THE SMARTEST MAN IN AMERICA? How a 34-year-old geek changed American politics forever
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Editor’s LEttEr
editor@ openskiesmagazine. com
This issue we look at a 34-year-old self-confessed geek who has changed the face of American politics forever. His dead-on statistical analysis of the US presidential election last year wrongfooted a broadcast media dominated by ‘talking heads’. Can it last? Maybe not even our cover star Nate Silver can predict that. We look forward to a month of arts and culture in the Emirate with features on Art Dubai, Design Days and Emirates International Festival of Literature. Munich is Germany’s most expensive city in which to live, but it also houses lots of heritage – we journey down one of its most interesting streets. We also chart the rise of the restaurateur, and discover why even the most star-kissed chefs are heading back to the kitchen. Our photo essay sees us head to America’s heartland, where three Swedes have produced a stunning book of photography. Enjoy the issue.
Emirates takes care to ensure that all facts published herein are correct. In the event of any inaccuracy please contact The Editor. Any opinion expressed is the honest belief of the author based on all available facts. comments and facts should not be relied upon by the reader in taking commercial, legal, financial or other decisions. Articles are by their nature general and specialist advice should always be consulted before any actions are taken. PO Box 2331, Dubai, UAE Telephone: (+971 4) 427 3000 Fax:(+971 4) 428 2261 Email: emirates@motivate.ae
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Open skies / march 2013
contents / MARcH 2013
45 37
42
Emirates Golf Club celebrates A tour of one of its 25th Munich’s most anniversary historic streets
Fatima AlQadiri reveals her favourite tracks
66 48
We take a peek at one of Asia’s most surprising city hotels
29
58
Design Days puts the city in the aesthetic spotlight
Open skies / march 2013
63
Manchester’s War Museum
How a Tokyo bookshop is raising the retail bar
contents / MARcH 2013
100
Three Swedes’ photographic take on America’s West
90
Is the era of the super chef over? We find out.
82
A road trip across Western Africa
FRont (35) BITS Question/Grid Calendar The Street Skypod Room Consume
36 38 40 42 45 48 49
Our Man BLD Mapped Local Knowledge Place Column Store
news (111)
MAin (71) America’s Smartest Man An African Road Trip The Rise of the Restaurateurs
50 53 54 58 63 64 66
72 82 90
Live TV Wolgan Valley Fleet
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Open skies / march 2013
115 116 126
SPRING SUMMER 2013
contributors PAUL WHEATLEY
Paul has lived in Munich for nearly a decade, and has written about the city for the Guardian, CNN and Fodor’s. He has also written a book on the city’s history, Munich: Monks to Modernity, which was published in 2010.
FATimA AL-QAdiri
A New York-based Kuwaiti artist, musician and composer, Fatima’s willingness to play with a variety of genres has seen her feted by the music and art press around the world.
Nick LANdEr
Nick Lander is the restaurant correspondent for the Financial Times. During the 1980s he was proprietor of the popular Soho restaurant L’Escargot, and he has recently published The Art Of The Restaurateur.
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Open skies / march 2013
NoAH dAvis
A freelance writer living in Brooklyn, Noah writes about everything from sport to science. He has been published everywhere from Sports Illustrated and the Wall Street Journal to New York magazine and GQ.com.
LArs AbErg
Lars has worked internationally as a photographer with his work appearing in books, magazines, newspapers, exhibitions and advertising in Europe and around the world.
FRONT 45
54
NEW YORK
SHANGHAI
Composer and singer, Fatima AlQadiri, reveals her favourite tracks
North Star
The Daniel Libeskind-designed Imperial War Museum is one of Manchester’s highlights.
(p63)
China’s most charismatic city gets the Mapped treatment
58 DUBAI
We preview the upcoming product fair, Design Days
Bits
The Written Word
The emiraTes airline fesTival of liTeraTure is back. we inTerview Three parTicipanTs
Dan Rather
Kate Mosse
Sandy Gall
Entertainment values have long been dominant over news values, but it has now reached the point where it’s a crisis – news shows are now seen as entertainment, and entertainment draws bigger audiences and gets more advertising dollars. Foreign news coverage has shrunk by an alarming degree – it’s much easier to put people on TV shouting their opinions than it is to maintain bureaux overseas. The development of the 24-hour news cycle has fuelled that – plus the development of the internet. I am optimistic about the future of the internet, but nobody has figured out a business model to support foreign news coverage and international reporting.
Writing is a profession – you have to work at it, and some days that means you write 2,000 words that hardly need editing, and sometimes you only manage 500 and you end up tossing them all when you re-read them. You never feel like anything you write is ever truly finished. There’s always a sense of panic when you imagine what others will think of it when they read it. I think, in the end, you just know when it’s finished. Being a writer is as much about coping with intense self-doubt as it is about having the self-confidence to say ‘yes, that’s finished, that’s the absolute best I could do.’
The visual medium is a very powerful one and, in many ways, it’s unrivalled. When covering a war, I think television is unprecedented – reports from Vietnam, with helicopters in the air, ground action and stories like the Tet Offensive worked hugely well on camera. However, sometimes it’s better to tell the story in words. Writing a book is entirely different, as there’s a need to create something much longer. I used to work for ITV’s News at Ten, but I think it’s now a shadow of its former self. The great days of TV news are over, I think. There are no Walter Cronkites in America now.
eaifl.com/Dan_Rather
eaifl.com/Kate_Mosse
eaifl.com/Sandy_Gall
The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature runs from March 5th to 9th http://www.eaifl.com/
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Open skies / MARCH 2013
A House In The City bigger is not always better, at least according to the authors of a new book – a house in the city. robert Dalziel and sheila Qureshi-cortale visit nine cities – copenhagen, melbourne, london, new York, Tokyo, paris, berlin, mexico and shanghai – in order to examine the best types of urban housing. The scope of the book is impressive – as is the final section, where the authors create what they consider to be the ideal urban solution to contemporary
housing, a prototype that has been built in west london by Dalziel and his partner Tim battle (through their company rational house) and was sold on the open market. with more than 60 per cent of the world currently living in urban areas, and that number set to increase by 2 billion in the next 20 years, never has this issue been of more importance. kudos for the writers for suggesting solutions to these problems. www.ribabookshops.com
A SuShi BAR... in GhAnA Ghana might not be a hive of high-end culinary activity, but at least one new venue has caught our interest. Santoku is a Japanese restaurant in Accra, with a menu developed by the team behind Nobu, and interiors designed by Hubert de Givenchy. Opened last year, the restaurant has quickly gained a devoted following, and bodes well for the development of a top-tier restaurant scene in the city. The space includes a main dining room that seats 95, a 12-seater sushi bar and a 360-degree wine fridge, offering wines from around the world. santoku-restaurant.com
Sultans of Swing Dubai looked very different when Emirates Golf Club opened its doors back in 1988. There was little in the way of development past the World Trade Centre, and only a few lonely compounds in the area surrounding Emirates Golf Club. These days of course, everything is different, and despite the newly laid urban fabric, the club is still a great place to unwind, either on the Majlis or the Faldo Course. The first grass course in the region when it opened, it still draws in the punters, 25 years on. www.dubaigolf.com
Does the late-night talk show have a future? Or is it just a relic of the past? page 64 37
Open skies / MARCH 2013
Late Shows
THE QUESTION
WHY DO SMART PEOPLE MAKE BAD DECISIONS? It’s a common assumption that smart people make good decisions, and very smart people make brilliant decisions. Like most assumptions, this is wrong. Let’s take just one example: Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) was a hedge fund led by a bunch of brilliant traders and mathematicians, including two Nobel prize winners. The fund folded just six years after it was founded. They took highly leveraged positions and failed to account for the possibility of an extremely rare, high-impact event, what the writer Nassim Taleb calls a ‘black swan.’ Although the fund generated large returns in its
The Expert: Nassim Taleb Author of: The Black Swan
first few years – as much as 40 per cent between 1994 and 1998 – the fund eventually overreached, and, in one month in 1998 lost $1.9 billion. It failed to predict – or react quickly enough to – the Russian financial crisis, and the fund was dissolved in 2000. The fund’s principals relied heavily on mathematical models, which failed to predict the ‘rare event’ of the Russian financial collapse. In its annual reports, Merrill Lynch observed that mathematical risk models “may provide a greater sense of security than warranted; therefore, reliance on these models should be limited.” A lesson for us all.
THE GRID The ‘talented one’ from Oasis is in town with former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft for a one-off show at Atlantis, The Palm, on March 15. Expect a host of hits from Gallagher’s Oasis days, as well as some newer material. atlantisthepalm.com
Algiers is one of the most interesting cities in North Africa, we can’t wait to check out the medina and the plethora of old French architecture. The locals here are some of the friendliest in the region, and for those looking for a destination with a difference, this could make for an interesting spring break. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algiers
Netflix decided to release political thriller House of Cards in one go, so we get to enjoy 13 episodes of Kevin Spacey as an amoral US politician. We splurged, we admit it, and we can’t wait for series two. www.netflix.com
Small but beautiful, The Magazine Shop and café is a wonderful addition to DIFC. Expect lots of local and international magazine titles and some rare second-hand editions. A feast for the city’s magazine (and coffee) lovers. www.difc.ae
March
CALENDAR
March 1 to May 12
March 7 to 9
FaShion week JohanneSburg
The eyes of the fashion world will be on the cosmopolitan city of Johannesburg this month as it showcases the very latest in african-inspired fashion. www.afi.za.CoM
March 18
PIXAR: 25 Years of Animation Today, animation is an established medium at the very highest level of art and film-making – but it hasn’t been an easy ride. Vital to its rise has been the role played by computer animation company Pixar; works such as Toy Story, Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo have created iconic characters for generations of children. This month Hamburg’s MKG museum hosts an exhibition documenting the rise of the studio and the development of its best-loved characters. www.Mkg-haMburg.de
Marilyn Monroe Exhibition Featuring some of the 20th century’s most iconic celebrity images, Jamm art gallery’s Marilyn Monroe exhibition will be the first time that legendary photographer Bert Stern’s work will be exhibited in Dubai. During his career Stern took almost 2,600 photographs of Monroe, and he was with her right up until her death in 1962.
March 8 to 24
SculPture by the Sea The creation of 70 unique sculptures ensures a spectacular sight on one of western australia’s most popular beaches. The 9th annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibition, held on one of Perth’s most popular beaches, will see one-off pieces created by prominent australian, british and Chinese artists. Last year, more than 220,000 people enjoyed this very modern art project. www.SCuLPTurebyTheSea.CoM
www.JaMM-arT.org
Place
Northern Light page 63 40
Open skies / march 2013
the street
Hans-SachsStraße Firmly ensconced in Munich’s in-vogue Glockenbachviertel district, Hans-Sachs-Straße is characterised by delightful independent stores – many with their own artisanal workshops – as well as a host of top-notch restaurants serving cuisines as diverse as Afghan and traditional Bavarian. This grand street, with its turn-of-the-twentiethcentury façades featuring detailed relief work, is even home to a charming 101-year-old cinema. Arguably more than any other, this street is something of a testament to the Glockenbachviertel’s diverse and culturally rich core. Words by Paul Wheatley / Images by Gert Krautbauer
Hotel Olympic
More than just an ‘art’ hotel, Hotel Olympic is a refined, though far from extravagant, place to overnight. Design and art are ubiquitous: sculptures ‘greet’ guests in the foyer, elegant chandeliers hang from ceilings and there is a giant, wood-framed mirror at the top of the stairs. Wi-Fi and in-room computers highlight the modern side of the establishment, though this is in tandem with a carefully thought-out, classic-looking interior design. hotel-olympic.de Hans-Sachs-Straße 4 Tel: +49 (0) 89231890
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Open skies / march 2013
Kranz
Just about everything created here is organic, and whatever is not, is locally sourced. Owner Petra Kranz prides herself on refusing to have a microwave on the premises almost as much as she does on the muchadmired dishes her chefs serve up. The joy here is that high-quality fine dining sits comfortably alongside the likes of organic burgers and potato wedges. And as a bonus, Kranz has its own theatre, showing regular improvisations, comedies and musical shows. daskranz.de Hans-Sachs-Straße 12 Tel: +49 (0) 8921668250
Eisenblätter & Triska
A hat can make or break even the most exquisite outfit, and seeking the advice of expert milliners pays off. Astrid Triska and Katrin Eisenblätter clearly know what they are talking about, after all, along with their small team they design and hand-make spectacular creations for their boutique in a small backroom workshop. Eisenblaetter-triska.de Hans-Sachs-Straße 13 Tel: +49 (0) 892605860
Arena Filmtheater
With so many of the city’s buildings severely damaged or destroyed during Allied bombing in the Second World War and today’s preference for modern cinema complexes, it is a wonder this building is still here at all. The picture house opened in 1912 and several renovations later it remains something of a historic monument to movie-going of a bygone era. It has just two theatres, with a cosy 64 and 38 seats apiece. arena-kino.de Hans-Sachs-Straße 7 Tel: +49 (0) 892603265
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Open skies / march 2013
Adolf Mathes Haus
The best tribute to the skill of the artisans at this quaint craft shop is that you cannot tell by the façade or by the wares on display that each and every item has been expertly created by local homeless people out of one of three materials: ceramic, metal or wood. It is the ideal place find a unique gift. Hans-Sachs-Straße 16 Tel: +49 (0) 892311450
Electum
Located right at the far end of the street, Electum is home to a mesmerising mélange of designer lights – and a particularly illuminating way to finish a perusal of Munich’s finest selection of independent stores. electum.de Hans-Sachs-Straße 22 Tel: +49 (0) 89221714
Artefact
Another splendid independent boutique, this time focused on clothes for the fashion conscious. Run by Birgit Eßlinger Gewänder, Artefact also sells some wonderfully imaginative jewellery. artefakt-muenchen.de Hans-Sachs-Straße 13 Tel: +49 (0) 892603108
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Open skies / march 2013
SKYPOD
New york-based musician and composer Fatima al-Qadiri reveals her eight favourite tracks
1.
