St Tropez : Les Voiles de St Tropez

Beginning of October

Fantastic time to head to this gem of the French Riviera. The weather is still sunny and warm when up north it is much more grey and humid. Most of the resort is open. St Tropez is hosting a great sail race. In the harbour, the power yachts are replaced by sail boats.

Place for diner: l'Escale for the direct view on the harbour and all those racing sail boat.

Before and After diner drink: Quai Joseph , for the location, right on the harbour. Excellent live music, 80's revival, Sinatra....super mixture.

Shopping : A day in Milan

Via Spiga, Via Napoleon, Via Verri are the equivalent of Bond Street and Sloane street in London, Avenue Montaigne and Avenue St Honoré in Paris. The difference is the vibe , the district is packed with beautiful and chic people strolling and shopping like a catwalk show in the street , better dressed and more chic than you would experience anywhere in the world . The clear difference demonstrated by Milan versus Paris or London equivalents is in the space of four or five streets you see the beautiful and trendy , there with you , rather than just in the pictures in the windows of the shops or in their catalogues.

Unique in Milan: the newly open Dsquared2 flagship shop.

The design of the shop is Absolutely fabulous.

Reflect the image of the brand perfectly. When Canadian natural spirit meet Urban chic Milan...outstanding. A mixture of honey colour wood and black lacquer. You can shop here of course and have a glass of champagne at the Dsquared2 bar.

Gio Moretti is for Milan what Colette is in Paris. Selection of the best pieces of the season: Chloé, Gianni Barbato for shoes...Stunning art books selection.

Daad still the best in Milan...beautiful service, wonderful range of different designers capturing the best of the new designers of the moment. You want to wear something chic but different go there.

Want to eat on the spot, stop at Il Salimaio de Montenapoleon. Set on a terrace in a small private square on Via Napoleon. The restaurant is also a gourmet shop.

Where to eat in London?

In addition to our previous recommendation I definitively suggest l'Atelier Robuchon in West Street Covent Garden. The best way to enjoy this red and black French tapas place is to seat at the bar and sample.
The place to be to see the beautiful, successful Londoner at this moment is : Cipriani.

A desire for excellent gastro thai, try the newly open : Nahm.

Have a look at the previous post for additional place to go

St Tropez

Some new places to go in St Topez:

Diner: la Tartane the best Thai restaurant on the Riviera

Diner: Pan Dei the food is not always the best....the sitting outside near the pool is lovely and the staff are charming.

Diner: Colors, Le Palm are back on our list

After Diner drink: Quai Joseph. Right on the harbor, the place to be this summer. Great ambiance, nice people...

Beach: always Les Palmiers and La Voile Rouge which you will have to wait for next year to go back

Annecy
Restaurant & beach : Moon. At least a nice place in Annecy to enjoy this pure lake. White sand beach, good food, good service.

Sweden: Stockholm

May 07

What a nice city to visit on bank holiday want its sunny and the rest of Europe is pouring with rain. The city and the people are very chic. It seems that they is dress code here: leggings for women, jacket and jeans for men. The overall feeling of the city is : clean and safe, lovely people.

Hotel : Nordic light, member of the design hotel. Clean, white, very scandinavian.

Best shoppoing district: Biblioteksgatan, Birger Jarlspassagen...look for the two best shops there: Natalie Schuteman and ABCD.

Restaurant and bar: Sturehof, to feel the heart of the city, beautiful people, scandinavian cuisine, outside bar and terrace.

F12: gastonomique restaurant, delicious Kobé beef, nice design a calm mix of yellow green colors. Pontus by the sea, Riche...

Josefina: near the sea, fantastic place for Sunday lunch, all the high society of Stockholm seems to meet there.... White bar inside with enormous crital light. Palm trees outside on the terrace. Trendy outside bar. Very comfortable Swedish bean bag to lay on the sun.

Tips : Josefina and Stureholf are open on Sundays while most of the other are closed.

More on the list to try next time : Lux, Restaurang J, Kungsholmen, Wedholms Fisk

After dinner drink : Operakallarens Bakficka, Ice bar at Nordic See hotel (make sure you reserve if you want to get in)

Thing to do: boat ride of course, visit Djurgården and Skansen (park animal)

Sicily : Taormina

May 2007

We just came back from Taormina. May is a perfect time to go, not so busy, warm, lush nature. The cherry on the cake : the Etna was erupting, actually we where able to see it this time and we saw smoke coming out of the top.

We stayed up town, in San Domenico palace, in Suite overlooking the see with a fantastic terrace. The palace is nested in a lush colored garden of red , fuschia, purple, yellow flowers and trees. San Domenico Palace is a former monastery, you have a feel of it in the construction of the building which surround two manificient inside courts and the furniture in the lobby and corridors.

The service is as is should be in a Palace of this standing.

The breakfast is one of the best we had so far.

Where to eat for diner: in general the cuisine is excellent and the service is very old school, professional, efficient, polite. It is delightful.

La Giara, they just refurblish all the restaurant in a trendy white atmosphere, the cuisine is axcellent as well as the service.

Bougainvilliers, Italien gourmet cuisine at San Domenico Palace. Baronessa, a new open restaurant. Casa Grugno. Maffei's.

For a drink after diner, all the nice bar a on the same place : Q loung Bar, White Bar, Dèja Vu.

Shopping: Parisi, man, woman, junior they own 4 to 5 shops with the best fashion designers brand.

For more information have a look at a previous post.

The St Tropez season has starter with the easter week end...the weather was gorgeous and very windy. As a result, it was a bit chilly on the beach and impossible to get in the water.

La Bastide des Salins, the 14 rooms have been refurbish making it even more peacefull and agreable to stay there.

The beachs on Pampelone are not all open at this time. Les Palmiers is still a very good choice: good food, nice people, excellent service, nice boutique. During the winter they have done a bit of refurblish and had some 60's reedition furniture.

For a drink before diner, we higly recommand La Maison Blanche good as before. They ad some more pieces of art and made some other changes with out changing the spirit, well done.

For diner, absolutly do not go to Grand Joseph, food is bad, service even worse. They have manage to put as many table as possible there is no space left for the waiters to move around. And of course it is expensive....

Le Bistro on Place des Lices...you can also forget about this place. They just open...half the list on the menu was not available, the rest was disgusting, the place is badly finish, they probably rush to finish on time. The only stuff we like about this place the staff was nice and the water bar. May be they will get better after couple of weeks...

L'Escale, good food, good service. If you want to see the Jet set this is the place. They have made some change also. Joseph bought also La Marine to be open in May, it will be all back, with black sand on the floor. It will be a meet restaurant.

Senequier, THE bar on the port have done some refurblishment also....red mosaic and grey plastic furniture , overall very cheap looking. Stay on the outside terrasse...anyway it is best for looking at the crowd.

Shopping: for men Lily for men, for women, Lily for women and of course Dolce&Gabbana shop.

If you have time go to Cannes this is a shopping paradise, the shops are located on 2 streets : La Croisette and one street behind.

For more on ST Tropez , check previous post...