26 minute read
THE BRIEFING
01
THE CAR
Advertisement
The New Range Rover
IT MAY LOOK SIMILAR TO ITS PREDECESSOR, BUT THE ALL-NEW FIFTH-GENERATION RANGE ROVER IS THE PRODUCT OF 125 PATENTS, A SUITE OF SUBTLE DESIGN CHANGES AND A RAFT OF TECHNOLOGICAL UPGRADES. HERE’S WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE WORLD’S MOST COVETED 4X4 – IF YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON ONE
Words: Jeremy Taylor
Lighter, faster, more economical and now available with seven seats for the first time, the new-generation Range Rover sets the benchmark for go-anywhere, luxury SUVs. A British motoring icon, the fifthgeneration version oozes class-leading dynamics and refinement on an epic scale.
On a first drive around the Cotswolds, I found the latest Land Rover comfortable, composed and equipped with allconquering ability. This new model is certain to retain its crown as the ultimate SUV, equally at home in Knightsbridge as it will be scrabbling up a mountainside.
An evolution rather than a revolutionary overhaul of the current model, the latest design boasts breath-taking modernity. It has a presence and formality that will excite existing owners – customers who urged Land Rover to ensure that the new version was ‘the same, but better’.
Unsurprisingly, that means prices have headed north. The entry model costs just under £100,000. The most expensive SV version starts at a hefty £178,000.
But while the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge may already have their new Range Rover, many frustrated buyers have been told they will have to wait almost a year to receive their cars due to a global shortage of semi-conductor chips.
I say it’s worth the wait. Despite weighing more than 2.5 tonnes, the new model feels more agile and balanced than any of its luxury SUV rivals. On a motorway, you float along in utter comfort.
Equipped with power-assisted and plug-in hybrid technology, as well as petrol and diesel engines, some versions will offer an
electric-only range of up to 62 miles. It means many owners will now be able to make their London commute on battery power alone, with CO2 emissions as low as 30 g/km.
A new, twin-turbo petrol model will be the flagship of the range, providing sensational performance with the raucous rumble of a V8 engine.
The new Range Rover is available in four-, five- or seven-seat configurations, in standard or long-wheelbase form. Choose between SE, SV HSE and Autobiography versions. A ‘First Edition’ model will be available during the first year of production, with the first-ever all-electric version due in 2024.
Designer Gerry McGovern’s sleek and uncluttered design sits on a new, stiffer ‘MLA-Flex’ chassis, which underpins the car’s incredible off-road ability and on-road agility. Up to 50 per cent stiffer, it promises class-leading, off-road competence.
Like the all-conquering Defender, the new Range Rover features a suite of technologies that will take this Land Rover to places that other SUVs fear to tread. All-wheel steering adds to manoeuvrability, while next-generation air suspensions takes the rough out of off-road driving.
Sat inside, the cabin is pure Range Rover, just with improved technology and a more modern design. Central to the dashboard is a curved 13.1-inch touchscreen display controlling the majority of driver functions. And it’s no standard screen either, with ‘haptic’ technology that anticipates movement before a finger even touches the monitor.
The front seating position has also been improved, with Land Rover’s Command Driving Position, aided by a lower dashboard fascia, improving forward visibility. The main instrument cluster appears as a stylish, semi-floating glass panel in front of me.
In the rear, it’s first-class travel all the way, especially in the four-seat version that treats passengers to aircraft-style armchairs. There’s an array of charging sockets, with the options of multimedia screens, too.
The first-ever seven seat version promises class-leading head and legroom for third-row occupants, while the Range Rover’s famous split-opening, two-piece tailgate has been improved with an ‘Event Suite’, offering bespoke leather cushions.
Best of all, Land Rover has pulled out the stops to ensure the interior materials are as environmentally-friendly as possible. A remixed wool-blend fabric called Kvadrat is a leather-free option. It’s super plush.
Land Rover has also used Econyl yarns, which are produced using 40 per cent recycled industrial plastic, fabric offcuts and reclaimed ocean plastics. Of course, customers can still opt for leather. There’s a new aniline choice, which is softer, requires fewer treatments in production and features less artificial pigmentation.