2.
3.
4.
Treble clef Ghetto Kyote
Nabil Shuail Sadeni
Paul anka Smells Like Teen Spirit
hussein al Jasmi Habibi Barchaloni
One of my favourite tracks of all time, and an early grime classic. A Chinese folk orchestra gone PlayStation synth mad, the simple structure of Ghetto Kyote has had a big impact on the genre.
I’m a Kuwaiti child of the 1980s, and any kid growing up in the Gulf during that decade would most likely get frisky when Nabil Shuail’s angelic falsetto beckons.
This is Paul Anka’s big-band version of the Nirvana classic. Normally, I’m not a fan of covers, but this surreal version of Smells Like Teen Spirit is a real treasure.
It translates as ‘My darling is Barcelonian’. A love song from Hussein Al Jasmi, a beloved Emirati voice, dedicated to his favourite football team, FC Barcelona.
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Open skies / march 2013
5.
Googoosh Man Amadeam Iran’s grand pop singer and 20th century style icon, Googoosh delivers one of her sweetest songs. Simply titled I’ve Come, it’s filled with a gentle but exuberant joy.
6.
Ñengo Flow Noche Para Adultos This Puerto Rican MC raps over ice-cold, post apocalyptic melodies in a reggaeton gem.
7.
The-Dream Love vs Money A vastly underrated American singer, The-Dream is a master arranger of vocal harmony. The way the synths meld with his voice in Love vs Money offers a moving vision of lovers’ angst.
march
CALENDAR
march 27 to april 21
Melbourne International Comedy Festival Victorians have a lot to be happy about – Melbourne’s weather, culture and frequent world-class events see it constantly lauded as one of the world’s most liveable cities – and let’s face it happy people like to laugh. The city’s annual comedy festival returns at the end of this month with Australia’s best and brightest funnymen stepping up to the mic alongside some of the world’s very best comedians. www.comedyfestival.com.au
Shanghai
china’s chic metropolis page 54
8.
Isao Tomita Reverie From one of the pioneers of electronic music. Listening to this is like being whisked off to an idyllic childhood scene. It’s taken from one of Tomita’ finest albums, Snowflakes Are Dancing.
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Open skies / march 2013
Shopping at Qatar Duty Free is a pleasant and relaxing experience. With a wide collection of the world’s finest brands, enticing promotions, and exciting raffles, now shopping at Qatar Duty Free is your destination of choice. As one of the fastest growing Duty Free operations in the region, we are committed to offering you good service and value for money. Our friendly, multi-national staff members are available to assist you at all times.
the Room
www.fullerToNBayHoTel.coM
rooM 0109
fullerToN Bay SINgapore
Singapore’s waterfront has changed dramatically in recent years: its colonial heritage has been dwarfed by gleaming new towers and, of course, the Marina Bay Sands development, a Macau-style resort that aims to bring in Chinese gamblers from the mainland. Across from the Sands lies the slightly more restrained Fullerton Bay Hotel – a low-slung glass structure that manages to combine the light touch of a boutique hotel with the quality of a luxury five-star. Room 0109 manages to make the most of its surroundings: floor-to-ceiling windows reveal an infinity Jacuzzi on the small deck outside, a nice touch for a city hotel. Even nicer is the view across the Bay when the Marina Bay Sands light show erupts after dark. The hotel’s other strength is its restaurants, particularly the Saturday morning ‘hangover’ brunch at Clifford, its waterfront brasserie. The hotel is deceptively big but manages to convey a sense of calm that is almost as relaxing as a dip in the Jacuzzi. One of the best – and most surprising – city hotels in Asia.
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Open skies / march 2013
INTERNET SPEED: 10MB PILLOWS: four iPOD DOCK: yes CLUB SANDWICH DELIVERY TIME: 18 minutes COMPLIMENTARY SNACKS: chocolates and fruit every day TOILETRY BRAND: Bulgari EXTRAS: Nespresso machine, infinity Jacuzzi on balcony, Bose soundsystem DAILY NEWSPAPER: The Straits Times, International Herald Tribune TV CHANNELS: 24 VIEW: 4/5 RATE: from $700
consume
aLBuM
BOOK
The NexT Day David Bowie
It’s been a decade since the idiosyncratic frontman last released a new album, so the announcement of The Next Day comes as a big surprise. Choosing to team up with old cohort Tony Visconti – who previously worked on albums Space Oddity, Low and Scary Monsters – is less a of surprise, as Bowie has promised a more classic sound to the album. If his lead single Where Are We Now? is anything to go by, we can expect good things.
The Thief Fuminori Nakamura
Despite being big in Japan, the award-winning author Fuminori Nakamura is largely unheard of in the West. With plans to crack the rest of the world, his publishers have devised a plan to translate his novel The Thief into English. Told from the perspective of a pickpocket, the seasoned criminal weaves in and out of busy Tokyo crowds, stealing wallets so smoothly he sometimes doesn’t even remember doing it. Nakamura’s prose is so competent that his work has been compared to literary giants such as Ernest Hemingway.
FILM
emperor
American and Japanese cultures couldn’t be more different, and the bridging of these differences is the crux of Peter Webber’s latest film, Emperor. Set in the aftermath of the Second World War, the Allied forces have taken control of Japan – a country in ruin. Under the orders of the de facto ruler, General Douglas MacArthur (played by a commanding Tommy Lee Jones), an investigation is launched to decide whether former Japanese leader Emperor Hirohito should be tried and hung as a war criminal following the 1941 attacks on Pearl Harbor.
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our man in
Northern Lights Former The Charlatans frontman, Tim Burgess, takes Geoff Brokate on a tour of his favourite Manchester haunts
wall of sound / Afflecks, a Manchester institution
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he room was full and there was a buzz about the night’s DJ, Tim Burgess. I arrived with a sense of expectation. It was easy to spot the celebrity in the room, over in the corner hiding behind a mop of blonde hair. Although looking every inch the indie icon that he is, Tim has a quiet and unassuming presence that is able to hold the
attention of the crowd. At the age of 23, Tim Burgess, self-confessed ‘street kid,’ went international with the success of his band, The Charlatans. This was 1990 at the height of the ‘Madchester’ music scene, and Tim was in the middle of one of the world’s most dynamic music periods. In the late 1980s and early 1990s Manchester was home to bands such as Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths and Stone Roses, which exploded onto the music scene at a time when formulaic pop music, care of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, was clogging up the charts. Throughout the night hordes of people would come and
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say hello as Tim gave his time to friends and strangers alike. He told me his outlook “is based on being decent to other people, working hard and making sure there is time to stop and take it all in.” Tim was born in Salford, just a stone’s throw from Manchester, and was brought up in Cheshire. “When I was a kid, Manchester was always spoken about, in terms of music, with great reverence… I realised some of the best bands in the world were from there.” states Tim, still with a hint of respect for his musical heritage. Now more than 20 years on he is still as fresh-faced as ever.
But his fame reaches beyond the world of music. As well as owning recording studios and record labels, he has become a big hit on Twitter and is making forays into the coffee business, writing and charity work. The Northern Quarter, which Tim describes as Manchester’s equivalent to Greenwich Village in New York, or Soho in London, is thriving with quirky shops, boutique bars and eateries. It’s also home to Tim’s favourite record shops, Vinyl Exchange and Piccadilly Records, which he rarely passes without going in. We visit Afflecks Palace, a shop Tim labels as a rite of passage for young music fans. It’s full of young hipsters looking for a bargain. It’s like an indoor version of London’s infamous Camden Market, and homage to everything indie and alternative. Although Tim spent 12 years living in LA, and is now based in London, Manchester is still home for him, and he returns on a regular basis to record, perform live gigs, and to DJ. “It’s a kind of an ever-changing place that retains the same values. Manchester’s like an old friend. Its appearance changes but underneath it’s still the same.” Tim likes the popular no-frills Eight Day Café, where we enjoy some hearty organic vegetarian food. It’s on Oxford Road in Manchester’s student area, which
scoff / Soup Kitchen provides a variety of homely food
is home to yet more bars and, to realise he was discussing according to Tim, some of the project ideas and album covers city’s best live music venues. One with the scene’s biggest names. reason that Manchester produces It brought it home that he was so much great music is because of involved in one of the UK’s biggest its profusion of venues. “There are music movements. “Just the term loads of really enthusiastic people ‘Madchester’ is enough to send a putting on events every night shiver down the spine of lots of of the week. A band can go from its first gig to a stadium without leaving the city.” Teacup is a great In honour of this month’s Dubai literature coffee shop that’s perfect for late-afternoon people festival we scour Twitter for some of the watching. It has a huge world’s most beautiful bookshops array of cakes and a bewildering selection The Bookworm The last of teas. When asked Bookshop, library, Bookstore to tell a story from the bar, restaurant and We’re The Last ‘Madchester’ period, much more. Join us Bookstore, a used Tim becomes animated for book talks, live and new bookstore and tells us of the time music, networking in Downtown LA. he began to realise that events and the best Come visit us. he was actually a part of selection of books Browse. Maybe it, not just an observer. in Beijing even buy a book. It was one night in the @BeijingBookworm @lastbookstorela infamous Haçienda club, and he looked around shakespeare
TWITTER PITCH
and company
class acT / Legendary record shop Piccadilly Records
Shakespeare and Company opened in August 1951 and since then has grown from a bookstore into an institution in the heart of Paris. @Shakespeare_Co
10 corso como
The official Twitter feed of Milan’s 10 Corso Como. A bookshop dedicated to art, fashion and design. @10CorsoComo
livraria da Vila
Open 26 years ago, Livraria da Vila reigns as one of the most charming and beautiful bookshops in Sao Paulo. @livrariadavila
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norThern lighTs/ The Northern and Teacup are just two of the myriad attractions on offer in the city
people who were there at the time. What was it they used to say about the 1960s? If you remember it, you mustn’t have been there.” It’s at night that the Northern Quarter becomes the city’s meeting point. Scenesters, football fans, business types and even a few Madchester diehards come together to indulge in eating, drinking and communal sing-alongs, all with the musical backing of some of Manchester’s most popular exports. In The Northern we find that the spirit of Madchester is very much alive. The walls are adorned with photographs of Manchester’s iconic musicians and the soundtrack is pure Madchester. Although Manchester’s musical heyday has passed, Tim says that it’s still a great place to come and hear live music, and you might be lucky enough to catch a band before it makes it big. We swung by one of Tim’s favourite places, The Soup Kitchen, to see live music by up and coming bands. It’s a canteen-style place with communal long tables. It’s packed full of people tucking into the soup and other simple fare on offer.
available in a selection of cafes The Castle Hotel on Oldham and festivals around the UK. Street is another of Tim’s live Talk turns to another of music tips. The Castle has Manchester’s successful exports a traditional style, and the and popular pub topics: football. friendliness of the staff and A big fan of Manchester United, customers give me the feeling that Tim is impressed with Alex I’ve just entered my local pub. Ferguson. Tim feels that although With the recent release of not Mancunican his second solo by birth, ‘Sir album Oh No I Love You, and Alex’ best sums At night the his ever-growing up Manchester northern coffee blend, “because he came quArter is Tim Peaks, Tim from outside and explains that fitted in so well. the meeting he isn’t afraid It’s a welcoming point for of life and its place to the right responsibilities: people. There’s scenesters, “there’s no better nobody more polite, footbAll way of learning but he has a core of than failing, steel and gets the fAns And so everything job done. He never businessmen counts.” knows when to call Excited about it a day. These are having his own very Mancunian brand of coffee, qualities.” Tim laughs The charming saying that it started as a virtual northern hospitality and coffee shop on his Twitter page. It entertainment were endless. By then caused a stir in the world of the end of the night, I acquired social media by actually becoming a few Mancunian qualities of a national brand. The proceeds my own as I enjoyed the party of his new venture are going to atmosphere without quite charity, and Tim Peaks coffee is knowing when to call it a day.
