Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2017 i AFAR

OUR GOAL AT AFAR has always been to inspire, guide, and enable deeper, richer, and more fulfilling travel experiences. For us, this isn’t a passing fancy. We believe such experiences lead to deeper, richer, and more fulfilling lives. And the more people who live this way, the better our world is. That you are reading this means we have succeeded, at least to some degree, in inspiring you. As we look to the future, our vision is to be the leader in taking you, the world’s best travelers, from inspiration to action. You had to be a little crazy and a lot passionate to launch an independent print magazine in 2009. But we believed, and still do, that a magazine packed with powerful stories, beautiful photos, and creative design is…

1 NUEVO CUISINE Swing by La Justina, a cozy gastropub putting new spins on Mexican classics. Try the rib eye tartar or the tostadas with roasted octopus and smoked shrimp. The Margot, a gin cocktail with lavender and a whole beet, is a must. Avenida Revolución, between Calles 3 and 4. 2 SIESTA in STYLE Tijuana’s first boutique inn, the sleek, industrial-style, 15-room One Bunk, opened in May in the renovated Hotel Lafayette building. The lobby houses a barber shop, a coffee bar, and a boutique selling jewelry, furniture, and decor from the chic home store Object. Avenida Revolución 920. 3 GAME CHANGER For decades, El Foro Antiguo Palacio Jai Alai was a destination for gamblers betting on jai alai games. Today the 65-year-old building with the iconic red neon…

6 P.M. Rum Kickoff Cambodia’s first rum producer, Samai Distillery, bottles the country’s most alluring terroir-driven spirit: Kampot pepper rum. You can find it at bars throughout Phnom Penh, but it’s best consumed while mingling with local artists when the distillery opens its doors to the public on Thursday nights. samaidistillery.com 7 P.M. The Main Course South African chef Timothy Bruyns opened The Tiger’s Eye in 2015. What traditional ingredients he can’t source from local markets, he forages himself. Expect innovative dishes such as raw and cured tuna served with cured fish roe, banana heart, water lily stems, and a spicysour dressing with holy basil gel. thetigerseye.asia 9:30 P.M. Modern Mixology After dinner, walk a few blocks to Bassac Lane, the capital’s cocktail nexus. At Harry’s rooftop martini bar,…

1. PETER NAPPI “This leather goods shop is really important to the city,” Max says. “Peter Nappi learned to make shoes in Italy, and then his grandson, Phillip, who lives in Nashville, revived the tradition in the States. They’ve got incredible shoes, boots, and belts. Benjamin wears one of his two pairs of Peter Nappi boots almost every day.” 2. BARISTA PARLOR Benjamin calls Barista Parlor “a first-class coffee shop.” Max says, “It has a really cool aesthetic, with a massive ship mural by Bryce McCloud. Their food is great, too. Many mornings when we were working on Henrietta Red, the Barista Parlor’s egg, sausage, and biscuit breakfast sandwich, plus an iced coffee, was the fuel that kept me going.” 3. HENRIETTA RED “Our newest restaurant is named after the…

THE DESIGNERS who worked at Charles and Ray Eames’s office in Venice, California, called the place simply “901.” It was the address of the husband-and-wife team’s brickwalled workshop, 901 Washington Boulevard, the origin point for many groundbreaking furniture designs in the mid-20th century. However, the location where several of those concepts came to life—and still do—is 2,000 miles away: a small town in western Michigan called Zeeland. Located 10 miles from the shores of Lake Michigan, Zeeland looks less like a modernist hot spot than a classic Main Street, USA, with two-story brick buildings lining quiet downtown streets. The town has roughly 5,500 residents, many of whom are involved with the furniture industry, whether they’re sourcing lumber, treating leather, or assembling and shipping finished pieces. Any design lover who hears…

Inever imagined the city would have so many trees,” visitors often say when they come to Mexico City for the first time. Somehow, images of trees and Mexico City do not go together, yet huge, thick-leaved ficuses break the concrete sidewalks, and parks are filled with tall ahuehuetes (Montezuma bald cypress) and swaying ahuejotes (a kind of willow). You can walk down the street and encounter a cluster of banana trees loaded with fruit. The trees remind us that when the Spaniards came, they found a city built on lakes and canals. There would have been trees everywhere. I like to imagine how beautiful it must have been. I am a Spaniard who arrived in Mexico’s capital 15 years ago. I came to a city built on what Mexicans call…

