Category: Restaurants

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Architecture Art Luxury Restaurants

Belvedere Restaurant Holland Park + Holland House London

Sequentia

The told untold. Belvedere was once the Summer Ballroom of Holland House. Jacobethan and all that. Yeah yeah all very interesting but where’s the St Véran (O+C Club favourite)? Sorted. This restaurant is housed in a gorgeous fragment of a great house, a remnant of glory rebuilt, a figment of imagination realised. Halcyon days | salad days | Holland days. Saucy. And that’s before the Marie Rose with prawn cocktail and caviar arrives. Lavender’s Blue intern Annabel P is here and on form. And she’s got form.

Main course is fillet of sea bass, Jerusalem artichokes and mushroom dipped in balsamic jus. A winning formula. But hey we’re distracted by the fenestration. It’s a very glassy affair. Jigsaw panes of intersecting hexagons and rectangles reflect the timber herringbone floor. We’re transfixed. And that’s before we realise this place is really an art gallery masquerading as a restaurant. Mulled wine jelly with vanilla crème fraîche distracts our minds for a cold minute. Wait! What do Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol have in common? You guessed it! Belvedere.

The formidable Karla W rocks up working it and then some: black trilby, black jacket, black polo, black shades, black stilettos. Black is the new black. Some days, formal lunch blurs into informal dinner into the velvety night into the evanescent. Days like this. The Summer Ballroom has renewed midwinter purpose. It’s got form. The untold unfolded.

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Design Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

Galeries Lafayette Haussmann + Angélina Restaurant Paris

A Tale of Two Citizens

The Ritz Hotel Paris © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.” Gore Vidal

Place Vendôme Paris © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Midday in Paris. Printemps is the Harrods of Paris | Le Bon Marché is the Liberty of Paris | Galeries Lafayette Haussmann is the Selfridges of Paris. We’re bound for Lafayette’s Angélina restaurant. In the ultimate BYO experience, we’ve brought our own Champagne. Rare Champagne 2002 and Rare Rosé Champagne 2007, no less. It helps that we’re lunching with Régis Camus, the world’s most decorated Chef de Cave, even more no less. Over oeufs brouillés à la brisure de truffe d’été (scrambled eggs with summer truffle breakings) and salade de saumon fume, chèvre frais, avocat, tomates grappes, pomélo, salade romaine (smoked salmon salad, fresh goat’s cheese, avocado, tomatoes on the vine, grapefruit, romaine lettuce), Régis shares his top tips for enjoying bottled glamour:

Le Meurice Hotel Paris © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Rare Le Secret Champagne in House of Mellerio Paris © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

  • “Temperature is first. It should be between 10 and 12 degrees centigrade for our Rosé and 12 to 14 degrees for Rare Le Secret Champagne.
  • The glass is very important: it is good for wine to be poured in a big glass to express itself. A small quantity in a big glass; 65 percent full maximum. Serve often to keep the perfect temperature.
  • Open the bottle delicately. Don’t turn the cap, turn the bottle.
  • The colour of all wines is either good or not. For example, rosé is not good if it is the colour of onion skin. The amazing colour of Rare Rosé Champagne 2007 has amber and copper tones. I was inspired by the stained glass windows of the Cathedral of Reims when the sun shines through. The Cathedral is the seat of the Archdiocese of Reims and is where the Kings of France were crowned.”

Rare Champagne Lunch © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Successful Champagne moments are more than mere formulae though. “Feel the joy of the colour with your eyes, the colour of life! It’s vibrant, radiant, expressive! The key is to create pleasure, to discover the smile in discovering Champagne.” Monsieur Camus props the House of Lavender’s Blue brochure on the lunch table to form a backdrop to the Rare Rosé Champagne bottle. The following day, another bottle of Rare Champagne 2002 will take pride of place in the House of Lavender’s Blue itself. After lunch at Angélina, we stroll along the golden streets past the Palais Garnier with all its ghosts, making our way through Place Vendôme, gazing at The Ritz and grazing at Hôtel Le Meurice. It’s time to roar again. Ouhouah!

Rare Champagne Box @ Lavender's Blue © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“When she was young, Loulou wanted action and fun all the time… she was in a hurry.” Eric Boman on Loulou de la Falaise

Rare Champagne @ Lavender's Blue © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

Akiva Reich + Tamar Madmoni Reich + Hasbrouck House New York

Estate of the Arts

New York couple Akiva and Tamar Madmoni Reich recently graced Nobu Hotel London with their glamorous presence. They’re no strangers to gorgeous hospitality. It’s two years since they opened their own upscale hotel in Hudson Valley, upstate New York. When Akiva first viewed the colonial mansion, he envisaged it becoming a serene sanctuary less than two hours away from the city. His business partner Eitan Baron fully agreed. That vision is now reality.

“With a property like Hasbrouck House which was built in 1757,” explains Akiva, “the two important components were to pay homage to the history of the buildings and simultaneously being aware we’re living in a time when people admire the past while needing modern living.” His own property development company, Akiva Reich + Co, was responsible for the sensitive restoration. He is also the powerhouse behind Gowanus Hospitality Group which covers stylish venues and prestigious event planning. The hotel has 20 individually designed bedrooms and suites across four buildings plus a “farm to table” restaurant called Butterfield, all surrounded by 50 acres of parkland.

“From a design perspective,” Akiva continues, “the idea was to have a lot of classic elements but also bring in contemporary additions. The rooms, from the furniture to the colours, are very subtle and light and when you’re in them you feel a sense of tranquillity.” Tamar adds, “Hasbrouck House has a chilled laidback vibe. We liked the Shoreditch hipster feel to Nobu Hotel.”

“I am actually currently developing my own music, writing and composing songs,” says Tamar. Mind and soul are clearly important to her. And body too: “The arts are in my blood.” A certified holistic health coach and wellness advocate, she has started hosting exclusive and intimate plant based workshops to encourage more organic conscious eating habits as well as holistic living and healing. Other wellness services at Hasbrouck House include private yoga and Swedish massages. Both husband and wife are committed philanthropists.

Tamar grew up in Israel. She served as a Krav Maga instructor in the Israeli army. “As a dancer,” she explains, “I was already trained to pay attention to my body and react instinctively. I would train male soldiers in Krav Maga as well as at risk youths, because my body was already primed for that kind of mind-body discipline.” Tamar recommends visiting, other than Tel Aviv and Jerusalem of course, the Golan Heights and Makhtesh Ramon in the desert. “You want to go to Masada, catch the sunrise. It’s an ancient fortress overlooking the Dead Sea.” But first, there’s a vegan lunch in New York to be had.

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Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

Boutique Hotel Awards 2018 +

The First Resort | Going Places

Liverpool Street Skyscrapers © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

With Platinum Sponsors as prestigious and diverse as Blacklane (chauffeurs to take you places) via Visoanska (beauty products to get you looking hot) to My Private Villas (destinations of desire) it’s sure to be a grand affair. Partners range from the highest level comms CNN and Milbanke Media to consumables like Doisy + Dam chocolates and Boursot French wine to cruises from Hapag Lloyd. Beach bod readiness is possible thanks to Tidal and Sand Dollar swimwear not forgetting Gassan diamonds. Baobab Collection (luxury homeware) and The Thinking Traveller (more desirable villas) illuminate the exquisite elixir of culture. Longings and belongings. To quote the composer Sir John Tavener, “See everything with the eye of the heart.”

The Boutique Hotel Awards wear their art on their sleeve: the best of the best internationally. There’s the stampede of fashionable feet as 250 leading luxury boutique hotel professionals and influencers from 112 countries around the globe take their seats. The setting: the glorious Merchant Taylors’ Hall in the City of London has been around since 1347 although the bones of the current building date from just after the Great Fire of 1666. It’s a fabulous Tudory Elizabethanist Medievalish fanfare shifting between major and minor modes, to paraphrase the composer Samuel Barber.

The Awards are now in their eighth year and are the only organisation in hospitality where every hotel and villa is actually visited by an experienced hotel judge and specialist in a particular category. The winners are selected from over 300 nominees. Guest experience is examined from six angles: Dining + Entertainment | Design | Facilities | Location | Staff Service | Overall Emotional Impact.