Even the 12 paint options – including ‘Belgravia Green’ and ‘Charente Grey’ – have been created to minimise environmental impact, using new mixing technologies and raw materials.
Designed, engineered and built in the UK, the new Range Rover may look similar to the outgoing model, but it’s a huge step forward for Land Rover. The company filed 125 patents for the latest design, stretching from everything from pioneering chassis technology to the latest in batteries.
After tens of thousands of miles of testing – plus 140,000 miles of computer simulations – the new Range Rover is ready for the road. It’s a design masterclass from McGovern, retaining all the best elements of the car branded the world’s original SUV, and adding a suite of technological additions that improve comfort and capability. Form an orderly queue now.
From £94,400 for the entry-level petrol SE, rising to £131,000 for the long wheelbase V8 edition, landrover.co.uk
LOADSPACE
1,050 LITRES THE STATS, based on the entry-level Range Rover SE
ELECTRIC RANGE
70 MILES
FUEL CONSUMPTION
36.7 MPG
MAX POWER
300 HP
MAX SPEED
135 MPH
0-60MPH
6.5 SECONDS
THE GENERATION GAME
Range Rover has evolved from a simple, utilitarian vehicle into the ultimate SUV. Fifty-two years ago – long before other luxury brands had considered making a 4x4 – Land Rover launched a car that proved to be as popular with royalty and country estate owners as it did with footballers and media types. Here are the four generations that went before...
1970 CLASSIC The original Range Rover didn’t have a walnut dash and carpeted interior like Rover cars of the period. Instead, the 4x4 featured rubber mats that could be hosed down and a four-speed manual gearbox. Perhaps most surprising, it was only a three-door. Remarkably, a five-door of the Classic wasn’t offered until 1981.
1996 P38
The Classic endured until 1996, by which time Range Rover had achieved a loyal following. The second generation P38a model was launched two years earlier, as the Classic was gradually phased out. P38a was a giant step forward, more luxurious and comfortable but still instantly recognisable as a Range Rover. It was also the first time rectangular headlights were used on the car.
2001 L332
With Land Rover now under BMW ownership, the Range Rover was given a complete redesign for the third-generation, new-millennium model. The design inspiration was said to be taken from the hull of an Italian Riva speedboat. L322 was the first version to be built with a monocoque, single shell body, instead of a body-on-frame, offering greater rigidity and driving dynamics. 2012 L405 The challenge of how to make a successful model even better pushed Land Rover to launch the fourth generation Range Rover in 2012. This was achieved using a lightweight, all-aluminium body and a new version of Land Rover’s Terrain Response System, for serious mud-plugging ability. The L405 shed an incredible 900lbs from the previous generation, dramatically improving its on-road performance.
02
THE HOTEL
1 Hotel Toronto
THE FIRST CANADIAN OUTPOST FROM THIS AMERICAN ECO-LUXURY HOTEL CHAIN IS A BREATH OF FRESH AIR IN THE CONTINENT’S FOURTH LARGEST CITY
Words: Richard Brown
Remember near the start of the pandemic when the Government launched its national retraining scheme and everyone had a right old giggle because waiters were being told to retrain as boxers, and classical music conductors were being asked if they’d ever considered a career as a chimney sweep? Brilliant bit of trolling from the sadistic civil servant behind that particular algorithm.
Well, if I lived in Toronto and my life suddenly went down the Swanee, I know what I’d retrain as. I’d retrain as a window cleaner. Just think about it...
The weather would be great, for half the year (apparently things can get a little chilly come winter, but I figure the blizzards will do the hard work once things get properly Arctic). You’d be plying your trade at the edge of Lake Ontario, three times the size of Devon, so ocean vistas (basically) and an enlivening sea breeze. It’d keep you fit. The views would be top. And you’d get to work by yourself – the dream! Mostly, though, I’d retrain as a window cleaner because in Toronto you’d never go out of work.
