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.

• Travel: Americas

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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.

• Food

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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.

• Food

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Kokkeriet – a small restaurant with big ambitions

The Luxury Channel | 19 Nov 2014

A small restaurant with big ambitions – that’s Kokkeriet according to its website. It claims also to be ‘modern and old-fashioned, innovative and traditional, decadent and minimalist, pretentious as well as humble.’ Well, that’s all bases covered then.

• Food,
• Travel: Europe/ Africa

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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.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

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Modica’s La Gazza Ladra

The Luxury Channel | 17 Oct 2014

If there were a handful of Michelin restaurants in the Sicilian town of Modica and its immediate environs, that would be impressive. But there are actually two handfuls. Several eateries that are Michelin-rated, plus a couple with two stars, and a duo with one star. That’s just plain greedy when there are entire cities starving for just one Michelin restaurant.

• Food,
• Travel: Europe/ Africa

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Eco-chic Monaci Delle Terre Nere, Italy

Adelto | 28 Sep 2014

It’s a Sicilian paradise. He was, he says, instantly besotted and decided to dedicate his life to its restoration. That was in 2007 when Guido Coffa – a former automotive engineer – chanced upon La Monaci, a 19th-century villa in the foothills of Mt Etna, Sicily. It was then a working farm. Five years later, writes Caroline Phillips, it’s a very different story. It’s a chic, stylish boutique hotel with 15 bedrooms/suites in the villa and others dotted on the 40- acre organic estate. Welcome to Monaci delle Terre Nere.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

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Welcome to my bed spa

Queen of Retreats | 15 Sep 2014

I’m on a retreat in my bedroom. Call it Bed Spa. This because I’ve broken my ankle and had an op. My life is normally crazily busy, but now I’ve been forced to stop. Suddenly I realise how much of my running around is unnecessary. And what’s important in life. The chance to be unfettered by the outside world is rare, especially at home. My bedroom has monastic white polished plasterwork, a Moroccan bedcover twinkling with sequins and a view of trees. Anyone would want to spa here!

• Health, Beauty & Spa

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Pizza and piazzas: Palermo street food tour

High50 | 3 Sep 2014

It’s hard to explain how enticing Sicilian street food is. Grilled cow’s bowel appetisers don’t sound too, well, appetising. How about spicy spleen sandwiches or griddled horsemeat? They don’t immediately appeal. So, on a trip to Il Vignale, a rural villa near S. Stefano di Camastra on the north coast of Sicily, I don’t go straight to these hardcore culinary experiences. Maria, the chef, breaks me in slowly.

• Food,
• Travel: Europe/ Africa

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The Potting Shed

Our Man on the Ground | 18 Aug 2014

The Royal Triangle is like a sort of reverse Bermuda Triangle – so instead of aircraft and ships disappearing under suspicious circumstances, tasteful Highgrove daisy grubbers, maple-handled planting trowels, traditional Sussex trugs in which to collect your earthy organic carrots and wooden apple crates simply appear. Just like that. And everything is painted that sautéed sage colour. It’s like living in the brain of Lady Bamford of Daylesford fame, the high priestess of this sort of aesthetic.

• Food

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Therapist watch: movement therapist Ivana Daniell on Wimpole Street

Queen of Retreats | 14 Aug 2014

Ivana offers Life In Movement therapy, a brilliant combo of postural movement analysis, aerobics, Pilates, Alexander Technique, Ayurveda, Feldenkrais Method and Gyrontonics. Perfect for those who have injuries or sedentary lifestyles, it features bespoke exercises – mostly on pilates machines – tailored to your postural misalignments, muscular needs, lifestyle and ayurvedic body type. The aim is to help you attain a fully functioning body that operates at its optimum. As well as working out of her own clinic at 61 Wimpole Street, she is much sought after by private clients globally and works for retreats run by Aman Resorts on a consultancy basis.

• Health, Beauty & Spa

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The Restaurant at Cowley Manor

Our Man on the Ground | 18 Jul 2014

The Elder Daughter and I arrive an hour late – after driving into several hedges. The satnav doesn’t like the idea of going there and keeps ordering us imperiously to “perform a U-turn when possible” on roads the size of my little finger. When we get mobile reception – which isn’t often – we call to say we’re running late. Which might be as good a way as any to alert the staff to our table reservation. Wrong.

• Food

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