This Is Why I Love France

Because you always get a great and super cheap lunch if you eat with the locals.

When you order a coffee they bring 4 desserts to go with it included in the price.

Little towns are full of privately owned stores selling amazing thimgs.

and not at exorbitant prices.

This is me in France and I love it.

In The Raw

I love that this fabulous restaurant, designed by Richard Lindvall, uses the basics to enhance his design. Exposed copper piping and concrete floors dominate but look utterly beautiful.

Anyone For Tennis and an Ice Cream

I found these images in my inbox the other day and they cheered me up no end. Daphne's in South Kensington has placed this gorgeous gelateria outside their restaurant in  honour of Wimbledon. They will be serving up six Wimbledon-inspired ice cream flavours on two weekends this summer. 

Just Baked at Valentina Bakery

The thing that caught my eye in this interior design project was the way the logo is placed over the panelling.  How did they do that and make it look so smooth?  The Valentina Bakery found at Behance

Well Here We Go Into 2013 - A Perfect Restaurant

Well it's a New Year and what better way to start it than with me showing you this fabulous new Restaurant, Host, designed by Norm Architects in Copenhagen. What a cool place to eat and relax, I would have to be removed with a shoe horn.

Danish design house Menu have provided the dinnerware. I used to stock their products on wheredidyoubuythat.com and still have some myself. PERFECT!

The Folly

This is the sort of place I would like to kick of my shoes after a shopping trip. The Folly has opened in East London and seems to have put much thought into the layout.

Great signage

Comfortable seating

Fresh fruit and veg

Quirky rest areas and

anyone who would present my menu on a clothes peg gets my vote.

A Virtual French Restaurant

You must go and visit this website. A restaurant in France - Petrelle - has re-created the sights and sounds of their restaurant right down to the phone ringing, the knives and forks tinkling and the dishes clanking. Very atmospheric and some wonderful images.

Eating Art In Amsterdam

I was watching a travel programme last week and this restaurant in Amsterdam was featured. If I wasn't snowed in at the moment I would hop on a plane and go visit. Proef creates art you can eat.
Look at the explanations below then visit the website and see all the ideas. If you don't visit the website you will be missing a treat.

The angle poise lamps ‘cook’ the tablecloth made of dough a night before the dinner. Bowls are set up underneath. We serve hot and soggy things like soup and stew that cook the dough trough and make it soft and edible again. Guests all eat a part of the same ‘tablecloth’. After the main course the bowls are removed to reveal a next layer of tablecloth made of pink sugar dough. On top of this we serve caramelised fruits and nuts to eat with your tablecloth.


In Rotterdam’s ‘Kunsthal’, where guests could kiss their moustaches, lick our walls, sip our chocolate milk, sniff our cocoa-cloud, get a tattoo and eat a sausage sandwich…

Somewhere Fabulous To Eat In or Out in Milan

Well I missed this when I was in Milan earlier this year. Home Made is a fabulous restaurant that also does the most elegant take-aways. They even have a bath in there. Oh so very imaginative.

The Best Place to Eat in Paris - 2 Reasons

See that street corner is the top picture? Well you will see Brasserie Lipp there? This, in my humble opinion, is the best place to eat in Paris. Not because of the food as that is pretty average but it is a Parisian institution and you can people watch inside for hours and never get bored. If you do get bored however right next door is a massive Emprio Armani so you can leave the old man in Brasserie Lipp whilst you go and mooch around Armani to your hearts content. No having to watch him roll his eyes or listen to him puff and pant because he's bored.
One final thing that fantastic church is right across the street and I never tire of its beauty.

A Little French Restaurant

Charlotte (our daughter) took us to her local restaurant the other night in the old part of Bussy St George. I wish I could give you the address but I got ill and nearly fainted and didn't pick up a card. However this little restaurant was one of the best I have visited in and around Paris. Unpretentious and traditional it served the most amazing food but I hadn't eaten anything all day and then ate far too much and my body just objected strongly.
Take a look at that tiny door that the waiters had to pass through with the food and that wonderful dessert that I could only half finish - I want it back.
The young lady in the top picture is our little Charlotte.

A Bit of Saint Sulspice - More To Come

Tara Bradford of Paris Parfait fame told me about the Saint Sulspice Antiques Fair that was being held whilst I was in Paris. I just wish my pictures could look like hers.
We visited the fair last Saturday and I wasn't dissapointed. I picked up a few bargains which I will show later in the week (when I have photographed them).
On arriving we were all hungry so we headed into the temporary restaurant that had been erected on the site. In the UK you would have been offered burgers and chips but not in Paris. The food was fabulous and they even had chandeliers in the marquee.
Note the placemats - little works of art.

Thai Flower Power

FLOWERS AT THE ENTRANCE
On our arrival in Paris our daughter Charlotte took us out to a fabulous Thai Restaurant situated in a suburb of Paris, on a lake. I couldn't stop eating, the food was amazing.
On arrival I noticed the fresh flower arrangements that filled the gigantic space. They must spend a snall fortune of flowers. Every course that came was decorated with fresh flowers and even the drinks had flowers in them. I ordered a brandy to finish and it had an orchid petal floating in it.
On leaving we were each presented with a fresh orchid and I just had to ask for a couple of their drinking straws as they were the longest I have ever seen.
Sorry about the quality of the pictures but it was very dark in there..

FLOWERS IN THE KIR

ORCHID PETAL IN MY BRANDY

3 ORCHIDS AND 2 GIANT STRAWS