Innholdsfortegnelse for October - November 2024 i DestinAsian

“TRAVEL FAR ENOUGH, YOU MEET YOURSELF.”—David mitchell Should you be on the lookout for a cool new hotel, you’re in luck. The 2024 edition of our annual Luxe List rounds up 17 of the best new openings across the Asia-Pacific region, with firsthand reviews by our roving contributors who have pinpointed the cream of the crop. Whether you’re in the mood for a stimulating city break or prefer getting away from it all in some secluded locale, there’s bound to be at least one that tickles your fancy. This October also happens to mark our 23rd anniversary. If there is one thing I have learned on this unforgettable journey, it is the value of being like water: staying fluid, adapting to challenges and new environments, while always moving forward. All…

HONG KONG Atop a nondescript commercial building on the edge of the Wan Chai neighborhood, I am being shown what one might describe as a speakeasy art gallery. “The only thing that’s off the record is our address,” says co-founder Willem Molesworth. Together with his London-born wife Ysabelle Cheung, the eloquent New Yorker opened Property Holdings Development Group (phdgroup. art) in early 2022 as “an authentic expression of the cultural forces” in Hong Kong. The generic name is an ironic reference to the gallery’s origins as a private rooftop clubhouse set up in the 1970s by Cheung’s grandfather, a real estate developer. Rehabbed after years of neglect, the space’s stripped-back concrete walls and floors now serve as a canvas for showcasing the avant-garde work of East Asian artists such as…

SINGAPORE Vegans, look away. Dave Pynt, the brawny Perth-born, Singaporebased chef and owner of barbecue hot spot Burnt Ends, has published his first cookbook. “The timing was right,” says Pynt, whose Michelin-starred restaurant in the leafy Dempsey Hill neighborhood is currently ranked 15th on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants. “I figured that after more than 10 years, we had enough to talk about to make an interesting book — enough recipes and plenty of cool techniques to discuss.” In all, Pynt has assembled 70 recipes, though, really, to call Burnt Ends a cookbook doesn’t do justice to the 368-page door stopper. Lavishly illustrated with almost the same number of images and incorporating an absorbing graphic novella of the chef’s culinary and personal journey, this is a project that has been two…

One meal was all it took for me to start planning a road trip into the Victorian countryside. It was a lunch at Farmer’s Daughters (farmersdaughters.com.au), a bustling restaurant in downtown Melbourne where Peruvian-born chef Alejandro Saravia showcases the bounty of rural Gippsland. Sprawling across the southeastern part of the state, this bucolic region yields some of Australia’s best produce, meats, and dairy, alongside small-batch wines and an abundance of seafood. It’s a place that Saravia fell in love with after moving to Melbourne a decade ago, and Farmer’s Daughters is his love letter to Gippsland’s farms, fields, and fisheries. One bite of his grass-fed beef carpaccio with crème fraiche and cider caramel was enough to woo me too, and by the time I finished dessert — a perfectly wobbly…

Once one of the most productive marine ecosystems in Cambodia, the tranquil waters of the Kep Archipelago saw vast swaths of seagrass and coral reef wiped away by years of industrial fishing and bottom trawling. Fortunately, the work of non-profit organization Marine Conservation Cambodia (MCC) has greatly helped to restore the area’s precious ecosystems and species, which include giant clams, seahorses, and the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin. Founded by former British policeman Paul Ferber in 2008, MCC is based on Koh Ach Seh, one of the dozen islands that make up the Kep Archipelago. Rachana Thap, the organization’s current Executive Director, joined the team seven years ago as a university student on a six-month internship. She was working on a marine biology thesis about artificial reefs and was soon appointed by…