If you thought the march of the soul-crushing high-rise apartment block was purely a London phenomenon, think again. Cheap-looking glass towers are hot in Toronto. Of course, they’re called condominiums here, but you already knew that from all those Botox-and-sunset-filtered American TV shows.
The nasty glass buildings trudge all along the Queen Elizabeth Way. They peter out around Humber Bay, but not before making you wonder whether it’s all some sort of racket; whether a group of window-cleaning wise-guys, in cahoots with a bunch of Mobaffiliated developers, have muscled into the city’s planning
David Rockwell was employed to turn the ageing Thompson Hotel... into the first Canadian outpost of the US-based eco-luxury hospitality group, 1 Hotels
department and given everyone inside the shakedown with the threat of a squeegee up the jacksie. How else to explain how these canyons of doom-towers get built? No one ever asks for them.
I dunno know, maybe it was just us. But it’s not the sort of thing you expect to see in Canada. For whatever reason, you expect Canada to be better than that.
Anyway... You can see just how filthy rich I’d be from Harriet’s. The view from the ritzy rooftop bar of the new 1 Hotel Toronto is one big construction site of towering green glass and how’d-theyget-those-up-there cranes. Peer beyond and you can just about make out Toronto’s lower-rise Entertainment District and historic Old Town, where buildings are made of brick and stone and those that aren’t aimed their architectural ambitions a little higher than the bottom line.
It will cost you tens of thousand pounds to stay in the hotel below. It’s not that rooms at 1 Hotel Toronto are astronomically expensive. It’s just that once you’re home, the wife will want to redecorate the entire house in a palette of greys and beiges. Those polished floor tiles in the hall will have to be ripped up and replaced with bleached floorboards; the living room furniture traded for tables and chairs made of reclaimed wood and carved stone; a living wall will have to be installed somewhere in the kitchen. And house plants. You’ll need to get used to watering a lot more house plants. For all of this, you can blame David Rockwell.
At the beginning of 2020, the New York-headquartered biggest-name-in-interior-design was employed to turn the ageing Thompson Hotel, famous for throwing MBA after-parties, into the first Canadian outpost of the US-based eco-luxury hospitality group, 1 Hotels.
As well as a forest of salvaged wood and a reception-desk carved from a chunk of polished white stone, upon the hotel’s August 2021 opening guests were welcomed to a lobby littered with giant granite boulders, shelves made from a dismantled barn (now bowing under a jungle of crotons, dracaenas and Madagascar dragon trees), and a stunning wall installation made from (what looks like) massive potpourri (I’ve undersold it there).
‘Sustainable luxury’ – buzzword klaxon – is 1 Hotels’ shtick. So, an internal courtyard that doubles as a herb and vegetable garden; an on-site composting programme; and a promise to divert at least 85 per cent of waste away from landfill. The luxury bit? Stylishly-dressed staff, bottles of Clase Azul tequila in the lobby bar and bedrooms that offer filtered water on tap and Veuve Clicquot in the minibar.
I don’t need to scroll through photos on my phone to tell you what the bedrooms were like. The photos on my wife’s phone have become the mood-board for our impending topto-bottom home renovation. To wit, and to all things JapaneseScandi-mid-century-modern-rustic-chic: bleached woods, taupe walls, potted plants, stone tops, marble floor-tiles, potted plants, wicker lampshades, beige sofas, potted plants, pattern rugs, hefty black taps, potted plants, pops of duck-egg blue and greyer-than-green sage and more potted plants.
In what can be a heavy, suffocating city, 1 Hotel Toronto is – cliché klaxon this time – a breath of fresh air (sorry, still thinking about cleaning windows). And not just because of all those snake plants. Flora, its ground-floor cocktail bar, is as sophisticated as any drinking spot in Toronto’s Financial District; the food served in its 1 Kitchen is as accomplished as it is IMMENSE; and it’s not hard to see why the hotel’s rooftop pool became the place to be among ballers.
Last year, 1 Hotel Toronto was named on Condé Nast Traveller’s Hot List of the world’s best new hotels – the only digs in Canada to make the cut. The celebs are back, too. Without being so uncouth as to drop names, we had breakfast next to a genuine Game-of-Thrones A-lister (clue: House of Lannister).
