Could life get any better for someone whose teenage dream was to be People Magazine’s star reporter?

King’s Cross is London’s new foodie heaven, and if you don’t believe me, read this article in Indagare (written by, well, me). Here’s a starter from my lunch at Grain Store: Baked beetroot carpaccio, fermented beetroot dressing and spiced labneh. Don’t let mystery ingredient ‘labneh’ discourage you, the dish was delish.

How about some grilled octopus with green tomato, miso, chilli & lime?

Grain Store is just one of many terrific places to eat in King’s Cross. From Hanoi Kitchen street food  to Europe’s longest champagne bar to the ornate and very British Gilbert Scott restaurant, King’s Cross has your taste buds covered.

Next up is Marylebone (again more detail in Indagare) where I fell in love with the utterly chic, eccentric and affordable Zetter Townhouse. Below is an onyx lit bathroom.

Chinoiserie peacocks anyone?

Marylebone has some one-off boutiques worth visiting. Here’s Jose Urrutia, founder of leather goods shop La Portegna.

These men’s suede travelling slippers come in forest green, tan and navy. Pretty nifty.

Below is Urrutia’s grandmother with Ernest Hemingway on a  boat trip between Plymouth and Bombay in 1933. The two were great friends and keen travellers, an inspiration for this travel accessories shop.

From Marylebone we move west to village-y Fulham where the locals couldn’t be  friendlier.

Live like a local and get your heartbeat going at Ride Republic.

You’ve earned that Michelin starred meal at gastropub…

Bon Appétit!

November, 2015

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The only way I can distinguish between what I heard at Princeton from Brown is that in the former the speaker was wearing a headband and pearls, and in the latter the speaker had red hair and blue tights. Beyond that, I’m voting for Vegas.

Some easy  tips for parents:

Go with a friend (i.e. fellow parent) with a sense of humour.

If possible skip the campus tour and get a student you know to show you around – that will be 1,000 times more honest and fun. Even better, take a student out for a meal. Free food is the best currency for college scoop.

Sit in on a class.

Visit during autumn –

Visit during Halloween. Sleeping Beauty and Elmo below at Georgetown.

And remember to breathe when you and your child get on each other’s nerves. Close quarters and all. Inhale deeply when the  teeny hotel bathroom is covered with her makeup, assorted beauty products and random items of clothing, everything but a toothbrush, which she forgot.

“It’s no big deal,” she says,  refusing to use mine as a backup. “That’s kind of gross, Mommy.”

Grosser than the alternative, I wonder? Breathe. This particular  trip is God’s way of making everyone excited about college.

But it’s not all gloom. I have asked a trusted bunch of college kids for their top tips. So if your future includes  information sessions and campus tours in New Haven, Providence, Philadelphia and/or Georgetown, don’t despair. Read on.

Fun-loving Cristina, a recent Yale grad and second from right, offers these New Haven suggestions:

Edgewood Gallery often falls under the radar and they do beautiful shows there (just behind Pierson) – Rob Storr often curates. YCBA and YUAG — always cool student-oriented programming so good to check websites before going for tours, talks etc. Albers Foundation is in Bethany, CT and by appointment only… It’s such a beautiful place, and only thirty minutes from Yale.

Here is Saria, a sophomore at Brown, in front of a RISD designed blow-up structure.

“The best thing about Providence is definitely the food… it’s amazing!”

Saria’s favorite restaurants include parent’s weekend classics New Rivers and Al Forno. For breakfast she likes the charming and quaint Kitchen (very small, just fits 14 ppl – no reservation) with its homey breakfasts – delicious thick bacon and croissant, french toast, all styles of egg and huevos rancheros.

And for the adventurous, try North (chef trained under head guy at Momofuku in NY… very strange and delicious menu – Dan Dan noodles, for example, are korean rice cakes with fermented chili, squid and mutton… the vinegar for oysters changes daily, and the mustard that goes with the ham also changes daily…once it was Dr. Pepper mustard).

