhle, daniel libeskind, david chipperfield, dusseldorf, eller maier walter, frank gehry, garciano manzambi, gore vidal the city and the pillar, heimwerk, helmut jahn, hiroyuki murase, ilona marx, k20, kaoli mashio, kd koln dusseldorfer, klaus rosskothen, kunstpalast, landtag north rhine westphalia parliament, lavenders blue, lisa scherebnenko, medienhafen, micky damm, nagaya little tokyo, nico von der ohe, oberkassel, orfevre, paul schneider esleben, philipp kutsch, pretty portal, renzo piano, rheinhafen arts media centre, rheinturm, ruby luna hotel, schillings schauspielhaus, schlossturm, st andreas church, st lambertus church, steigenberger park hotel, steven holl, stuart blakley, studio baukunst, suzusan, the paradise now restaurant, tour guide katja stuben, ursula damm, will alsop

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Le Littré Hotel + Left Bank Paris

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date May 25, 2025

Rêve Parisien

Nos jours. The late great chanteuse Marianne Faithfull latterly lived in a lateral apartment on Boulevard du Montparnasse. She once shared, “I have some lovely paintings and photographs and furniture. All things that have been passed down by my family. But actual decorations are absurd!” Hôtel Le Littré is on a quiet side street off the southern end of Boulevard du Montparnasse, under the shadow of the (in)famous Montparnasse Tower.

Rue Littré fortunately isn’t named after rubbish but rather the multihyphenate Émile Littré. This politician, philosopher and linguist Left Banker fulfilled his aptronym by writing an etymological dictionary, published in 1841. A few copies of the Littré Dictionary are in the Winter Garden of the hotel which opens onto that most Parisian of spaces – the courtyard. There has been a hotel behind the Haussmann façade of 9 Rue Littré since 1967. Full French breakfast is served in the lower level dining room.

Keeping to the literary theme, the hotel stocks Le Littré News (April 2025 edition) and La Gazette de Littré (timeless edition). One of the recommendations in Le Littré News is for a restaurant across the road from the hotel called Le Petit Littré. Jean-Baptiste Bellecourt opened the restaurant in 2012. On a rainy Saturday evening, it’s at full capacity. The convivial owner explains that the waiter cut his hand earlier and had to go home. So Jean-Baptiste is acting as receptionist, maître d’, waiter, sommelier … a one man machine (presumably there’s a chef hidden away somewhere). Dinner of risotto and Tarte Tatin is an essay on perfect French cuisine.

“Madame de Pompadour ate four meals a day: breakfast, dinner, a late afternoon snack (goûter) and supper,” the much missed Dame Rosalind Savill records in her 2022 double volume literary masterpiece Everyday Rococo: Madame De Pompadour and Sèvres Porcelain. Madame de Pompadour would have adored the French fries and shrimp parcels lunch in a casual café on Boulevard du Montparnasse.

A short stroll past the glasshouses of Jardin Botanique de l’Universitie Cité leads to Jardin du Luxembourg. The world and its beautiful partner are playing boules, sunbathing, promenading. All 25 hectares are brimming with life. The ghost of Louis XIII’s mother, the Regent Marie de’ Medici, must be looking down in wonder at the bourgeois from her top floor bedroom in the 17th century Palais du Luxembourg. The balustrades and pedestals and statues and urns are all still very recognisable from John Singer Sargent’s 1879 painting In the Luxembourg Garden.

Getting ever closer to the River Seine, past the scent of Goutal perfumery (a modern day maker of myrrh), is the city’s third largest church: St Sulpice. Construction of Daniel Gittard’s neoclassical design began in 1646 and its 21 chapels were decorated over the following decades as the architecture evolved. Most splendid of all is the Virgin Chapel started by Giovanni Nicoli Servandoni in 1777 and completed 48 years later by Charles de Wally. “She was perfectly in tune with the rococo period in which she lived, and enabled it to evolve and flourish,” Ros comments. Madame de Pompadour would feel very at peace under the rococo golden dome of the Virgin Chapel.

A visit to San Francisco Books literally continues the literary theme.