Until my 13th year in New York City, I had never crossed one of its bridges on foot. A subway girl, I charted my paths through the city—and traversed its waterways—on the F, L, G, C, and Q lines, with (occasionally grudging) detours to off-circuit areas where friends or intriguing restaurants, bars, music venues, or museums exerted their pull. That was my city. And then, last year, I started running. As any urbanite distance runner can tell you, an uninterrupted stretch of sidewalk— no crosswalks, bus stops, or brunch-crowd dawdlers—is a rare and precious thing. And few ordinary sidewalks can rival the mile-long paths of unobstructed pavement you’ll find on New York’s major bridges. So I started mapping running routes that incorporated them. Training for my first half-marathon, I shuttled…

For a moment, the riotous swirl around me ceased. The whine of the snake charmer’s horn, the undulating hips of the transvestite dancers, the wafts of grilled lamb, the cries of the healer just in from the Sahara as he spread out ostrich eggs and gazelle antlers before him—it all stopped. Coco had given me an inscrutable look, rested her tiny hand on my shoulder, and then pressed her lips to mine. I was so stunned, I didn’t even notice as she slipped the water bottle from my hand. There are not many places in the world where you can be kissed by a thieving monkey, but the Djemaa el Fna is one of them. A sprawling square at the thrumming heart of the Moroccan city of Marrakech, it has…

THE SPRAWLiNG, iNTENSE, SOMETiMES FRUSTRATiNG, i’M iN BANGKOK’S CHiNATOWN, nearing the end of a long morning run through the city, when I see a stream of people heading down a lane. I follow them. The lane is so narrow that I have to slow to a walk. I snake past stores purveying all manner of burnable offerings for the adjacent temple (fake money in both dollars and baht; New Balance branded sneakers made of cardboard), then spy two folding tables and eight plastic stools wedged against a wall, most of them occupied by ladies who breakfast. There’s something about the intensity with which these women slurp their noodles that makes me slow down further. As soon as she catches me staring, the short-haired cashier leaps up from her perch next to…

To add warmth to Munich’s concretewalled Westfriedhof station, designer Ingo Maurer installed 13-foot-wide domes that glow red, yellow, and blue. During the five days of Carnival, Rio’s subway system runs 24 hours a day. Solna Centrum is one of 90 Stockholm stations transformed by local artists. The Überseequartier station echoes the nearby harbor with blue tile and an undersea soundtrack.…

1. MARTIN’S BAR-B-QUE JOINT “Their downtown location is massive, with a huge outdoor beer garden,” Benjamin says. “They do whole-hog cooking in covered pits, and when the pit master lifts the hatch, you can see the entire hog being cooked. The beef brisket and cheeseburger are also ridiculously good. And they have a strong side game: slaw, baked potatoes, fries, and what my daughter calls ‘hot cheese’ ” (mac and cheese). 2. RYMAN AUDITORIUM “This is the best place to see live music,” says Benjamin. “Locals call it ‘The Church,’ because of the pews and the amazing acoustics,” Max adds. “Tom Ryman, a steamboat captain, built it as a place of worship in 1885, and it’s where bluegrass was born. Everyone from Vampire Weekend to Bob Dylan has played there.…

1 OFFICE OUTLET, ZEELAND Office Outlet, known in Zeeland as “The Company Store,” is the spot to find authentic Herman Miller pieces at a discount. The unassuming store sells gently used furniture from Herman Miller’s showroom floors. officeoutlet.net 2 GRAND RAPIDS ART MUSEUM (GRAM While the museum hosts only the occasional show devoted to modernist design, its commitment to the style is permanent. Much of GRAM’s furniture is midcentury—look for Le Corbusier benches and chairs—and the gift shop sells Herman Miller goods. artmuseumgr.com 3 SAUGATUCK ANTIQUE PAVILION, SAUGATUCK The pavilion is one of the best places in Michigan to find used Herman Miller originals sold by former employees. Saugatuck is located very near the Herman Miller facilities, so it’s a great place to stop if you’re driving by HQ. saugatuck…

WHO: CREATIVE DIRECTOR ELIZABETH SPIRIDAKIS OLSON DURATION: 7 DAYS SOUVENIR: VINTAGE PORCELAIN “Copenhagen is considered one of the best places in the world to live, and during the week my husband and I spent there, that was so obviously true. We spent a lot of time exploring the various neighborhoods. In Christiania—a hippie ‘free town’ that exists within the city—there are old houses, covered in crazy, colorful murals, where people live communally, plus a little flea market where I bought vintage Royal Copenhagen mugs. We also checked out the neighborhood of Nørrebro. Mikkeller Beer has a bar there; Manfreds, a veggie-focused restaurant around the corner, has a delicious chef’s choice menu; and there are tons of cute little stores. We went to the meatpacking district in the Vesterbro area for…

