Essays
Short essays on hospitality, membership and the addresses worth keeping.
A monthly piece. Sometimes shorter. Occasionally longer. Always after dinner, never before.
Hospitality · 17 May 2026 · 4 min read
Yannick Alléno — The Summit and the Sea
From a fifteen-table mountain dining room at three thousand metres to a Belle Époque beach club newly restored on the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, the chef with seventeen Michelin stars now sets the table at the two bookends of the European luxury year. A portrait, in two destinations.
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Hospitality · 17 May 2026 · 5 min read
The Good Openings — Summer 2026 on the French Riviera
What is actually new this season between Saint-Tropez and Monaco — the hotels, the chefs, the beach clubs, the membership rooms — sorted by what we actually recommend, what we politely avoid, and what is worth a special trip from Miami.
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Hospitality · 17 May 2026 · 6 min read
The Five Hotels That Define Saint-Tropez in 2026
The village has more excellent rooms than it has had at any point in its history — and the gap between the best of them has never been smaller. A short, unsentimental survey of the houses that actually matter this season.
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Hospitality · 17 May 2026 · 5 min read
Mykonos 2026 — A Summit Year
For the first time in the island's modern history, two international palaces open in the same summer. A guide to the new architecture of Mykonos at the top — and the reason the season I have been waiting fifteen years for has finally arrived.
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Hospitality · 17 May 2026 · 5 min read
Brickell, the New Mayfair of Miami
The banking towers south of the river were, until recently, where Miami went to work. They are now, increasingly, where Miami goes to dinner — and, on the upper floors, where Miami goes to belong. A guide to the shift, and to the two openings of 2026 that have made it visible.
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Travel Diary · 16 May 2026 · 5 min read
The Beaches of Pampelonne, Ordered
Three miles of sand, thirty operators, one decision that will shape your week. A clear-eyed guide to the beach clubs of Pampelonne — what to book on the first day, what to keep for the last, and what to politely skip.
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Travel Diary · 16 May 2026 · 5 min read
Festive or Quiet — The Two Maps of Saint-Tropez at Dinner
Every evening in the village is, for the serious visitor, a choice between two cities. The map of the festive places, and the map of the quiet ones. A guide to both — and to the one address that belongs to neither.
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Travel Diary · 15 May 2026 · 5 min read
The Var Address Book — Twenty Places No Guidebook Will Ever Give You
Inland from the postcard coast lies the part of the South of France the locals keep for themselves: a small republic of vineyards, perched villages, monastery hotels and country chefs. The twenty addresses I send my American clients before they ask.
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Travel Diary · 15 May 2026 · 5 min read
Lunch at Chez Bruno: The Truffle Cathedral 40 Minutes from Saint-Tropez
An old farmhouse in the hills above Lorgues, a family that has cooked nothing but truffle for two generations and forty years, and the half-day ritual that has quietly become the most serious lunch in the South of France.
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Hospitality · 12 May 2026 · 4 min read
What the Top 0.01% Actually Want from Luxury Hospitality in 2026
Privacy has eclipsed prestige. The new badge of arrival is the table no one knows about, the suite that never appears on the public-facing rate card, the host who recognises you before you give your name.
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Travel Diary · 10 May 2026 · 5 min read
The Forgotten Islands of Paul Ricard: A Mediterranean an Hour from Saint-Tropez
Bendor and Embiez, two small islands bought in the 1950s by the pastis baron and quietly preserved against everything that has happened to the Côte d'Azur since. A field guide to a part of the coast an hour and a half west of Saint-Tropez that almost no American visitor has ever heard of.
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Travel Diary · 8 May 2026 · 5 min read
Saint-Tropez to Beauvallon: The Twelve-Mile Drive Worth a Week
A short route along the inner edge of the Gulf — past the vineyards of Gassin, the back road of Grimaud, the lavender beach at Beauvallon — that is, in May and September, the most beautiful drive in the South of France. A day-by-day itinerary for the American visitor who already knows the village.
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Membership & Clubs · 5 May 2026 · 4 min read
From Meal to Membership: Why Hospitality Is Becoming the New Lifestyle Platform
Restaurants used to sell dinner. The serious ones now sell something closer to belonging. A look at how the most ambitious houses of the decade — MILĀ, Casa Tua, Dorsia — have moved past the table.
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Travel Diary · 28 April 2026 · 4 min read
Notes from Saint-Tropez: Six Tables Worth the Detour This Summer
A short field guide to the dining rooms — and one garden, one cellar, one terrace — that are quietly setting the tone of the village this season. Written, as always, after dinner, not before.
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Branded Residences · 20 April 2026 · 4 min read
The Art of the Quiet Stay: Why Branded Residences Are Replacing Hotels for the UHNW Traveller
The most interesting buildings opening this decade are not hotels. They are residences that happen to have a hotel attached. A short essay on why the wealthiest travellers have stopped checking in — and started moving in.
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