What's hot: New York’s newest most expensive hotel Aman NewYork, Chef Amninder Sandhu’s new Pune restaurant Nora, a meadery tour and tasting in Pune; Janice Pariat’s 'Everything the Light Touches'; Regional Coffee in Melbourne; W Goa’s new gin bar, and Clinique’s fresh launch.
It has been in the making for years, and Aman NewYork has commanded years of hype. Now that it is open, the hotel commands $4,200 per night for its premier suites. The owners are promoting it as an urban wellness retreat and the wellness amenities are exhaustive.
The rooms fill only six floors of the building; the spa and wellness centre are spread over 25,000 square feet and include space for cryotherapy chambers and an indoor pool. Two sumptuous bathhouses are like private spas within the spa.
At a 45-minute drive from Pune, within an old, restored factory with a small courtyard, is The Moonshine Meadery. Meads are traditionally gluten-free alcoholic beverages created by fermenting honey with various spices and fruits. At Moonshine, they infuse the mead with flavours: mangoes, coffee, guava chilli, chocolate orange, even bourbon oaked apple!
Every Sunday, the guys behind this brand, host a meadery tour and tasting session in their small courtyard, on a long table set under some trees, with dogs for company. At Rs 1,250, you learn how to make meads and indulge in a guided honey and mead tasting session. Don’t miss their crystallise honey; that’s how you recognise it is pure.
Amitav Ghosh calls it “a novel like no other”. Everything The Light Touches is a book by one of the most significant authors of our time. This elegant, multi-layered work is Pariat's epic about travellers, discovery, human connection, and the impermanent nature of life that unfolds in modern India, through the adventures and experiences of four intriguing characters. It maps out stark contrasts: between modern India and its colonial past, urban and rural life, capitalism and centuries-old traditions of generosity and gratitude.
It isn’t every day that you get to taste Seekh Sheermal, the traditional Kashmiri saffron-flavoured flatbread, outside the Srinagar valley. But then expect Chef Sandhu, famous for open fire-pit cooking on charcoal and sigdi, the only Indian participant in Netflix’s The Final Table, to push the envelope.
Her new restaurant, Nora, in Pune, serves up Sheermal topped with green chutney and fresh mint, as well as an experimental butter chicken kulcha and a Wayanad pepper cheese, made in-house.
The Victoria region may not be home to coffee estates, but it has some of the world’s best roasters who roast and brew coffee in their inimitable style and make it their own. The next time you are travelling even in remote corners beyond Melbourne, ask the local coffee shop for Victoria’s regional coffee.
Even the youngest barista in cities and towns around Victoria make their roasts and serve them either as single-origin brews, pour-overs, siphons, or cold drips. Try cafes such as Mansfield Coffee Merchant in Mansfield, Surf Coast Coffee Roasters and Café in Torquay, or Axil Coffee roasters and café in Melbourne.
Spice Traders, the over-arching dining space in W Goa, now hosts a chic new gin bar, Sylvia. Helmed by Kshitij Goel, Director of Beverage, W Goa, Sylvia is on the first level of the restaurant with unending views of the cliffside on which this hotel is set and the Arabian Sea.
The gin bar boasts all kinds of gins, from desi brands to the exotic Mezcal, and the rarer Okinawa and Roku gins from Japan. Kshitij conjures all kinds of cocktails such as Sylvia Martinez; gin with clarified pineapple juice and lemon grass foam; not to mention the Gibson course, a 5-course drink served with pickles.
Clinique’s Smart Clinical Repair™ Wrinkle Correcting Serum tackles fine lines, hydration, and cell renewal in just one product. It features a blend of peptides that help ramp up the skin’s collagen production, caffeine and algae extract to soothe the skin, retinoid for cell renewal, and hyaluronic acid that helps the skin to retain moisture and stay plump.
