Hotels
Delivering its lines with a definite flair for the dramatic, Hotel V Nesplein on The Nes theatre street in Amsterdam draws artistic inspiration from its surrounding establishments, feeling more like a series of stage sets than a hotel. Enter past...
Hotels
The Sir Albert, Amsterdam – not an imaginative and painful new kind of body piercing, but a classy and restful new place to lay your head in the centre of Europe's capital of hedonism. Stag groups be warned, one look at the classy black and white...
Eating Out
It's hip to be square at Rotterdam espresso bar Lokaal – everything about the place looks like it has been stacked from the ground up. Clean lines and edges dominate the interior by design firm weaponofchoice, whose philosophy of keeping things...
Culture
This may be what is known in journalism as burying the lead (or LED in this case), but we're going to begin with telling you not about the traffic-stopping looks of LED Clouds in north Amsterdam, but the idea that brought about the project in the...
Culture
I was recently very lucky to spend a day in Amsterdam on a design walk curated by Dutch interiors magazine Eigen Huis & Interieur. Days don’t come much better than that! One of the stops on the walk was The Frozen Fountain and we were treated to a...
Culture
In the past the workers at the NDSM wharf in Amsterdam concerned themselves with shipbuilding, but these days the creative energy of the folk in the dock is focused on more artistic endeavours. Where once were industrial units, we now find a commune...
Shopping
Welcome to Amsterdam's one-stop-shop for all your interior decorating needs, and not a Swedish meatball to be seen. Mariska Meijers' flagship store in the 9 Streets district is a far more boutique affair than the usual out-of-town warehouse style...
Eating Out
What a blast from the past these two restaurant siblings are – if they'd have filmed a Dutch version of Back to The Future, this is where Marty Van Fly might have gone to drink milkshakes and hit on his mum. There's 1950s written all over Dit...
Shopping
If you're in the market for a new shopping experience, one that fuses retail with art, and which redefines the way you view product displays, look no further than Damage Playground in Rotterdam. The founders of this extraordinary creation,...
Culture
A pair of stepladders isn't the most obvious choice of inspiration for an art installation, but the chaps from Studio Bertjan Pot like to work with what they have, and at the time of the conception of Stairway to Heaven, that was what happened to be...
Eating Out
Here's a place to warm the cockles of your heart on a cold November morning – Restaurant De Kas, Amsterdam, a re-purposed greenhouse that takes the concept of locally-sourced ingredients to another level. Originally part of the city's municipal...
Hotels
There's nothing hipper right now than chucking some vintage chairs and tables, a kitchen and some staff into an untouched former warehouse - and it would seem that nobody, nobody, is doing it better than those terribly hip Dutch folk. Amsterdam's...
Stuff Crush
Weirdness is a notion long entwined with the concept of creativity. Mocked by the strait-laced confined to their boxes of conformism, celebrated by the bold and the brave who pursue the outré as a means of pushing beyond the banal. In Weird...
City Notes
In Montreal’s Little Italy, a new arrival is making waves with a fresh take on Italian dining. Pasta Pooks, which opened in March 2025, is a compact five-seat takeout counter serving pasta and natural wine in a space that marries Old World charm...
City Notes
A once-forgotten 19th-century residence in Savannah’s historic district has been brought spectacularly back to life, reincarnated as The Douglas; a refined 16-room boutique hotel at 14 East Oglethorpe Avenue, where design meets old-world...
Dispatches
In a country where club floors open with Buddhist chants and Ladyboys offer dawn alms in corsets and stilettos, Elizabeth Waterman has found a world of contradictions too vivid to ignore. Over the past three years, and across four extended trips,...
Dispatches
There's a paradox about self-care, which is that those who need it most are probably the least likely to practice it. If you're one of those people, you might even be put off by the term self-care. Maybe it sounds too self-indulgent to you. If...
Dispatches
Looking for a Japanese tutor in Chicago without breaking the bank? You’re not alone. Whether you’re aiming to order ramen with confidence, ace a language exam, or shape your skills for business or travel, one thing’s clear: good private...
Dispatches
If you’ve ever looked at your balcony and thought, “What a wasted space,” you’re not alone. Many of us live in homes where every square foot counts, yet balconies often remain underutilized. Whether it’s too small, too plain, or simply...
Dispatches
Recognising the world’s most inspiring work across design, innovation and creativity, the A’ Design Award & Competition stands as one of the most respected and far-reaching international design accolades. Each year, a diverse panel of academics,...