A room with a view: Why Brits are flocking back to Italy’s Lake Como February 19, 2015 It was the Romans who discovered Lake Como, and built their villas overlooking its stunning scenery. Today, the Mediterranean microclimate created by the lake’s waters is enjoyed as much as ever, though many now prefer an apartment in place of a villa. Aside from the views across the lake, and the uniquely benign climate it [...]
A very big house in the country: Whitestaunton Manor is a Grade-I listed estate with a very textured history February 19, 2015 Nestled in a quiet country village on the outskirts of Somerset lies a house with architecture so rare the only other place you’ll see anything like it is in the Houses of Parliament. In fact, most of Whitestaunton Manor, listed Grade-I for architectural or historical interest, is older than that venerable institution; it’s even namechecked [...]
Life on the edge: The luxury properties on the outskirts of the City February 19, 2015 Life on the City fringes is set to get a lot more glamorous. Developers are already lining up to capitalise on postcodes in east London that are set to soar once Crossrail arrives in 2018. An area that’s sure to see the benefits is Whitechapel, whose prime addresses will sit 262ft above Aldgate East station. [...]
Home movie cinema: The ultimate addition to the basement of wealthy film buffs February 19, 2015 Home cinemas look deceptively simple. Big screen, carpet and a few plush chairs. What is there to get wrong? In fact, there’s a fine art to designing the perfect media room. Comfort is paramount, but nothing is more effective at dampening the sound of your expensive surround sound system than soft furnishings. And how do [...]
Reasons to whine: After the Bordeaux wine market collapse, optimism is creeping back February 19, 2015 Imagine a financial market where prices have collapsed by more than 30 per cent in the past three years, where a hatful of investment companies have gone to the wall and investors are reportedly nursing losses of more than £100m. It sounds like a full blown crisis, doesn’t it? But this isn’t Chinese equities or [...]
My House: Ricardo Cervera, First Soloist with the Royal Ballet February 19, 2015 Look out of the windows of my flat and you see leaves – it’s almost like living in a treehouse. Five years ago I moved to Canonbury from Westminster. Living in such a central location was convenient because it was so close to Covent Garden where the Royal Ballet practices, but all the concrete and [...]
Playing by the book February 18, 2015 Annabel Denham talks to CrowdBnk founder and chief executive Ayan Mitra about plugging the SME funding gap and the importance of regulation in a new industry CROWDFUNDING appears to be experiencing an interminable growth spurt. According to Nesta, the UK alternative finance market grew by 91 per cent between 2012 and 2013, and crowdfunding represented [...]
Street food in the City? Street Kitchen co-founder Mark Jankel on his locally sourced alternative to Pret February 17, 2015 We were professional chefs and we thought it would be good fun to set up a street food kitchen, just to see how it worked. We did it as a bit of a laugh for two weeks, and loved it so much we decided to pursue it as a business. I left an executive job [...]
Mezcal: Has the time finally come for tequila’s cousin? February 17, 2015 Alcohol aficionados have been talking up mezcal for years. For as long as I’ve been writing about drinks, it’s teetered on the edge of being the next big thing. Although it has crept onto the pages of the odd drinks list, it isn’t even out of the starting blocks in competing with tequila, its more [...]
Car review: The new Porsche Cayenne GTS is a two-tonne ballerina on ice February 16, 2015 Ice, snow and a 434bhp, 163mph SUV might seem like a combination best suited to a disaster movie, but this is no ordinary SUV. Porsche has brought its latest Cayenne in GTS form to its winter driving centre in Skellefteå, northern Sweden, even though in the UK it’s more likely to experience a nice heated [...]