Travel

One of London’s most elegant hotels is The Royal Horseguards situated on the paved Embankment overlooking the mighty River Thames flowing sedately along to the sea. This grand property has been the center of the seated establishment for many a decade and still offers warmth, glamour and service to its many patrons. Many politicians and statesmen frequent the hotel today because of its closeness to the Houses of Parliament and Ministry of Defense.

Standing on the site of Whitehall which once was one of the most famous Tudor royal palaces – I am sure Henry V111 would have loved to look out at the now London Eye twisting it’s quite ugly façade in space. The Tudor Palace was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1698 but the Banqueting House escaped the conflagration and is still used for banquets at the corner of Horseguards Parade.

For those of you who are movie fans you might like to know that Whitehall Court was featured in the 1983 Bond film ‘Octopussy’ and also in ‘Skyfall’ the latest James Bond flick.

Is it an accident that LouLou's opened near the residence of Bertie Wooster? I don't think so!

I am certain I saw ol’ Bertie and his ‘brilliant’ Mayfair pals yukking it up downstairs at one of Loulou’s fab bars - London’s hot (no not just hot, SCALDING) new club, 5 Hertford Street, which opened this spring In London.  

Fictional or not, Bertie Wooster, Jeeves and their creator, P.J. Wodehouse would all agree that Robin Birley’s new club is the new ‘trump card’ among all the new private clubs that are creating London’s energy, sex appeal and god only knows what else among its beautiful young things.  

How did we get in you ask?  Our friend British Historian, Andrew Roberts, who collects private clubs as any BYT might, made the arrangements. Thank you Andrew.  Thank you Robin!

For one thing, as I said, it has Robin Birley, son of Sir Mark Birley and Lady Annabel Goldsmith (as in ANNABEL’S) who clearly knows how to create a place in which simply everyone wants to be seen (more on this later). 

Thirty miles from San Francisco, Sonoma County is one of the world's great destinations. With beautiful farmland, a dramatic coastline, fields of wild flowers, world-class wineries and upscale restaurants, the valley offers travelers, especially oenophiles and foodies, the best of the best.

My wife and I needed some serious R&R. We wanted a trip somewhere casual, where we wouldn't get stuck in traffic jams, could enjoy beautiful countryside, have some good meals and do a bit of wine tasting. So we put our suitcases in the car with a plan to explore Sonoma County, from the inland wine growing valleys to the coast. There is nothing like a road trip to clean out the cob webs and refresh the soul.

Driving on Sonoma County's two-lane black-tops in summer, the sun owns the sky, shining down on well-tended fields and big-sky landscape. Mustard flowers blanket the fields, corn grows tall, the vines are fat with ripening grapes and cattle stroll lazily across green pastures in search of shade.

Largely agricultural, mom and pop businesses are much more common in Sonoma than in Napa, which is dominated by wealthy investors and large corporations. The 200 wineries along Route 12 and Highway 101--near the towns of Schellville, Sonoma, Glen Ellen, Kenwood, Sebastopol, Graton, Forestville, Fulton, Windsor, Healdsburg and Geyserville--are family run, for the most part.

I’ve just returned from a quick trip to Tokyo, where The Hub was promoting a new film and where we were both doing our best to eat from morning to night.

Eating in Japan is serious business, and sushi is no less than an art form.  The Michelin Guide expanded to Japan for the first time in its history in 2008, and in its debut year, it awarded more stars to the Land of the Rising Sun than any other country, including its native France.  In fact, there are now more than twice the number of cumulative stars found in Tokyo (227) than in Paris (97)!  (Not that any of the Japanese chefs really cared.  One 3-star designee apparently asked, “Why does a French restaurant guide care about what we’re doing in Japan?”).

Over our four days and nights, we ate like kings.  We sampled hot oden noodles, hot ramen noodles, cold soba noodles, mounds of tempura, shark fin soup (supposedly very good for your complexion), skewers of yakatori (basically chicken on a stick, though our selection included chicken skin on a stick, which was inedible), and all sorts of other delicacies that I’ve now lost in a haze of sake and jet lag.  Speaking of sake, we knocked it back – always cold and dry and delicate.   We were also given a shot of something that looked like a weak Bloody Mary but turned out to be 40 proof vodka laced with turtle blood.   My arm hairs were on end for about 10 minutes.