Рубрика: General

Christened SkyFin, architect/owner Gabriela Liebert honored the home’s groundbreaking design while making it more suitable to a modern lifestyle. Christened SkyFin, architect/owner Gabriela Liebert honored the home’s groundbreaking design while making it more suitable to a modern lifestyle.

With all-new regulations, the cars are smaller, lighter, and more agile, yet have left drivers polarized after the first race. With all-new regulations, the cars are smaller, lighter, and more agile, yet have left drivers polarized after the first race.

The Greenline 42 is also fitted with 10 rooftop solar panels that can generate up to 4.5kW of energy to power the hotel load silently. The Greenline 42 is also fitted with 10 rooftop solar panels that can generate up to 4.5kW of energy to power the hotel load silently.

Heston Blumenthal is well-known for challenging convention, and his Topsy Turvy Tasting Menu at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park is no exception. 

News that Dinner by Heston Blumenthal will close in January 2027 has prompted an outpouring of nostalgia for one of London’s most inventive dining rooms. Sitting at the chef’s table in a two-Michelin-star restaurant wearing an oversized pair of goggles, I begin to understand why.

I’m here to review the Topsy Turvy experience, which is based around an inventive yet simple dining concept: you begin with dessert and end with the starters. It’s not the first time Blumenthal has experimented with the idea – in 2024, The Fat Duck hosted a limited-time reverse menu which was hailed a success. This iteration, however, takes it further, guiding guests on a historical journey through British cuisine. The experience feels like a snapshot of the restaurant at its most playful – particularly as the dining room prepares to close after more than a decade in the city.

I’m seated inside the restaurant at Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, close enough to the kitchen to catch the sound of utensils as well as the occasional order from the head chef. Wrapping around the walls near the table is a long canvas designed to look like a tapestry, tracing the history of British gastronomy through the ages with Heston himself tucked sneakily into the scene, dressed as a jester. At first, I must admit, I’m overwhelmed – there’s a lot to take in and all the action is somewhat distracting.

See also: How the Prestigious Michelin Star System Really Works

Then a menu arrives, wrapped like a mysterious scroll and tucked into a black box, pulling me back from the kitchen theatrics. Alongside it is a small hand-held mirror. When I pick it up and unravel the menu, I realize it’s printed backward. To read it, I need to decipher the words through a reflection – a little game that confirms I am firmly in Blumenthal’s eccentric world.

The first course, I learn, is nitrogen ice cream – inspired by Agnes B. Marshall, the 19th-century ‘queen of ice cream.’ Marshall was ahead of her time, advocating the use of liquid nitrogen in cooking during the Victorian era, when it was cutting-edge technology. The base for tonight’s dessert is Madagascan vanilla, brought to the table on a large trolley. In front of me, it’s mixed with nitrogen at -196°C, releasing an instant puff of smoke. My server, Amy, leans in to tell me that the amount of Madagascan vanilla used in this ice cream is more expensive by weight than gold. For toppings, there’s meringue and raspberry, dark chocolate with praline, or a strawberry crumble – a concoction of popping candy and breakfast-like Rice Krispies. A second dessert, an indulgent chocolate bar, was served straight after.

See also: The Best Fine Dining Restaurants in London

Then came bread and butter, alongside a pair of enormous, comically oversized goggles that flip my vision upside down. My hands have lost all sense of direction, the knife wobbles awkwardly as I try to make a smooth swipe and I nearly knock the bread off the side plate entirely. Suddenly, something as simple as spreading butter becomes a hilarious ordeal. I’m pretty sure I look ridiculous, but then again, this is Dinner by Heston Blumenthal – so a healthy dose of eccentricity was always going to be on the menu.

Glasses off and bread consumed, I next tuck into an incredibly tender duck breast, followed by roast seabass as the final main course. The fish is served with a punchy green sauce, a labor of love that the chefs prepare over the course of ten days.

The meat fruit course – a chicken liver pate cleverly disguised as a mandarin – marked the first of the ‘reversed starters.’ I’m told Blumenthal spent three years perfecting it, and the airy, velvety texture explains why. The final plate of the evening is salmon, cured over two hours.

