Month: December 2022

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Design Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

Place des Vosges + L’Ambroisie Restaurant Paris

The Glitter of this Mirage

We’re forever falling into the whirlpool of the high life. “Where do you come from?” asks our waiter. He’s from Marseille. “You can crack the egg!” Another waiter, “Your island of caviar has arrived.” And later, the maître d’, “You must come back in January for the finest winter truffle. À très bientôt!” Everyone’s speaking in hushed reverential tones. This is very fine dining. Not for the self conscious. Waiters stand like sentinels guarding the tapestried walls. A glance at one of them is enough to be shown to the Guerlain equipped powder room. Such is the segue! Halfway through this culinary ceremony, a waiter parades a white box of pungent truffle but we weren’t brought up the Seine in a bubble. It would be nice not to break the four figure bill ceiling today. Okay maybe just a little truffle shavings… C’est L’Ambroisie, ce ne sera pas bon marché. But there are no pockets in shrouds. So don’t rue the day. Especially when it’s the day after the Feast of St Ambrose.

The Scottish aristo actress Tilda Swinton swans into the first dining room. “I’m performing at three o’clock so we have an hour and a half for lunch. Cheers to taking these moments – there haven’t been enough of these lately. We’re going to stuff ourselves today for life is too short. We just have to get on with it! Apparently, did you hear we’re going to get an arctic winter? Maybe I should hibernate and live like Little Edie in Grey Gardens!” Everything is up a level. It’s like living life in fast forward.

The restaurant is terribly discreet: no windows onto the world, just a lantern lit doorway off the cloistered Place des Vosges. A petite lobby leads into an enfilade of three smart dining rooms served by a basement kitchen. There are only 35 to 38 covers. Founding Chef Bernard Pacaud secured three Michelin Stars by 1988. His son Mathieu continues to carry the recognition. Ever since Henri IV ordered the creation of the chichi quartier of Le Marais in the 4th Arrondisement, the palace-fronted Place des Vosges has been at the centre of civilised society. Very up our rue.

Lunch is all about packing a piquant palate punch. Mets: ile flottante à la truffe blanche d’Alba; velouté de topinambours; escalopines de bar à lémincé d’artichaut, caviar Kristal; et tarte chocolat et vanilla Bourbon. Boissons sans alcool: eaux de Perrier. Vins et eaux development vie: Riesling Engelberg 2018 et Château de Tracy Pouilly-Fumé 2016. Amuse bouches are served between each course. ‘Ambroisie’ comes from Greek mythology means a “source of immortality” and “food for gods”. A restaurant fit for eternal deities. A rue named desire.

So what’s the difference between one, two and three Michelin Stars? And don’t say an arm and a leg. A Michelin Guide Inspector explains, “One Michelin Star is awarded to restaurants using top quality ingredients where dishes with distinct flavours are prepared to a consistently high standard. Two Michelin Stars are awarded when the personality and talent of the chef are evidence in his or her expertly crafted dishes of refined and inspired food. Three Michelin Stars are given for superlative cooking of the chef at the peak of his of her profession – cooking elevated to an art form.” There are 10 three Michelin Star restaurants in Paris according to the 2022 Guide. That’s twice the number of triple Starred in London. Onwards and upwards. Bon voyage voyage.

Categories
Art Design Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

La Mâle d’Effeenne Rue St Paul + Village St Paul Paris

Who Loves It Wears It

Leaving behind the whiteness of a continental winter’s day we step into La Mâle d’Effeenne which is like entering a man cave but only if the man is Aladdin. Black is the new black. All that glitters really is gold. We’re greeted like long lost brothers by owners François Mahé (French) and Nico Francioni (Italian). They chime, “It’s been a year, has it not? We remember you well! You’re famous! Excuse the clutter – we’ve just had a large seasonal delivery.”

Their shop defies definition. Literally: there’s something in the name. “La” of course is feminine. “Mâle” clearly isn’t. This shop is for everyone so when it comes to clothes or scents, you decide. “Mâle” is a nod to Jean-Paul Gaultier’s famous scent. It also references “malle”, the French word for luggage. Gosh multiple entendres or what? And what hidden depths does “Effeenne” possess? It’s the guys’ initials spelt phonetically: “F” and “N”. So there you go. Putting the concept into conceptual.

