Having already pointed out the fermented tea kombucha “living” on top of the fridge, and the kefir milk fermenting in the pantry, and the homemade sourdough crackers browning in the oven, Melinda Stone led a visitor down to the basement of the Victorian house (Read More…)
Kyoto, the former imperial capital of Japan, is a vibrant mash-up, an ancient city electrified by the breathtakingly new. Cruise the futuristic food halls of a department store, gaping at the perfect fruit and glistening sea creatures, before zipping up to the traditional floor, with its kimonos and tea ceremony implements. (Read More…)
If you spy a dark-haired woman gliding down Mission Street, past the taquerias and bodegas, in a white, head-to-toe bee suit — picture a hazmat suit crossed with a fencing mask — chances are it’s Cameo Wood, en route to a beehive. (Read More…)
The city’s unofficial motto, “Keep Austin Weird,” blares from bumper stickers on BMWs and jalopies alike, on T-shirts worn by joggers along Lady Bird Lake and in the windows of independently owned shops and restaurants. It’s an exhortation for a city that clings (Read More…)
It was a crisp and sunny Saturday in Yountville, a wine-soaked town in the heart of the Napa Valley, and a steady trickle of day-trippers was hopping from tasting room to oak-scented tasting room, spearing Manchego cubes and sipping the latest vintages. (Read More…)
ON $250/DAY
SLEEP Carved out of a 1920s hotel, the new Hotel Vertigo in Nob Hill (940 Sutter Street; 415-885-6800; www.hotelvertigosf.com) recently emerged from a cinematic makeover inspired (Read More…)
THE BASICS The Good Hotel, which opened last November, claims to be the first “hotel with a conscience.” Anthropomorphizing aside, the hotel does have many admirable qualities: low prices (rooms start at $89), eco-friendly touches and a philanthropic streak. (Read More…)
With its architectural mishmash of storybook English cottages and Swiss Alpine chalets, the small town of Carmel-by-the-Sea in Northern California resembles a Disneyland version of Europe. You half expect a bereted Parisian to saunter out of one of the ridiculously cute (Read More…)
Kuraya doesn’t look like much from the street — just a nondescript warehouse on the industrial fringe of the Mission District. But climb the loading-dock stairs, and you’ll find yourself surrounded by some real Japanese booty: hundreds of antique tansu chests from the mid-19th to the early 20th century, each built for a specific function, from tea preparation to kimono storage. (Read More…)
THE BASICS The “art hotel” concept has arrived in Australia. The Melbourne-based A Hotels Group, run by an avid art collector, is planning seven art-themed hotels across Australia by 2010. The first, the Storrier, opened in Sydney (Read More…)
THE BASICS The Colony Palms Hotel was built in 1936 by the Detroit mobster Al Wertheimer as a front for a brothel and gambling house. But despite its notorious past and a $16 million overhaul completed (Read More…)
Like the bronzed and barely clad bodies that saunter up and down Collins Avenue and Ocean Drive, South Beach is in a constant state of self-improvement. That’s especially true this season, as a wave of new bars, lounges and clubs put up their velvet ropes and (Read More…)
“We’ve got 100-year-old businesses selling wholesale pork rinds and bulk-size canned tomatoes next to world-class galleries selling $50,000 paintings.”
Stand on West Fulton Market in Chicago at around 3 p.m. and witness an incongruous changeover. Forklifts hauling greasy pallets of sliced bacon clear out, as bright young things in stiletto heels and luxury cars roll in. (Read More…)
THE BASICS After surfing Hotel 1000’s Web site, which tallies the hotel’s many futuristic technologies (a tub that fills from the ceiling, infrared occupancy sensors), you may arrive at the hotel expecting (Read More…)
Rare 1940′s and 50′s bike parts are displayed as artifacts behind glass. At the back of the shop are exquisite canvas-and-leather touring bags, woven willow baskets, handmade French tires and tiny brass bells from Japan.
Berkeley is big on bikes. The city is laced with well-used “bicycle boulevards” — streets modified for bike safety and convenience — and studded with overflowing bike racks. Stand in front of Jitensha Studio (jitensha is Japanese for bicycle) and you’re within a mile of (Read More…)