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Lavender’s Blue + 1,000 Articles

Post author By Lavender's Blue
Post date May 7, 2025
27 Comments on Lavender’s Blue + 1,000 Articles

Upward We Fly

The Tuamgraney born London based novelist Edna O’Brien once remarked, “There’s a very interesting thing about memory and exile. It is only when you leave someone or something that the full power if you like, the performance of it is in you, it’s inside you. So separation brings the emotions and ultimately a book. I think a book is the accumulation of emotions written in a particular, hopefully musical, way. It’s a beautiful feeling actually; it’s like the whole influx of something that is stronger than memory. Of course, it’s memory but you’re back in it, not writing it secondhand. Again, that counts for a certain derangement.”

It all started with Cliveden. In September 2012, we received an invitation to stay in the Berkshire hotel but as hard copy publications back then were disappearing faster than Veuve Cliquot at one of our soirées, we came up with the idea of publishing an article online. And so Lavender’s Blue was born. The name has triple derivation after our home (“Your house is so cinematic!” declares film director Stephan Pierre Mitchell), our location and the song by Marillion. Before long, every PR in London and further afield learned we always turn up, give good party, and even better copy. Although five parties in one day starting with an 11am Champagne reception for New York thinker John Mack in the Rosewood Hotel was pushing it even by our standards. Actually, it all really began in April 1995 with a column House of the Month in Ulster Architect magazine, edited and published by the bold and brave and brilliant Anne Davey Orr. But that’s a whole other story.

While most events are one-offs, from a vanishing crystal coach at Ascot to a vanishing guest on the Orient Express, others would become annual events. If the preview of Masterpiece (in Royal Hospital Chelsea grounds) was an early summer hit each year, the Boutique Hotel Awards (in Merchant Taylor’s Hall) would quickly become a midwinter highlight. Fortunately Masterpiece has been replaced by The Treasure House Fair and WOW!house and we’ve landed ourselves on their preview lists. We’re also proving a hit at the annual International Media Marketplace.

Behind the curtain. That’s our forte. And we don’t just mean peeping round the iron variety (think Gdańsk). We’re not only through the gates: we’re over the threshold. We gain access where others dare not tread. If it’s an Irish country house, we’ll stay with the owners and explore the cellars and attics – preferably when they’re tucked up in their fourposter (Temple House). We’ll pop into the kitchen to see what’s really going on whether in Le Bristol or Comme Chez Soi. We’ll talk to the lady of the manor and a millworker (Sion Mills). Sometimes it takes a village to raise an article: in Castletownshend the fun began over breakfast at The Castle continuing through public houses and private houses up Main Street before ending back in The Castle by dawn.

If “design” is the mauve thread that sews Lavender’s Blue together, “celebration of life” is our way of banishing anything mentally blue. Illuminated by art and architecture, fashion and the Divine, we’re mad for life, channelling that literary derangement. But if it ain’t good, it don’t appear. Simple. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some events are far too private to be published such as an impresario salon recital in one of London’s grandest houses surrounded by more Zoffanys than The National Gallery owns while sampling the owners’ South African wine cellar. Or a party in Corke Lodge, County Wicklow, with more diplomats per square metre than Kensington Palace Gardens being serenaded by the Whiffenpoofs on the folly gladed lawn.

Lavender’s Blue is all about places and people so we rarely do personal. You won’t read how we were catastrophically frogmarched out of The Lanesborough (too much catwalking) or categorically told to pipe down in Launceston Place (too much caterwauling). Or the full story of hijinks with the model Parees which one friend described as sounding like an escapade from an Armistead Maupin short story. Original writing and original photography – and occasionally original drawing (from a two minute sketch of Mountainstown House to a 10 hour floor plan of Derrymore House) – are our creative cornerstones. We never plagiarise except from ourselves: to quote from one of our most read articles, Beaulieu House, “Lavender’s Blue is the brilliant coated edition of universal facts, riveting mankind, bringing nice and pretty events.” We’ll coin the odd phrase too from “Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder” to “You can’t be this fabulous and not make a few enemies!”

