Caroline Phillips

Journalism

Caroline Phillips
“Caroline Phillips is a tenacious and skilful writer with a flair for high quality interviewing and a knack for making things work.”

Caroline Phillips

Journalism

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Bribing elephants with pumpkin seeds and spotting monks with iPads in Thailand

Country & Town House | 24 Feb 2015

The monk in saffron robes clutches a mobile phone and iPad. It’s an incongruous sight. Normally these holy men are holding alms bowls for donations of sticky rice. ‘It’s wrong to use Buddha as decoration or tattoo,’ reads a notice nearby. Across the forecourt I hear the strains of musicians playing instruments with names like Krong, Krap and Pia. Maybe a dignitary has landed. Maybe I’ve got culture shock.

Escape to Morgan’s Rock

The Luxury Channel | 18 Feb 2015

Morgan’s Rock really rocks. The Ecolodge is set on one of Nicaragua’s most gobsmackingly gorgeous and deserted, private beaches….a bay of sugar-fine sand and gently lapping Pacific waves. Gallop along the mile-long stretch of beach on horseback – “giddy up Pirata” – or saunter along it to watch sea turtles laying their eggs. The Ecolodge itself comprises 15 wood and thatched bungalows – so eco they’re enough to make anyone weep recycled tears of joy – with simple local furnishings, almond tree floors and the grooviest of upcycled copper taps and shower fittings. There’s no air-conditioning – just the freshest of sea breezes, plus fans and views to beat those in Adam and Eve’s back yard.


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United we stand

Sunday Times Style | 13 Feb 2015

My husband and I are sitting at a table, being instruted to look deeply into one another’s eyes. Opposite us, a softly spoken American is coaxing us to make statements about what we like in one another, with real feeling. I’m not in a loving mood, as we’ve bickered about the best route to the appointment. But I grit my teeth and tell my husband, Charles, that he’s sensitive and intuitive. That he makes me laugh. And that he’s kind. Then it’s his turn.


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Seductive Symi – the quietly smart Greek island

The Times | 31 Jan 2015

We develop a spring in our step on the island of Symi. No wonder – there are apparently 374 steps from its harbour, Yialos, to our villa. This is according to its owner, George Kalodoukas – an erstwhile sea captain – who sports a moustache that could double for a thatched roof. Regardless of his impressive facial decoration and his impossibly white Panama hat, his maths proves wonky. I count only 278 steps.


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Westernising Japanese food at Kurobuta

The Luxury Channel | 24 Nov 2014

‘You’re going to hate Kurobuta,’ my teen children announce cheerily. ‘It’s uncomfortable and noisy.’ Well, naturally, I wanted to prove them wrong – what self-righteous mother wouldn’t? But given the fact that I’m now sitting on something like a park bench, only less comfortable – a wooden, plank-like seat – in a restaurant that is chronically loud, cavernous and unpleasantly dark, it’s going to be difficult to disagree with my teen lifestyle advisors.


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Dining at UNI

The Luxury Channel | 19 Nov 2014

Outside it has the look of a Belgravia hair salon or a candle and scent shop – with its black awning and white façade with lots of glass, and window with a big image of a Japanese face. From the pavement, passers-by don’t really see diners. But inside is UNI – a restaurant serving Japanese and Peruvian fusion food, aka Nikkei cuisine.


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Salad days

Chewton Glen | 19 Oct 2014

“I was very sad to leave Cliveden,” says William Waldorf Astor, the fourth Viscount. In 1942 his grandfather gave the estate to the National Trust, but the family continued to live there until they found it too difficult, about which more later. Thus Lord Astor spent his first 16 years living at Cliveden, his family home, and a house with a political history – from the Dukes of Buckingham to the Astors.


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The ultimate style edit

Chewton Glen | 19 Oct 2014

You are staying at Chewton Glen or Cliveden House. Have you got a bulging case, but nothing to wear? Or did you not know how to translate city clothes to country looks without buying a whole new wardrobe? What you need is The Look Doctor, Annabel Hodin. The woman who will sort you out a core wardrobe for everything from the Oscars to a relaxed country weekend.


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There’s something special about Sicily

The Luxury Channel | 17 Oct 2014

There’s something special about Sicily. As Vogue Editor Alexandra Shulman has written, ‘Oranges are more orange in Sicily.’ And as Goethe wrote, ‘The key to Italy is Sicily.’ Whichever way you look at it, this once-rich island, the biggest in the Med, is magical. It’s famed for its Baroque, Byzantine and Corinthian architecture, cliff-top villages, beautiful beaches, stylish hotels and superb cuisine. I experienced first the luxury of tranquillity and life in the slowest of slow lanes in agroturismo Il Vignale (a week in a way-off-the-beaten-track north coast villa), before taking to the road for a further week to round up the best of the rest of places to stay.


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