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A new Vietnamese retreat where every villa has a pool
Namia River Retreat opened last month on the banks of the Thu Bon River in Hoi An, a coastal city in central Vietnam. The tranquil setting – all 60 villas are nestled between the water and a palm grove – inspires the resort’s wellness program. Activities include yoga, meditation and duong sinh (an indigenous form of tai chi) sessions and swimming in the saltwater pool. There is also access to riverside saunas, bamboo bikes to explore Hoi An and sunset river cruises. An indoor and outdoor spa specializes in traditional Vietnamese medicine using herbs grown on the property and in nearby gardens. The villas themselves are more indulgent than you’d expect at a wellness resort. Each has a private pool, deep soaking tub and outdoor shower, and the decor is filled with local touches, from the ash furniture from nearby Da Nang to the hand-crafted wooden wall hangings and photographs depicting Vietnamese life. And for food, you can choose between two restaurants: Fisherman, a seafood spot, and Merchant, where the playful menu offers street-food-inspired cocktails (the Hoi An Chicken Rice Com Ga features local rum infused with rice and chicken broth ) and equally non-traditional dishes such as cao lau carbonara, whose sauce is made with duck egg. From $700 a night, slh.com/hotels/namia-river-retreat.
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Chocolate boxes with trading cards
The Parisian chocolate company Debauve & Gallais was founded 225 years ago by Sulpice Debauve, apothecary to Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette who later became the official chocolate supplier to the kings of France. He introduced the sweet as a health remedy to the royal court and, according to the trademark, invented the era’s first chocolate that could be bitten instead of drunk. These chocolates à croquer — flat medallions in the shape of old coins — became a signature that remains a Debauve & Gallais best seller today under the name Pistoles de Marie-Antoinette. Along with chocolate bars, truffles, Croquamandes (chocolate-coated almonds created for Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807) and other confections whose recipes have rarely changed, Pistoles still appear like jewels behind the store’s original semicircular apothecary counter. But when Domitille Jollois joined the company as its president in 2022, she discovered a cellar full of old packaging, designs and recipes that inspired an update to the foundation. The packaging was given a slight refresh, while US-based illustrator Ilya Milstein worked to revive a forgotten Parisian tradition: the chromos. A form of advertising in the mid-19th century, these small pictorial cards depicting scenes from everyday life or fables were created by leading illustrators of the day and printed using chromolithography. They were popularized by the founder of Le Bon Marché, Aristide Boucicaut, and were released weekly for decades. Debauve & Gallais would hide their own picture cards in chocolate boxes that children could collect and trade. Starting this month, customers can find five new colors inside all chocolate boxes featuring the likenesses of Marie-Antoinette, Louis XVI, Napoleon, Marcel Proust and Sonia Rykiel. “We wanted to [an artist] that would capture the childlike spirit of tradition and highlight our most illustrious clients,” says Jollois of Milstein. “It’s the chocolate that ties it all together.” From about $28, debauve-et-gallais.com.
In 2020, designer Lindy McDonough launched Lindquist, a leather goods brand that makes handmade bags, wallets, belts and more at her headquarters in Providence, RI.[We’re] a local company that thinks about sustainability and doesn’t necessarily prioritize exponential growth above all else,” says McDonough. Lindquist’s ground hides come from a century-old, family-owned tannery in Brazil that transfers their products to salt, not a solution containing heavy metals. In an effort to minimize waste, the brand reprocesses leftover leather pieces, reusing them as parts of larger items or accessories. His newest design, the Rhodes duffel, is made from a single piece of leather and trimmed with Swiss-made solid brass hardware. The handles, shoulder strap and piping are all made from the same leather — “no fillers, no canvas, no cardboard,” says McDonough — and the waxed linen thread holding it together comes from one of France’s oldest thread manufacturers . And for travelers whose luggage never seems to make it to the end of a trip without sustaining some sort of damage, Lindquist’s customer service continues after the purchase is complete. “Just send it back to us,” says McDonough. “We’ll take care of it.” From $2,400, lindquist-object.com.
Drink This
A food delivery service with wellness in mind — and broths on offer
In 2022, Natasha Poniatowski, a former fashion consultant, looked at the busy food delivery industry and saw a gap. No one, he says, was taking a holistic approach to health and nutrition. “We’re a foodie wellness service,” he says of his company Laroot World, which offers dishes like Ukrainian borscht and Indian daal. Laroot sold her first meals to New Yorkers in 2023. Since then, the tradition has expanded to New Jersey and Connecticut. Each week, the brand’s culinary director Makai Brown maps out a new set of dishes for delivery. The ones that make the cut—turkey Swedish meatballs, sweet potato kung pao—have been approved by a panel of medical professionals with a range of backgrounds from clinical nutrition to traditional Chinese medicine. “We want you to feel like someone cooked for you this week and made sure you were taken care of,” says Brown. For the new year the chef launched a three-day meal kit to help people detox from the holidays. The package includes three broths a day, including a beef bone broth that has been simmered for over 24 hours, plus soups, stews and teas. The items can also be purchased individually through the company’s online store. from $350, larootworld.bottle.com.
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A sunny Lisbon hotel full of apartment-style rooms
For years, former British diplomat Anna Richardson traveled from her home in London to Lisbon for work and vacation — with friends, her husband, and then her three young children. But, he says, he’s never found a hotel that feels “just right,” one that’s “intimate but spacious, with all the comforts of home.” When her father, property developer Andrew Richardson, bought a historic Lisbon building with his business partner, David Clarkin, in 2018, she was given the opportunity to help create her version of the perfect hotel. The result is Verse (its name is inspired by poetry and local fado music), which opened in the Sao Bento neighborhood last month. Each of its 15 apartments has a Campeggi sofa bed, as well as a king-size bed, a Sonos sound system and a well-equipped kitchen. For the interiors, Richardson hired Portuguese artist and architect Joana Astolfi of Studio Astolfi, who commissioned local artists and craftsmen to make tiles, carpets and paintings. Many of the walls, wardrobes and tables are painted in light shades of sand, pink and terracotta to reflect the hues in the Portuguese landscape. The lobby and ground floor bar menus are also inspired by their surroundings, with a variety of local organic cheeses and charcuterie on offer. And since Richardson doesn’t drink much alcohol, there’s a range of non-alcoholic cocktails. Her personal favorite is Jasmine Breeze, a refreshing tonic made with jasmine tea and cucumber and lemon juices. From about $210 a night, vice versa.com.
The Italian fashion house Loro Piana was founded by Pietro Loro Piana in 1924, but its origins date back to the 1800s, when the Loro Piana family began trading wool in the northern Italian region of Piedmont. Known for its soft cashmere clothing, the brand expanded beyond fashion in 2006, making furniture and design pieces using cashmere sourced from goats in northern China and Mongolia and Merino wool from Australia and New Zealand. This month, at the Paris Déco Off design fair, the brand is unveiling its latest interior collection, featuring new fabrics such as an ultra-fine merino wool and a velvety linen. Furniture includes those created by designers Raphael Navot, Francesca Lanzavecchia and Paola Navone’s Otto Studio. Navot is behind the Palm armchair, a curved chair in upholstered velvet and wicker, while Lanzavecchia designed Trama, a lattice-inspired bookcase and room divider made with solid walnut and fabric panels. A special capsule in the new collection, called Fiore Di Cardo, offers wall hangings and tapestries in silk and wool that are embroidered, printed or woven with a motif of thistle flowers, representing the tool once used to brush the surface of precious fabrics in the original Loro Piana. factory. Available January 15 in the trade, prices on request, loropiana.com.
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