What’s our literary style? Well we’re not paid up members of Plain English for starters. Lord Wolfe would blanche at such opening gambits as, “There’s nothing standard in The Standard” or “Mary Martin London fashion is more than an antinomic macédoine: it is a semiotic embrace of science and conviction made manifest in materiality, tactility and sartorial disruption”. There are a quarter of a million English words to choose from (compared to a mere 100,000 in French and a meagre 85,000 in Chinese) so why reach for simplicity when you can stretch the lexicon? We don’t like to namedrop but as Daphne Guinness shared with us about her lyrics at a party in Notting Hill, “There are some words I just really like the sound of!” A picture tells 1,000 words and sometimes we’ll deliver 1,000 words and 1,000 pictures. But how can you keep the shutter open when you’re cherishing Chatsworth or roaming round Rochester? We’re not just about obvious glitz and glamour. So we frequent Hôtel Meurice in Paris and Hôtel Meurice in Calais. We’ve explored Georgian Bath and Georgian Dover. Doubling down on clichés is avoided except in derision while downing Chapel Down south of the Kent Downs.

How long does an article take to prepare? Some flow with automatic writing on a commute or in bed or in the bath in almost unconscious reverie. Others take decades. Mourne Park House started with a memorable visit in 1992 (the boathouse collapsed and gracefully slid into the lake mid morning coffee) and continued with return visits up to 2021 (by then the house was badly burnt). Crevenagh House was photographed over two decades in every season from heavy snow to scorching sunshine. We visited Gunnersbury Park four times over a London heatwave to capture it morning, noon, evening, and after supper. We also vacationed at Murlough four times, Irish Sea hopping in search of elusive sunlight. Montevetro and Marlfield both first appeared in Ulster Architect before being resurrected on Lavender’s Blue. Marlfield is the work of genius architect Alfred Cochrane with later lodges by the talented Albert Noonan. And on that note, John O’Connell’s work (Montalto) and tours (Ranger’s House) have added an abundance of sparkle to Lavender’s Blue.

We’re always up for top drawer collaborations: polo in Buenos Aires; the Government in Montenegro; Audi in Istanbul; Boutique Hotels Club in Bruges; Guggenheim in Bilbao; Rare Champagne in Paris. Did we mention Paris? The friendliest city in the world! As long as you’re in the right set, of course. We know our French, spring, red and rings. Oh, and we’re easily dragooned to fashion shows stretching the bailiwick especially when it comes to fashion artist Mary Martin London. Vintage models (Goodwood, Carmen dell’Orefice and Pattie Boyd), modern models (Esther Blakley, Janice Blakley and Katie Ice – all beautiful, all gazelles), royalty (Queen Ronke and Catherine Princess of Wales) and pop star royalty (Heather Small) have all enjoyed Lavender’s Blue exposure. There are even occasional segues into filming (Newzroom Afrika and English Heritage) and the dreaded bashing of ivories (Rabbit).

The current culmination of Lavender’s Blue is an exquisitely printed hardback coffee table book of substance on the Holy Land. The first edition of SABBATH PLUS ONE was an instant sellout at Daunt Books Marylebone. It’s now on the coffee tables of all the best homes – including a certain Clarence House. Oh yes, King Charles III is really enjoying his copy. “Your most thoughtful gesture is greatly appreciated …” So it’s time for the second edition. Same high quality print with a reddish burgundy rather than navy blue hard back hand stitched fabric cover. We’re still gonna vaunt about Daunt. Only the finest. In all the best libraries now, not least earning its stripes at Abbey Leix House and Pitchford Hall. And lobbies: The American Colony Hotel and The Jaffa.

We do love our triple Michelin starred places (L’Ambroisie, Lasarte, Core). Champagne! Foam! Truffle! While most of the restaurants we have visited are still thriving, unknowingly at the time, Lavender’s Blue would become an archive for quite a few. Aquavit, Bank Westminster and Zander Bar, Duddell’s, Farmacy, Galvin at Windows in The Hilton Park Lane, The Gas Station (one of our regular rendezvous with fellow gourmand Becks), Hello Darling, Marcus Wareing’s Tredwell’s, 8 Mount Street, Nuala, Plateau, Rex Whistler at Tate Britain, San Lorenzo, Senkai, Tom Kemble at Bonham’s, and Typing Room all in London have disappeared. So have Scheltema in Brussels, Le Détroit in Calais, The Black Douglas in Deal, The Table in Broadstairs, l’Écrivain in Dublin, Cristal Room Baccarat in Paris, and Forage and Folk in Omagh.