Amy maintains that the reverse order of the meal is designed to be lighter on the stomach, and having tried it, I somewhat agree. I leave pleasantly full, but without the heavy, sluggish feeling that usually follows dessert. Would I attempt this order at home? Probably not – but as a one-off experience, it was undeniably fun. With Blumenthal’s restaurant set to close, the Topsy Turvy menu feels like a fitting tribute to his long-standing obsession with turning dining on its head – quite literally.

The Topsy Turvy Tasting Menu is priced between £170 (approx. $226) and £230 (approx. $306) depending on course count and location, and is available with wine pairings.

Capreolus Distillery has humble roots, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a coveted drinks brand. 

Someone else who is finely attuned to the island’s natural state is Barney Wilczak, distiller & owner at Capreolus Distillery. When I call him on a particularly grim February afternoon, he’s been handling quince, pears, and apples to make his cult-loved Capreolus eaux de vie. An often underutilized spirit category, eaux de vie (a fruit brandy) is traditionally found in countries like Germany, France, Switzerland, and Austria. Unaged, double distilled, and designed to capture a single fruit, it is a spirit that has varied in quality and popularity over the centuries. But when Wilczak taught himself to distill a decade ago, England woke up to an exciting new proposition utilizing produce that we can find on hedgerows and trees in our own back yards.

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As is the Wilczak way, his answer to my question of how those fruits were behaving was cerebral and disarming: “All the fruits are so waxy and greasy, because we had so much sunshine. You can feel the weather in your hands.” He goes on to describe the “wall of density” in the spirit run as a result, the waxy low wines and the nuances that come with vintage variation. “Working in this way drives your understanding. I used to want to work with every single piece of fruit I could get my hands on, but we never see the same fruit in each year.”

The conservational photojournalist-turned-distiller, who grew up in the Cotswolds, has always had an affinity with its ancient woodlands, medieval orchards, and neolithic grasslands. After a career away from his roots, travelling to 118 different countries to capture each of their unique environs, he returned home and turned his attention to something which, on the surface, could seem seriously unexotic: English fruit. Ten years later and his eaux de vie – which spans the likes of perry pear, damson, plum, blackberry, and Siegerrebe grape – is the golden egg of the spirits industry’s most dedicated flavor hunters.

Harvesting flavor

When I first visited Wilczak at his distillery in Cirencester five years ago, I was expecting a sprawling countryside operation. Instead, I found him towering outside his small garden-shed-like flavor emporium, his dog Pip lapping at his heels, quietly making magic in what is, effectively, his back garden. What ensued was an afternoon of Starburst-esque flavor, texture and philosophical discovery. We spent hours dissecting how Wilczak sorts the local fruits supplied to him by hand, how he crushes them, the wild fermentation their juice undergoes to heighten their wholeness, his meticulous double-distillation techniques in a 180L copper still (that can hold over three tons of fruit), and that small window he has to capture the essence of every single part of that fruit – skin, juice, pips, stem, leaves – in his hand-labelled and beautifully packed statuesque bottles. Capreolus is the embodiment of a ‘human spirit’ – one in which you can see, taste and feel the humanity behind it.

“You do question your motivation for doing incredibly mad things,” Wilczak admits of his process, but it’s his quest for understanding every millimeter of his raw ingredients that drives him. “When I used to look at plants, I expected I would come to this finite point of knowledge… But with eaux de vie, there is a level beyond it tasting like fruit, moving into those elements that you don’t always see. We think fruit and plants are different entities but they are connected. You’re just elevating lineage and heritage. When we distill apples, for example, you also smell the blossom, the orchard.”

He speaks of his experience of making elderberry eau de vie, from a nine-person, full-day harvest to a five-week fermentation, and how the aromas they experienced “travelling from the canopy through decay, humus, and the forest – it felt like we captured the environment.” This comment catapults me back to sitting, half a decade ago, in his garden in Gloucestershire, and being struck by the irony of it all: I have been flung to every corner of the world – Jamaica to Mexico, Chile to Bali – to taste some of its most revered and culturally important spirits. And yet, here I was, two hours away from London by train, having one of the most revelatory experiences of my career – and it all started with something as familiar as a raspberry.