Once fed and watered, Saria recommends seeing the RISD Museum. Stay at the hip boutique Dean Hotel (beats the huge, impersonal Omni any day) and order a Bolt Coffee on the ground floor cafe to keep you wide-eyed for forthcoming session.

Next up is Ale, looking very healthy at Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. 

Ale suggested I take my daughter and two Penn frat boys (talk about good scoop!) to Parc, Philly’s version of Balthazar in the picturesque Rittenhouse District. I loved it, almost as much as I loved my massage and pilates class at the Rittenhouse Spa & Club across the square. Every college trip parent deserves a bit of pampering.

Other eating spots Ale likes are Vernick, Tinto, Barbuzzo, The Dandelion, Barclay Prime, Talula’s Garden, and Amada.

Shoppers should browse Walnut Street. Don’t miss Rittenhouse Square’s upscale, eclectic boutique Joan Shepp.

Art lovers might want to pop into the Barnes Foundation, as well as the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Sylvester Stallone made a promotional return to the museum  last week – 40 years after Rocky was first filmed training on the museum steps.

And for Georgetown,  my eldest Kate has such a long list of shops and restaurants that I had to yell, ‘Cut’. A parent’s job is never done.

Here’s the abbreviated version: For restaurants in Georgetown but slightly off the beaten track Kate suggests Café Bonaparte,  a cute little French restaurant and Unum, on M Street, close to the Four Seasons. She also likes Baked & Wired, a delish bakery with really good cupcakes and coffee.

Burn off those carbs at Kate’s fave,  Fuel Pilates on 37th Street.

“The owner Kelly was so nice and loved us all.”

Core Power is good for a cardio hot yoga workout.

Kate recommends exploring nearby Washington DC.  Le Diplomate and Zaytinya are two restaurants that top her lengthy list. Zaytinya is Greek/Mediterranean by the Capital and Le Diplomate is a buzzy French brasserie in an up and coming neighborhood.

Make time for the Newseum and the The Philips Collection with its Rothko room.

And for shoppers, Kate is emphatic:

 “Hu’s Wear is the best shop  by far in Georgetown. Let me know if you want any more ideas – obviously I have more, haha”

November, 2015

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June, 2015

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The old San Francisco  in the 1970’s and ’80’s was a sleepy town with little traffic, a few good restaurants (French and Italian), and Union Square was about the only place to shop. If I told people  that I was from SF, they’d ask me about the gay Castro, or maybe some religious cult or nudist beach. No longer.

Last weekend I was in the Bay Area for my cousin’s wedding. Every time I visit my hometown I get nostalgic. So it was with surprised relief that I rediscovered the Sunset, a part of town that has barely changed over the years.

I visited this forgotten foggy tip of the city on the suggestion of my old college friend Tom (pictured below with my friend Isabelle who came along for the adventure).

We drove out past the avenues with the sunshine behind us and the vast coast ahead. The Sunset is still populated by an interesting mix of surfers and multi-generational, immigrant families. It looked just the same to us.

Seal Rock is still there.

And so are the surfers…

And the weird vegetation that thrives in the Sunset’s cool microclimate.

But if you dig a little deeper there are some interesting new shops and places to eat. Isabelle and I began at Woodshop, a collective of 4 craftsmen where the makers are as easy on the eye as their creations. Here’s Josh Duthie and Luke Bartels, two of the foursome. Josh reinvents old chairs and Luke makes furniture from locally salvaged hardwoods.

Danny Hess (who wasn’t there) makes beautiful custom wood surfboards, skateboards and hand planes for body surfing. The shop isn’t really a retail shop so you need to either bang on the door or book an appointment.

Luke wrote down on a spare piece of wood everything we should see in the neighborhood.  All the action happens on a few streets, namely Noriega and Judah between 45th and 46th streets. Streets are organised alphabetically so navigating is simple.

Trouble Coffee and Coconut Club is  a small, odd coffee shop credited with starting the $4 thick-sliced toast craze that’s been covered by NPR, the New Yorker and the Guardian (i.e. prepare for expensive toast to pop out of London toasters soon).