Back to my window cleaning ambitions. While we were in Toronto, a video of a construction worker went viral after the unlucky soul ended up dangling from a crane several hundred feet in the air. His screams somewhat put me off my career in glass maintenance. Nope, thinking about it, I’d get into house plants. They’re big business in Toronto.
03
THE RESTAURANT
Firebird, Poland Street
A RED-HOT NEWLY-OPENED SOHO GRILL IS ADDING FLAME-FUELLED FLAVOUR TO MODERN MEDITERRANEAN CLASSICS
Words: Ellie Goodman
According to Slavic folklore, the Firebird is a mystical glowing bird with magical feathers and jewel-like eyes. Representing a rare and complex treasure, the mythical creature is considered both a blessing and a harbinger of doom to whomever is in its possession. Let’s hope then that it’s the former for Anna Dolgushina and Madina Kazhimova, the St Petersburg restaurateurs behind Soho’s newly-launched open-flame restaurant and wine bar.
Inspired by his Greek heritage, head chef Nikos Kontongiannatos (previously of Caravan) has devised a small, accomplished menu of Mediterranean-influenced dishes, from charred peaches with ricotta and coriander, to scallops accompanied by truffle mashed potatoes, and flame-roasted duck breast with an apricot mostarda and granola.
Behind the bar, sommelier Anna Dolgushina has curated a fine selection of wines that champions small producers from around Europe – including an impressive array of skin-contact bottles (that’s white wine that’s turned a golden-amber colour due to a much longer maceration process).
Intimate counter seating offers views of the hustle and bustle of the kitchen, while a rustic Mediterranean terrace, with terracotta floor tiles, amber beams and stripped-back
concrete walls, is illuminated by soft candlelight. The scent of a wood fire hangs in the air.
Staff, dressed in white lab coats embroidered at the breast with the Firebird emblem, are polite and attentive, without being over-familiar. We kicked things off with the sweet-but-smoky strawberry mezcal Negroni and refreshing bergamot spritz, both of which packed a heavyweight punch.
You’ll find no heaping portions here, but therein lies the beauty. Guests are encouraged to choose a selection of small plates for each course – of which there are four in total if you count the snacks (I do) – in order to enjoy the full scope of what open-flame cooking can accomplish. Our meal began with a modest serving of sourdough focaccia with tomatoes, warmed gently on the grill, and spicy Bloody Mary corn ribs, both of which hinted at what would follow. The hero of the sharing ‘snack’ course was the chicken liver paté choux buns. Served with crunchy hazelnuts and sweet raisins, these smoky, savoury pastries stayed with me long after I’d boarded the tube home.
For starters, it was flame-grilled halloumi, decadently topped with sliced plum, truffle and Greek honey – intoxicating in its simplicity and expertly executed. Whole tiger prawns in a buttery white-wine sauce were delightfully light, leaving behind the tang of the flames that cooked them. If you go for the focaccia to begin your meal, I’d recommend saving a piece with which to mop up the rich butter sauce.
The main event: blackened pork belly, imbued with the rich smokiness of the grill, served with a sweet plum jam and tangy potato and onion salad. Surprisingly acerbic, completely delectable. The charred chicken breast was another hit. Served with a sticky bacon jam (which I would happily eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner), delicate oyster mushrooms and a thricecooked garlic reduction with port, the dish was light and rich, erupting with a hazy smokiness that you simply don’t get through other means of cooking.
Dessert was an airy éclair filled with whipped honeycomb cream and fresh strawberries, sprinkled with chopped pistachios and drizzled with more Greek honey. Fluffy and sweet, I could have eaten it twice.
Despite the swaths of similarly-ambitious open-fire restaurants that now litter London, Firebird feels novel. Its considered fusion of Mediterranean and central European cuisine speaks to the diversity of Greece, while the restaurant’s simple concept and fire-fuelled flavours showcase the talents of its team. The Firebird has worked its magic, let’s see if it flies.