Still, nothing tastes as good as skinny fries. It’s survival of the fattest! Impressive as it was, Embassy Gardens Marketing Suite was never built to last. Erarta Art Gallery, Fu Manchu nightclub (the real Annabel’s!) and The Green and Found gift shop are lost in the mists of time. We’d barely photographed Quinlan Terry’s 35 year old junior common room bungalow at Downing College before the wrecker’s ball entered the site. We’re already missing our perfumer neighbour Sniff.

Even sadder, we have become the repository for final curtain interviews. Min Hogg, Founding Editor of The World of Interiors magazine and Anna Wintour’s first boss, the 9th Marquess of Waterford and the musician Diana Rogers entertained us – and hopefully you – with their end of life witticisms. David George, a reader of our Diana in Savannah article wrote, “I was married to her for 10 years and we were together for more than two decades. When you look in the sky she is the brightest star that you will ever see! I love you sweet middle class princess! Rest in peace, all my love, David.” We featured artist Trevor Newton’s final solo show and fashion designer Thierry Mugler taking his au revoir bow at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris. Now historic photographs of model Misty Bailey appeared on Lavender’s Blue. Lindy Guinness, the last Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, shared thoughts at one of her last townhouse parties full of people one should know like the international tastemaker Charles Plante. Beresford Neill reminisced on early 20th century Tyrella. And of course, two memorial pieces to the much missed Dorinda, Lady Dunleath. The last book launch of Dame Rosalind Savill, the inspirational scholar of European decorative arts and visionary museum director of the Wallace Collection, is another moving memory now frozen in time.

Readers’ comments are always of interest. Standout messages include a painting request to Ballyfin; advice on the best photographic viewing point at Dungiven Castle; revealing a shared love of Mary Delany or the Mitfords; a discussion of the meaning of Rue Monsieur; Samarès Manor relatives trying to contact each other during a Jersey storm; and an unreported baby drowning in a mansion swimming pool in Sandwich Bay. Mount Congreve attracted interesting comments including from James Sweeney who wrote, “I worked in Mount Congreve Estate for many years as a Private Chef to the Congreves. It was a joy and a pleasure and has given me cherished memories. Mr Congreve was an amazing man and I owe him a great deal for his wisdom that he kindly let me benefit from.”

Ewelina from Beauty on the Cliff poetically scribed, “Waterford is my home since 17 years and Mount Congreve was always my soft point. The moment when you enter the place is simply magical. I’ve been inside the house recently, just before yesterday. I was inside of the Blue Wedgwood Room … well … only the pale blue walls and the beautiful but sadly empty china cabinets reminded me about past grandeur of this place. It’s really really heartbreaking to see the empty rooms, stripped from everything … even the curtains … the books all over the floor in the library … totally without the respect for Mr Congreve. I hope that Waterford City Council didn’t forget that was someone else’s home. As Mr Yeats said, ‘Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.’ Thank you so much for your review. Kindest regards from Waterford.” Sara Stainsby messaged, “Really interesting essay on Stapleford Park. My great grandparents worked there, my grandmother was born there and was married in the church. In the 70s I visited my great grandparents when they lived in a flat above the stables …” Birthday wishes (Portrait) and restoration concerns (Barden Towers) are always welcome. Even more welcome was a Champers accompanied poem hand delivered to the state dining room (Hartwell House).

There are direct messages too: “I came across your Lavender’s Blue series starting from Auchinleck then Crevenagh House and Tullan Strand. I can see from your McClelland connection that you have an interest in Northern Ireland including Donegal … I found that your articles on architecture address the most erudite, meticulous and expansive aspects of the subject so perhaps the work of James Taylor in late Georgian times will fall beneath the range of your interest in the style and proportions of symmetrical Palladian buildings.” We jumped straight in a car to Islington. Likewise when tipped off about Stockwell Park. A reader enjoyed our “wonderful commentary on various aspects of Ballyshannon … tis wonderful to share your thoughts about my hometown”. We’ll accept high praise from Ireland’s greatest host: “I just love your articles striking notes of deepest erudizione to soprano and coloratura gossip! I’m so glad you were the catalyst to my party and I can’t believe it went so well.”

