Here are some things Sam has taught me about flavor: Skinned knees taste like cherry pits, panic tastes like key lime pie, kissing tastes like Champagne on any empty stomach. For well over a year, we’ve kept a list: “Things that taste like other things,” it’s titled — our best way of explaining to each other what it is to stomach the world from our separate vantage points.
For the sake of editorial propriety, I should mention Sam has a last name: Lawrence. He is a rather important chef with a rather important restaurant in his custody. He is also the man with whom I happen to be in love — which makes me the best or the worst person to write this piece, depending on whom you ask.
Bridges, the restaurant in question, operates in New York City’s Chinatown neighborhood, with a chrome-lined dining room and a steady wait-list of unimaginable length. Sam describes his menu as “European cooking,” which I often tell him is a vague and lazy editorial descriptor for food that tastes like an epiphany, but he’s not bothered by the lack of specificity. He makes food that tastes like other things — cultures, time periods, places visited — each dish like some piped-in salad of souvenirs. The man grew up in Australia, cooked in Paris for years, obsesses over Basque country cuisine, adores the culinary culture of Chinatown. He reads cookbooks like novels and dredges inspiration from minute-rice and bodega pickles.
At home, I hate watching him wield a knife. I am well aware of his technical proficiency — but you try watching someone you love slice vegetables at the speed of light and tell me the relentless, quadruple-time click of the blade doesn’t terrify you. When we moved in together, I brought too many books. He brought too many knives.
Sam can make dinner out of anything — and I mean anything: Greek yogurt, green onions, frozen peas, saltines. He can wring music out of browning garlic. At the grocery store, he’s useless — drawn too eagerly toward novelty items or tantalizingly ripe produce to successfully corral the items he intended to purchase upon arrival. Frankly, there is no discernable difference between accompanying him to a vegetable market and an art museum. In both circumstances, he is a pillar of awe.
In the summer, when service finishes, he comes home toting bags of stone fruit and tomatoes, the likes of which he lines up on the dining room table. In the winter: leafy greens, duck breast, oysters. If I go to bed before he arrives home, I leave him paper notes to say good night. He leaves me produce to say good morning.
Read this full profile and more close takes on a wide world in our new Fall/Winter print issue. Order now.
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The year is 1884. You’re strolling through the upscale 8th arrondissement in Paris. Just west of the Élysée Palace, in the window of the Houbigant boutique À la Corbeille de Fleurs, a small, stoppered glass bottle catches your eye. Its label reads Fougère Royale (royal fern). Ferns in nature hardly smell of anything, but Fougère Royale is herbaceous, refreshing, and woody sweet.
It is the first modern fougère perfume — a historic accord with a traditionally earthy, lush essence — and the first widely distributed French perfume to use the synthetic-aroma molecule coumarin, discovered in Amazonian tonka beans and later industrially crafted. The fragrance, crafted by nose Paul Parquet, lays the foundation for commercial perfumery as we know it: imaginative, industrial, and aspirational.
In 1917, as the Great War rages, François Coty builds upon Parquet’s olfactory scaffolding with Chypre de Coty. This contrasting expression defines the modern genre of cyphre scents and cements the industry’s move from bespoke and commissioned to democratic and mass marketed. The perfume itself unfurls with the languidity of its namesake island, Cyprus, revealing bergamot and orange blossom in the opening; hours of rose, jasmine, and iris in its floral heart; and a lingering base of skin-sweetened oakmoss.
Over 100 years later, two exceptionally imaginative fragrance houses channel Parquet and Coty’s trailblazing spirits. Though separated by oceans, each creates innovative fougère and chypre scents that reverse the industry’s course, reorienting it towards responsibly cultivated raw materials.
Les Indémodables, founded by Valérie Pulvérail in Annecy, France, embraces provenance and transparency, offering precise details about the concentrations and terroir of its grands crus ingredients. Its Fougère Émeraude, composed by Florence Fouillet Dubois, is an unapologetically androgynous fougère, with fresh, airy lavender and a creamy tuberose heart, whereas Chypre Azural is a photorealistic Tarocco blood orange chypre that evokes a sun-soaked, alpine sky.