29 Poland Street, W1F 8QR, firebirdlondon.co.uk
04
THE SPA EXPERIENCE
The Lanesborough Club & Spa
A NEW HIIT & HEALTHY PACKAGE FROM THE HYDE PARK HOTEL OPENS UP A SUITE OF SERVICES FOR DAY GUESTS FOR THE FIRST TIME
Words: Annabel Harrison
Everything about my breakfast is just right. I feel like Goldilocks. The two oven-warm mini-banana loaves that come with my pot of tea, the pristine china, the ambient music that’s spot on for 10am, and a smiling waiter who seems absolutely delighted to be delivering my ginger-and-turmeric shot and avocado toast with a neatly-poached egg and fresh chilli. It’s my job to look for flaws, and, believe me, I did try, but they were non-existent.
To be frank, I expected nothing less. Awarded Best Urban Spa at the Good Spa Awards 2021, the Lanesborough Club & Spa’s mindfulness, fitness, beauty and wellness offering sprawls over 18,000 sq ft. Ceilings feel lofty, gold-framed mirrors create yet more space and the décor involves expanses of cream-marble flooring and dark-wood panelling. It is serene, and so quiet; encountering very few people on a spa day is ideal and it’s a genuinely calming antidote to the heat and sound of central London.
I am booked in to test the new HIIT & Healthy package, which allows day guests like me to use the gym for the first time. It also includes breakfast, an hour-long PT session in the highspec gym, lunch, R&R in the spa and a 60-minute treatment.
After breakfast, I float around in the beautiful (and empty) hydrotherapy pool, psyching myself up for the next item on my agenda. I’m apprehensive about being put through my paces by a PT who also happens to be Olympic medallist Amir Khan’s former strength coach. I am a runner and despite one HIIT class a week still hate burpees and push-ups.
I needn’t have worried. Irfan Ahmed is a delight. He’s friendly, relaxed and great at small talk which distracts (a bit) from the various strenuous exercises in my highly-tailored workout. He chooses stretches to help with a running niggle and kits me out after seeing me eyeing up the gloves and pads; boxing is hard, is my verdict, but brilliant for cardio and very satisfying.
A scan by the high-tech Boditrax machine supplies plenty of stats about my body make-up – ‘what gets measured gets improved,’ says the company. I question a metabolic rate 15 years younger than I actually am but Irfan promises it is pretty accurate. I finish the session hot, proud and just the right level of post-PT wobbly.
Thankfully, my day is not getting any more energetic. For lunch I choose the Asian salad; an immense (in both senses of the word) mound of vibrantly-coloured veg and lemongrass chicken, jazzed up with crunchy cashews, ginger, chilli and wasabi dressing, and followed by a well-earned brownie. Next, after a blissful hour of steam and sauna, is my treatment. When it comes to judging a spa, the massage is crucial; I’ve had hundreds (many of these in the name of work, I’m fortunate to admit) and there is a big difference between high street and five-star.
To continue the analogy, a massage like this needs to feel couture, not off-the-rack – perfectly relaxing, completely tailored and, basically, exactly what Aneta did for me.
If you prefer facials, a new partnership with the Luxury Aesthetics Group means you can also book in for a number of HydraFacials; the bespoke 90-minute version ends with an intriguing liquid 24-carat gold face mask, which I am most definitely going back to try.
Based on the above, I have exceedingly high expectations.
The package includes breakfast, an hour-long PT session, lunch, R&R in the spa and a 60-minute treatment
Rates for The Lanesborough Club & Spa’s HIIT & Healthy package start from £510 per person, oetkercollection.com
05 The Datai, Langkawi
THE ECO RESORT
HOW DOES A HOTEL SUCCESSFULLY NURTURE A RELATIONSHIP WITH NATURE THAT IS MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL? A BEACH RETREAT IN MALAYSIA HAS DEDICATED MORE THAN 25 YEARS TO THE CHALLENGE
Words: Anna Prendergast
Squatting over a depression in the sand, it strikes me that should my pose be misinterpreted, I may well be asked to vacate the premises of The Datai. I’m observing a hermit crab house swap, whereby a cluster of the curious crustaceans gathers around a large empty shell. When a crab arrives that’s large enough to inhabit it, it sets off a vacancy chain, and each crab upsizes by occupying its larger neighbour’s now-discarded shell.