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BLD
schilo van coevorden, executive chef at the Conservatorium hotel in Museumplein, shares his favourite places to eat in Amsterdam B
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Just off the Vondelpark, you’ll find De Joffers. It’s a fairly traditional café that opens early, serving all the usual breakfast staples like toasties, eggs, teas and coffees. I always have a cheese and ham toastie, a glass of fresh orange juice and a hot chocolate, as I don’t drink coffee. There are people there before work, some are having early meetings while, it being Oud Zuid (the Old South area of the city), there are also plenty of well-off people who don’t need to work at all. There’s a real village feel and it’s great for relaxing with the day’s newspaper.
At weekends, my wife and I will sometimes treat ourselves to a shopping trip at the Bijenkorf [Amsterdam’s biggest department store] followed by lunch in the small streets nearby, which is where you’ll find the city’s best Asian restaurants. The place we head to most often is called Oriental City – it’s basic and pretty cheap, but it serves up the best dim sum you’ll find in Amsterdam. The fact that the restaurant is always packed with Chinese people says it all, but a few locals are starting to discover it, too. I love Asian cuisine and tell any tourist visiting Amsterdam to try an Indonesian restaurant – Indonesia was a Dutch colony, and you can eat better Indonesian in Amsterdam than in Bali.
Brasserie De Joffers Willemsparkweg 163, 1071 GZ Amsterdam Tel: +31 20 6730360 brasseriedejoffers.nl
Oriental City Oudezijds Voorburgwal 177-179, 1012 EV Amsterdam Tel: +31 20 626 8352 oriental-city.nl
Breakfast
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Dinner &samhoud places is in the new docks area of the city, next to Central Station, but is a really special venue. Downstairs, there is a lounge bar serving tapas-style food, while upstairs is a two Michelin-starred restaurant. It’s modern, with a big open kitchen, but the food is inventive and superb. I love the tomato burger, but chef Moshik also does a great three-ways langoustine dish, as well as fantastic things like mushrooms that taste of chocolate. Really innovative stuff. As chefs, we have access to excellent products – the Netherlands is the world’s biggest exporter of fresh vegetables – and that produce is really showcased at restaurants like this. &samhoud places Oosterdokskade 5, 1011 AD Amsterdam Tel: +31 20 2602094 samhoudplaces.com
WOrDs By MATT WArnOCk
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Shanghai Shanghai is a city of superlatives: the most populous city in China and the most populous city proper in the world; it also has the busiest container port on the planet and is China’s financial and cultural power house. Its skyline is as iconic as its food, and with a distinct European influence, it’s one of Asia’s most fascinating cities. www.Hg2.com
HOTELS
RESTAURANTS
BARS / CLUBS
GALLERIES
01. Pudong Shangri-La Hotel 02. JIA Hotel 03. Waterhouse Hotel 04. URBN Hotel
05. Lost Heaven 06. M on the Bund 07. Charmant 08. Din Tai Fung
09. Cotton’s 10. YY’s 11. Boxing Cat Brewery 12. Bar Rouge
13. Urban Planning Exhibition Hall 14. Shanghai Art Museum 15. Municipal History Museum 16. Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)
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HOTELS 01 Pudong Shangri-La Hotel Set among the forest of skyscrapers that make up the Lujiazui financial district, Pudong ShangriLa forms an integral part of the modern Shanghai skyline. The rooms here are elegant and spacious with opulent marble bathrooms and expansive Bund views.
CItySCAPe / Baidu Bridge and the spectacular Shanghai skyline
rESTauranTS 05 Lost Heaven It’s not easy to find authentic, and delicious, flavours from the Yunnan Province outside of its borders, but at Lost Heaven they only serve the real deal. Tastefully decorated with rich, dark wood and gold accents, this is a popular spot for romantic dinners.
02 JIA Hotel With its gorgeous art deco exterior and collection of contemporary sculptures, JIA is a haven for art lovers. Its 55 studio rooms are individually decorated, and most have a corner balcony – perfect for appreciating the stunning skyline and watching the sun go down over the city. 03 Waterhouse Hotel Located in a converted industrial building at the Shiliupu wharf, Waterhouse Hotel is a small
06 M on the Bund Treat yourself to dinner overlooking the river at M on the Bund. The menu here features a selection of gourmet European, North African and Australian dishes. At the weekend they serve a decadent brunch with eggs Benedict, blueberry pancakes and cocktails.
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boutique inn with just 19 rooms. Shanghai architecture firm Neri & Hu are responsible for the ‘urban chic’ design, and Gordon Ramsay’s protégé Jason Atherton is the culinary expert behind in-house restaurant Table No.1.
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04 URBN Hotel Located just north of Jing’an Temple on a pretty boutiquelined street, URBN boasts interiors made from 100 per cent recycled and reclaimed materials, and yet does not compromise on style. Guest rooms are chic and minimalist with sunken baths and spacious lounge areas and a champagne and caviar bar are at your disposal.
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07 Charmant Charmant specialises in Taiwanese cuisine and serves everything from bubble tea and shaved ice desserts to tasty omelettes, stir-fried beef, and cuttlefish balls. The drinks list is equally impressive, running from tapioca-ball tea to exotic juices via beer and Chinese wine. 08 Din tai Fung Serving traditional Shanghainese xiao long bao, or steamed soup dumplings, Din Tai Fung is a bit of a local institution. There are a handful of branches around town, but the restaurant inside the ‘Bottle Opener’ skyscraper tends to be less packed than the others, and comes with some spectacular views.
bars / clubs Cotton’s Cotton’s is one of the classiest places to experience Shanghai’s nightlife. It has everything a good French Concession bar should: a beautiful villa location, crackling log fires in the winter, red velvet furniture, and an outdoor terrace overhung with leafy branches.
11 Boxing Cat Brewery This venue started as a single microbrewery out in the western suburbs, but now boasts several locations downtown – our favourite being the Fuxing Xi Lu branch. The on-site brewing vats churn out seasonal ales including IPAs, pilsners and altbier, while a selection of Southern American food is served from the kitchen.
10 YY’s Despite its convenient French Concession location, Yin Yang (better known as YY’s) still somehow remains wonderfully off the beaten track. This means that you can almost always get a table, sharing the smoky, wood-panelled space with local bohemians, a decrepit piano, and several propaganda posters.
12 Bar rouge Located on the Bund, Bar Rouge features a bewitching meld of Chinese and European design, with elaborate glass chandeliers, luscious velvet furnishings and a spacious terrace looking out onto the neon Shanghai skyline. You’ll pay top dollar for your drinks, but when you see that view, you definitely won’t begrudge it.
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SHAngHAi Art MUSEUM / One of Asia’s best art museums, this is set across five floors
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GallErIEs 13 Urban Planning Exhibition Hall This futuristic white building at the eastern end of People’s Square is one of the most interesting and interactive museums in Shanghai. Telling the story of Shanghai through the ages, there’s a plethora of diverse work on display here, including archive photographs, models and simulators. 14 Shanghai Art Museum Well known for its striking 1930s marble interior and art deco furnishings, the Shanghai Art Museum exhibits everything from oil paintings to pop canvases across five floors and 12 spacious exhibition halls. 15 Municipal History Museum One of Shanghai’s quirkiest exhibition spaces, the Municipal History Museum houses an eclectic mix of wax figures, architectural models and artefacts originating from the Ming and Qing dynasties. Don’t miss the dioramas of the Bund and the Dangui Teahouse – which features a Peking Opera soundtrack. 16 Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Taking residence in the former greenhouse of the People’s Park and showcasing fun, youthful and exuberant displays and installations, MOCA is one of the city’s most popular gallery spaces. Make sure to stop by the third floor café to soak up the greenery of the surrounding park over coffee.
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
SPM A Design For Life DESIGN DAYS DUBAI AIMS TO PROMOTE AESTHETICS IN THE EMIRATES
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hen the flamboyant Frenchman Jean Royère opened his first design studio in the 1930s, it was not in Paris but Alexandria in Egypt. Other branches followed in Beirut, Amman and Tehran, their ornate products all distinguished by his hallmarks of rich, jewellike colours, organic forms and precious materials.
Royère’s lavish style found favour with the Middle Eastern elite and he spent his career designing commissioned pieces for the likes of the Shah of Iran and King Hussein of Jordan. “If you go to the palaces in Tehran, they are fully designed by Royère, from the walls and lights to the chairs, desks and doors,” says Guillaume Cuiry, director of La Galerie Nationale in Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue. He was not the only designer of his time to look eastwards: the famed Swiss architect and designer Le Corbusier was key to the regeneration of newly liberated Chandigarh in India in the 1950s while the late French
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Words by Tahira Yaqoob
designer Charlotte Perriand travelled extensively throughout Japan and Vietnam in the 1940s and 1950s. This month, that long-standing marriage between Eastern tastes and influential Western design is being firmly cemented with Design Days Dubai (DDD), a homage to the best of the world’s design and now in its second year.