“The Boutique Hotel Awards 2018 Ceremony is an exciting and invigorating night,” enthuses Bianca Revens, Managing Director. “I am so proud to be a part of an organisation that recognises the passion and hard work of our winners and nominees, creating outstanding, unique luxury hotels and villas. Congratulations to everyone involved!” Keynote speaker Robin Sheppard, Cofounder and Chairman of Bespoke Hotels, calls the Awards “star studded” and “an essential date in the world’s perpetual calendar”. He adds, “We see the attention to detail in every stitch of fabric and every morsel of food.” Awarta Nusa Dua Resort + Villas in Bali, Indonesia, achieves a double whammy: top overall prize and World’s Best Culinary Experience. The other international winners are:

A jazzy string trio strikes up in the conservatory. The party has begun. A celebration of pure wanderlust joy is underway. “It’s a wonderful job being a hotelier!” exclaims Heidi Belnap who with her brother Aaron Hunsaker and his wife opened The Harkness in Idaho. “There are only about 850 people in our town. But we’re on the freeway to Yellowstone National Park and just two hours away from Salt Lake City. We restored a 1906 building that was close to being condemned. People are just falling in love with the hotel. It’s just different for that part of the world. It’s very boutique.” Michael S Howard extols the virtues of Thailand. He should know. Michael is Managing Director of Rasa Hospitality, a Bangkok based ground that manages top end resorts and hotels in Thailand. “Our conversation is the highlight of the evening.”

Dinner is served. Starter: salad of Devonshire white crabmeat, lemon and ginger cured Scottish salmon with asparagus and crème fraîche. Main: baked aubergine parmigiana with rainbow chard, toasted almond and French bean salad. Pudding: poached fig in port sauce with mango brûlée and blackcurrant délice. Demitasse and truffles. There’s simply no better way to celebrate the halfway point between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice. Sandwiched by a Richard Dhondt Champagne reception and carriage wine from D Vine, to alter the context of a quote from the composer Sir Hamilton Harty, The Boutique Hotel Awards are “better by two bars*”.

*Samuel Henshall, an 18th century Curate of nearby Christ Church Spitalfields, invented the corkscrew

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Architects Architecture Art Country Houses Design Developers Fashion Hotels Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

Boutique Hotel Awards 2018 + Lavender’s Blue

Quite Simply The Universe’s Most Glamorous Hospitality Awards Gala Dinner 

How the great poses? “We do it all the time!”

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Architecture Developers Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

Villa Escher + Belvoir Park Zürich

Swiss Heir

“You must have good taste!” exclaimed Lucy Worsley over lunch at the Marriott Grosvenor Square London last week. The Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces was looking resplendent in a red velvet dress. She was returning the compliment to our compliment about her entertainingly educational educationally entertaining history programmes. It was The Sunday Times British Homes Awards:

Lunch at the Marriott Grosvenor Square is always fun, whatever the occasion, but how much more fun would lunch be at the Marriott Zürich? There’s only one way to find out. And so, here we are, pleased as punch plonked on plumped up cushions. Actually we’re a few miles downstream from the Marriott in the Odeon Restaurant but you get the drift. Sometime later, we will admire the assured elegance of Villa Escher and its apron of greenery known as Belvoir Park but for now there’s truffle omelette to be devoured.

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Restaurants

Pod Lososiem + Under the Salmon Restaurant Gdańsk

Very Sexy Fish

Pod Lososiem translates as Under the Salmon. We decline the 40 percent proof Goldwasser liqueur or we’ll be Under the Table. The building began life in 1598 as an inn and distillery called Der Lachs (The Salmon). It was founded by Ambroży Vermollen. The fishy angle is a salmon sculpture over the door on the salmon coloured façade. Hence the name. Geddit. Not as abstract as it sounds. George Bush Senior, Margaret Thatcher and Princess Anne have all dined here (not at the same time). Two other guests (not together), Pope John Paul II and the Duchess of Cambridge, have pierogi (dumplings) named after them. Such an honour!

The restaurant has been owned by the Robakowski family since its reconstruction in 1976. Established by Gerard, it is now run by his son Mieczyslaw and grandson Damian. Today, the elder is sommelier; the younger, waiter. Pod Lososiem is not without its admirers, famous or otherwise. Saturday lunch is fully booked (at least) seven months in advance. So Sunday lunch is the alternative. First impressions are this isn’t for the faint hearted. It’s a bastion of full blooded exuberance. And that’s just the rococo entrance hall plastered and stuccoed and burnished and furnished to within a square inch of its life.

The food lives up to the wallpaper, so to speak. Chef Janusz Małyszko’s mighty fish selection served with crayfish (well, if it’s good enough for Catherine…) is maximalism on a plate. Soon stuffed to the gills, there’s always room for cinnamon crème brûlée. The two tiered dining room is awash with a nautical theme from enormous fish tiles to a boat suspended from the ceiling. A bounty’s worth of silver glimmers from a glass cabinet.

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Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

Bohemia Restaurant + The Club Hotel + Spa St Helier + Lavender Farm Jersey

Eternally Rhapsodising | Love in a Warm Climate

St Aubin Bay Jersey © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“So here we are…having our lovely cake and eating it too, one’s great aim in life.” Nancy Mitford

The Club Hotel and Spa Jersey © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

We’re up Green Street. Chasing stars, potentially flickering, preferably established, Michelin stars. Steve Smith, Head Chef of Bohemia Restaurant, has held a Michelin star for more than a decade. Bohemia is the first restaurant in the Channel Islands to be awarded five AA rosettes. This ranks it among the 15 highest rated restaurants in the UK, joining the galaxy inhabited by the likes of Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck. Country Life recently listed Bohemia in its top five Jersey restaurants, calling it a “Michelin starred restaurant perfect for a treat”.

The Club Hotel and Spa St Helier © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The restaurant takes up the street level of The Club Hotel + Spa in St Helier. The interior of the five star hotel and restaurant is all modern elegance infused with the inherent chilled vibe of the island.

Coming over all Mitfordesque, it’s time to treat ourselves. The menu is a polished blend of Saxon and Norman influences, reflecting the archipelago itself. Even the mineral waters are British Hildon and French Badoit. Cheese is served with English biscuits and French bread. Steve Smith polished his skills under Lavender’s Blue favourite Jean-Christophe Novelli – another Anglo-French success. We want our lovely cake and we want to eat it too, but first there’s:

Bohemia Restaurant Jersey Lunch © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Bohemia Restaurant Jersey Pudding © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Strawberry pannacotta with Jersey yoghurt is our cake of choice. Steve explains, “The menu is driven by the seasons and also driven by what we can get consistently and in good supply. Recently, we had a great week for getting hold of John Dory and halibut so those items were on the menu. We will work around what we can get in good supply.” We’re impressed by some seriously synchronised sauce pouring and cloche lifting. It’s a wrap. Pure rhapsody.

Lavender Farm Jersey © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Ok, here goes, we’re off for lavender chocolate treats at Jersey Lavender Farm in St Brélade. Nancy would approve.

Lavender Farm St Brelade Jersey © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Luxury Restaurants

Trinity Restaurant Clapham London +

Making a Meal of It

Trinity Restaurant Clapham Pudding © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Spending half our lives chasing Michelin stars across the Continent it’s easy to forget there’s one shining right on our doorstep. For the last decade. Lighting up the wild (south) west. Not so much up our rue as on our rue. Trinity (the restaurant) overlooks Holy Trinity (the church) on Clapham Common. Come hail or high water (transpires there will be both) there’s no stopping us. On the tropically hottest day of the year, against a backdrop of roaring thunder and flashing lightning, we stroll to the downstairs restaurant (upstairs there’s a more informal brasserie). It’s jammed full of beautiful people with an air about themselves and that’s not just our table by the open window. Caviar baubles, gold leaf flakes, honeycomb butterflies and to top it all a two tiered canapés basket are such starry distractions that we ruefully miss the longest lunar eclipse of the century.

Trinity Restaurant Clapham Canapes © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Luxury People Restaurants

Crespo Family + Le Channel Restaurant Calais

Burgher Joint

Calais Canal © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“Son cadre, ses produits de la mer, ses vins…”

Calais Yachts © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Along Boulevard de la Résistance occupying a ground floor unit of a typical modernist Calais beachy block (think Corbu in Corfu) and looking diagonally across to Bassin du Paradis is Le Channel Restaurant. Names, names, names, from war to heaven. It’s actually in a row of restaurants: La Sole Meunière to the left and Le Détroit to the right. They all look rather smart and share the same glorious coastal views, set to the sound of a dawn-to-dusk chorus of seagulls. Le Channel self identifies as a ‘gastronomique’ restaurant which translates as ‘gourmet’. Sounds promising.