Amazing Grace Point inspired a declaration of faith: “Lough Swilly and Fort Dunree is one of the most wonderful places in Ireland to visit, and especially to look out across the waters where so many great ships have sailed. But most of all – to ponder the words of Amazing Grace written there by John Newton. His miraculous conversion credited to his mother’s prayers. She never gave up, like my mother, who never gave up but prayed me into the Kingdom.” Messages come from above and down under: “I hope you don’t mind me emailing you but I happened to walk into a beautiful graveyard today in Picton, Australia, and happened to come across this one particular headstone. I was instantly intrigued as my grandparents were from Donegal in Ireland and I wanted to see if this was close? Anyway I just read about Mountjoy Square and when the area become established. I’m not sure but working out the dates I think this couple might have been some of the original inhabitants? I saw an article that you wrote and just wanted to share this with you – you may or may not appreciate it but I wanted to bring this couple home!” They’ve come home.

Artist and art restorer Denise Cook crosses the rare divide from comment provider to content provider sharing her expanse of knowledge from Pink Magnolias to the Rector of Stiffkey. So does Dr Roderick O’Donnell, world authority on all matters Pugin. Another reader turned writer, the ever erudite historian and patron of the arts Nicholas Sheaff, brought Gosford Castle completely (back) to life. “There is really too much to say,” to parrot Henry James in The Portrait of a Lady, 1881. Haud muto factum.

As Reverend Prebendary Andy Rider once quipped, “You do get around.” Amsterdam to Zürich, Brussels to Verona, Channel Island hopping, nowhere is safe from the Lavender’s Blue sagacity filled patrician treatment. As for our favourite place, that’s simple: Bunbeg Beach, especially at 10.30pm on a sun drenched midsummer night. Chronicling our times, we produce the material – and sometimes we are the material. But only when shot by the likes of top cinematographer Mina Hanbury-Tennyson-Choi and shoot the shoot supremo Simon Dutson. Striking a striking pose. Fading grandeur (the interior not the model).

“The whole earth is filled with awe at Your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, You call forth songs of joy,” Psalm 65. Lavender’s Blue is between the bookends of everything that was and is to come. It’s about dealing with things as they are, not as they should be. We’re all about orchestrating a fresh approach, synthesising Baroque stridency with Palladian refinement. Our oeuvre is a sumptuous sequence of artistic compositions. On the frontline, turning to face the light. Mary Oliver always gets it right: Instructions for Living a Life, 2010, “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” Thank you to all our readers. Thank you Council Bluffs. In the short now, to pluralise the words of the French Resistance fighter Simone Segouin, “We’d do it all again.”

Tags 1000 articles, 8 mount street, 9th marquess waterford, abbey leix house, albert noonan, alfred cochrane, amazing grace point, american colony hotel, anne davey orr, aquavit, armistead maupin, ballyfin hotel, bank westminster zander bar, beaulieu house louth, black douglas deal, bunbeg beach, carmen dell'orefice, castletownshend, catherine princess wales, charles plante, cliveden, comme chez soi brussels, core restaurant, corke lodge, crevenagh house, cristal room baccarat paris, dame rosalind savill, daunt bookshop, david george, denise cook. reverend prebendary andy rider, derrymore house, diana rogers savannah, dorinda lady dunleath, duddells, edna obrien, erarta art gallery, esther blakley, ewelina beauty cliff, farmacy, forage folk omagh, fort dunree, fu manchu nightclub clapham, galvin windows in hilton park lane, gas station restaurant, gunnersbury park, hartwell house, heather small, hello darling, hotel meurice calais, hotel meurice paris, international media marketplace, jaffa hotel tel aviv, james sweeney, janice blakley, john mack, john oconnell, katie ice, lambroisie, lanesborough hotel, launceston place, lavender's blue, le bristol hotel paris, le detroit calais, lecrivain dublin, lindy guinness marchioness dufferin ava, marcus wareing tredwells, marlfield house hotel, mary delany, mary oliver, min hogg, mina hanbury tennyson choi, misty bailey, montalto, mount congreve, mountainstown house, mourne park house, newzroom afrika, nuala, pitchford hall, plateau, queen ronke, quinlan terry, rangers house, rare champagne, rex whistler tate britain, sabbath plus one, san lorenzo, sara stainsby, scheltema brussels, senkai, simon duton, simone segouin, sion mills, stapleford park, stuart blakley, table restaurant broadstairs, temple house sligo, thierry mugler, tom kemble bonhams, treasure house fair, trevor newton, typing room, tyrella house, ulster architect, wallace collection, whiffenpoofs, wow!house

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