Sitting alongside the firmlyestablished Art Dubai fair, it aims to introduce a new audience to the aesthetics of high-end design and its close association with fine art. And rather than being a glorified furniture sale, its director Cyril Zammit says it is a natural extension of the contemporary art fair as the buyers are “people who already collect art and have the potential to invest in design.” “They are all collectible pieces,” he adds. “They still have a functionality but I try to avoid considering them as furniture pieces. “Technically, you could use them in your house but this type of work is becoming increasingly exclusive and is a form of art.” They include, in this year’s eclectic offering, a lamp made from 20,000 hand-painted toothpicks and shipped with great difficulty by the gallery Broached Commissions from Melbourne, Australia; an upended brass Taj Mahal turned into a table, and from Galerie Sofie Lachaert in Belgium, a seemingly delicate paper-thin bowl constructed from real bricks and mortar. Practical they are not – as Zammit says: “You would not want your children playing with them” – but they do aim to present the possibilities of interior design beyond mere function. They also seal Dubai’s ambitions to be regarded as an international hub of design alongside more recognised fairs such as Design Miami/Basel, and Pad in London, Paris and New York. “Design Days Dubai has enabled the city to be ranked among an elite group – London, Paris, Basel, New York and Miami – which host fairs specialising in both art and design,” says Zammit. If its aspirations were not clear enough from that statement, they are embodied in the bold
More than a glorified furniture sale, it’s a natural extension of the art fair, just focusing on design declaration set to hang at the entrance to the fair. Brussel’s Victor Hunt Gallery displayed the work Clock Clock (White) in Miami last year featuring 24 wall clocks programmed to collectively display the time or spell out messages. In the city known for building the biggest, the tallest and the most extravagant, the gallery will be coming in March with the piece – only this time with 260 clocks, to be used as an announcement board at the fair. But if Dubai is to outdo its rivals, it has its work cut out. While Saudis, Kuwaitis and Indians were extravagant spenders last year, few Emiratis bought work and the pieces that sold were largely decorative but, says Zammit: “We had a lot of interest last year from visitors wanting to learn. “It is still quite a premature market and very obvious pieces like mirrors, tables and chairs sold but I think buyers are slowly going toward more abstract pieces.” In terms of scale, Dubai’s offering of 29 largely international galleries, including nine from the
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Middle East, is on a par with the rest of the world. Can it really add value to the city though when so few designers and pieces are from the region and when an interest in design is still nascent? Cuiry says the Middle East holds a special appeal for that very reason: “Europe and America are very jaded. In Paris, they know Royère and Le Corbusier and the first discussion is about the price. “Here they act on a feeling simply because they like the design. Last year I saw the appetite of visitors; they wanted to learn.” Originally based in Paris, he decided to open his Dubai base last year after an influx of customers from Qatar, Kuwait and the Emirates to his French outlet. “For a long time, we have had art collectors coming to our gallery in Europe,” he says. “After some time we realised something was happening in the Middle East.” Perhaps it is because of the historic links with the likes of Royère – Cuiry says “50 per cent of designers in Beirut are close students of his style” – but the burgeoning appreciation of design is starting to take hold regionally. The Majlis Gallery in Dubai, started more than 20 years ago by interior designer Alison Collins, who was enticed by the ambiance of the old district of Bastakiya, is displaying a bronze table shaped like a tree by Damascus-born Mustafa Ali. And while the J&A Gallery’s collection of industrial-style furniture made from reclaimed oddments from central European
this Market is difficult as people are not faMiliar with the aesthetics but the trend for design is growing
factories, hospitals and flea markets gives more than a passing nod to the Bauhaus modernist style – a world away from the UAE’s love of all things bling – its founder decided to open his only outlet in Dubai. Director Sebastian Jaroslawski says: “Our customers come from across the Middle East, India and Russia and Dubai is a hub for the region. “I like the raw aspect of industrial architecture and design and of trying to give older pieces new value. “This is a difficult market because people are not familiar with the aesthetics but there are a number of private villas which have been built in the Bauhaus
Forward thinking / Cyril Zammit prefers to think of the objects on display at the fair as collectibles rather than furniture pieces
style in Jumeirah recently so there is a growing trend for this kind of thing.” For Trevyn McGowan, co-director of Southern Guild gallery from South Africa, it is “a given” that the audience for Dubai’s longer-running contemporary art fair is made up of the same people buying collectible design. “You are reaching the same market. It is symbiotic rather than a hindrance to have both an art and a design fair,” she says. That growing awareness is being nurtured throughout the Emirates. The design fair has invited visitors to be accompanied by experts guiding them on provenance while last September, Dubai Culture and Arts Authority dispatched four Emiratis on a six-month training course in Dubai, London and Barcelona to learn all aspects of design. Meanwhile the American University of Sharjah’s school
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of architecture, art and design has been providing undergraduates with a grounding in product design to “define, enhance and transform the world around them”. Collector Ramin Salsali says design is closely tied in with wellbeing; that creating an aesthetically pleasing environment is more conducive to productivity: “We are surrounded by products with great design, from toothbrushes and mobile phones to computers and cars.” Zammit agrees: “Design is everywhere.” He points to Dubai’s iconic skyline and the diversity of furnishings on sale, priced from $5,000 to half a million dollars, by way of example. “Design not only provides a pragmatic solution,” he says, “it enhances the aesthetic of a city and even acts as a signature.”
Twenty arts spaces
One district
Dubai • Ayyam Gallery Barakat Gallery Carbon 12 Desert Fish Studio El Marsa Gallery Etemad Gallery FN Designs Gallery Isabelle Van Den Eynde Green Art Gallery Grey Noise
Sheikh Zayed Road, Exit 43, Al Quoz 1, Dubai
• Gulf Photo Plus La Gallerie Nationale Lammtara Art Production Lawrie Shabibi Mojo Salsali Private Musuem Satellite Shelter Showcase The Fridge
T: +971 (0) 4 416 1900
alserkalavenue.com
www.abudhabifestival.ae
3 - 31 MARCH 2013
3rd & 4th March `Romeo & Juliet’: Globe Education Shakespeare’s Globe
5th - 31st March 25 Years of Arab Creativity
Abu Dhabi Theatre - Breakwater
The Gallery at Emirates Palace
Emirates Palace Auditorium
20th March Plácido at the Palace
22nd March Joshua Bell & The Czech Philharmonic
23rd March Gilberto Gil: A Taste of Brazil
Emirates Palace Auditorium
Emirates Palace Auditorium
Emirates Palace Auditorium
24th March Piano Passion: YUNDI in Recital
25th March The Rahbani Legacy
26th March Festival Gala with Bryn Terfel & Bechara El Khoury: ‘Poème Orientale’
Emirates Palace Ballroom
Emirates Palace Auditorium
With The Czech Philharmonic Conducted by Eugene Kohn
In partnership with Institut du Monde Arabe Curated by Ehab El Labban
Conducted by Jiří Bĕlohlávek
By Ghadi & Oussama Rahbani
14th & 15th March Mariinsky Ballet: Homage to Fokine
Mariinsky Ballet & Orchestra
Conducted by Jiří Bĕlohlávek Emirates Palace Auditorium
Abu Dhabi Festival Programme Book Now
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place
Imperial War Museum North / Manchester Designed by Daniel libeskind, and opened in 2002, this was the first branch of the museum outside southeast england, it was based on the concept of a globe broken up by conflict into shards and rebuilt. each shard – representing earth, air and water – gives the building its striking shape. the museum houses a number of permanent and temporary exhibitions.
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COLUMN
TALK WARS
David Letterman and Jay Leno have dominated the late-night TV schedules for a generation. So why the animosity? And will they ever retire? Words by Michael Hogan
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t’s hard to imagine now, as they slug it out in the ratings and gossip columns, but Jay Leno and David Letterman were once best friends. In 1975, they met on the Los Angeles stand-up circuit, hit it off
and became firm friends. Letterman admired the confident style with which smooth, lantern-jawed Leno controlled the stage. Leno thought gangly, sarcastic Letterman’s material was stronger and more original. Together they got hired to write 15
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jokes per week for comic Jimmie Walker, who starred in the long-forgotten sitcom Good Times. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that both men started to carve out parallel careers as talk show hosts, both filling in for their idol Johnny Carson on NBC’s The Tonight Show as he started to wind down towards retirement. In 1982, Letterman landed his own vehicle, Late Night With David Letterman. Despite Carson anointing protégé Letterman as his preferred successor, Leno eventually got the big gig. He was seen as more mainstream, a corporate player, a safer pair of hands. Letterman
promptly defected salary around by now, both to rival network $30m apiece, are half man, CBS, changed one but they’re half desk and word of his show’s worth it. title (‘Late Night’ This is partly as addicted became ‘Late because their to the buzz of Show’) and schedprogrammes uled it against make for haa late-night Leno’s. The pair bitual viewing. show as much have been locking Talk shows as the money horns ever since. remain a nightly They’ve both ritual for milhad a hiatus – lions across the Leno handed over States – watched to Conan O’Brien before bed with for a year and Letterman took time a nightcap and a newspaper, or in off for heart surgery – but pick up bed with cocoa and a book. Most a copy of TV Guide today and the Americans are fundamentally schedules look the same as they conservative and resistant to change. did a generation ago, dominated Breakfast news and bedtime chat by the same two icons, behind the bookend their working day and woe same desks, with backdrops of the betide anyone who tries to tinker. same cities. Indeed, talk shows play a much Over the same period, other TV more important role in the US than genres have been turned on their they do anywhere else. They’re head. The influence of HBO and not just about big-name celebrity high-concept series like Lost have interviews, but also take in topical made drama more ambitious and satire, sketches, stunts and spoofs – cinematic. The comedy landscape material that’s spread over multiple has been transformed by The formats in most other countries. Simpsons and deadpan mockuFeeding off the daily news cycle, mentaries. Sports coverage is now they’re cultural arbiters that help set HD and 3D, with countless camera the tone of political debate. angles and high-tech analysis. During presidential campaigns, News now rolls 24/7, served by the both big parties monitor the internet and ‘citizen journalism.’ So late-night shows to gauge how why not talk shows? How have they certain issues and personalities are remained virtually unchanged? playing with the electorate. “The There’s a large element of “if monologues are evidence of when a it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” at play certain story really breaks through,” here. Leno and Letterman dominsaid Chris Lehane, Al Gore’s former ate the late-night market, drawing campaign press secretary during the around four million viewers 2000 election. “If it makes it onto apiece. Younger, edgier rivals like Leno or Letterman, it means someO’Brien, the two Jimmys (Fallon thing.” Surveys show that more than and Kimmel) and Scottish expat a quarter of all adults gain their inCraig Ferguson have devoted cult formation about election campaigns followings but don’t punch nearly from late-night comedy. as hard. The big two mean big It’s here, though, that the big two business. Despite the economic are being challenged and regularly downturn, both earn their netbeaten by satirists Jon Stewart and works close to $200m in advertStephen Colbert – hosts of The Daily Show and its spin-off The ising revenue per year. Leno and Letterman are two of the best-paid Colbert Report respectively. With an issue-driven agenda and ironic stars on TV, earning an annual
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standpoint in the same ballpark as spoof newspaper The Onion, these Comedy Central upstarts are shorter – just 22 minutes plus commercial breaks – and tend to book more worthy, newsy guests. Their adoring audience is young, well educated and politically engaged – but around half the size of the big two’s. Entertainment will always trump ‘infotainment.’ Never underestimate the sheer star power brought by Hollywood A-listers that are the province of Leno and Letterman. Of course, their longevity brings with it accusations of complacency and staleness. Their heyday, arguably, was during the mid-1990s, when Madonna’s potty-mouthed appearance on Letterman became the most censored in history, while Hugh Grant tried to rehabilitate himself after the Divine Brown scandal, only to be met with what’s now one of Leno’s most famous lines: “What the hell were you thinking?” Certainly it was the 1990s when UK chat shows became obsessed with replicating the US model – notably Jonathan Ross, who’s made several stabs at ‘a British Letterman,’ but also Chris Evans, Danny Baker, Frank Skinner and the underrated but influential The Jack Doherty show on Channel 5. However, most UK chat shows these days follow a Parkinson/Wogan template. Graham Norton and Alan Carr perch on chairs next to their guests, with lots of knee-touching – more naughty tea party than late-night lock-in. Back in the US, the big two have signed contracts until the end of 2014, by which time Leno will be 64 and Letterman 67. An hour of live TV five nights per week is a tough gig but don’t bet against either of them extending those deals. By now, they’re half man, half desk and addicted to the buzz as much as the big bucks. They’re still equipped with a team of top writers and a steady stream of starry guests and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
store
Tsutaya Books Words by Mark Buckton / Images by Antony Tran
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aikanyama has been known for many things in postSecond World War Tokyo, not least as the premier hangout of Tokyo’s rich and famous. From the maze of small streets, and winding lanes in the area around the station, lined with neat little cafes, to restaurants serving European or top-of-the-range Japanese dishes, and, according to the locals, some of the finest dining Tokyo has to offer, and this in the city with the most Michelin stars on
the planet, Daikanyama is everything much of the rest of Tokyo is not. Tall buildings are few and far between. Rush hour is more about people crowding the pavements as they walk their chihuahuas midmorning than the rush to work. And whatever time of day it is, the pace is more English country village than the world’s largest metropolis. And, in recent months, arguably the largest sole contributor to this laid-back neighbourhood in the middle of almost 13 million Tokyoites stands Tsutaya Bookstore.
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Part of its parent company CCC’s plans for more than 100 new stores in the coming years, the T-Site space is a bold, innovative move in an industry that is more often in retreat these days. A slow five minute amble – nobody rushes in Daikanyama remember – from the station of the same name on the Tokyu Toyoko Line, the area is just far enough from Shibuya to avoid the crowds of locals and tourists that throng south-west Tokyo’s teenage hotspot. Yet, it is close enough to attract
compelling / Tsutaya’s T-Site branch manages to combine the quirkiness of an independent store with the plush interiors of a five-star hotel
the more affluent, slightly older 20-somethings, women mostly, looking for that something a little more relaxed, classy and upmarket. At T-Site they can tick off all these boxes. A complex named after the Tsutaya video store chain found all over the Tokyo region, T-Site consists of a Starbucks, an upmarket lounge bar and, surrounding these, one of Tokyo’s best bookstores. Occupying the first floor of two of the three buildings in the complex, the Tsutaya Bookstore is the main draw for most, but
rather than the cramped aisles so common in such Japanese stores, the space, floor-to-ceiling windows and airy feel sets this store apart from the competition. The sheer scale of the space is impressive: the ground floor holds 140,000 books and magazines, while the upper level contains more than 80,000 DVDs and 100,000 music CDs. The print selection ranges from the expected (Elle, Condé Nast Traveller) to the unexpected: outof-print Japanese magazines, firstedition cult novels and European
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independent magazines. What really sets Tsutaya apart is the extras – you can book flights or hotels from the travel book section; if you can’t find a DVD you want, staff will burn a movie of your choice in under 30 minutes. Japanese scrolls decorate a number of cubby holes in the walls – in the cursive Chinese script used on these islands for two thousand years. Ceramics produced by local artists stand ready to be inspected or just to sit quietly in the background on other shelves.