La Mâle d’Effeenne is on Rue St Paul in the middle of Village St Paul in the middle of Le Marais in the middle of Paris. The dominating architectural presence is the Church of St Paul. There has been an ecclesiastical presence in this location for 16 centuries. In 1360 the village gained royal status when Charles V installed his Hôtel St Paul. Today, the chiaroscuro of the church nave is strongly pencilled by wintry shadow. A ciborium or baldachin of ghostly semi transparent scarlet veil is suspended over an Advent arrangement.

Lunch is in an hour at L’Ambroisie, a heartbeat away from Rue St Paul. Back at the store, François says, “Well done on getting a table at the restaurant. It’s very in demand. Let us know how it is!” We depart La Mâle d’Effeenne laden with exquisitely wrapped sprays d’ambiance by Secret d’Apothicaire (“It smells good enough to wear!” exclaims Nico) and embossed carte postales of Formi Dabel artwork. No wonder Nancy Mitford writes in her 1960s novel Don’t Tell Alfred, “At no season does Paris look more beautiful than early in December.” White will be the new black.

Categories
Art Design Fashion Luxury People Restaurants

Wild + Precious

Swimming in the Whirlpool of High Society

Who said we didn’t end up at midnight in Princess Diana’s fav Knightsbridge haunt San Lorenzo three years ago to the day? Or a month earlier join influencers for a day at the races? Or fast forward a few seasons to find ourselves singing black tied carols with London’s finest on Pall Mall till dawn? As for the maquillage, English Heritage have a lot to answer for … Tell us, what are you doing?

Categories
Architecture Country Houses

Isaac Corry + Derrymore House Bessbrook Armagh

Luggala of the North

Driving uphill out of Newry through Bessbrook suddenly on the righthand side behind a stone wall is a brilliant flash of mustard between the thinning greenery and vibrant orange of late autumn. Aha! It’s Derrymore House, a cottage orné on a grand scale. And a very charming one at that. John Richardson, its last private owner, donated the unfurnished house and its demesne to The National Trust in 1952. In that era of architectural freezing in aspic, a sympathetic three bay extension containing an entrance hall with a central fanlighted doorcase was demolished. The early 19th century extension filled the gap on the north elevation to complete a courtyard. Derrymore was returned to its original late 18th century magnet or long C shape. A purist approach indeed.

The name Derrymore originates from ‘doire’, the Irish for an oak grove, and ‘mór’ which means large. It formed part of the lands owned by the O’Hanlons before being taken over by the Earls of Kilmorey who were based at Mourne Park in Kilkeel. It came into the ownership of Isaac Corry who built the current house in 1776 as his residence, not just a hunting lodge or summer retreat. Architect unknown: possibly John Sutherland who designed the landscaping. Isaac Corry was an MP for Newry for three decades and the last Chancellor of the Irish Parliament before the Act of Union in 1800. Politically, he swung both ways.

There are two canted bay windows: one with 82 small panes; the other, 90. At first glance, this would seem extravagant for Isaac Corry was responsible for introducing the Window Tax in Ireland. But he would have benefitted from a loophole that any window could be considered as one for taxation purposes if it was divided into portions less than a foot (30.5 centimetres) wide. Commercial pressure and building regulations dictating design are not a new phenonomen.

Derrymore is the forerunner to a spate of single storey (or at least just one level over basement) modest country houses erected in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in mid to south Ulster, especially around Rostrevor. A thatched roof draws Derrymore closer to cottage than country house in appearance although not in scale. Hugh Dixon explains in An Introduction to Ulster Architecture, 1973, “Occasionally the two traditions merge into a picturesque, Georgian vernacular style which is Ulster’s alone… undoubtedly the most ambitiously developed example of the type is the house built by Isaac Corry at Derrymore near Newry in County Armagh. Adopting both traditional materials and ‘architectural’ features like quatrefoil windows topped with label mouldings, the building is arranged as a series of small units round an open court.” There is a formality to the elevations, especially the symmetrical southwest facing garden front, at odds with the provincial roof material. A classic cottage orné combo.