Calais Bassin du Paradis © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The relaxingly comfortable interior is filled with linen covered tables, burnt orange textured chairs and purple chaise longues. One wall is lined with rows of wine bottles. That’s a hint. There’s a circular glass panel in the floor looking down into dozens more wine bottles. That’s a clearer hint. Le Channel’s celebrated cellar contains more than 1,200 wines. The gleaming stainless steel kitchen was upgraded a couple of years ago. A charcoal oven takes pride of place.

Calais Old Town © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Le Channel Restaurant Calais © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Le Channel Restaurant Calais Plant © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Le Channel Restaurant Calais Kitchen © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Chef Le Channel Restaurant Calais Pudding © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Le Channel Restaurant Calais Amuse Bouche © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Le Channel Restaurant Calais Starter © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

A plaque in the restaurant is inscribed ‘Depuis 1978’. Le Channel was established by the two Crespo brothers four decades ago and their respective families are also now in the business. Two of the younger generation are on duty today: Arnaud is front of house and his brother Jérôme is Chef. Given the name and the seaside setting – the long golden strand is a polished pebble’s throw away – it would be rude not to go the whole hog, do the full Montgomery, dive in deep and order fruits du mer. Their mother Madame Crespo arrives with what looks like half the ocean floor piled high on a plate. “Il est beaucoup de travaillé!” she smiles.

Le Channel Restaurant Calais Fruits de Mer © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Lunch set menu is €44 for four courses tucked between an appetite whetting amuse bouche and five corset exploding petit fours. Turbot with hollandaise sauce main course tastes seductively fresh from the channel. Both the cheese and pudding choices arrive on trolleys, or “chariots” as they’re more enticingly called in French. So much more interactive than a mere menu.

Le Channel Restaurant Calais Pudding © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

‘Promising’ means elevated expectations for gourmands: they’re met and surpassed. “As well as local regulars we have a lot of Russians living in London come to visit us,” confirms Madame Crespo. It’s well worth the hour on the Eurostar from St Pancras. The cornerstones of a successful lunch – excellence of food + wine, service, interior and atmosphere – are robustly upheld. Around the corner on Rue André Gerschell is Le Channel shop. It’s piled high with wines of course and plenty of cheeses. That’ll be why it’s called La Maison du Fromage et Des Vins Crespo. Heaven. Incidentally, André Gerschell was Mayor during the 1940 Siege of Calais. War, again.

Le Channel Restaurant Calais Petit Fours © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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People Restaurants

The Ginger Bistro Belfast + Simon McCance

Spicing it Up

The Ginger Bistrol Belfast Bar © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“Red hair, sir, in my opinion, is dangerous.” Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

The Ginger Bistrol Belfast Interior © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Nick’s Warehouse was The Place for business lunch in 1990s Belfast. £10 for two courses. As its name suggests, the restaurant, something of a trailblazer, was in a converted warehouse. It was down a cobbled street in Cathedral Quarter on the northern edge of the city centre. When Nick’s closed, Simon McCance, its Head Chef, set up Ginger which he runs with his wife Abby. Businessman Ricky Garrett is co owner. Ginger is more centrally located to the immediate south of the City Hall. The Place was reborn. And 18 years later, it’s all grown up.

Simon says, “When I first opened Ginger Bistro way back in 2000 on Belfast’s Ormeau Road, I wanted to serve quality food in a relaxed and friendly environment. Now located close to Belfast’s Opera House, Europa Hotel and one of Belfast’s oldest pubs, The Crown Bar, my resolve for quality food in a relaxed atmosphere has never been stronger or more relevant. With Ginger Bistro’s longevity, we have built a loyal local customer base and are one of the favourites of our ‘wee city’ and locals alike.”

At lunchtime there are no fewer than four menus: À la Carte | Lunch + Pre Theatre| Vegetarian | Set £25.50 for two courses; £32.50 for three courses. Morsels of wisdom make for fun reading. On the wine list, a Pinot Grigio is “Clean as a whistle, far too easy to drink.” An Orballo Albariño is “An aromatic wine, perfect with fish and Ginger has fish.” A Picpoul de Pinet is “Lip smackingly fresh, lovely long finish.” Cocktails (£7.00 to £7.95) are listed under “Fancy Drinks”. Promiscuous ordering is recommended:

Everything is spot on. Brilliant actually, a real asset to the city’s restaurant scene. Adjoining informal dining rooms – one plum, one mustard – are already a hive of activity. The afternoon has barely begun. A slit of an opening reveals the kitchen to the rear. Ginger continues to mature. The bistro has extended into what was in Nick’s era a clothes shop called Parks. This fully glazed frontage facing Great Victoria Street has allowed covers to grow from 70 to 102. Unlike the main restaurant, the new white dining area with bar is not bookable.

The Ginger Bistrol Belfast Mocktail © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“Belfast is booming!” observes Simon. “It’s a good time to be doing business. When we decided upon the extension, it was the first time I knew for certain a business plan would work. It felt grown up: I knew it would be instantly busy. New hotels are opening in the city. Grand Central has just opened round the corner. It gives an Art Deco nod to the original Grand Central which was on Royal Avenue. It’s all Belfast money too. Hastings have spent almost £60 million on their new hotel.” Guid forder! Sláinte mhaith!

The Ginger Bistrol Belfast Pudding © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Art Restaurants

Bonhams Restaurant London + Tom Kemble

Lots to Eat

Bonhams London @ Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Its dual address summons up flattering visions of country estates and urban sophistication. Haunch of Venison Yard and New Bond Street. Neither entrance is entirely obvious. The former is through a passageway into a courtyard; the latter is through an auction gallery, down a dogleg, up a spiral. London for Moschino trousered  Londoners. Not forgetting rich Americans and Asians. The restaurant is in a back room, and that’s a compliment. Reticent, exclusive, discreet; in the know, in the now.

Bonhams London Restaurant @ Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Daringly, sparingly white walls except for one wall of windows. Just four carefully chosen artworks: Demolition Squad by William Roberts, British, 1895 to 1980 (£50,000 to £70,000); Untitled by Sam Francis, American, 1923 to 1994 (£8,000 to £12,000); The Musician by John Craxton, British, 1922 to 2009 (£30,000 to £50,000); and Tulips No.1 by Ivon Hitchens, British, 1893 to 1979 (£25,000 to £35,000).

Bonhams Restaurant Interior @ Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

An early 21st century restaurant serenade to a late 18th century auction house. Welcome to Bonhams Restaurant, strings attached. Only 24 covers. Head Chef Tom Kemble’s dishes live up to the address. All the freshness of the outdoors and all the style of the city. And a splash of the sea. Michelin starred Mayfair. Three course lunch £50 (excluding some liquid refreshment):

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Architecture Design Hotels Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

The Franklin Hotel Knightsbridge London + Anouska Hempel

Franklin Minted

To be frank, it wasn’t the hardest decision in the world to while away a wintry Saturday afternoon, yes, the perfected world of a Saturday afternoon, wistfully tucked up in a swanky five star Knightsbridge hotel. Add Anouska Hempel (Lady Weinberg to you) to the mix, and it’s a given. The Franklin Hotel, retrieving the definite article, belongs to the family of London terraced houses turned boutique hotels by the New Zealand born designer, from the (very open) maximalist Blakes to the (now closed) minimalist Hempel. From the outside, it’s terribly similar to No.11 Cadogan Gardens. A Pont Street precursor perhaps? All candid brick elevations with canted bay windows. A cute crow stepped gable above a petite portico marks the entrance.

This stretch of Brompton Road between the V+A and Harrods caters for discerning Christian disciplines from Alpha (Low Anglican Holy Trinity Brompton) to omega (High Catholic Brompton Oratory). Ascetic or aesthetic? The Franklin is discreetly positioned on the streetscape, overlooking Egerton Gardens to the rear. Its red and white exterior gives way to monochromatic brilliance. The Lady has form. Blakes has plenty of black. The Hempel had plenty of white. Grey is the new black. A shadow play. Penumbra obscura. She has embedded a melismatic yet palpable narrative into the building’s very fabric. Before long it’ll be coloured by the exaggeration of memory. There’ll never a dull moment.