The staff dress like concierges in a five-star hotel, and the ambience is less ‘musty bookshop’ and more high-end members’ club. They carry iPads and can make knowledgeable recommendations, a fact many Western bookstores would do well to note. The centrepiece of the store is Anjin – a café and bar – which looks more like a high-end lounge than a bookshop pit stop. Oversized couches and a grand piano complement a huge archive of magazines on iPads. Wait-staff dressed in black aprons and waistcoats over high-
collared white shirts approach with iPads, from which customers can select a range of teas, coffees as well as a large array of spirits. The café, like the rest of the store, is open until 2am every night – the late closing a reflection of the site’s ambitions to be a social hub as much as a retail one. While many question the ambition of such a store, particularly in the current climate, it’s hard not to be impressed with the scope of what has been achieved here. Tsutaya’s parent company, CCC, founded and run by 60-year-old
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Muneaki Masuda, has operated retail outlets ever since Masuda’s first store – a video-rental store – opened in Osaka in 1983. In a recent interview with Monocle, Masuda claimed that profit was not the only motivation behind the site: “The reason for the shop is to give knowledge workers a place to gather,” he said. “People ask me about profits. But you don’t know about profits, if you are doing something that nobody has done before.” That contrarian attitude is reflected in how he chose the books. He deliberately eschewed best-seller lists and instead asked authors to name their favourite titles. The resulting selection does have an independent feel, and it’s this sense of quirkiness alongside the shop’s polished interiors that makes the site so compelling. Lovers of print will hope that this originality will translate into profit, and, eventually, more such stores throughout the country.
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Main 72 politics
How Nate Silver became the most respected man in US politics
82 travel
An epic road trip across the West Coast of Africa
90 Food
We discover how the modern restaurant trade is changing
Into the West Three Swedes rediscover America’s beautiful heart
(p100)
PROFILE
THE SMARTEST MAN IN ? AMERICA How a 34-year-old geek changed American politics forever by noah davis
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arl Rove was apoplectic. He couldn’t understand what was happening. Well, he could, but the Republican political strategist-turned-talking head did not want to accept the facts. He refused to believe the numbers. Fox News, the conservative television network where he worked, had just called the state of Ohio for President Barack Obama. It it were true the incumbent would spend another term in the White House. But Rove had polls showing that the election was much closer, showing that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney would prevail. Fox News’ people disagreed. And so, on the night of November 6, Rove found himself melting down on national television, while the country watched with a mix of horror, amusement, disgust, and anger. He, of course, was wrong in his assumptions. There was one thing Rove and his overly confident Republican cohort did not take into account: statistics. By the end of the election cycle, one man would embody all that nearly drove Rove around the bend. If there was a single winner of November 2012’s presidential election in the United States, it was Obama, who won four more years after a gruelling campaign against Mitt Romney. But if there was a second winner, it was a then-34 year old who grew up in Michigan and followed an unusual path to fame and fortune. Nate Silver, the man and the brain behind the election prediction website FiveThirtyEight, used numbers to make his mark on one of the most important political contests in America’s history. His algorithm successfully called the result of the tightly contested campaign, an occurrence that elevated Silver to a rarified height in the national consciousness. On November 7, Obama woke up as President-elect, ready for a second term, while Silver, who probably didn’t sleep on Election Night, found himself with a higher
Go TiGers / Nate Silver’s love of baseball, and the Detroit Tigers, translated into his first statistical prediction model
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profile than he ever could have imagined when he started posting his statistics-related thoughts on a left-leaning website in late 2007. But Silver’s rise into the political stratosphere normally reserved for politicians-turned-television windbags or journalists who write for The New York Times, The New Yorker, and other respected publications did something else as well. By proving the doubters wrong, by showing that intelligent formulas and smart algorithms could see facts as they were, not facts that were tinged with bias, Silver delivered a decisive uppercut in the ongoing battle between maths and political punditry. The nerd became the king, showing the United States and the wider world that what we think we knew isn’t always true. It’s a difficult lesson to learn, but one that is vital in our complex times. Nate Silver did not originally learn statistics to solve the problem of political polls. Initially, he had a simpler need: to win his fantasy baseball league. After gradating from the University of Chicago with a degree in economics, the son of the political science department chair at Michigan State University took a job with the consulting firm KPMG. But Silver, a baseball fan since his youth, found the gig dull and he needed another outlet. He started fiddling with a system that would come to be called Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm, or PECOTA after Bill Pecota, a journeyman infielder who spent time with the Detroit Tigers team for which Silver supported. The goal of his creation was to use past performance on the field to predict future results. Baseball, a sport that is obsessed with statistics, offered mountains of data. Silver simply needed to develop a workable model that would make sense of the variables. He spent years refining the formula, eventually quitting KPMG to play online poker where he made $400,000 in
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three years, according to Sports Illustrated. In 2003, Baseball Prospectus purchased PECOTA and hired Silver to manage the company’s projections. Numbers were paying off. Fantasy baseball, in which people ‘draft’ players from different teams to create their own club and then play other managers in their league, was exploding in popularity. Baseball fans, long rooted in traditions such as the value of batting average and earned run average, were beginning to understand the importance of new statistics, highlighted in Michael Lewis’ bestseller, Moneyball. Silver, PECOTA, and Baseball Prospectus came along at the perfect time, serving as a place where fans and fantasy players on the cutting edge could pay for advance information. Hundreds of thousands
Karl Rove found himself melting down on national TV, while the country looked in horror, disgust and amusement. The statistics had beaten the talking heads did. Life was good as 2003 became 2005, then 2007. But, once again, Silver found himself bored. The 2008 presidential election felt like an extremely important moment in American history. After eight years of George W Bush, the country found itself divided, searching for a new leader. Neither Democratic nor Republican Party had a candidate who was sure to win the nomination. The rise of Twitter, Facebook, and other forms of social media, in addition to the relentless assault of cable news programmes aiming to capture audience share added to the attention the country paid
BiGGesT Loser / Karl Rove’s infamous election night appearance on Fox was a turning point for many pundits to the coming election. Polling firms dramatically increased their output and pundits, desperate for a ‘story’ to tell, used any change in the numbers to enhance their overblown points. On November 1, 2007 – roughly a year before the election – a blogger using the pseudonym ‘Poblano’ started posting detailed breakdowns of the polls on DailyKos, a liberal site. The items discussed the failings of individual polls, the dangers of jumping to conclusions based on limited or faulty information and assumptions, and offered a more informed take on statistics. Poblano slowly gained a following, launching the site FiveThirtyEight in March, 2008 with the tagline ‘Politics Done Right.’ The URL, FiveThirtyEight. com, is a reference to the number of electoral votes in the country. (To win the presidency, a candidate must secure at least 270 electoral
Some argued that politics was about momentum, instinct and feel. Silver argued that is was a numbers game, albeit a very important one
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votes. Each state gets two votes for its senators and another one vote for each representative in the House, determined by the state’s population. (Yes, this is a rather ridiculous process.) As the visibility of the site grew, so did the interest in the real identity of the blogger. Poblano, of course, was none other than PECOTA’s Nate Silver. He was still working for Baseball Prospectus, but he had also turned his attention to making sense of the reams and reams of polling information. He revealed himself during the summer and continued parsing the tight battle between the Democratic candidate, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, and the Republican one, Arizona Senator John McCain. Each day, Silver’s algorithm updated the state of the race. The formula took the polls and other factors into account, to determine the probability of a candidate winning their state,
thus earning its electoral votes. Silver’s computer ran thousands of projections and determined the most likely scenarios. As with the baseball world half a decade earlier, some people in the political realm weren’t ready to hear what Silver was telling them. Politics, they argued, was about feel, momentum, and instinct. The statistician, on the other hand, believed it was a game – after all, what is politics but an important game? – in which truths could be revealed through numbers and facts. Long held beliefs might be false, or at least incomplete. In Silver’s view, all that mattered was the algorithm. The ultimate test of the theory came on November 4, 2008, the day of the election. Silver’s formula predicted a landslide for Obama. The country went to cast their votes, then turned their attention to the television where pundits yelled, screamed, and pontificated. The numbers started rolling in. The result was a landslide. Silver correctly predicted the winner of 49 out of the 50 states, missing Indiana by a single percentage point. He also nailed the victor in all 35 senatorial races. Silver, the
The 2008 election results made Nate Silver a star, as he correctly predicted the winner of 49 out of the 50 states. Statistics went mainstream
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nerd king of baseball, added a political crown to his mantle. The gradual stream of people discovering FiveThirtyEight turned into a torrent during the final days of the election and immediately afterwards. The accolades followed as well. Silver spoke at a TED conference in 2009, attempting to explain the presence of racism in voting patterns. He served as the keynote speaker of South by Southwest Interactive, one of the most influential tech gatherings in the United States. He signed a book deal, wrote a monthly column about data(!) for Esquire, and played in the World Series of Poker. Time named Silver one of the The World’s 100 Most Influential People. “The point is not how precisely he calls the results but that after reading his analysis, you actually know something you didn’t know when you started. “In a world choking on retreaded arguments long worn bald of the facts, this type of analysis has proved to be stunningly — and reassuringly — popular,” is how Bill James, the father of advanced baseball stats and a man whose life work Silver built upon with PECOTA, wrote about his disciple in the issue. FiveThirtyEight lost a bit of relevance after the presidential election but still found ways to influence the conversation. Silver and his team of colleagues focused on the mid-term elections in 2010, but also injected a little bit of whimsy into the site. In April 2010, Silver published an epic post titled Double Down by the Numbers: Unhealthiest Sandwich Ever? in which he used data and numbers to determine if Kentucky Friend Chicken’s newest offering – bacon, cheese, and sauce squeezed between two fried chicken buns – was the worst fast food item to eat. The conclusion: “It’s a high bar to clear, but it’s the closest thing to pure junk food of any ‘sandwich’ being marketed today.”
