Slow → articles in Travel

Find Eat Drink

Find. Eat. Drink. is an online database and iOS app that highlights the best restaurants, drinking holes, and food shops around the world, according to professionals in the industry. This includes experts like Michelin-star chefs, coffee roasters, bartenders, sommeliers and food writers giving their personal recommendations in a fashion that reminds of the recently released printed guide Where Chefs Eat. Find. Eat. Drink. lets one browse offerings in over 120 major cities worldwide, utilizing the app there's the option to use your location to show you what's nearby, filtered by particular cuisine and price class. [ Continue reading ]

A Borderless World

The project named A Borderless World recently caught our attention. The core of it are Andrea Calandri, Armando Romano, Gabriele Greco and Giulio Menichini and their Land Rover Defender which they drove for 33.000 kilometer in a journey that few have managed to do. It brought them from Italy to the Middle-East, Central Asia, South-East Asia, Eastern-Europe and back to Italy. [ Continue reading ]

Paper & Tea

While we are crossing Japan, enjoying some real Japanese traditions, here's some more Japanese inspired European business. Paper & Tea founder, Jens de Gruyter and his team, have made it their mission to make fine teas and tea culture more accessible to a broad audience in Western-Europe. In order to achieve this they opened a bright store on the first of December 2012 at the Bleibtreustrasse 4 in Berlin. In the store the presentation system of the teas encourages self-directed discovery, through a immediate sensory experience and dialogue in order for the customer to familiarize with the wide range of the offered. The store's interior, designed in collaboration with product designer Fabian von Ferrari, resembles a mix of aesthetically purist concept store and natural history museum. [ Continue reading ]

The Wasabi Company

It is believed that wasabi was first used where it was found, growing wild in Japan's valleys of Mt. Heike, Mt. Mizuo, and Mt. Bahun. The locals gathered wild wasabi to use as a condiment with slices of raw yamame, and raw venison. In addition to use as a flavoring, the stems and leaves of wasabi were also pickled and eaten as a vegetable. At one point the wasabi was shown to Tokugawa Ieyasu, a Japanese warlord of the era, who liked it so much declaring it a treasure only to be grown in the Shizuoka area. [ Continue reading ]

H. Lorenzo by Topsy Design

This beautiful H. Lorenzo retail space in Los Angeles was designed by Jared Frank. Frank, who up to this point had mostly worked as a production designer and residential decorator, made some pleasing aesthetic choices creating a fitting environment for the fashion sold at the store. When Lorenzo Hadar purchased the building next to his men's store in West Hollywood he wanted to turn the ground floor into an annex that could function as a stand alone shop. A place to try out new clothes, ideas, and designers before committing to carrying them at his other locations in Los Angeles.  [ Continue reading ]

Mini Details

For me, traveling means collecting stories, sounds, fragrances and images. Not in the big statements--the overwhelming music or megalomanic architecture--but in details. I'm attracted to the details: the small stories behind one image, the sound of a city awakening, that tiny shop around the corner and the subtle smell of flowers along the way. It is those details that make my travels so inspiring and addicting.  [ Continue reading ]

Archipelago Floating Cinema

One year ago this amazing floating cinema premiered as part of a new film festival in Thailand that was curated by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Tilda Swinton. This impressive project was named the The Archipelago Cinema.  Built in the middle of the water the platform provided breathtaking views from every angle which included two towering rocks emerging from the ocean.  [ Continue reading ]

Lobster House

The newly opened seafood takeout restaurant LobsterHouse + studio at the Frederiksplein 6-8 in Amsterdam really pleases our senses, both aesthetically ànd what we tasted when we dropped by. The seafood takeout restaurant, which is the latest project of Steven Pooters who also founded Café George, has a menu consisting of whole and half lobsters, three different kinds of oysters, lobster- or crab burgers, but also a pasta Vongolo, and Niçoise or Bouillabaise salads. All the takeout meals are prepared daily. [ Continue reading ]

Darr, New York

During our trip to New York City last month we visited this amazing Brooklyn-based store called Darr. The spot on combination and great curation of vintage and new objects, clothing and accessories amazed us profoundly. Co-owners Hicham Benmira, a Casablanca-born former Takashimaya personal shopper, and former video editor Brian Cousins excel in collecting products out of the broadest of spectrums. They cull objects industrial and romantic, rustic and sophisticated, ancient and modern, yet everything fits together perfectly. [ Continue reading ]

Otsuka-Dofukuten

We really like the last year's November opened Otsuka-Dofukuten store designed by Yusuke Seki. The store is located at the feet of the Yasaka Shrine which is a Shinto shrine in the Gion District of Kyoto, Japan. The beautifully designed store has as a goal to reintroduce the traditional Japanese kimono culture. The kimono is a cloth which traditionally had a varying range of prices and quality. Therefore the cloth was affordable within different layers of Japanese society and people wore kimonos in everyday life. Over the last decades however it became more and more common to only wear a kimono on special occasions which resulted in the industry focusing on expensive, high quality kimonos and the cheaper (quality) cloths became less and less available. [ Continue reading ]