Anouska Hempel waxes lyrical on her latest creation, “The English love the Italians. The romance of Rome and Venice. All combined, opposite the Brompton Oratory, have become The Combination. Dark brooding greys and bright sparkling whites: floors of Carrara marble and slate. Garden windows abound onto a row of umbrella shaped pear trees. The glorious couture tables make the ground garden floor a sensation. I have had these made specifically to follow the floorplate. Venetian wells, piazzas, squares, dark greys with white punctuations. Mysterious.” Such moods, such moods and modulations.

Digging deeper, Loretto alumna Lady Weinberg, fresh from a stay at Abbey Leix, dwells on creation at large, “I hope that I have something more important to give the world than just what you see on the level of where I’m living at the moment. I think my mission is to bring peace and harmony and a sense of enjoyment, and also to bring something special into ordinary everyday life. I really have been very fortunate to have a little talent, and also incredibly fortunate to have had so many great opportunities. But I strongly feel that I am not the source of my own creativity, which must come from somewhere else.” Painterly, scholarly, otherworldly.

Bowing to mannerism, call it architectural etiquette, the palazzo look certainly isn’t by chance. This is the latest addition to Starhotels, an Italian family owned group. The bedlinen in each of the 35 bedrooms may be 400 thread count Italian Frette linen but the wrought iron balustrades of the enfilade were inspired by English conservatories. A mutual attraction | a binational lock-in love-in | a European commission. Anglophile Elisabetta Fabri, President and CEO of Starhotels, tipped off the designer about her passion. Anouska took it to fruition – with rigour. Hers is a symmetrical staging of sculpture: discovered, framed, mounted, foreground, background, grounded, released. Walls fading to trompe l’oeil, a mirage of Venetian eglomisée mirrors in the restaurant reflect the wonders of Alfredo Russo’s culinary capability. The Piedmont born chef snapped up his first Michelin star aged 24. Expect tiptop modern Italian cuisine. Disappointment is not, no never, on the menu. Exhilaration is. There are more highlights than a National Theatre performance of Amadeus.

Bed is a reinvented fourposter rising to a spidery crown, apropos to a rococo reverie or a baroque dream or a contemporary vision. It’s impossible not to be hyperbolic about this parabolic scrawl in the perfumed air. The entry to an arcane deserted world. And so late Saturday afternoon, yes, luscious late Saturday afternoon, descends into an undeclared denouement: a happy convergence of atavism with hymn charms. Shadow puppets at play. Unfurling the hours spent, later, so much later, upon reflection, through a glass, darkly; frankly it’s all about Franklin scents and mirrors.

 

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Luxury People Restaurants

St Thomas’ Church + Duddell’s Restaurant London Bridge London

Saints and Dinners

There are certain certainties. There are certain things we are certain about. There are certain uncertainties. That is to say, there are things that we are certain we are uncertain about. But there are also uncertain uncertainties. That Murano is the best Italian (and not just because double Michelin starred chef Angela Hartnett is a fellow Christ Church Spitalfields goer) and Hakkasan is the best Cantonese restaurant in London are certainly certain certainties. Tonight we will certify Duddell’s to be London’s second best Cantonese.

Siberia isn’t only a bad table at The Ivy. Snow is gifting a temporary white delineation to the Queen Anne architecture of Duddell’s. Tonight’s table is in the gallery. We’re looking down on everyone. We’re looking up at the dentilled-egg-and-dart-and-paterae cornice. We’re looking across at the reredos for this was once a church. Understated interior decoration by Michaelis Boyd lets the architecture do the singing. We’ll be singing for our supper when the bill, £232.31 for two, arrives. That’s a lot of truffle. Are you having a cod? For certain, truffle roasted black cod with lily bulb and Nameko mushrooms.

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Architecture Hotels Luxury Restaurants Town Houses

Villa Kennedy Hotel + JFK Restaurant Frankfurt

Er | The Autobiography of Things

So: 30 up, 20 to go. Cloudbotherers. In 2017 the price of new apartments in Frankfurt rose 25 percent. Hence the haste. It’s upwards and upwards. The Goldman Sachs rush. High cost high rise high flying high living it is then on the west bank of the River Main.

This, and other flotsam and jetsam, is what LVB* are discussing in Villa Kennedy’s JFK Restaurant. Over Cape Cod Dream mocktails: yoghurt | passion fruit | passion fruit juice | vanilla | lemon (€13).

And 50 Shades of Green herbivorous superfood: quinoa patty | avocado | Tahiti dressing | pumpkin seed pesto | courgette | young spinach salad (€26).

Chocolate thins to counterbalance all that healthiness. The best since last week’s petit fours served at Ballymore’s marketing suite – over a chinwag with Sir Oliver Letwin.

LVB are putting the gnomic into gastronomic.

There really is something swashbuckingly Rhode Island mansion about Villa Kennedy. It’s one of many turn-of-last-century landscrapers on the east bank of the River Main. Château façade; half timbered staircase hall; palazzo loggia: eclecticism on steroids.

Hansel and Gretel meets Norman Shaw was seemingly the whole rage back in the day. “Architecture is more than practicalities,” Dr Tim Brittain-Catlin reminded the audience at the final European Commission talk celebrating the European Year of Cultural Heritage.

Closer to the River Main is the 1896 Liebieghaus. A “prestigious villa” no less, announces a sign on the gatepost. Baron Heinrich von Liebieg’s former home is now an a museum. Said sign sums it up, “Manor house built in a mixture of styles: Southern German; Late Gothic; and Alpine Renaissance.” And for good measure a 1908 “Art Nouveau gallery wing with Baroque influences.”

Named after the Presidential visit of 1963, the very restored Villa Kennedy has been given the full blown Rocco Forte treatment with a little art deco help from designer Martin Brudnizki.

Hey ho. Jackie Kennedy was instrumental in launching the Irish Georgian Society. Ho hum. Now LVB have been appointed the social diarist for the London Chapter. JFK | JBK | IGS | LVB. Acronyms are so very FRA.

*A design based celebration of the good things in life

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Luxury People Restaurants

Medici Restaurant Frankfurt + Christos Simiakos + Stamatios Simiakos

The Italian Jobs

Popes, bankers, patrons of art – and – of late, chefs and restaurateurs. The name Medici has been synonymous with high achievers for at least 600 years. Two brothers have brought a little piece of Florence to Frankfurt. Modern Mediterranean cuisine has come to downstream downtown Mainhattan. Christos and Stamatios Simiakos may be Gummersbach born, but the establishment owes more to their Italian heritage. Make that fishfingers not frankfurters.

Medici is 14 years old. Restaurants age in dynastic dog years. That makes it middle aged, well established, past going places, arrived in life. But the Simiakos siblings aren’t resting on their laurels – which, incidentally, include a young Michelin star. Plus there’s a youthful buzz about the place. Maybe that’s the current clientele? Or perhaps it’s just the buxom Florentine belles bulging out from a fresco plastered over the dining room wall.

Who said don’t mix business (lunch) and pleasure? All two-and-a-quarter courses please. More is more. Merry hearts have continual feasts. Pleasant words are like honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones. Yes, it’s a hard job, but some people just gotta dine and do it. Decadence has a new.

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Architecture Hotels Restaurants

Town Hall Hotel + Typing Room Restaurant Bethnal Green London

Indefinite Article

Goodness. Two far east trips in one season. We’ll be in Ichinomiya by spring at this rate. Nuala was well worth the trip for midweek frolics. Hopes are riding high for Saturday lunch in Typing Room. We’re liking the name already, even minus its definite article, spending half our lives typing up storms. We’re here to snatch the three course (plus snack) set lunch menu. It’s fashionably short: two options per course. Fortunately it caters well for pescatarians:

We’re very partial to Michelin style madness and had been reliably informed to expect multisensory sensations. Cow bells ding-a-ling? No; just lively piped music towards the close of the afternoon. Surely foam at the very least? Our sense of anticipation rises. One of our carnivorous companions chooses the venison. Will it vaporise upon arrival with said guest merely left to inhale the gamey scent as if the doe was gracefully passing by on a moor? Before being shot dead? Not quite: it arrives solidly three dimensional, delicately seared, with the closest nod to starry styling being its geometric presentation (an oblong cut next to a cabbage roll). Belcanto’s fag ash butter pushed boundaries; Typing Room’s marmite butter is easier to love.