The combination of intelligent analysis, approachable number-crunching, success, and occasional levity kept Silver’s blog moving along, and The New York Times came calling. During the summer of 2010, he signed a three-year deal with the publication, which would host FiveThirtyEight on its own site. The opportunity gave Silver, who left Baseball Prospectus the year before, more resources and more freedom. He and his team of writers and statisticians kept producing, gearing up what was sure to be a wild and intense 2012 campaign season. But no one could have predicted exactly how crazy things would get, nor how completely Silver and stats would win in the end. The intense coverage of the 2012 election made the glut of information that outlets spewed forth in 2008 look like a cute little endeavour. Media outlets around the country, desperate for advertising dollars, staffed up their political teams in an effort to capture eyeballs and, in turn, revenue. For the entire year before the November event, the election was everywhere. It was, increasingly and inevitably, overwhelming. Through it all, Silver and his FiveThirtyEight team kept writing and refining their algorithms. Somewhere along the way, an interesting thing happened. The statistician’s numbers, which gave the Obama a decided advantage over challenger Mitt Romney, started to diverge from the story news outlets – specifically right-wing ones – were telling. Their reporters found a much closer race than a glance at Silver’s predictions would indicate. Silver found his work assaulted by everyone from Newsweek’s David Frum and Niall Ferguson to MSNBC co-host Joe Scarborough. It was all very dramatic. The attacks, however, also demonstrated a fundamental flaw in the understanding of Silver’s work, which deals with probability, not certainty. A 70 per cent
chance that Obama would win meant exactly that: if the election took place 100 times, he would win in 70 of them. Applying probability to a one-off event, be it a coin flip or a presidential election, can be a difficult concept to explain but the vehemence with which pundits attacked Silver was unfair, more representative of the need to create drama than the importance of telling the story of the campaign. Silver, it seemed, became a proxy for a discussion about the state of the media in the web age. At the same time, he had a great deal riding on the outcome of Tuesday, November 6. In Silver’s model, President Obama’s chances for
Silver found himself and his work attacked by both sides of the political spectrum. He proved them wrong, again, in the 2012 election re-election had risen to almost 91 per cent, despite the fact that the two candidates were basically tied in the polls. Television pundits, Democrat and Republican alike, were apoplectic at this fact. Furthermore, the Michigan native was experiencing unprecedented visibility, with 20 per cent of visitors to The New York Times’ website going to FiveThirtyEight the day before the election. The vote tallies started to roll in on Election Night, and it became increasingly clear that Silver’s methods were superior to the punditry. The election was tight, but in the end it was a rout for Obama and one for Silver as well. His algorithm did even better than it had four years ago, successfully calling the
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result of all 50 states, as well as 31 of the 33 senatorial seats. The sitting President had four more years and maths’ champion had his biggest victory ever. Overnight, Silver transformed from ‘That FiveThirtyEight guy’ to a legitimate celebrity. Someone recognised him on top of the Sun Pyramid at Teotihuacan, a moment he jokingly said was “a sign of the Apocalypse.” He hit the talk show circuit, wearing a Cookie Monster shirt on Conan O’Brien’s late-night show. His book, The Signal and the Noise that was published two months before the election, jumped to No. 1 on The New York Times non-fiction bestseller list. A poker tournament flew him to Australia to participate. It was a good time to be Nate Silver. He also fueled the next trend in journalism: data journalism. Numbers, formulas and algorithms will play an increasingly important role in understanding and explaining the world. Silver helped prove the masses would pay attention. When the 2016 election rolls around, the networks will have their blustery pundits. Those people aren’t going away. But Silver and others like Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium team that also nailed the 2012 outcome, will be on TV, countering the hot air with facts and logic. Political coverage in the United States is better for the efforts of an unassuming baseball fan from Michigan. At his TED talk in 2009, Silver explained to the audience that he spent his days looking for predictability. The reasons: if something is predictable, it’s designable; the only hard part is building the model. That observation has been one of the major keys to his astonishing success. No one, however, could have designed a model that anticipated Silver’s rise. Noah Davis is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York
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TRAVEL
The Roads Between Us
Frank Bures goes on an eye-opening – and hair-raising road trip across Western Africa
E
ngine off!” yelled a policeman standing in front of our car, pointing his machine gun at the driver. “Get out!” It was still dark, long before the sun would come up, and we had just started out from a city in southern Nigeria called Osogbo. The taxi was packed with people heading north, when our driver tried to run through a checkpoint. Before he could make it, one of the policemen jumped in front of us.
The policeman, machine gun now cradled in his arms, came towards the car. “Let me see your particulars,” he yelled at the driver. The driver turned off the engine and got out. Together, they disappeared behind the car, while the rest of us waited. Waiting was something I was used to by then, and time was something I knew I would be spending a lot of on this trip. I was on my way to Abuja, where I would take another car north to Niger. There, I would get to the Trans-
Sahelian Highway, which is one of the few — if not the only — completed legs of the Trans-African Highway network, a system which, in theory, will someday join all parts of the continent, revolutionise travel and trade, and usher in a new era of road-fueled prosperity so great, it is hoped, that human right champion Nicholas Kristof will be out of a job. It is one of many such schemes for improving Africa’s notorious roads, which take countless lives in accidents every year. The carnage costs countries around 2 per cent
road rules / A broken windshield is just one of the hazards of an African road trip of their GDP, while the delays, paperwork and the rest end up costing much more. So I wanted to travel across one of these new roads to see where it might be taking the continent, and how it might change things for better or worse. In the dark the other policemen at the checkpoint milled around, while we all waited patiently, in silence. There was no gunshot. After a while, the driver reappeared, opened his door, got in, and turned the engine on. The policeman waved us through, and we drove on. Some days later, I was crammed into an impossibly small space in a minivan in Niger. There were some 25 other people who had embarked on a 13-hour journey across the empty, austere landscape to the capital Niamey. I stared out the window at a country that felt a little
I was crammed into a minivan in Niger, facing a 13-hour journey across the empty, austere niger landscape, wondering if I would have the full use of my extremities when I got there 84
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like a game park with no game, like Tatooine with trees. The two-lane road was freshly tarmacked in some places, with bright painted lines. It should have been fast, but we hit check points and speed bumps so often that so we couldn’t go much faster than the camels that once traveled this route. All I could really focus on, however, was whether I’d have the full use of my lower extremities when we got there. My feet tingled, and it was impossible to turn my body any way other than to look out the window, So I sat and tried to will the feeling into my toes. I remembered the words of Shiva Naipaul. “I sit absolutely still,” Naipaul wrote about being on a bus in Kenya in North of South, “trying to work myself into the trancelike state of mind which, I have discovered, is the sine qua non of long-distance
journeys in this part of the world. It is a state of mind that combines fatalism, self-surrender and a steely determination to maintain one’s toehold of possession.” I tried every manoeuvre to get the blood back into my toes, but it just resulted in a different parts losing circulation. So I tried to forget about it and conjure up that trance-like state. I stared ahead at the road, at the trees, at the far-off horizon. But just as I thought I might achieve it, the driver slowed for a checkpoint and a wash of clear yellow liquid ran down the windshield, and I remembered seeing two goats being strapped up there before we left. I remembered thinking PETA would not be pleased. I also remembered thinking: glad that’s not me. Now, however, I wasn’t sure who had the worse seat. Further down the road, somewhere in Burkina Faso, we pulled over to pick up some passengers. As the minivan slowed, a thin white stream of smoke started to pour out of the dashboard — just a trickle first, then in billows. The driver pointed to the smoke, mumbled something and jumped out. “Get out! Get out!” yelled the man next to me. I jumped out. We stood by the side of the road waiting for the smoke to clear. The man’s name was James. He was small and wore oversized glasses that made him look like a miniature version of MC Hammer, circa 1987. James was on his way home
He was small and wore oversized glasses that made him look like a miniature MC Hammer, circa 1987. His name was James
from Niger to Ghana, where he planned to sell the cow hides he’d bought. He spoke both English and French, and was one of the few people I’d met who traveled fluidly between Francophone and Anglophone West Africa, which were regarded by many as alien worlds. When the smoke cleared, the new passengers’ bags were thrown on top, and the driver motioned for us to get back in. “This road,” James said to me in a conspiratorial tone as we drove on, “used to be full of armed robbers. Now the army patrols it. But the road from Ouaga to Mali is still very dangerous. Many armed rob-
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bers! Don’t take small cars. Take the big moto. In small cars sometimes the driver is on the inside, if you catch my meaning.” He cast a suspicious glance at our driver. “I catch it,” I said. “Do you like business?” he asked. “Yes,” I said. “I like business.” “I love doing business. Any kind of business. I am a businessman. There is only one kind I can’t do, and that is killing people. But any other business, I can do it! There was one business I was doing, and I was arrested twice in Cape Verde. I spent one year in jail there.” “What business was that?”
land route / Bures’ trip took him from the centre of Nigeria to Dakar in Senegal on the coast
“That business was illegal.” “The money must have been good,” I ventured. “Yes,” he said, and smiled at the memory of how good it was. “But I don’t do that business any more, because I don’t have contacts. But if I got contacts again, I would just go do it. Because, you know, there is no easy way in Africa.” The road was a long one. I switched in and out of vans. I rode all day, then crashed in whatever town we stopped in. I didn’t really see many sites, but I saw a lot of life, and of characters like James. I had strangers buy my meals in Niger. I got swindled in Mali. I slept on the ground in bus parks, and on the bus, and in hotels where I’m pretty sure I was the only guest. I ate, oddly, just about every permutation of the baguette, a most welcome and delicious legacy of the French. By the time I reached the border in Senegal, I was starting to know the ropes. One things I’d learned is that it’s not a good sign when the bus won’t start, which is what happened just as we were about to enter the country. “All the men! Outside!” yelled the driver. There were many men — and women — on the bus from across the region: Aliwaliou, a thin trader from Guinea with stomach problems; Omar, a soft-spoken teacher from Ivory Coast; Yousof, an eager businessman from Timbuktu; Kennie, a loud, friendly Nigerian on her way to anywhere but Nigeria.
We climbed down, walked around behind the bus, and started pushing. Omar was standing next to me. He smiled. “Now you are an African!” he said and laughed. We pushed. The bus inched forward. The driver popped the clutch, and the engine roared. The horn blared and we all ran around and jumped on. We crossed a wide river and droved on toward Senegal, where we stopped at the customs office. But as I listened to the driver talk to the officer, I could tell there was a problem. I could hear words like “border” and “closed” and “tomorrow,” none of which seemed like good words to hear. Everyone headed back to the bus. “Why can’t we cross?” I asked Aliwaliou. “There is an election,” he said, “so they have closed the border. We must wait until tomorrow.” “So what can we do?” “Nothing,” he said, and shrugged. “We wait.”
We drove back to Mali and stopped in a parking lot just off the main road. It was surrounded by low, one-room brick houses, shops and food stands. I sat down with Kennie, who spoke hardly a word of French, but who was having a fantastic time laughing with two women who spoke no English. “You know,” I said, “the bus isn’t leaving today.” “Yes,” she said. “They say there is no way. The roads are closed. But it’s okay, because like this, I am making friends. We are family now. The road is closed, but the road between people is open.” The Nigerians appeared at dawn — six of them. They were young men, in their early 20s. They stood in the road as if they owned it. One of them was singing — something hiphop, something Nigerian. We’d all risen early after a long night on the Malian side of the border, spent lying on thin reed mats laid over rocky dirt. At 7am
The passengers were mainly men and they were from all over, from Ivory Coast, Timbuktu, Guinea and Nigeria
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the bus lumbered out onto the road and stopped. The driver blasted the horn, then started rolling again. Everyone started running for it, so I ran too. This time, we raced through customs, then drove to the Senegalese immigration section. Just before we got there, the Nigerians got up, leaped off bus and disappeared into the crowd. At the immigration office, we handed over our passports. “Is this everyone?” the officer asked, looking around suspiciously. We all looked around too, as if we didn’t know what he was talking about. He went back to his office. Names were called. Passports were retrieved. We drove back the way we’d come, and just before we reached the highway, I saw the Nigerians running at top speed. One by one they jumped back on the bus. But just as the last one got on, a policeman on a motorcycle raced around from behind and pulled us over. Four of them jumped off and ran away. Two others stayed to plead their case. The rage inside the bus was palpable. Everyone started yelling, and it felt as if the crowd was on the edge of becoming a mob. “Nigeria is the worst country in Africa,” Omar said.