Temporarily stunned into stillness by the joy of witnessing this small-but-staggering process, I’m reminded why it’s so crucial to leave shells on the beach to fulfil their role as mobile homes rather than souvenirs. I can’t help but think that there are other lessons to be learned: every crab goes away with a new home, even the little guys; I later learn that they coexist in harmony with other organisms like sea anemone. This is mutualism, upcycling and distribution of resources at its smartest.
Fortunately, despite my ungainly pose, nobody asks me to leave – the staff here are used to guests becoming enraptured by the nature that surrounds The Datai.
Located in the north-western corner of Langkawi, an hour’s flight from Kuala Lumpur, the rainforest hotel sits on Datai Bay (one of National Geographic’s Top 10 Beaches in the World) and looks out over the Andaman Ocean. After check-in, I’m in the sea in a matter of minutes, my shoulders unclenching from around my ears and jet lag rinsing off in the water. A few strokes in I look back – and do a double take.
The entire resort is invisible, hidden behind a verdant canopy. When the original architect, Didier LeFort, returned in 2017, after 25 years to guide the restoration, he was pleased to note that ‘nature has taken over’. Overhead, a white-bellied sea eagle swoops, and not a single sun-lounging guest can keep their eyes off it. Even the beach bar’s waiters pause to allow the spectacle the attention it deserves before serving trays of cold towels, ice cream and fresh fruit.
Over the next few days, it becomes clear that this is how The Datai does luxury: nature first, and then everything (and anything) you could possibly need.
‘There is no Datai without nature,’ general manager Arnaud Girodon shrugs over dinner at The Gulai House, where menus are hand-written on giant dried macaranga leaves and there is a pre-dinner hand-washing ceremony that may be less of a blessing and more of a necessity post-Covid. Girodon describes grand plans to launch eco-friendly day cruises to the Andaman Islands and Koh Phi Phi, but I’m somewhat distracted by a nutty, golden dahl. ‘It’s our duty of care to look after the rainforest, the beach, the reefs, and renovating the hotel gave us the chance to start over with sustainability.’
Originally built in 1993, the hotel closed for renovations in 2017, and while little was changed in terms of the infrastructure, one key step taken was the opening of a Nature Centre. It’s headed up by Malaysia’s top naturalist, Irshad Mobarak, who has been with The Datai since the beginning, and his niece Shakira, who describes her job as ‘being able to ask questions and find answers’.
During my stay, the resort received EarthCheck certification, verifying the success of its efforts to send zero waste to landfill, as well as for its permaculture garden (complete with worm farm to tackle food waste) and its on-site water bottling plant. ‘We want to be a benchmark in transparency so that the rest of the industry can join us at this level,’ says Shakira, outlining initiatives such as Fish for the Future, which supports sustainable fishing and local fishermen, and Pure Lab, which will turn glass waste into ecoblocks for construction work.
Beyond the resort, protective measures are carried out for the 10 million-year-old rainforest in which it’s built, and marine conservation has been crucial from the beginning; motorised water sports are prohibited and five aggregation devices have successfully encouraged coral growth in the surrounding reefs. Langkawi itself is historically home to orang laut, or ‘sea peoples’, and traditional longtail boats are visible in the waters of Datai Bay. Here, fishermen are only allowed to line fish and most often cast off in the bay to provide for their families, but some will bring a fresh catch directly to the hotel to sell to the kitchen.
It’s one of many ways the hotel has succeeded in involving locals. ‘We realised that we were throwing away half-burnt candles from the restaurant that were too small to reuse,’ says Shakira. ‘So we decided to train local women in a technique that melts the candle down and re-uses the wax: they buy the stubs from us, then sell them back at a profit, cutting out waste and providing income without a middle man.’