MACAU MAY BE synonymous with its eclectic architecture, casinos, and egg tarts, but the city’s creative scene offers a much lesser-known facet to explore. Away from the crowds, culture-minded visitors can easily spend a day wandering through historic neighborhoods and discovering hidden galleries, while seeing how the former Portuguese enclave has repurposed its built heritage for 21st-century artistic pursuits. Take the Macao Contemporary Art Center - Navy Yard No. 1 (icm.gov.mo) in the Barra district. Just down the street from the venerable A-Ma Temple, this former workshop used for building and repairing ships now hosts a changing roster of visual art exhibitions and experimental performances. Girders and I-beams punctuate the cement-floored main gallery, where Japanese illustrator Matsui’s first overseas solo show “The Dog” is running through October 31. Visitors of all ages…

ISTANBUL Five centuries of Turkish history permeate the solid stone walls of Zeyrek Çinili Hamam (zeyrekcinilihamam.com), a public bathhouse originally commissioned in the 16th century by the Ottoman corsair turned admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa. Set atop Byzantine-era cisterns in Istanbul’s Fatih district, the building reopened earlier this year following 13 years of painstaking restoration work that have returned it to its former glory. The hammam, designed by the great court architect Mimar Sinan, was in a serious state of disrepair when local hospitality company The Marmara Group acquired it in 2010. What began as a three-year repair job was prolonged by myriad archaeological discoveries and subsequent preservation efforts, with each stage of the restoration revealing new treasures. Many of those finds are now displayed in an adjacent museum, including fragments of…

NICE Four centuries after being built by the nuns of the Franciscan Order of St. Clare, this sensitively restored former convent in Old Town Nice is now the southern French city’s most serene new stay. Hôtel du Couvent (hotelducouvent.com, from U$850) is the brainchild of visionary hotelier Valéry Grégo, who teamed up with India’s Studio Mumbai to transform the abandoned property into an 88-room bolt-hole complete with an underground circuit of thermal pools inspired by the nearby ruins of an ancient Roman bath complex (right). Spread across four buildings (two of which were built from scratch), the rooms are what you might call monasticchic, all accented with fine antiques and old artworks. There are two produce-driven restaurants overseen by chef Thomas Vételé (top left), a guinguette-style bar, riotous terraced gardens,…

Walking up the path toward the distant beats of a DJ set, I was awe-struck by two colossal concrete statues standing sentinel on either side. Each was a behemoth human bust, towering at least 10 meters above those walking beneath their serene gaze. Like me, most passersby couldn’t help but stop and stare, entranced by the continually evolving light displays playing across each face. The bright swirling colors stood in sharp contrast to the dusky sky beyond. No, this isn’t Burning Man, though the comparison has been made. It’s Nuanu (nuanu.com), a “creative city” spanning 44 hectares on western Bali’s Tabanan coast, not far from the sacred sea temple of Tanah Lot. Still a work in progress, the ambitious residential development also aims to be a creative hub where the…

Manchester is having a moment, with cool new hotels, art spaces, and restaurants popping up quicker than umbrellas in an English summer. But that’s news to most Brits, who, if asked to name three things about this city of some 2.8 million, would probably reply with three standard answers: football, music, and Coronation Street. The first is understandable, given that Manchester City and Manchester United dominate the sport at a global, not just national, level. The second, too: after all, Manchester gave the world The Smiths and Oasis, and this is where the Bee Gees honed their talents before migrating down under. The third answer refers to the world’s longestrunning TV soap opera: a cultural institution in the UK based on a gritty, fictitious Manchester street that first hit…

ONE OF THE most enviable spots to get married in Bali, Alila Villas Uluwatu provides an awe-inspiring backdrop for saying “I do.” The all-pool-villa resort is set high on a cliff on the island’s southern shores, amid a gorgeous natural setting where sleek architecture and staggering sea views vie for attention. Be it smaller, more intimate nuptials or a gala celebration with 200 or more guests, brides and grooms-to-be will find a variety of venue options here to turn their wedding dreams into reality. Perched dramatically over the Indian Ocean, the resort’s Cliff Edge Cabana invites couples to exchange vows at what feels like the edge of the world. Alternatively, a Three-bedroom Cliff Edge Villa offers a peaceful setting amid lush surroundings. In the warm glow of a Bali sunset,…