What’s a hallmark of Belarusian food? “Potatoes are king. They’re the backbone of the cuisine, used in everything from draniki (potato pancakes) to babka (potato casserole). Potatoes are so important that some people get excited about the first harvest of the season.” And what are meals like? “They are all about zakuski, small plates that range from pickled vegetables to seledka pod shubo?, or ‘herring under a fur coat,’ a layered salad with herring at the base and hard-boiled eggs on top. All the drinking, toasting, and socializing happen while eating zakuski.” Did you always love the food? “My parents immigrated in 1980. Growing up, when friends would come over for a meal, I would say ‘You’re not going to like this.’ When my nowhusband and I were first dating,…

IT WOULD BE EASY to assume that Max and Benjamin Goldberg, the brothers behind nine of Nashville’s most popular and innovative restaurants and bars, have a method (and graphs and spreadsheets) to their madness. Not so much. “It’s kind of embarrassing to say,” Benjamin explains. “In terms of market research, we just ask ourselves ‘Would we be the first people to go there?’ ” In the decade since the brothers formed their company, Strategic Hospitality, they’ve been answering “yes” to that question for nearly every project, from their restaurant and adult playground, Pinewood Social, to their latest restaurant, Henrietta Red. Benjamin kicked things off when he opened a bar in a part of town so run-down that the streetlights didn’t work. (He would stand outside with a flashlight to show…

1. BASTION “We opened Bastion in 2016,” Benjamin says. “It’s split into a neighborhood hang where you can get beer, cocktails, and nachos—which we take very seriously— and the restaurant. Josh Habiger, an opening chef at Catbird Seat”— another Goldberg eatery—“changes the menu constantly, but I won’t forget one dessert: sunchoke ice cream with foie gras caramel.” 2. CORSAIR DISTILLERY “This is one of the most innovative spirit makers in town,” Max says. “Darek Bell, the owner, distills at this location, so the space has beautiful distilling pots and a bottling area, plus a retail shop and a small bar. The Triple Smoke, a smoky, peaty whiskey, is next level. We like it so much, we’ve incorporated it into cocktails we serve at Bastion.” 3. FERRIN IRONWORKS “You walk into…

When it comes to hotels, what’s your overall design philosophy? I’m interested in the simple things, such as what it feels like to be a guest inside the space, whether the guests feel at ease, and whether they feel that the space has been designed for them. That, for me, is luxury—going beyond superficial decorative grandeur and focusing more on that physical experience. What was your concept for the Kerry? On a macro level, it’s an urban resort: its scale and alfresco elements make it an escape from the city. In some ways, we are trying to redefine what business travel can be. I don’t think there’s a real distinction anymore between travel for business and travel for leisure; it’s all mixed together. You want a hotel that has all…

AN AUSTRIAN WIT ONCE SAID: “When the world ends, I’ll go to Vienna. Everything happens 10 years late there.” My timing is perfect then: An apocalyptic mood is sweeping the globe, with chaos in politics, jitters about terrorism, dread over the climate. the world in crisis, a tabloid in my home city, London, declares. we’re on the brink of nuclear war. So I head to peaceable Vienna, arriving to nothing more threatening than a drizzle outside Wien-Mitte train station. I wander across an empty park, past deserted palaces decorated with bodybuilders of ancient myth, depicted beating weaklings like me to death with clubs. But where are the living residents of Vienna? True, a holiday weekend is ending. But this feels like a ghost town, as if the End of Days…

Bring Change “In the square, it’s expected that you pay for the entertainment you photograph,” Estrada says. Prepare to give between 10 and 20 Moroccan dirhams ($1 to $2) per performance, so head to Djemaa el Fna with plenty of change (and carry it on the front of your body, to deter pickpockets). Play Fair Don’t be afraid to haggle. “Treat bargaining like a game,” Estrada says. There’s only one taboo: “It’s considered extremely disrespectful to back off from a transaction once you’ve agreed to it.” Two phrases to memorize: “ghali bezaf” (the “gh” is pronounced like an “r”), which means “too expensive,” and “la, shokran,” or “no, thank you.” Don’t Be a Hands-On Shopper In the market, “I look and don’t touch,” Estrada says. “As soon as you’ve touched…

1 CHiNATOWN If you have only one day in Bangkok to just wander, go here. The century-old neighborhood is a riot of sights, sounds, tastes, and smells (yes, that is freshly hacked durian singeing your nostril hairs). Gold chains, blue-and-white pottery, pirated DVDs—whatever you fancy, you’ll get more bang for your baht here than anywhere else in the city. See the 5.5-ton Golden Buddha statue at Wat Trai Mit and live crocodiles at Wat Chakrawat; photograph the sea of vertical Chinese-language signs fighting for attention on busy Yaowarat Road; and sample the fish maw soup at bustling Talat Kao market or the khanom buang (crispy dessert crepes) from a street cart on Sampeng Lane. Come nightfall, head to the shophouses of Soi Nana on Chinatown’s southern fringes. It’s this pocket…