Meanwhile, Anna Zworykina in Moscow, Russia, is redefining all-natural artisanship. Part PhD-holding biochemist, part 19th-century-inspired perfumer, she prodigiously reinvents fougère and chypre to progressive ends. Green Madness, a fleur de fougère (doubly mythical since true ferns never bloom) highlights piney elemi resin and intoxicating wormwood. Her chypre, Young Cossack, combines smoky leather, invigorating thyme, and honeyed tobacco to recall rural life on the Steppe. The space between these storied and contemporary perfumers and their creations is well defined by another of their colleagues: Roja Dove. As the British perfumer once stated, “There is nothing more wonderful than to be remembered for a perfume.” But the inverse is also true: The most wonderful perfumes help us remember.
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I’m looking out over Funchal’s sparkling seafront on Portugal’s Madeira island from 16 stories up, at The Reserve. Lush, overhead plants create a green waterfall down the boutique hotel’s towering, undulating structure. One of seven properties on Madeira run by the family-owned Savoy Signature hotel group, The Reserve is a hotel within a hotel, an intimate offering hidden on the top floors of the Savoy Palace, formerly known as the Savoy Classic. Now situated in the heart of Madeira’s bustling capital, the Palace resides in what was once an overgrown laurel forest. When, in 1912, the hotel was implanted on the land, it became renowned as a getaway for British aristocrats. Its original structure was demolished in 2009. Ten years later, the property reopened as the grand hotel it is today, replete with original floors, palatial lobbies, and classic detailing recalling its legacy. The Reserve’s spacious and serene rooms are also flush with dramatic sea views that underscore the property’s symbiosis with the island’s natural beauty and lush terrain. In its Jacarandá Club, local ingredients shine in a menu offering regional specialties, while below, at the Palace, a grand, spiraling staircase embellished with gold handrails recalls traditional Madeiran embroidery.
Hidden underneath the hotel, Laurisilva Spa offers a restorative oasis inspired by the cavernous depths of the island’s mountains, resonating with the melody of trickling water. An indoor pool, sauna, steam room, and hot tub punctuate the serenity, while a Laurea massage, employing hot and cold volcanic stones, revitalizes my spirit, inspiring me to explore outside the property’s doors.
I enjoy a sunrise breakfast above the clouds on Pico do Areeiro, followed by a hike through Madeira's 15th-century levadas (aqueducts), which were built to bring water from the mountains to the lowlands. Oceanside cliffs offer sweeping sea views, with whales breaching in the distance. Returning to The Reserve afterwards doesn’t diminish my connection to this environment — rather, it feels like a refined homage to it. |
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From Nayara Tented Camp in Costa Rica to Camp Sarika by Amangiri in Southern Utah to Savute Elephant Lodge in Botswana, Luxury Frontiers has pioneered the sustainable, immersive design of award-winning resorts and lodges that bring people closer to nature. The firm embraces a responsible design approach through architecture and interiors that honor the Earth’s landscapes and local culture. While Luxury Frontier’s projects can be experienced worldwide, Johannesburg, South Africa, remains the company’s home base. “It’s where our ideas are shaped before they’re carried into projects around the world,” says Graeme Labe, its managing partner and chief design officer.