Aether Store SF

We really like the latest collaboration between AETHER and Paris-based designer Thierry Gaugain, who also was involved with the creation of AETHERstream, in the realization of their first-ever stand alone retail store. The store, named AETHERsf. will be located in San Fransisco's Hayes Valley. The construction will be made out of three 8‘ x 9.6‘ x 40’ shipping containers and is the combined work of Gaugain, envelope a+d, and AETHER's founders, Jonah Smith and Palmer West. [ Continue reading ]

The North Cape in a Classic 911

Pure Classics' Frank Strothe is a man who likes challenges. He had driven to the Nordkapp in Norway some years ago, but that was in the summer which wasn't much of a contest in the eyes of the driver. His ambition was to do a winter expedition; "driving in the snow is more fun, especially in a classic car that relies on your driving skill to keep it on the road, rather than a host of electronic safety measures."  [ Continue reading ]

Passage: an Immersive Instalation

East-London gallery, restaurant and performance space The Wapping Project is hosting as of the 24th of January a very interesting project named PASSAGE. The audiovisual immersive installation was first staged in the Leonardo da Vinci Museum in Milan in April 2012 and has now landed at the Boiler House in one of London's most interesting art venues. [ Continue reading ]

On Why I Travel

For CitizenMag of the Citizen M Hotel I wrote a little piece 'On Why I Travel'. Here's a little excerpt: "Spruce magazine once had the legendary payoff. "Turn heads. Set the tone. Be informed. Have it first." It inspired me in my work, in my private life -- basically in everything I do. It also helped me in my way of travelling, exploring new cities and places. When people ask me how I plan my travels, how I find those nice products, those sweet places to dine and those perfect spots to shop, the secret lies in this quote. It is the hunger, the craving need and the faith to find those unique and special places. But more important it feeds the fear of missing anything. And last but not least, it fixes the problem of feeling ‘naked’ when visiting unknown places. [ Continue reading ]

Diptyque

Diptyque just opened a new store in London at 62 Leadenhall Market. Designed by the British designer Christopher Jenner it is a wonderful clash between English patterning and French luxury. In his own words: “Oversized library cabinets shooting skyward are furnished with multi-layered classic… [ Continue reading ]

The Vintage Showroom

Port Magazine made a lovely video featuring The Vintage Showroom, a company formed in 2007 to house an ever growing archive of vintage showroom and accessories collected by Douglas Gunn and Roy Luckett. In the following years the company has become one of the leading resources for vintage menswear in the UK, with their archive covering the early mid 20th century and specializing in international work, military and sports clothing, classic English tailoring and country wear. Douglas and Roy have divided their business in two particular ends. On the one side there is the appointment only showroom/studio mainly used by designers and stylists which is situated near London’s Notting Hill. On the other end there is the, open for everyone, retail outlet located on Earlham Street in Covent Garden’ Seven Dials. [ Continue reading ]

citizenM Bankside

During our recent visit to London we stayed at the on July the 4th opened citizenM Bankside hotel. A choice that wasn't made in vain. The hotel, part of the Dutch citizenM chain, houses on 20 Lavington Street in Southwark and offers 192 tastefully designed and furnished rooms. When approaching the front of the hotel the words Another World is Possible greet the visitor from above the entrance, and almost feels like a personal welcome. [ Continue reading ]

Louis Vuitton Express

The summer has always been a time to travel. In the coming posts we will feed that desire even more. First the incredible tour by Todd Selby in collaboration with Louis Vuitton on their way from Paris to Shanghai on the Louis Vuitton Express. A train ride… [ Continue reading ]

City Maps

While planning my next trip to London we’ve just received these really nice guides by Herb Lester Associates featuring old bookshops and new coffee shops, park benches and dive bars, hat shops and haberdashers. Basically the world according to Herb Lester. At this moment maps of London, as… [ Continue reading ]

Wythe Hotel

After a lovely post by Daniel Benning of The 189 about photographer Brian W Ferry, we found out about this lovely Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg Brooklyn, shot by Brian W Ferry for Brooklyn Magazine. The hotel is a result of nearly five years of planning and renovating initiated by the three masterminds behind it, Peter Lawrence, an Australian hotelier, real estate developer Jed Walentas  and Andrew Tarlow of Diner (that lovely diner down Brooklyn Bridge and the well known food magazine). It truly looks amazing, all made with a great eye for detail and some lovely art pieces all made by local artist. This will definitely be our place when in NYC. [ Continue reading ]

Mi Casa en Lisboa

When we left Mi Casa en Lisboa last March, I knew we’d come back. Last weekend we did and it really felt like coming home. We arrived early in the morning to visit the flea market Feira da Ladra in the Graça Alfalma neighborhood and after a warm welcome by… [ Continue reading ]

City Guides

Today Wallpaper and Phaidon released 60 city guides for the iPhone and the iPad. They used to have a few for the iPhone only, but we’re glad to see all the featured cities went digital with ‘a precise, informative, insider’s checklist of all you need to know about… [ Continue reading ]