Wilczak’s enigmatic nature, and the spirits he produces, makes the familiar, unfamiliar. His raspberry eaux di vie tastes more like a raspberry than the fruit itself, and yet there is mint and rose, nuts, and spice layered in there too. The stones in the cherry bring an almond and textural quality, while gooseberry is herbaceous and woody, and quince can be herbal and citrus-leaning too. He describes finding a cured bacon note in the perry pears due to sun exposure. A recent collaboration with Dorest’s Langham Wine saw its pinot noir grapes presenting as mango, bean sprouts, and unripe papaya.

Raising the bar

This palette of aromas and flavors has caught the attention of the noses and palates of sommeliers and chefs at some of the highest imaginable caliber establishments. From three-Michelin-starred restaurants like Simon Rogan’s L’Enclume to Anne Sophie-Pic’s Maison Pic, not only are Wilczak’s eaux de vie being used on drinks lists, but on food lists too. “It’s really strange for me to see these incredibly talented people looking at these things through different lenses,” he admits of this application of his spirits. “But you see other people’s excitement because they are pure, concentrated essences.”

He’s also captured the imagination of some of the best bars and bartenders around the world. An early advocate, and a man whose seal of approval can catapult a brand into the proverbial stratosphere, was Ryan Chetiyawardana, responsible for the Lyan portfolio of bars in London (Lyaness and Seed Library), Washington DC (Silver Lyan), and most recently, New York City (Seed Library NYC). He himself was introduced to Wilczak’s work in 2020 via one of the industry’s most prescient tastemakers, The Whisky Exchange head buyer Dawn Davies MW.

“Dawn knows we’re curious about brilliant liquids and brilliant people, so she made the introduction and Barney and I started chatting,” explains Chetiyawardana. Having been dismissive of eau de vie as a category up until that point, when he sat down to try his first samples, it was a revelatory experience. “I had some context, but I didn’t really fathom what was going on… I tried them and thought ‘Holy shit, what is this?’”

For someone who himself is fanatical about flavor, Chetiyawardana’s discovery of the complexity that lies in these seemingly unassuming spirits opened up an entirely new universe of exploration. “They are rocket flavors: the raspberry is crazy intense raspberry, but also rose, the greenness of the leaf, sharpness. There is so much there, and as you start to dilute them, the textural quality is insane: everything from wax to fullness, an almost silvery note – they transform as they open up.”

Chetiyawardana and his teams now use them across all of the Lyan venues in their mind-bending cocktails. My favorite application is the Silver Apple Martini at Silver Lyan in DC, where Wilczak’s 1,000 Trees Apple eau de vie is combined with Belvedere vodka, apple juice and bisongrass. “One-thousand Trees Apple is what you want an Appletini to be,” he explains of the 90s classic, often let down by bad ingredients. “You get everything from biting into an apple, to feeling like you’re holding it, the grip of the skin, florality – so we use that as the heart of the cocktail.”

When it comes to drinking Wilczak’s eau de vie at home, I’ve been known to drop a teaspoon of raspberry in a glass of champagne, pep a G&T with a dash of quince into a G&T or take a martini on an unexpected course with a touch of perry pear. Drinking them neat is a lesson in how these spirits morph and change with time, perspective and open-mindedness. They take us back to some of our deepest memories and remind us that fruit holds tightly the character of its ever-changing surroundings. “You really taste his philosophy in the spirits,” says Chetiyawardana. “It isn’t just about taking fruits at their peak, it’s looking at them as a plant in their entirety. That’s what I found so beguiling: a real honesty about fruit and a sense of place. It was an attention to detail I hadn’t come across in a long time. Meticulous, fanatical, uncompromising.”

Two style authorities offer opposing perspectives. 

Patricks’s limited-edition wash bag is designed to keep liquids in and out, so it can come along wherever your travels take you. Patricks’s limited-edition wash bag is designed to keep liquids in and out, so it can come along wherever your travels take you.

Securing your home no longer means a basement complex. Helen Madden explores how to do it right, and leave no trace. 

When Matthias Fitzthum sits down with a new client for a risk assessment meeting, he’s often greeted with a common refrain: “They say: ‘We’re very safe. We have an intruder alarm system,’” he says. “I look at them and say: ‘So why do you think you’re safe?’” In truth, this preliminary measure only scratches the surface – something Fitzthum knows all too well as the CEO and founder of Bespoke Home & Yacht Security. “Some of us think we’re safe, but I can tell you, we’re definitely not,” he adds. “There are hundreds of different layers of security.”