Despite traveling the globe, Labe always returns to the South African city, where he was born and raised. “Johannesburg has a rhythm unlike anywhere else,” he reveals. “It’s a confluence of cultures from across Africa and the world, modern yet unmistakably African at its core. Even the everyday sounds, from taxis hooting to Hadeda ibis birds calling at dawn, are part of its character. It’s a city alive in every sense.” Here, he shares a few special spots in his hometown. Something to eat and drink … To really experience Johannesburg’s food culture, you have to go to shisanyama (local barbecue). It’s more than just a meal; it's a communal experience. You choose your cuts of meat, which are grilled over open flames, and it’s essential to order them with chakalaka, a spicy, flavorful relish made from vegetables, beans, and chilies. It’s simple but unforgettable. I’d recommend Kyalami Shisanyama, where the atmosphere is always alive with conversation, music, and movement. Something to see … Spring, when the jacarandas bloom, is my favorite season. I’ll take my motorbike out and ride through our purple-lined streets. There's also Constitution Hill. Once a notorious prison complex and now a museum, it captures the country’s layered history. (Nelson Mandela, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi were all once incarcerated there.) For a more contemporary side of the city, the Maboneng Precinct is where creative energy thrives with restaurants, galleries, and studios all in one neighborhood, whose name means “place of light.” Architecture enthusiasts will also find inspiration in the city’s inner core, where you can trace the evolution of design through buildings dating back to the early 1900s. And for something immersive, Satyagraha House, where Gandhi once lived, now functions as both a museum and guest house, offering a rare chance to experience history in a very personal way. Something to take home … The downtown fabric markets on Commissioner Street are a must. You’ll find beautiful handmade beadwork with necklaces, accessories, and more alongside vibrant textiles. One fabric to look out for is shweshwe. Only in Johannesburg … Vilakazi Street in Soweto, the only street in the world where two Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, once lived. Walking down that street and touring Mandela’s former home is like stepping directly into the history that shaped South Africa. A secret place … The Wilds Nature Reserve is a personal favorite. Tucked near Houghton, it’s a 16-hectare reserve with Indigenous gardens, winding footpaths, and hillsides that open to sweeping views of the city. It’s where Johannesburg shows its dual-nature best, urban life and natural beauty, side by side. |
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I had stood on this Havana street corner almost 20 years ago to the day. And now, like a typographic madeleine, the jagged letters spelling out the name of an old movie theater immediately transported me back.
The only visible difference all these years later was that the neon sign (broken and dark for decades) glowed, even though the theater had closed. These subtle subversions have popped up all over the city, part of a local artist’s years-long effort to take back the city’s streets by relighting its decaying neon signscape — signs that have somehow managed to resist erasure say one thing while pointing to another, a fitting tribute to a place where words are laden with hidden meaning.
On a hot, sticky night in late August, the air heavy with an oncoming storm and fumes from rumbling cars outfitted with makeshift parts, the former theater’s bent neon tubes bathed the sidewalk below in a cool blue light, welcoming me back to a time and place that no longer exist.
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On the Case. On the heels of her new memoir and album, Neko Case packed a ballroom in Los Angeles with fans hungry to hear an intimate, hit-laden set. At her request, their phones remained silenced in pockets, making room for the artist’s voice to soar with honest, untamed bravery and grace. The show’s straightforward staging and Case’s palpable warmth made me cherish the beauty of a simple rock show, no Instagram reel necessary. –John Chuldenko
Devil’s Advocate. Sharon Olds’ Satan Says has had an indelible effect on my life and my work. Originally published in 1980, the book not only launched Olds as one of the greatest poets of her generation, it also invented a new vernacular for the way future poets might view and talk about their own lives. A new Satan Says: 45th Anniversary Edition from University of Pittsburgh Press gives the collection the royal treatment it deserves in the form of a fresh hardcover and introduction by Diane Seuss. It is a testament to the visceral (and occasionally terrifying) power of poetry. –T. Cole Rachel
Recharged Rituals. For me, there is no better way to welcome the changing of seasons than with a nutty, earthy cup of matcha. Though a traditional tea ceremony at Sōrate — a New York City-based Japanese tea house known for its matcha, exclusively harvested from a family-owned farm in Ujitawara, near Kyoto — recently upped the ante. Guided by tea master Keiko Kitazawa, I mindfully savored the beverage alongside seasonal white-bean wagashi and matcha panettone, a brilliantly global pairing. –Shivani Somaiya
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