The snack is really an oversized amuse bouche, crispy and colourful, balancing on a rolled linen napkin. The crab is pure seefood. See it. Eat it. Delish. The brill is brill (sorry, couldn’t resist). Honestly, it’s as light and wholesome as our writing (we weren’t once described as “architecture’s answer to Hello! magazine” for nothing). Sheep’s yoghurt was but now isn’t on the menu. Pity. We could eat sheep’s yoghurt till the cows come home. But a colourful cacophony (pudding arrives to the beat of that lively music) of sweet meets savoury is worth writing home about. Under the aegis of Jason Atherton – City Social (his goat’s cheese fritters with honeyed white truffle oil are particularly memorable) being one of his many other forays – is Executive Chef Lee Westcott who formerly worked for Tom Aikens.

The restaurant is naturally lit by large sash windows on two sides. A central chimney breast divides it into two spaces. We’re in the larger space, overlooking the kitchen with its eight rolled-sleeve-white-shirted-navy-aproned-mostly-bearded staff. Walls are painted an inky charcoal grey. Seats look Scandinavian and must be comfortable because, afterwards, well, we don’t remember if they were or not, and you always remember uncomfortable chairs, don’t you?

Typing Room is in the same building as the five star Town Hall Hotel (lack of definite article clearly being a theme). It’s a sturdy Portland stone monument to municipality designed by Percy Robinson and Alban Jones in the final year of the Edwardian era. It was added to 30 years later in a similarly robust manner. Rare Architecture completed the recent conversion adding a daring metallic intervention. Or “abstracted veil” in the words of architect Nathalie Rozencwajg. The interiors are furnished to reflect all these eras: neoclassical antiques; vintage mid century pieces; and contemporary sculptures. Eclectic and eccentric: a doll’s house cupboard here; a dentist’s chair there. And – holy cow – a big yellow fish. Taxi!

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People Restaurants

Nuala Restaurant + Bar Old Street London

Celtic Revivification

Shillelaghs at hand for the wee dander to Old Street for school night shenanigans. Dry January doesn’t apply to Irish launches. “It’s Ginuary,” muses amusing muse Annabel P. Time for a cèilidh. Nuala is Niall Davidson’s microcosm of Irish craic next to Derwent London’s White Collar Factory. The talented part Northern Irish part Scottish chef cut his teeth at St John Bread + Wine and the Chiltern Firehouse: Nuala is his first restaurant. The motif is a redhaired colleen – presumably the enigmatic Nuala?

There’s all the rage all day all night all week naggins and nosh to be had; a high five to the best of Irish – and British – bistronomy. The kitchen is run by Colin McSherry, a Fat Duck and Dinner alumnus. When you’re finished the scampi fried quail’s eggs, Jerusalem artichoke crackers and pear cream with grated orange and mushroom or clams in pistachio beurre blanc cooked on a brick lined wood fire in the middle of the 75 cover restaurant, you can stretch the night in the underground bar.

Once you’ve refuelled on Irish whiskey punch or downed a kick-ass Manhattan Serve (10 year iold single malt, Armagnac, Palo Cortado, squash seed oil, honey) in one of the timber panelled snugs, live music will entice even the most shrinking of violets to join in the Hibernian hooley and dance like dervishes till dawn. Tonight’s musical highlight is Conor Scott singing Zombie. Oh, and for those midnight munchies there’s always Tayto crisps.

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Luxury People Restaurants

i Latina Restaurant Buenos Aires + Lavender’s Blue

Aga Something to Say | Been Latin | Columbian Marching Orders | Cuban Resolution | Caribbean Crews | Chefs Specials | You Can Get the Staff These Days

“Take lots of photos! We love a photo shoot!”

Tasting menus and addresses only released upon booking are the whole rage in Buenos Aires. In the UK, wine lists start with white and end with red. The opposite is true in Argentina. A locked gate keeps the hoi polloi at bay at i Latina, a “Cocina Latino Americana” restaurant. i Latina is open for dinner from Wednesday to Saturday and brunch on Sunday. The tasting menu costs 1,600 Argentine pesos; wine pairing, 900; a margarita 180; and sparking water is 120. That’s 2,800 pesos without tip, or just over £120. Not cheap, but for one of South America’s top restaurants, not budget busting either. “A glass of Laborum 2016. Let’s do it on the house!”

“This building is 200 years old.”

It turns out we’ve saved the best till last. i Latina will prove to be Buenos Aires‘ finest restaurant. And it’s not like the competition ain’t hot. i Latina is in Villa Crespo, a neighbourhood fast becoming a dining destination. It opened in 2012 and kick started those two Buenos Aires’ signature trends: small plates and closed door policy. Once the white pillared gate is unlocked, the evening begins. Walk along a chessboard path, walk past white painted cast iron furniture, walk under a candlelit birdcage, walk through the open glazed door.

“The owners have adopted a stray cat they found nearby.”

A psychedelic parrot painted on the bathroom wall looks like it escaped from the birdcage. Colour doesn’t end there. We’ll eat off blue spoons and mustard plates; watercress leaves (yes, green), carrots (yes, orange), horse radishes (definitely red) with purple and yellow petals decorating the courses to come. “This is typical of Mexico – spicy and sweet.” It’s a family affair. Laura Macías designed the interior; her brother Santiago is Head Chef; and third sibling Camilo manages front of house.

“Coconut is used so much in Columbian and Ecuadorian food.”

“The creamy coffee is hand picked grain by grain.”

Somewhere and somehow between pudding and coffee we end up in the kitchen. The chefs line up, striking poses, full of the joys; a grand finale, we’re half expecting some high kicks. “Where’s the pastry chef?” they frantically chorus and a pretty girl appears from nowhere with knowhow to join in the fun. If this is hospitality Patagonia style, a super supper club (Puerto Cerrado), we’re converts.

“Go to Columbia!”

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Architecture Design Luxury Restaurants Town Houses

Four Seasons Hotel Buenos Aires + La Mansión + Elena Restaurant

Perennials | Alias Graceful

Harrods closed in 1999. Praise be then for that other stalwart of longstanding luxury still standing, the standing tall Four Seasons. This being exclusive Recoleta, a Beaux Arts mansion of seven hotel suites around a black and white Carrara marble staircase is plonked in the grounds. If Gatsby had a townhouse… It has its own romantic story attached, one with a happy ending. Dashing heir to a ranching fortune Félix de Álzaga Unzué built La Mansión in 1920 as a wedding splash for his smashing bride Elena Peña. It recently got a £40 million makeover led by Argentine architect Francisco López Bustos. These days? Serendipitous suzerainty in sunglasses. Indoors. Sexy has a new.

Buenos Aires reaches out across the Atlantic yet the endless Pampas encircling the city reinforce the feeling of an enraptured self involvement. The city clings to the edge of the land, looking towards Europe rather than America. French architecture dominates (or certainly did in the past); Italian cuisine reigns supreme; and there are plenty of Spanish speaking locals claiming Anglo Argentinian heritage, whether of English or Celtic descent. In the 18th century, Argentina was the non English speaking country to attract the highest number of Irish immigrants. Many would become eminent in the navy, arts and medicine. In some ways Argentina is more progressive than its European counterparts: unlike Spain, it banned bull fighting as early as 1822.

Buenos Aires translates as “good air”. It could just as easily stand for “the good life” to be enjoyed in winter, spring, summer and autumn. Restaurants, cafés and bars – and this hotel for sure – are alive and kicking, vibrating with the rise and fall cadence of polyglot chatter and laughter, well into the wee small hours. A dark tango erupts across this ambassadorial enclave under the dense shade of blazing jacaranda trees. A clock strikes 12. Midnight in the garden of good and upheaval.

Earlier in the day, away from the searing heat, mingling with mestizos, there was lunch in Elena. Yep, the Four Seasons restaurant carries her name. Between the crazy new block with its broken pediments (like an adopted lovechild of Philip Johnson and Quinlan Terry) and La Mansión is the surprisingly macho Pampas ranch style restaurant. It’s scalped out of the escarpment of the sloping site, lit by a dome which pops its transparent head up into the garden next to the swimming pool. The old and the new, the subterranean and above ground meld and depart; the mellow and the bonkers (condom shaped lights and door handles formed of chains in the loos anyone?) blur and collide.

