Journal
The customs, the works, the films and the places that make European culture. By the Novars editors.
Staying in a grand hotel
The concierge, tipping, what to wear at the bar and at breakfast, and the quiet art of feeling at home: the customs of the great hotels, so you can truly...
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The Ritz Paris, a century of legends
Opened on the Place Vendôme in 1898 by a Swiss hotelier and a chef of genius, the Ritz welcomed Proust, Chanel and Hemingway. The story of a hotel that became...
Clinking glasses, and making a toast
Looking people in the eye, never drinking to your own health, knowing when not to clink: the gestures surrounding a raised glass, and what they say about us.
Oysters, foie gras, brie: the dishes that catch you out
Should you drink the oyster’s liquor? Can you spread foie gras? Where do you start on a brie? The dishes that make even regulars hesitate, and the most famous faux...
Forty-eight hours on Lake Como
Villas with terraced gardens, varnished wooden boats, nineteenth-century hotels and a light painters chased for two centuries: a weekend on the most elegant of the Italian lakes.
The Riva, the most elegant boat in the world
A mahogany hull varnished like a piano, leather seats, a boatyard on the shore of an Italian lake and a clientele of stars: how a motorboat became a symbol of...
The Orient Express, a palace on rails
A Belgian engineer’s dream, a line between Paris and Constantinople, an Agatha Christie novel and restored Art Deco carriages: the story of the most famous train in the world.
Champagne: the rules of the art
A sigh rather than a bang, the right temperature, flute or coupe, and the story of a monk who did not quite invent the bubbles: serving and drinking champagne like...