The concrete road had disintegrated into a million tiny rock pillars. Sometimes the bus shook so much I could barely see One of the Nigerians looked at me. “Can you translate?” he said. “Can you tell them we paid the driver, and he has our passports?” Yousuf came onto the bus and sat next to me. “Nigerians are very dangerous!” he said. “Very dangerous!” Another Nigerian came over. “What is wrong with these people?” he asked me. “Tell them they are just making things worse.” One by one, the Nigerians came back to the bus. There was more
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yelling, more vitriol. The Nigerians made some phone calls, and after two more hours of haggling, the fees seemed to have been paid. The policeman got on his motorcycle and drove off, and so did we. A silence descended as we headed into Senegal. We wound around through low hills on a good road before it straightened out and turned very, very bad. The concrete had disintegrated into a million tiny rock pillars. Sometimes the bus shook so much I could barely see. When we stopped for lunch, one of the Nigerians bought me an orange soda. They were nice kids once I got to talk to them, glad to get out of Lagos, all heading to Cape Verde and maybe beyond. Basically, they wanted what everyone on the bus wanted: to reach the promises at the other end. The bus drove all night, and it was late when I drifted off. Around 4am we stopped to drop off some people. Far ahead, I could see the lights of Dakar. I waited for us to move on, but nothing happened. “All the men!” the driver shouted. “All the men outside... and the boys!” We got out and went around to the back of the bus. Cars whizzed by us on the freeway. We pushed. The bus crawled forward. The driver let out the clutch once, twice, then three times. We kept pushing. On the fourth try the engine caught. The driver revved the motor. A loud cheer went up, and the horn blared in the night. Then we rolled on, at last, to wherever each of our roads would take us. Frank Bures is an award-winning writer who lives in the US
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CULTURE
The Rise Of The Restaurateur
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Is the era of the super chef over? Nick Lander argues that the chef is headed back to the kitchen and the restaurateur is about to take the spotlight
Short lived / elBulli, in Catalonia, was the poster boy for molecular gastronomy before it closed in 2011
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M
y love affair with restaurants began in 1980 when, aged 28, highly optimistic and equally naïve, I took on the 25-year lease of a five-storey building in London’s Soho. This, since 1926, had been home to L’Escargot Bienvenu and had become one of the city’s best loved French restaurants. I renovated it. I shortened its name to L’Escargot. And nine months later, scarred but unbowed, I re-opened it with a brasserie on the ground floor and three rooms of restaurant on the first and second floors. Our menus were short and seasonal, written entirely in English, a most unusual distinction in those days when French was the lingua franca of the restaurant world, and our wine list featured the best from all over the world at prices that today seem incredibly low. It was my professional home until ill health forced me to sell it in 1988. In 1989 I swapped sides of the professional divide when I became the restaurant correspondent of the Financial Times. Since then I have witnessed several remarkable
changes in this fascinating business. There has been the fall of France from its seemingly inviolate culinary pedestal. There has been the emergence of extraordinarily talented chefs from Australia, Denmark, Portugal, Spain and the US. There has been the rise and, it seems, now gradual decline of interest in molecular gastronomy, as well as the insatiable fascination of the media with life behind the kitchen door which has led to the emergence of so many celebrity chefs. And, perhaps most satisfactorily for any
the ‘super chef’ may now be over, and that the role of the restaurateur may finally be restored to the importance it once held. The era when restaurant goers wanted above all to be dazzled by the food put in front of them, cooked by such chefs as Ferran Adria, Heston Blumenthal and Grant Achatz, may finally be drawing to a close. What customers now want, above all else, is good food and good wine, and to be considerately and sensitively looked after – and it is the delivery of these three ele-
The era when restaurant goers wanted above all to be dazzled by the food put in front of them is drawing to a close. What customers now want is to be looked after restaurant industry observer, there has been the growing confidence of so many restaurant goers. As we continue to learn and to demand more, standards will only rise. But one other major current change is even closer to my heart, and it is that change which prompted me to write my most recent book, The Art of The Restaurateur. I firmly believe that the days of
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ments that propels every restaurateur to put in a long and hard day and night’s work, often seven days a week. This shift in what their customers are looking for takes the restaurateur’s profession back to its origins in Paris in the mid 18th century. This, in turn, explains why, to the surprise of many, there is no n in the word restaurateur.
10 eSSeNtiAl QUAlitieS For A reStAUrAteUr /
• A Good SeNSe oF humour, the sine qua non. So much can go wrong and customers can be so unpredictable that this is the bedrock on which restaurants built. • A love oF Food, wine and one’s fellow human beings. • hAve A NoSe For the right location. I don’t believe that it is location, location, location, but if you can pick an inexpensive site on its way up the concomitant cheap lease can allow you to open slightly under the market and will go some way to cushioning your many early mistakes.
Restaurants first emerged in Paris at a time when the city’s wealthier classes began to believe that there was a strong connection between good food and good health. The most immediate, and refined, dish at that time was known as a ‘restaurant’, a clear and nourishing court bouillon, or soup, and those who began to make a living from serving it became known as ‘restaurateurs’, those who restored their customers to good health. Paris remained the centre of the profession for many decades until the French began to teach the rest of the world how to open restaurants and to take care of their customers’ appetites and general well being. But wherever they went the set-up was always the same: the restaurateurs were the only ones known to their customers or the wider public, while the chefs stayed firmly behind the kitchen door. That situation changed in the 1970s as ‘la nouvelle cuisine’ spread. The publicity which this new style of lighter cooking attracted, also associated with considerably smaller portions, saw the emergence of chefs such as Paul Bocuse, Roger Verget, Jacques Lameloise and Alain Chapel. And as their fame grew, that of the restaurateur began to wane. The late JeanClaude Vrinat was the last restaurateur (as opposed to chef ) in France to hold the maximum three Michelin stars for his restaurant, Taillevent, in Paris, but he and his restaurant were demoted to two stars the year before his untimely death in 2008. There are, I believe, a number of diverse reasons behind the return of the restaurateur. The first is the economics that lie behind these top restaurants. It was late one night in 2010 in the bar of the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo over a large gin and tonic that Feran Adria – the chef behind the now closed world-famous restaurant El Bulli – gave me an insight into this world. The financial crisis was already under way and although the euro crisis was yet to begin, Adria was already fearful for his fellow chefs. “What no-one really appreciates,” he explained, “is
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OpeN skIes / maRch 2013
trAil BlAZer / Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck and its pub ‘spin offs’ is a model that has been repeated
The restaurateurs were the only ones known to their customers, while the chefs stayed firmly behind the kitchen door that running such a small, albeit highly expensive restaurant like El Bulli is like financing a Formula One racing team, or being the owner of a haute couture label. They are so labour intensive they can never make a profit. They are truly a labour of love.” But what can make up for this lack of profitability is all the associated revenue streams a loss making, but internationally renowned, restaurant can attract. In El Bulli’s case it was via best-selling books and close associations with a beer producer and a hotel chain. For Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck in Bray, the maxim that in restaurants the overall profitability is in inverse propor-
tion to the quality of the food that is served, is borne out by his two highly popular pubs, The Hind’s Head and The Crown, both in the same picturesque village. The number of customers these will attract, and the profits generated, will far outstrip his initial restaurant. And all of these will be enhanced by his subsequent links with Waitrose and Channel 4 TV. But these restaurants emerged in a different, and seemingly more certain world, one that also affected our response to what these chefs put on the plate. At that time, shocks and surprises, variations, often complete re-interpretations or ‘deconstructions’ in menu speak, of dishes we had longed held dear seemed wonderfully exciting, original and witty. And often, but not always, they tasted good, too. And, however they tasted, they always looked good on the cam-
era, something that always added to their appeal. Today, this is not the case. The front page of every newspaper every day seems to carry enough shocks and surprises. We have reached a point where we no longer want them on the plate. These two significant changes have taken place against the background of an even more important change in the way we live. Since 2008, for the first time in human history, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities rather than in the countryside. And not only are restaurants today an established attraction for any traveller to any city but, as I researched my book, I came to appreciate quite what an extraordinarily important role the most exemplary restaurateurs have played in the renaissance of our inner cities. In New York, Danny Meyer opened up Union Square Café and
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brought this once run-down area back to life, as he did for a second time when he opened Shake Shack in Madison Square Gardens. Drew Nieporent had the same effect on what was 20 years ago the dark, dingy and somewhat dangerous area known as Tribeca. But once the lights went on in his Tribeca Grill, customers followed and the area flourished. This impact has subsequently been repeated across numerous other cities. In London, no-one felt safe walking down Exmouth Market close to the home of Sadlers Wells ballet, but once Mark Sainsbury had displayed that he too possessed that essential combination of youth, courage and naivety in opening Moro in 2002, the whole street came alive. Neil Perry had the same impact when he opened Rockpool down by the Rocks in Sydney. So too did his fearless compatriot and fellow chef, Michelle Garnaut, when she opened her res-
• UNderStANd FiNANCiAl arithmetic, a P & L account, and how important it is to use your cash wisely, i.e. to pay your small and independent suppliers as soon as you can. • iNSPire, leAd FroM the front and communicate. Be there, even if you’re not that competent. An Australian restaurateur summed this up when he said a restaurateur must ‘loiter with intent’.
taurants in Shanghai and Beijing. While many cities have been revived by the achievements of these restaurateurs, another aspect of our rapidly changing lives seems to be ensuring that the skills of the restaurateur will continue to be in demand. Restaurants make up one particular aspect of the retail industry, but they share, with only the health and beauty segment, a great advantage over all the others and that is that their sales are impervious to the internet. While online purchases force the closure of what were once regarded as seemingly impregnable high street names as customers switch to buying on line, this is something that cannot be replicated for restaurants. If you want a pre-theatre drink, lunch or dinner at a new restaurant that has been well reviewed, then the only option is to go out physically to enjoy them. Restaurants cannot be experienced via cyberspace. And as restaurants have come to play a greater role in our lives than ever before, as rents rise and we cook less, despite the growing number of cookery books, the honourable profession of the restaurateur has been boosted by two other developments. The first is that the restaurant business harbours very few secrets. Selling prices on the menu are, by law, on pub-
The front page of every newspaper carries enough shocks and surprises. We have reached a point where we no longer want them on the plate lic display, and there are very few variables in the main cost elements of rent, wages or buying the essential food and drink. It is a business with a distinctly low-cost entry point, however much money may subsequently be spent on the final design. And, as a result of spending so much of their working lives in such a transparent business, restaurateurs are remarkably frank and generous with their advice. What struck me most forcibly in conducting my interviews with these restaurateurs was quite how open and willing they were to talk about their successes and their far more painful failures. And it transpires that even the most seemingly successful restaurateur has had to close at least one restaurant, with one describing it as, “the most costly but the most didactic experience of my career.” Many of the aspects of the openness of the restaurateur’s profession
• APPreCiAte thAt the two most important pieces of paper in any restaurant are not the menu and the wine list as every TV show maintains they are but the lease and the alcohol license.
BiG PlAYerS / Drew Nieporent and Jean-Claude Vrinat
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Your Passport to Happiness
• CoMBiNe viSioN ANd determination. One without the other simply is not good enough. • CoMBiNe StUBBorNNeSS with ability to bend to popular demand. Hold on to what has led you to open but be prepared to bend particularly to the increasing importance of women!
are set out in Setting the Table, written by New York restaurateur, Danny Meyer, a copy of which is to be found in every thoughtful restaurateur’s head office. At the outset, Meyer turns the conventional view of the restaurateur’s role upside down by explaining that his primary function is not to look after his customers but rather to look after, and train, his staff so well that they in turn can look after his customers to the standards he demands. And it is this sense of being welcomed, looked after, nurtured and then, refreshed, sent back into the world that is an essential human need and one that only restaurateurs can fulfil. However talented the chefs may be, they are invariably behind the kitchen door, dealing with their customers’ orders. By the time I had finished my book, I had reached the conclusion that however diverse restaurateurs are, and however varied their restaurants may be – and those in the book range
from those with three Michelin stars to those simply serving noodles – there seem to be ten essential qualities to the art of the restaurateur. And of these, two seemed more important than all the others. The first is a sense of humour, a trait that is vital when dealing with the general public, but important here too as the media continues to focus on this business. Quite a few chefs began to believe the publicity that they generated and that, ultimately, proved their downfall. The second is a love of good food and wine and one’s fellow man and woman. Restaurateurs fulfil a function in society that is humane and life enriching and that is why I believe that the overdue recognition of all those who practice this often gruelling profession is to be welcomed. And fully enjoyed.
Nick Lander’s book The Art of the Restaurateur is published by Phaidon
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• CoMBiNe iNNer sensibility with a thick skin. Understand what is going on; keep abreast of what is in the air; but don’t get too upset by criticism or a swinging review. A restaurateur’s biggest enemy, says Joe Bastianich, in my book is not the restaurant reviewer but his or her ego. • FiNAllY, ANd i Believe that this is the most recent and most difficult challenge for restaurateurs, is, to be aware and responsive to: the environment; climate change; the importance of your local community; and the power every restaurateur has to do good.
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BRIEFING 115
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LIVE TV QANTAS LEAP
WOLGAN WIN
Live TV makes its Emirates debut, with live sports and news inflight
Qantas tie-up opens Australia up to Emirates passengers
Wolgan resort plants 10,000 tress in ecological drive
Haneda High Emirates launches daily flights to Tokyo’s Haneda – the airline’s third destination in Japan
(113)
NEWS
new tier launched
Emirates’ First Class Lounge in Dubai
Emirates Skywards has announced the introduction of ‘Platinum,’ a new tier which sits above Blue, Silver and Gold. The Platinum tier has been developed to enhance the travel experience for frequent travellers and to offer additional benefits to members who have earned over 150,000 Miles. “The new tier is designed to show our most valued customers how important they are to Emirates and to offer greater recognition and benefits to those who choose to fly with us on such a frequent basis,” said Thierry Antinori, Emirates’ Executive
third destination in Japan announced Emirates has strengthened its ties with the Far East having announced the launch of daily non-stop flights between Dubai and Tokyo International Airport (Haneda Airport). Starting on June 3rd 2013, the new route to Haneda – currently Asia’s second busiest airport – will be Emirates’ 131st destination and the third in Japan, alongside Osaka and Tokyo’s other airport, Narita. Located in the suburb of Ota-ku, Haneda handles the majority of domestic flights to and from Tokyo,
allowing Emirates passengers the flexibility to connect to an additional 70 destinations across Japan – including Mount Fuji, Hakone, Kyoto and Osaka – and the rest of Asia, as well as offering more options of flights to and from Tokyo. And, with the new daily flight to Haneda, Emirates SkyCargo will be able to provide an additional 210 tonnes of cargo capacity per week, further supporting Japanese exports and Dubai’s reputation as an important business and transport hub.