Journalist John Travois wrote a touching article about Trouble and how he started out cynical but after meeting Trouble’s tattooed, Bipolar founder Guiletta Carrelli – who opened the cafe to save herself – changed his mind.

The brief menu features “Build Your Own Damn House”, which consists of a cappuccino,  a whole coconut and a fat piece of cinnamon toast. No cell phones are allowed in the shoebox-sized spot with its extremely limited menu, space, and seating  (i.e. a piece of driftwood outside.) And yet, people love it.

Mouth-watering cinnamon and peanut-butter slices of toast are stabbed with a butter knife to make the butter drip inside the bread.

Other popular foodie highlights include the crowded Devil’s Teeth where the most popular dish is the Breakfast Sandwich comprised of scrambled eggs, cream cheese and bacon.

Or on a cold foggy day, take refuge in the all-wood Outerlands restaurant. Delicious food and cocktails, says my local on the spot – Tom who loves to surf and lives nearby on Ocean Beach.

No visit to the Sunset is complete without a stop in a surf shop. Check out Mollusk Surf Shop with its handmade boards, art, photography and cool t-shirts.

I like the new San Francisco, but I miss the old one.

May, 2015

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We three adventurers met at Paddington Station at the civilised hour of 11am, caught the express train to Castle Cary arriving by 12:30. The views from the train are lovely although we spent most of our time chatting and disturbing our neighbours. Never again will I book the ‘quiet car’ with Deezip in tow.

At Castle Cary we were met by the friendliest of  taxi drivers, David Guy, and whisked off to Hauser & Wirth. Castle Cary is a sleepy, rural station so I recommend booking David in advance (tel 01963 351 015). Swiss global art dealers  Iwan and Manuela Wirth have created quite the cool, arty hangout in the middle of gorgeous Somerset near where they live. Already more than 100,000 people have flocked here since it opened last July.

First things first- we needed the loo. How many loos inspire selfies? That’s how hip this place is!

Then we went outside and enjoyed Dan Graham’s S-Curve, a steel and two-way mirror that did wonders for our figures.

Enough looking at our reflections, the time had come to look beyond ourselves at non-reflective walls. I confess that I have many envies: I wish I could cook, paint my own fingernails, touch-type. The list is long. It just got longer – I want a barn. Correction. I want this barn.

I also wouldn’t mind owning one of Chinese artist Zhang Enli’s ‘Four Seasons’ with its vibrant images of water, leaves and trees. Nature comes inside.

A closeup:

We then strolled through the 1.5 acre Oudolf Field designed by Dutch gardener Piet Oudolf. He has designed both the Highline and the new Whitney Museum’s gardens in NYC amongst other high-profile projects. Perched at the top of Oudolf Field is Chilean artist Smiljan Radic’s white fibreglass pavilion.The Radic Pavilion was first unveiled as the Serpentine Gallery’s 2014 Pavilion.

Here’s a view from my favourite folly.

All this looking at ourselves and beyond can work up an appetite. So to the Roth Bar & Grill we went. It was designed by Bjorn and Oddur Roth, son and grandson of German artist Dieter Roth.

We met up with two creative, bohemian friends who have places nearby and told us what to order – buffalo mozzarella to die for, hamburgers delish, garden salad from the garden, sea bream brilliant and the Bloody Mary’s bloody good. In fact, they said, everything on the menu is good.

After lunch we had a quick espresso At the Chapel, another hip spot in nearby Bruton. Who did we spot there but stunning blonde Burberry model and actress (Endless Love) Gabriella Wilde with her heavily tattooed musician boyfriend Alan Pownall and baby son Sasha Blue. Sorry no pics – we’re too cool for that.

Reality and David the cab driver were calling. Time to head back to London. We almost missed our train when Deezip got distracted in the just-opened,  chic antique shop next to the train station – The Factory.

Oh Somerset, take me back

April, 2015

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