Turning your home into a fortress is no small feat; it’s also a growing concern. More than half of the real-estate agents who participated in the most recent Global Luxury Real Estate Forecast by Christie’s noted that home security was an increasingly significant consideration for their clients. One of the first measures many consider is a panic room, which is usually thought to mean a concrete bunker in the basement where homeowners can safely hide away until the authorities arrive. This perception isn’t helped by pop-culture representations, such as the Jodie Foster vehicle Panic Room. The reality, however, couldn’t be more different. “Panic rooms are really old school,” notes Fitzthum. “Nobody does them anymore.”

See also: So, You Want To Build a Billionaire’s Bunker? Here’s Where To Start

Beyond the alarmist nomenclature, the traditional room just isn’t all that practical. If someone breaks into your home, it can be difficult to race down to the basement in time – and, in an emergency situation, time is everything. Instead, architects and security consultants have taken a different approach, calling these havens safe rooms, or serenity zones. “Instead of going into a bunker, pick a room that’s part of your daily life that can be transformed should the need arise,” says Peter Pelsinski, principal at Span Architecture.

The bedroom is often the preferred option. While it may look like any other space, the walls are reinforced with a quarter inch of steel. The windows all have bulletproof or smart glass, which can transform from transparent to completely opaque with the touch of a button. Using a hefty, reinforced door on a daily basis would be cumbersome, however, so a hidden ballistic sliding door is activated at the touch of a button. For many, these features have become a standard amenity. “It’s been a consistent request since I started 25 years ago,” says Margie Lavender, partner at Kligerman Architecture & Design. “They’re probably in every house over 10,000 sq ft that I’ve done.”

See also: How to Build a Nightclub in Your Basement

Having a safe space is paramount, but so is knowing about an inbound threat as soon as possible. That’s where the alarm system comes in. “You have to be absolutely sure that when something goes wrong, there’s an automatic alarm chain that goes off, and that can’t be stopped,” says Fitzthum. “The way you create a fortress begins at the very exterior parameter.” Surveillance cameras are an obvious choice – you can also run motion detectors under the soil on your property grounds. These can detect movement and discern if it’s a pet or something more nefarious approaching.

Threat detection goes beyond the obvious entry points. If you live on a waterfront property, for example, then you’ll need an extra layer of protection, such as radar, for waterside aspects. Aerial attacks and access points are another consideration. “A lot of our clients also have helipads, and [for them] we insist on drone defense or detection systems,” says Fitzthum. “If a drone crashes into a helicopter that’s landing or taking off, then it can burst the plexiglass.” There are risks if you travel by car, too. When the gates to your property swing open to let a vehicle in, someone can quickly follow behind with a truck. The solution? Automatic bollards, which will rise out of the ground almost as soon as your driver cruises through. Ultimately, everything should be considered – even a dog door can be a security risk if an intruder is crafty enough.

Even things such as entry points are no longer simple. In the past, many turned to biometric scanners for complete security. However, the rise of artificial intelligence has made many question their efficacy – depending on how sophisticated your home system is, a fingerprint can be faked and accepted. Other methods, such as key-card scanners, are non-starters. “The worst thing you can do is tell a client to use a radio-frequency identification tag,” says Fitzthum. “Same thing if the locking device is attached to a mobile phone.” One lost or stolen key and your entire home could be put in jeopardy. Instead, numerical keypads remain a tried-and-true – just make sure yours doesn’t leave any fingerprints.

It can all sound a bit daunting, but with a good architect, engineer, and security consultant all of these elements shouldn’t be obvious – they should be invisible. On a day-to-day basis, you won’t notice them, or even remember that they exist. “Protection must not be controlling,» says Fitzthum. “We produce and install things, and hope they’re never, ever needed.”

We explore the institutions shaping the country’s most compelling contemporary work. We explore the institutions shaping the country’s most compelling contemporary work.

Jenna Grosfeld’s Los Angeles home is a case study in transforming a historic estate into a masterpiece of color, pattern, and personality fit for modern life. 
Jenna Grosfeld’s Los Angeles home is a case study in transforming a historic estate into a masterpiece of color, pattern, and personality fit for modern life.