Perfect timing Don’t miss your next Emirates flight. Make sure you get to your boarding gate on time. Boarding starts 45 minutes before your flight and gates close 20 minutes before departure. If you report late we will not be able to accept you for travel. Thank you for your cooperation.
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Vice President, Passenger Sales Worldwide. For the first time, Platinum members will receive exclusive benefits usually reserved for First Class passengers, including First Class check-in, baggage delivery and access to the First Class lounges in Dubai with a guest. To enable Platinum members to share their benefits with the rest of the family, a Gold ‘Partner’ card has been introduced, which means that a family member can enjoy Gold privileges even when travelling separately. www.emirates.com/skywards
Emirates will be introducing daily flights to Warsaw from Feb 6. Here’s our pick of what to see in the Polish capital
Your home in Dubai
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Qantas network opens up for emirates passengers Emirates’ customers can now begin enjoying the benefits of what the Emirates and Qantas partnership has to offer, following the opening up of bookings to a number of Qantas domestic destinations, with travel from 31st March 2013.
Passengers can choose from 32 Australian destinations that Qantas operates to, including Canberra, Port Lincoln, Cairns and Hobart, opening up Australia to passengers from all over the ever expanding Emirates network.
Emirates’ Skywards members will also be able to earn Skywards Miles on Qantas international flights and domestic flights that are part of a continuous international journey with Emirates or Qantas.
“Installing this type of satellite communication equipment that allows live TV on an aircraft is no easy feat,” explained Adel Al Redha, Emirates’ Executive Vice-President of Engineering and Operations. “Emirates continues to enhance the features of its inflight entertainment system with its partner Panasonic.” 2013 will build upon Emirates’ reputation for constant product innovation. In addition to ice
TV Live, the Boeing 777s will feature mobile phone and Wi-Fi services. Not only is Emirates upgrading the B777, but the entire ice-equipped fleet will see improvements in the first few months of the year. These include a greater choice of music than ever before, more Arabic TV and films, the introduction of African movies, and a dedicated CBeebies channel for younger flyers.
live tv makes onboard debut Emirates has launched a new live TV product called ice TV Live, as part of its ever-increasing on-board entertainment package. The new channel will offer passengers BBC World News, BBC Arabic, Euronews and, for sports fans, Sport 24 – a channel dedicated to major sports events around the world. February’s Sport 24 highlights include Live English Premier League and Bundesliga football matches. Coverage of more events will be added soon, but 2013 will feature coverage of the Australian Open, Wimbledon, US Open tennis, ATP Tour Masters 1000 series, ATP World Tour Finals, US Open golf, and the British and Irish Lions Tour.
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green
Desert life The monitoring of the desert is of vital importance to the Middle East. Since it was set up by Emirates in 2001, the 225km2 Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve (DDCR) has allowed for significant research to be carried out in partnership with various conservation projects.One of the latest organisations to team up with the DDCR is conservation tourism company Biosphere Expeditions – a non-profit wildlife organisation that runs conservation expeditions for environmental volunteers. Recent fieldwork carried out over Biosphere’s various week-long expeditions has seen around 200km2 of the DDCR surveyed, leading to the sightings of nine different species of wildlife including the Arabian gazelle, desert eagle owl, lappet-face vulture and desert fox. Emirates provides over a million dollars of yearly funding to the DDCR – which covers five per cent of Dubai’s land area – allowing continued conservation work.
Wolgan Valley
Tucked away in Australia’s Blue Mountain World Heritage Area, the award-winning Emirates Wolgan Valley Resort and Spa continues to fly the flag for sustainable, conservation-based luxury tourism. The Emirates-owned carbon-neutral resort’s recent conservation works have begun to bear fruit – in some cases literally. In partnership with the Australian Ecosystems Foundation and Greening Australia around 10,000 trees were planted in order to help restore vegetation in the area and control erosion levels – in addition to 200,000 trees already planted on site. In parallel to these revegetation programmes, research by the University of Western Sydney has also been carried out at the resort to assess whether certain species of plants will germinate after a fire. The resort is often applauded for incorporating ecologically sustainable design principles and resourcesaving technologies, including rainwater collection, full recycling of domestic water and heat exchange technology to reduce energy consumption.
WinD breakers Wind farms in Spain continue to set records for the amount of wind energy generated. For the first time more energy was generated in Spain by wind farms over the past three months than any other source – including both nuclear and coal-fired power stations. Wind energy now represents more than a quarter of Spain’s total power generation – in January 2012, the country’s wind farms delivered over six terawatt hours of electricity. The scope of the country’s wind-generated energy is only set to grow as new offshore wind farms continue to come online.
The increase in electricity generated from wind turbines allows the country to remain on track to meet its goal of generating 40 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
22%
20%
emirates aircraft are more than 22% more fUel efficient than the global fleet average
aircraft operations are over 20% more fuel efficient than ten years ago
(soUrce: the emirates groUp 2011-12 environmental report)
(soUrce: air transport action groUp)
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Open skies / march 2013
• • • • • • • •
Contract Drafting & Review Business Setup , Offshore & Free Zone Companies Corporate & Commercial Legal Services Litigation & Arbitration Debt Collection Banking, Insurance & Maritime Cases Real Estate, Construction & Labor Cases Trademarks, Patents & Copyrights
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• • • • • • • •
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COMFORT
Comfort
in the air
to help you arrive at your destination feeling relaxed and refreshed, Emirates has developed this collection of helpful travel tips. Regardless of whether you need to rejuvenate for your holiday or be effective at achieving your goals on a business trip, these simple tips will help you to enjoy your journey and time on board with Emirates today.
smart traveller
Before Your JourneY Consult your doctor before travelling if you have any medical concerns about making a long journey, or
drink plenty of water
if you suffer from a respiratory or
rehYDrAte With WAter or Juices frequentlY.
cardiovascular condition.
Drink teA AnD coffee in moDerAtion.
Plan for the destination – will you need any vaccinations or special medications? Get a good night’s rest before
travel lightly
the flight.
cArrY onlY the essentiAl items thAt You
Eat lightly and sensibly.
Will neeD During Your flight.
At the Airport Allow yourself plenty of timefor check-in.
wear glasses
Avoid carrying heavy bags through
cABin Air is Drier thAn normAl therefore
the airport and onto the flight
sWAp Your contAct lenses for glAsses.
as this can place the body under considerable stress. Once through to departures try and relax as much as possible.
use skin moisturiser
During the flight
ApplY A gooD quAlitY moisturiser to ensure Your skin Doesn’t DrY out.
Chewing and swallowing will help equalise your ear pressure during ascent and descent. Babies and young passengers may
keep moving
suffer more acutely with popping
exercise Your loWer legs AnD cAlf
ears, therefore consider providing
muscles. this encourAges BlooD floW.
a dummy. Get as comfortable as possible when resting and turn frequently. Avoid sleeping for long periods in
make yourself comfortable
the same position.
loosen clothing, remove JAcket AnD AvoiD
When You Arrive
AnYthing pressing AgAinst Your BoDY.
Try some light exercise or read if you can’t sleep after arrival.
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Open skies / march 2013
VISA & STATS
Guide
cabin crew will be happy to help if you need assistance completing the forms
Whether you’re travelling to, or through, the United States today, this simple guide to completing the US customs and immigration forms will help to ensure that your journey is as hassle
free as possible. The Cabin Crew will offer you two forms when you are nearing your destination. We provide guidelines below, so you can correctly complete the forms.
to Us cUstoms & immigration forms
customs declaration form
immigration form
The immigration Form I-94 (Arrival / Departure Record) should be completed if you are a non-US citizen in possession of a valid US visa and your final destination is the US or if you are in transit to a country outside the US. A separate form must be completed for each person, including children travelling on their parents’ passport. The form includes a Departure Record which must be kept safe and given to your airline when you leave the US. If you hold a US or Canadian passport, US Alien Resident Visa (Green Card), US Immigrant Visa or a valid ESTA (right), you are not required to complete an immigration form.
All passengers arriving into the US need to complete a Customs DeClaration Form. If you are travelling as a family this should be completed by one member only. The form must be completed in English, in capital letters, and must be signed where indicated.
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12% the percentage of global Co2 emissions from the aviation industry
electronic system for travel authorisation (esta)
if you are an international traveller wishing to enter the united states under the Visa waiver programme, you must apply for electronic authorisation (esta) up to 72 hours prior to your departure. esta facts:
children and infants require an individual esta. the online esta system will inform you whether your application has been authorised, not authorised or if authorisation is pending. a successful esta application is valid for two years, however this may be revoked or will expire along with your passport. apply online at www.cbp.gov/esta
nationalities eligible for the visa waiver*:
andorra, australia, austria, belgium, brunei, czech republic, denmark, estonia, finland, france, germany, hungary, iceland, ireland, italy, Japan, latvia, liechtenstein, lithuania, luxemburg, malta, monaco, the netherlands, new Zealand, norway, portugal, san marino, singapore, slovakia, slovenia, south Korea, spain, sweden, switzerland and theunited Kingdom**. *
subject to change
** only british citizens qualify under the visa waiver programme.
3.5 the number of people employed worldwide in aviation and related tourism
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ROUTE MAP
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OPEN SKIES / MARCH 2013
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WHERE ARE YOU GOING? TELL US OR UPLOAD A PIC AT
AD
FACEBOOK.COM/OPENSKIESMAGAZINE TWITTER.COM/OPENSKIESMAG
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FLEET
The Fleet
Our fleet cOntains 201 planes Made up Of 190 passenger planes and 11 cargO planes
Boeing 777-300eR Number of Aircraft: 87 Capacity: 354-442 Range: 14,594km Length: 73.9m Wingspan: 64.8m
Boeing 777-300 Number of Aircraft: 12 Capacity: 364 Range: 11,029km Length: 73.9m Wingspan: 60.9m
Boeing 777-200LR Number of Aircraft: 10 Capacity: 266 Range: 17,446km Length: 63.7m Wingspan: 64.8m
Boeing 777-200 Number of Aircraft: 9 Capacity: 274-346 Range: 9,649km Length: 63.7m Wingspan: 60.9m
Boeing 777F Number of Aircraft: 8 Range: 9,260km Length: 63.7m Wingspan: 64.8m
For more inFormation: www.emirates.com/ourFleet
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AiRBus A380-800 Number of Aircraft: 31 Capacity: 489-5 17 Range: 15,000km Length: 72.7m Wingspan: 79.8m
AiRBus A340-500 Number of Aircraft: 10 Capacity: 258 Range: 16,050km Length: 67.9m Wingspan: 63.4m
AiRBus A340-300 Number of Aircraft: 8 Capacity: 267 Range: 13,350km Length: 63.6m Wingspan: 60.3m
AiRBus A330-200 Number of Aircraft: 23 Capacity: 237-278 Range: 12,200km Length: 58.8m Wingspan: 60.3m
Boeing 747-400F/747-400eRF Number of Aircraft: 1/2 Range: 8,232km/9,204km Length: 70.6m Wingspan: 64.4m
aircraFt numbers as oF 31/03/2013
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ext month will see us take in Prague, with a Mapped guide to the Czech capital, as well as discover one of Nairobi’s most interesting streets. We get a tour of one of Melbourne’s most fashionable districts from one of the country’s hottest new designers. Closer to home, we meet one of Dubai’s longest-serving carpet sellers and learn a few tricks of the trade. We also remember one of the most glamorous football teams of all time, and one of the strangest: the New York Cosmos. We find out if 3-D printing has a future and we take a lo-fi photographic tour of a European surfer’s paradise. See you next month.
Aaron Basha Boutique • 685 Madison Avenue • New York • 212.644.1970 • w w w.aaronbasha.com Athens
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Dubai
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Hong Kong
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Italy
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Kiev
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London
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Moscow
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Qatar
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Tokyo
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Toronto
Asia Jewellers Bahrain • Ali Bin Ali Qatar • Harrods London • Levant Dubai
visit the new Armanibeauty.com