Over lunch, a tangy aromatic Doña Paula Malbec 2017 on ice was just so cooling. The temperature rose back up when a sizzling cheese soufflé arrived from the kitchen. Mariscada was next. That’s: trout, octopus, shrimp, catch of the day (make that white salmon) and sautéed squid. A seabed of goodness; southern pemmican. Finally, mousse de chocolate amazónico 70 percent and proper Argentinian bean coffee. All four were so very this season.

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Luxury Restaurants

Buenos Aires + Milión

Where the L?

“I will return and I will be millions,” Evita promised. Easy tigress. Milión will do. Cryptic love. What a darling house. Such extravagance of void. A triple height gallery like the inside of a wedding cake. A death defying stairwell. The hôtel particulier cum restaurant cum tapas bar cum cocktail salon cum art gallery cum atelier cum music venue cum courtyard garden cum residence for the last 10 years of an enigmatic black cat Emilio. He’s a complete doll. Before Emilio for seven years there was Emilia. Here come basil daiquiris. Every hour is happy. Nobody is chichi. Everyone is chic. Great chi. Cheek to cheek. Tick tock. Cat-walk-o-clock. Milión de gracias!

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Hotels Luxury Restaurants

UCO Hotel + Restaurant Buenos Aires

In a State of Flux

Since when did the midday meal consume the day? It’s impossibly hot so why not. A long languid lazy lunch lounging in the garden of one of South America’s leading restaurants. UCO is named after Uco Valley, Argentina’s answer to Loire Valley. The garden is tucked behind the restaurant is tucked below the hotel is tucked away in super trendy Palermo Soho. Graffitied garage doors along Soler would deter less determined gourmands but this is serious posh nosh. It’s upper case, it’s upper class, it’s shouting, it’s got plenty to shout about: Ceviche UCO: classic ceviche served spicy; Causa Croquette, avocado emulsion; and Mixto Frito: crispy fried seafood, roasted garlic aioli.

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Architecture Restaurants

Colónia del Sacramento Uruguay + Charco Bistró

The Orient Success | River of Silver and Gold

The only way to banish winter blues is to swap seasons. Somewhere in the world it’s spring. In a climate changing equator crossing hemisphere jumping move, hello to the Oriental Republic of Uruguay! Seasonal adjustment order is lunching on roasted pumpkin ravioli and lemon thyme while the waves of the Río de la Plata lap all around. Charco Bistró literally balances on the edge of the world’s widest estuary. The restaurant and hotel date back 300 years says the waiter. Old, yes, but not the oldest buildings on the sycamore lined palm shaded cobbled streets of the town: Colónia del Sacramento was founded by Portuguese settlers in the late 17th century. Gloriously faded grandeur abounds. The only blues here are the cerulean tones of an endless sky.

 

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Restaurants

The Salt Room Afternoon Tea Brighton East Sussex + The Duchess of Bedford

Chips off the Old Block 

Henry James: “Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not – some people of course never do – the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime.”

Many silvery moons ago we stayed in the Grand Hotel and were pleasantly surprised by this piece of Mayfair-on-Sea. The hotel’s GB1 seafood restaurant is quite simply the Scott’s of Mayfair Brighton. It even has a stadium shaped bar piled high with oysters encircled by diners perched on stools. A delicious morsel of Edwardian Brighton reinvented for the New Elizabethan age. Another prized stretch of coastal real estate, overlooking the tangled silhouette of the darkly skeletal West Pier, has been snatched up by The Salt Room.

This restaurant has gone all Duchess of Bedford. You guessed. It’s started serving afternoon tea (£24.95). The ultimate meal sandwiched between meals hasn’t been so popular since Princess Catherine of Braganza rocked up with a bonanza of tea in her dowry. The interior might be contemporary but the veranda has a natural turn of two centuries ago feel to it. Will it be full of piscatorial pleasures like the Cosentino party’s oysters with gold leafed carb free caviar? Or the black cod canapés at the Aqua Kyoto shindig?

We know our quirky afternoon tea interiors – think Sanderson and sketch – and quirky afternoon tea treats – think Marriott Park Lane’s beetroot finger sandwiches and Marriott County Hall’s cheesy savoury scones – but in this relatively restrained space there are a few new nutritional novelties even to us. Candy floss is a first! And sure enough, Executive Chef Dave Mothersill’s menu is aptly peppered with piscatorial pleasures. Even the wine list includes a Salt + Shell section: organic wines produced on coastal vineyards from Sicily to South Africa:

“Wines influenced by the sea have a real freshness and purity,” explains Dave, “making them the perfect partner to our local seafood. The soils are packed with fossilised seashells which, when you combine with the salty influence of the sea, helps to create wines of real character. All these wines are coastal with the exception of Gavi di Gavi which is planted on an old limestone seabed. We squeezed it on our list because we love it!” Gotcha. Pier pressure continues with crab rarebit, smoked mackerel paté and, oh good, chocolate pebbles. Even the strawberry jam with the scones is laced with vanilla. Maybe an oblique reference to ice cream? Synchronised idiosyncrasy delivers chive butter crumpet, pumpkin fritter with carrot tartare and a glazed mini doughnut

Abruptly, after overindulging on Jing tea, our rose tinted glasses are lifted, and it all becomes black and white to us. The black bathroom with The White Company accessories. Of course. Monochromatic madness. The Salt and Pepper Room. Aha! We’re in a metaphorical chip shop. What could be more Brighton? Our chips are down. Let’s hope it’s not too many ghostly moons till we return to this innocent pastime.

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Hotels Luxury Restaurants

Hôtel Plaza Athénée Paris + La Cour Jardin

Up and About in Paris and London 

We fill the lacuna

Lunch where? Paris. C’est le weekend. We’re Ivy’d out midweek although the Soho and Tower Bridge Brasseries’ zucchini fritti and truffle arancini are highly addictive. We’ve been wild about the Century Club’s wild mushroom burger. Hôtel Plaza Athénée Paris. Bows and bows of balconies along Avenue Montaigne. Next door to Christian Dior’s original couture house. The dress code for La Cour Jardin – the hôtel’s exclusive courtyard restaurant – is “elegant”. Ah bien. It’s cheek to high cheekbone with models. Martinets or marionettes? Ask Webb’s Road London resident runway veteran Simon Duke. Poppy red parasols like oversized cocktail umbrellas keep the wrinkles at bay. Virginia creeper clambering up the stone walls, smart trellis chairs among olive trees and acres of linen tablecloth… really the whole place simply oozes Parisian sophistication. The century old courtyard has been pimped and pruned to perfection by designer Bruno Moinard, displaying a talent for resonant juxtaposition. So this season.

We live off our acuity and salutary reminders.

More mirrors than Versailles; more columns than the Coliseum; more pizzazz than Versace: this is the new luxury. Friday Street. Field of freedom. Earned ease. En plein air. A galaxy of culinary stars has aligned to make this restaurant happen. We’re star struck. Le grand fromage himself Alain Ducasse hooked up with Lawrence Aboucaya, owner of legendary Parisian vegetarian restaurant Pousse-Pousse, to concoct a homage to high energy menu. Under the watchful eye of Head Chef Mathieu Emeraud, the menu is fashionably divided into The Garden, The Classics, The Sea and The Shoreline, The Land and The Farm, The Herbs Garden and The Desserts. Just in case you miss the celebrity connection, there’s Alain Ducasse’s own brand Champagne and the menu cover features an 18th century botanical watercolour from his personal collection.

We spend our years as a tale that is told.

Sicilian olive oil accompanies randomly zoomorphic bread rolls, hatching out of folded linen baskets like long beaked ducklings. Artichoke and lemon risotto (€36.00) possesses all the freshness of The Garden. Tomato and pepper amuse bouche matches the red awnings. So does the John Dory, dusted with tomato and fennel (€58.00). Wide brimmed plates generously frame the food. Strawberry and almond (€22.00) come with madeleine on the side. And as an encore, orange and something petit fours. Chef Pâtissier Exécutif Angelo Musa’s efforts might expand waists by a few millimetres, but everyone’s so worth it. The proof is in the pudding. Delish! Us! Service is seamless. Doors magically open, The New York Times deftly appears: minimum fuss, maximum attention. Rooms range from €990 (single) to €28,000 (party time).

Wonders unto many, we are magnified and tainted by elegiac projection, poignancy and beauty.

