The Great Gig in the Sky: We hiked for two days to hear the world’s highest music festival October 5, 2018 The hills are alive with the sound of… my heavy breathing. I nervously inch my way along a slippery glacier while clinging onto a steel cable, the only lifeline preventing me from plunging hundreds of feet into the rocky abyss below. I am high up in the craggy and unyielding Dolomite Mountains in the Trentino [...]
Focus On St John’s Wood: Why the genteel life on offer in this north west London village has endured for over a hundred years October 5, 2018 The rapid gentrification of the grottier parts of London has dominated the capital’s housing chat over the last few years. Everyone loves a rags to riches story, but as boring as it sounds, there are some parts of London that have always been, well, lovely. St John’s Wood is one of those places, a north [...]
Toyota and Softbank team up on ride-sharing, driverless tech unit October 4, 2018 Toyota and Softbank have unveiled a partnership that will see the two companies collaborate on transport services that utilise self-driving technology. Named Monet, a play on the longer term Mobility Network, the new venture will be initially funded at ¥2bn (£13.5m), with Softbank taking a stake of just over half of the business. “SoftBank alone and automakers alone [...]
Great Portland Estates sells off £65m building home to Ottolenghi’s new restaurant October 3, 2018 A West End property block home to Yotam Ottolenghi’s new flagship restaurant was snapped up by an overseas investor for £65m today. Read more: Soho House boss says second City of London venue has not been ruled out Great Portland Estates (GPE), a FTSE property developer, sold off 55 Wells Street to an undisclosed foreign buyer [...]
Weekly Grill: Indian chef extraordinaire Vivek Singh tells us about his City restaurant turning 10 and memories of lamb cooked over cowpats October 2, 2018 Who are you? I’m the founding chef at Cinnamon Collection. Our group has been revolutionising Indian Dining since 2001, with The Cinnamon Club in Westminster, Cinnamon Kitchens in the City, Oxford and Battersea and the magical Cinnamon Bazaar in Covent Garden. What do you do? I dream up dishes. What’s new at Cinnamon Group? Lots! [...]
The drinks master: There’s more to champagne than big names, try some grower-producers October 2, 2018 The Grand Marques, or big houses, in Champagne have always dominated the market. With their bulging marketing budgets, they are able to place their names everywhere from billboards, to sponsorships at major sporting events, to having their names elegantly etched into bars and restaurants all over the world. Most big Champagne houses are négociants, which [...]
Losses take a bite out of Deliveroo buzz but revenue soars amid global expansion October 1, 2018 Deliveroo’s pre-tax losses widened despite another year of booming sales in 2017, in a sign of the firm’s ambitions to bear the brunt of short-term losses for a greater slice of the UK’s increasingly competitive food delivery market. Losses before tax hit £184.7m in the 12 months of 2017, slumping from £129m the year before, with [...]
Itsu takes a bite out of its losses despite heavy growth investment September 30, 2018 The founder of fast food chain Itsu has claimed “food is the new fashion”, after the company saw its end-of-year losses fall despite investments in overseas expansion. Itsu, which is known for its Asian-influenced food, particularly sushi and rice dishes, saw raw sales growth of 10 per cent last year, with pre-tax losses dropping to £8.9m, [...]
A popular haunt of Beatrix Potter, Storrs Hall is a beautiful Grade II listed hotel on the shores of Lake Windermere September 28, 2018 The Lake District is well known for its historic association with fine English literature, but gets a free pass for having also inspired some of the country’s worst poetry, such as Gotta Love Dem Daffodils by Adam Glick, who visited last year, and Somewhere Around Here Is My Heart I Guess by Pauline Marr, an [...]
Opinion: High net worth millennials are passing on the fixer-upper villa in Tuscany in favour of modern towers in global cities September 28, 2018 The millennial generation have different tastes and attitudes to their now middle-aged Generation X forebears. As they move into their thirties, they are playing an increasingly important role in the international property markets and many have significant buying power, either through inheritance or their own entrepreneurial flair. Previous generations favoured a stand-alone villa they could [...]