The beach bar’s communal bottle of SPF has also been replaced with reef-safe sunscreen created by local business Noosh Naturals. ‘We can’t force guests to use it, but we can provide and educate them about it as an alternative,’ says Shakira. Candles and skincare might sound small-fry, but The Datai attends to the tiniest of details with as much care as the big stuff. In the villas, everything from toothbrushes (made from bamboo) to tea bags (made by a French brand that – at The Datai’s request – pivoted to recyclable paper sachets) has been addressed.
Immersed in the rainforest, it is in one of these villas that I tune into the frequency of the very nature these practises intend to protect. By night, the white noise of rolling thunder and rainfall has a surprisingly sedative effect, and at dawn a troop of dusky langur monkeys drop onto my veranda, an informal wake-up call. Their presence politely reminds me that I am, in fact, the intruder here – this is their rainforest, after all – so I make coffee and simply observe their playful rituals through the window. I settle into the schedule that Langkawi’s wildlife has set, and notice more guests carrying round binoculars than smartphones. There’s no need for clock-watching when an orchestra of cicadas acts as an unofficial dinner bell, skittish bats take flight at dusk signalling cocktail hour, and night lilies unfold after sunset.
At breakfast, I watch freshly made Malaysian murtabak being kneaded and spun and fried by a chef, just as enchanted as the sixyear-old waiting beside me. ‘I’m bribing him to try local food with the promise of Marmite toast,’ his dad whispers. The next day, the kid and I queue up for the flaky flatbread once more, marmite well and truly forgotten.
We meet again on a nature walk with the mischievous marine biologist Jonathan Chandrasakaran, whose passion for wildlife is entirely infectious, igniting interest in apathetic adults and jetlagged kids. He leads us through the buttress roots of the mangrove and points out the low-slung trunks of sea hibiscus, which grow horizontally towards the shore and help protect the beach from erosion.
Coastal attrition is mostly natural, but Langkawi’s mangroves, which are essential to the survival of the rainforests, are vulnerable to man-made pollution – rubbish chokes the roots of the trees; oil from tour boats suffocates plants; litter poisons wildlife. Educating locals and providing improved waste disposal remains high-priority.
Just like its resident hermit crabs, The Datai demonstrates a mutualistic relationship with the environment on which it depends and the creatures that call it home – the resort has become an essential part of the ecosystem, and one simply can’t survive without the other. A troop of dusky langur monkeys drops onto my verandah... Their presence politely reminds me that I am, in fact, the intruder here
From RM2,500 (approx. £463) per room per night based on two adults sharing a Canopy Deluxe, inclusive of breakfast, thedatai.com. Malaysia Airlines offers the only non-stop service from London Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur with return flights starting from approx. £689, malaysiaairlines.com
06
THE OPENING
Aman New York
THE BIG APPLE’S FAMOUS CROWN BUILDING WELCOMES A FETED NEW TENANT
Words: Ellie Goodman
When it opened in August 2022, the Aman New York represented a new chapter for both the hospitality group and Manhattan’s landmark Crown Building. Designed in partnership with esteemed architect Jean-Michel Gathy of Denniston (the creative mind behind the Four Seasons Bangkok and Cheval Blanc Randheli), the opening of Aman New York marked the hospitality group’s third state-side location and only its second city retreat (the other is located in Tokyo).
Set on the corner of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, and overlooking Central Park, the opening of Aman’s latest urban sanctuary is the culmination of a large-scale transformation for the Crown Building. Finished in 1921 as the original home of the Museum of Modern Art, the Beaux-Arts building was designed by architectural behemoths Warren & Wetmore – the influential designers behind Grand Central Station and the city’s iconic Helmsley Building.
Spanning floors 7 to 25 – and featuring a wraparound garden terrace on the 14th floor (pictured above) – the hotel opened with 83 guest suites and 22 private residences, each boasting a functioning fireplace – a first for the city. Alongside an extensive wine library, dining options include Italian eatery Arva, as well as Nama, Aman’s take on gourmet Japanese dining – complete with a Hinoki wood counter for omakase-style dishes.