The sommelier arrives to explain the wine we aren’t ordering. Côte de Nuits 2000 (Richebourg) and Côte de Beaune 1999 (Corton Les Renardes). Both vins rouge, both Domaine Leroy, both €5,800. The wines are: “A perfect balance of acidity, alcohol, tonic and flavour. They have a controlled, perfect constitution.” We go for the more modestly priced €12 Saint Galmier Badoit Finement Pétillante 1778 (naturally carbonated water, to you). Good for catwalk silhouettes. An early autumnal breeze gently ripples through the courtyard. C’est la vie. La Cour Jardin: such seductiveness; an air kiss; make it a French kiss; a momentary embrace; a dalliance to the music of time. Dynamic magnetised moments. Life’s marginalia. Mise en Seine.

We are not your nebulous want.

Dinner in London? What gives? Let’s do The Arts Club again. Hold the front page! Newspapers: today’s headlines; tomorrow’s cat litter. Business and pleasure handsomely combine at a private dinner with former Cabinet Minister and Chief Whip the Right Honourable Andrew Mitchell MP in the very non plebish Ante Room. Sharing plates can be terribly irksome but it does mean enjoying three puddings or at least dipping spoons in three puddings. Tout suite. Ever dedicated to a story arc, the wine is French de rigueur. Vermentino 2015 (Domaine des Yeuses, Vin de Pays d’Oc) and Légende de Lafite 2015 (Baron de Rothschild, Bordeaux). La vie en rosé. Not so good for catwalk silhouettes. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

As for the menu? Starters: green bean and artichoke salad; Caesar salad; prawn cocktail; Applewood smoked salmon with honey mustard dressing. Main special: grilled seabass, marinated aubergine and tomato. Sides: creamed spinach; gratin dauphinois; glazed carrots Puddings: baked cheesecake with cassis sauce and berries; banana sticky toffee pudding; strawberry tart.

We are the chosen ones.

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Architecture Restaurants

Clifton Bristol + The Doors

Saturday Lunch

So many Ivys, so little time.

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Luxury People Restaurants

Tate Britain London + Rex Whistler Restaurant Jazz Lunch

The Riding on the Wall

Tate Britain is the quieter relative of the extended family. Tate Modern has Herzog + de Meuron’s sexy ziggurat with its brilliant incidental installation (Watch Rich People In Their Apartments). Tate Britain has James Stirling’s paean to contextual irony. Lost on most, the less said the better. Thankfully, the Rex Whistler Restaurant is located in the basement of the original sturdily neoclassical gallery. Or is it? Entrances at varying degrees above ordnance data dictate an enjoyable disorientation. Lower ground floor? Garden level? Sub piano nobile?

Rex. The name conjures up a dilettantish dandyish raffish character. Definitely a Bright Young Thing. Julia Flyte’s American beau in Brideshead Revisited. Rex Bart Beaumont, chum of Charles Howard Bury, last owner of Belvedere House in Mullingar. Known to all and sundry as “Sexy Rexy”. The pair enjoyed jaunts to Tibet accompanied by a pet bear. No aggressive normalcy there, then.

Paintings are best seen from a seat. The Garrick Club gets that with its dining room wallpapered by in Zoffany. Before Carl Laubin (who completed a capriccio of Castle Howard estate buildings in 1996) and even before Felix Kelly (who painted the Garden Hall murals at Castle Howard in 1988) there was Rex Whistler. His 1937 murals can be admired traipsing through the National Trust dining room of Plas Newydd on the Isle of Anglesey but how much more relaxing to soak in his 1927 murals at the Tate lounging over lunch. At least that was the plan.

Gloriously out of sync with the modernist spirit of the age (more country house than Bauhaus), The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats is a whimsical adventure chronicling a party in search of epicurean delights. Follies and fortresses, temples and turrets… it’s an escapist setting, an ageless fantasy, Chinese wallpaper without the paper. Trompe l’œil gargoyle headed grotesques support the pedimented entrance doorcase. Half moon windows are treated as grottos. All the more remarkable given that Rex undertook this feat as a 23 year old Slade student. Tragically just 17 years later, the artist was killed on his first day of action in World War II. Rex Whistler’s legacy continues to inspire and enthral. His portraits of Lady Caroline Paget and her brother, later 7th Marquess of Anglesey, both recently sold for twice their estimates.

Lunch is served in the leafy garden along the Thames Embankment. Fresco to alfresco. A moveable feast. Fête champêtre. The meal is bookended by bubbly. Isn’t all hydration good for you? That’s a fair enough excuse for flutes of Coates + Seely Brut (£11.50). “Complex citrus infused fizz from one of the UK’s most impressive estates,” reassures the wine list. Hampshire’s finest fizz followed by Hampshire’s finest fish. Arriba! L’Abrunet 2015 (£27.00), “Made from organic white Grenache grapes grown in Catalonia,” adds to the bibulous nature of this indulgent Saturday afternoon. In honour of the founder of the gallery (Henry Tate was a sugar merchant) it would be rude not to have pudding. And it does result in a three course deal (£35.95). “Moderation is overrated,” agree the couple at the next table. The food’s wonderful – aptly British with a nod to the Continent. No buyers’ remorse.

The jazz ensemble strikes up. Maybe Tate Britain isn’t so quiet, after all.

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Architecture Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

Lavender’s Blue + Ashford Castle Mayo

King Cong | More Mayo Please | Glory Days

Aunt Margaret’s maxim was, “Never stay anywhere not as grand as your own home.” And she’d an Asprey account and Trüggelmann dressing room. Lavender’s Blue’s take is, “Life’s too short to go four star.” The last time we did lunch at Ashford Castle was a third of a century – a generation – ago. With Aunt Margaret (she approved). Six hour round trip back then (walk in the park compared to her regular 12 hour return journey for breakfast at Sheen Falls). Seafood and lobster chowder starter. Other courses forgotten in the mists of time. Return visit slightly overdue.

Thankfully a leisurely two hour return trip this time. We’re staying nearby (in a country house). Deep breath. Will it live up to our wildest expectations? Repetitiousness joyousness of well spent youth to come? Terrific news! Ashford Castle has just been revamped with huge chutzpah. An all-guns-blazing-shoot-the-prisoners-full-turbo-heel-to-the-steel £40 million revamp at that. The Irishman’s home really is his tartaned up castle. As long as he earns a king’s ransom or has a two comma bank balance. The bill’s arrived. Chowder €13.50 this time. Now there’s commitment to a story arc. As for Ashford Castle 33 years later? It more than meets the hopes held high borne in hazy memories. Sepia transformed into technicolour. Aunt Margaret would still approve. She never did do faded grandeur.

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Architecture People Restaurants

Danson House + Danson Stables + Danson Park London

Danson Abbey

This Palladian style villa may have originated as a bolthole from London but there’s nothing provincial about it. While suburbia has crept round Danson Park over the last two and a half centuries, miraculously the house, stables and park have survived virtually intact. Now owned by Bexley Council, a registry office makes for a decent unobtrusive use for the historic building. And lunch in the courtyard of Danson Stables is a winning combination of good food and architecture.

Serendipity – and a £4.5 million restoration by Historic England – has saved Danson for the next two and a half centuries. In 1995 the house was falling to pieces. Jump a decade and the Queen is cutting the ribbon. “It’s smaller than I thought,” Her Majesty observes upon her arrival. Understandable – there are optical illusions at play. Two fenestration tricks make the building appear larger than it is: (internally) not expressing the architraves and (externally) shrinking window sizes on the upper floor.

“Very Miss Jane Austen!” declares John O’Connell, climbing the serene sweep of steps to the entrance door. Unusually there are two large panes of glass in the beautifully aged mahogany door. Good for catching northern light but also an 18th century display of wealth. The walls are equally blessed by the patina of age. Portland stone given a lime wash has a mellowed texture and, set high up on a ridge, the house turns golden yellow in the sun. If you’ve got it flaunt it. And Sir John Boyd had it. Before he lost it.

Freshly beknighted with a 19 year old bride to serenade, the 40 something client commissioned Sir Robert Taylor to design him a home worthy of his station in life. The 1st Baronet Boyd owned Caribbean sugar plantations and was Vice Chairman of the British East India Company. “It really is a most skilful plan,” observes John O’Connell, and as Ireland’s leading conservation architect, he should know. “With the summer sun Danson House could be a villa along the Brenta Canal!” A double blow of the American and French Revolutions wrecked Sir John’s businesses. He died in debt in 1800. His son chopped off the wings, reclaiming the building materials for stables designed by George Dance. Five years later, the house was sold.