Ever since, there’s been an unstoppable love of the lateral when it comes to self building in Ireland much to local planning authorities’ ire.

Before he died in 2005, Sir Charles Brett, architectural commentator and contributor to Ulster Architect magazine did a U turn on his view of bungalows in Ireland. As Chairman of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, he was a strong advocate of terraced houses. But in his later years, Charlie declared bungalows in many ways to be the rightful Irish vernacular, or at least an inheritor of the traditional cottage form. That is, single storey, rectilinear, narrow, practical.

Categories
Architecture Country Houses Design

London + Northwest Railway Company Bungalows + Greenore Golf Club Louth

West of East India Company 

The first publication dedicated to bungalow design was by the architect Robert Alexander Briggs. Bungalows and Country Residences: a Series of Designs and Examples of Executed Works (1891) states, “A bungalow in England has come to mean neither the sunproof squat house of India nor the rough log hut of colder regions. It is not necessarily a one storied building, nor is it a country cottage. A bungalow essentially is a little ‘nook’ or ‘retreat’. A cottage is a little house in the country, but a bungalow is a little country house – a homely, cosy little place, with verandahs and balconies, and the plan so arranged as to ensure complete comfort with a feeling of rusticity and ease.”

In her slim and eloquent volume Bungalows (2014), Kathryn Ferry explains, “Until the mid 18th century familiarity with the term ‘bunglo’ was restricted to the European community in India, but knowledge gradually filtered back to Britain. As conceived by the Victorians, a bungalow was a building concerned with relaxation and recreation… The late 19th century invention of the ‘weekend’ provided more free time; improved transport infrastructure made escape possible; and mass production of materials, and even of entire structures, enabled bungalows to be built on a budget.”

The two pairs of semi detached bungalows at Greenore on the Cooley Peninsula, County Louth, tick all the right boxes from their association with leisure and a coastal location to picturesque sweeping gables and many metres of the all important verandahs. The London and Northwest Railway Company developed Greenore towards the close of the Victorian age. A long gone hotel next to a railway station was built on the quayside for passengers travelling to Holyhead in Wales. At its peak a first class train could leave Euston Station in London at 8.45pm and arrive in Belfast at 9.52am including the four hour sea crossing. Greenore Golf Club opened in 1896. The bungalows, several grand villas and a street of parallel townhouses built for dock and railway workers are all intact. The port is now industrial, the luxury passenger ferries having long gone.

Categories
Architecture People Restaurants

Primrose + Lavender Slieve Gullion Cottages Meigh Armagh

Girls Allowed

Have you ever ended up with a bevy of beauties in a hot tub outside Newry at 3am? Across muck and gullion (or at least over the butte of Slieve Muck and below the peak of Slieve Gullion) we stopped by to enjoy the rustic glamour of Primrose Cottage in south County Armagh. Owner Derek Johnston called over, “The two cottages, Primrose and Lavender, were converted from an aul’ barn.” Timber sash windows were inserted into the thick stone walls; slate and metal roofs reinstated. Architectural critic Martin Pawley’s 1981 essay What Does Vernacular Really Mean? concludes, “The vernacular image is much less important than the vernacular reality.” He argues that the vernacular appearance is down to economics – for example salvaged local materials – rather than arranged aesthetics.

In front of the cottages is a paddock filled with swans and pygmy goats. “Farmers are not as diverse about what animals they have as they were when I was growing up so I decided to do something about it,” he smiled. Derek Johnston is also coveniently landlord of Johnny Murphy’s pub a few metres away at the crossroads of Meigh, the local hamlet. So of course, we had to traipse along and support local business. It was a jolly and late and jolly late affair, the merits of vernacular over designed and image versus reality long forgotten. Back at Primrose Cottage, closer to sunrise than sunset, the party continued under the stars. So that’s how we ended up with a bevy of beauties in a hot tub outside Newry at 3am.

Categories
Design

Victoria Lock + Albert Basin Newry Down

Crossing the Border

Vast expanses of waterways connect and combine in natural and manmade form where County Down meets County Louth. Great feats of mid 19th century engineering once provided transport routes for cargo ships: the parallel Newry Canal and Newry River link Lough Neagh in the north to Carlingford Lough in the south. These days, they are photogenic tourism spots.