The entrance hall, in Palladian terms, is really a closed loggia so relatively simple with a plain marble floor. Opulence follows. Why employ one starchitect when you can get two? Sir John Boyd got Sir William Chambers to jazz up Sir Robert Taylor’s design, adding fireplaces and doors and other decorative touches. A rare cycle of Georgian allegorical wall paintings by the French artist Charles Pavillon stimulate after dinner conversation in the dining room.

A Victorian daughter of the manor, Sarah Johnston, helpfully painted watercolours of the interiors. Historic England used her paintings as inspiration for the carpets. A painting by George Barret hanging in the Chinoserie wallpapered octagonal Ladies’ Sitting Room illustrates the house with its wings. Incidentally, an exhibition of this Irish born artist is planned for the newly reopened National Gallery of Ireland.

The plaster roundels in the Gentlemen’s Music Room cum Library were found in cupboards. Imprints on the walls for the surrounding swags allowed them to be accurately reinstalled. That ingenious layout – interlocking rectangles and polygons around a dream of an oval stairwell – adapts well. Modern services are tucked into servants’ corridors wedged between the reception room shapes. The butler’s pantry contains a lift.

The landscape has erroneously been attributed to Capability Brown. Where hasn’t? It’s like every church carving must be Grinling Gibbons. Capability may have visited Danson, but the setting is the work of his associate, Nathaniel Richmond. Danson House (tour) and Danson Stables (lunch) and Danson Park (stroll). “It really is a place apart and invokes the Veneto,” John O’Connell lyrically waxes. Danson with the stars. The day is so singular, a true joy.

Categories
Luxury Restaurants

FG Restaurant Rotterdam + François Geurds

Initial Reaction   

Let’s do acronymic acrobatics. FG stands for François Geurds. FG stands for flavours guru. FG stands for futuristic gastronomy. FG stands for fanatiek genieten. Enough. “Would you like some champagne?” greets the maître d’. Blanc de Blancs: that’ll be a rhetorical question. François Geurds, yes, FG himself, appears to welcome us. “I recognise you from The Fat Duck! One of Heston Blumenthal’s parties?” That’ll be us. Always on an Apician mission to redress the work life imbalance.

Big Yellow Taxi is playing. The barrel vaulted restaurant, occupying two redundant railway arches, is filled with pairs of Arne Jacobsen winged chairs. Chairman’s chairs: everyone’s important here. Later in the afternoon, when the restaurant fills up, they will gently rotate as guests move, forming a slow dance, an idle counterpoint to the fast choreography of the service. There’s nothing bridge and tunnel about these arches, capsules of intimate luxury. A few arches down is Denoism, a smart atelier with a glass walled studio in the middle where you can watch your next outfit taking shape while sipping a coffee.

“Mainport’s a lovely hotel,” says François. “And this is a great area of Rotterdam. We attract guests from everywhere, France, America… Come and look at our garden!” We’re ushered through to a verdant private room. “It’s set up for a party later.” He strikes a pose. Arms folded. He puts the I into chef. “We have 56 covers including the private dining and eight people can sit at the bar watching the chefs. We’re fully booked tonight.” We opt for the locavore vegetarian tasting menu with matching wines:

“We don’t find cooking for vegetarians that different an approach,” he confirms. “We always start preparation anyway with lots of chopping of vegetables.” This is fine wining and dining so there are plenty of variations on a theme. Our wooden table is laid with two enigmatic white shapes plus a grinding bowl and petite cutlery. Remember the confusing days of yore when cutlery for every course was laid out altogether on linen tablecloths? Hot bread sits on one of the icebergs; traditional French Parmesan on the other. Interspersions of petals and greenery add colour. “The butter is from Normandy and here is Spanish olive oil,” introduces the waiter.

Another waiter arrives carrying a box of 12 peppers, white to black and every shade between. Enter some personalisation of the meal. After all, whatever Marco Pierre White thinks, everybody’s taste is different isn’t it? Under heuristic guidance we choose Congolese Likovala, Indonesian Cubèbe and Nepalese Timur peppers. A theatrical grinding performance takes place. Our table smells of 100 coffee shops. This routine – one we could get used to thank you – is repeated for salts, Pakistani Diamond and Sel Mirroir.

A sorbet cornetto wedged in a white arch reminiscent of the room shape is “dipped in three different tastes”: tomato, liquorice and piccalilli. Sweet and sour and salty, it’s becoming clear François enjoys treating his guests to taste, texture and temperature teases and temptations. “Collecting knives is a great passion of François’,” says the waiter, holding a murderous array of instruments. We select a mean looking dagger.

After an interlude of mushroom, coconut and haddock (yes they did check our pescatarian credentials) consumé, west Austrian Rabl 2012 “fresh and juicy” white wine is a perfume to the (on a knife’s edge) full bodied curried cabbage, carrot and parsnip with Slovenic cream of artichoke, served with black squid inked potatoes. Pure, unadulterated gastroporn. Is photographing food a disruption? Au contraire, it’s an aide memoire.

The textured black and gold plate displaying beetroot foam, artichoke and parsnip reminds us of a George Baselitz painting. Marrying art and gastronomy, its scent is of a country garden in bloom. The 2014 Colle Stefano white wine – “a typical grape from east Italy giving us fresh herbiness and earthy flavours” we’re told – adds to the rural mood inducing aroma.

Next, the sommelier recommends “a Washington State independent wine from the Dionysus Vineyard.” This smoky 2014 chardonnay plays the perfect companion to pumpkin cream and sweet and sour celery arranged in a crispy crenellation. We’re having far too much fun to pay a lot of attention to the staff’s eloquence and erudition.

Red instead of white wine is now served. In tandem, the arched window frames a blue sky turning grey. Pathetic fallacy or what? The Château de Grand Morgan 2014 pinot noir is “very fruity and earthy”. Our glasses are big enough to swim in, capturing the lingering essence and bouquet of the grape. It accompanies Portobello mushroom, sculpted almond chives and cherry pip sorbet. Another surprising and successful marriage.

“We don’t like the summer truffle in our kitchen!” exclaims François. Winter truffle (Tuber melanosporum) is far more potent than its summer counterpart (Tuber aestivum). Sure enough, winter truffle macaroni comes with lemongrass foam, lentils and parsnips surrounding an egg capped with edible gold leaf. Luyt Douro Doc Reserva Tinto 2011 proves to be yet another orthonasal olfactory hit.

Our carefully curated multisensory voyage is coming to a climax. Cascinetta Vietta Moscato d’Asti in a vintage glass (“light, sweet and just a bit sparkling!”) accentuates lychee sorbet decorated with coconut crisps on a dark chocolate base. FG does all the molecular mixology you’d expect from a modernist restaurant with a taste lab attached yet so much more.

“You have to be in your restaurant seven days a week,” believes François. “Sometimes I take a day off. Otherwise I’m here first thing. I live seven minutes away. In the morning I’m in the lab preparing all the sauces, the meals, the food. I’m always here. I open and close the door, 8.30am to 2.30am.”

The bill is presented under a shell. A sonic surprise? The sound of the sea? A tortoiseshell sculpture representing an inversion of the fossil shaped basin in the bathroom? Or just a paper weight? Four vegetarian courses €71 | five courses €91 | seven courses €111 | nine courses €131. Go the whole hog, add matching wines and Bru sparkling water and there’s not much change out of a couple of hundred euro. But what price umami?

The primacy effect (start of a meal) and regency effect (end of a meal) tend to stick in our minds. What could be more memorable than to sandwich a lunch between an amuse bouche (an unexpected gift) and a goody bag packed with more party favours than a political conference (a really unexpected gift)? Happiness extended. Oh, and the head chef cum experience engineer leaving his kitchen to bookend your visit with a personal welcome and goodbye?

Explosive, experimental and experiential, there’s only one thing missing from FG. It already has a sky high hedonic rating from us. A third Michelin star. Outside, a small red racing car will spin us through the hazy mist of sweltering heat, another rainstorm may await – who cares? – climes unknown persist and pursue us across a restless afternoon. Like a dream, a badly drawn dream. Losing focus, that’s speed and there’s a sailor in every Mainport, so we’re told.