CHOI SANG LONG EMBROIDERY Behind a small storefront on the vibrant Rua dos Mercadores, one of Macau’s oldest commercial streets, Wong Weng Sou meticulously sews traditional Chinese bridal garments known as qungua. His elaborate tailor-made creations feature auspicious motifs like dragons and phoenixes, bats and peonies embroidered in gold and silver thread. Choi Sang Long, which has stood in the same location since the 1940s, was originally set up by Wong’s paternal grandfather as a clothdyeing operation more than a century ago; it began specializing in wedding attire during the seventies. Wong says it takes at least four months to complete a two-piece qungua outfit entirely by hand, with various components stitched together on a wooden rack. Along with the neighborhood’s Chinese-style cake shops and gold and jewelry stores, Choi…

Macau’s defining qualities are inseparable and yet poles apart, like night and day, or sweet and sour. The compact territory is home to both a UNESCO World Heritage site and the largest concentration of casinos in Asia. Its densely populated and everupgraded cityscape stands in contrast to back alleys that evoke 1980s Hong Kong. And after being a Portuguese trading post for over four centuries, Macau still offers a compelling interplay of Asian and European cultures. Nowhere is this more evident than in the culinary heritage of the Macanese community, which emerged from generations of intermarriage among the enclave’s Portuguese, Chinese, and Southeast Asian residents. Though many Macanese left Macau before it was handed back to China in 1999, some 8,000 remain, preserving their unique legacy for future generations. “Simply…

Dawn comes quickly to the Sumatran highlands. Standing at a bald campsite halfway up the grassy slopes of Bukit Holbung, less than three degrees above the equator, photographer Martin Westlake and I watch the rising sun paint the sky in fleeting purples and pinks, their pastel hues reflected in the placid waters of Indonesia’s largest lake. Behind us, a troop of lanky college students, eyes still heavy with sleep, stagger out from tents pitched along the ridgeline. Birds coo and chirp in the long grass; roosters crow from the villages below us. “See that?” Martin points at the soft orange light creeping down the escarpment behind a just-finished statue of Jesus, arms outstretched like Rio’s Christ the Redeemer. The serenity of the scene belies this remarkable landscape’s violent origins. Filling…

THE MORNING SUN HAD YET TO TIP OVER THE HORIZON WHEN the phone rang. “They’re ready,” a voice on the other end of the line said. A buggy soon picked me up. With a cooling breeze rustling the palm leaves overhead, we drove to the beach, where marine biologist Théo Guillaume was already waiting. He led me through the beach cabbage shrubs to a patch of sand encircled by chicken wire. There I saw them, wriggling and writhing: dozens of green sea turtle hatchlings, freshly emerged from their ping-pong ball–size eggs. One by one, Guillaume transferred the younglings to a wooden box and placed it near the shore. We watched them flip through the sand like wind-up bath toys until the waves carried them toward an uncertain future. In the…

PHUKET We’re downing wood-smoked Negronis and munching on tasty starters like pomelo salad and crispy chicken skin in what could be a set for a film about Shanghai in the Roaring ’20s. Except this sexy Chinese bar and restaurant is in Phuket, with a design by Bill Bensley, meaning everything is over-the-top and just a bit naughty. Which is fitting, considering these premises were once an opium den and brothel. Coolies Club (cooliesclub.com) celebrates the Chinese immigrant workers who poured into Phuket from the late 1800s to work the island’s tin mines. One was owner Krystal Na-Ranong’s great-grandfather, who bought this pair of adjoining shophouses after making his fortune as a bookkeeper for a mining company. They’re located on Phuket Old Town’s Soi Romanee, in what had been the red-light…

MELBOURNE Not long ago, Brunswick Street was struggling. A wave of rising rents followed by Melbourne’s long pandemic-induced lockdown saw a growing number of storefronts displaying FOR LEASE signs. But on my recent visit, the gra! tied main drag through inner-city Fitzroy was buzzing again, with lunchtime crowds ducking into Marios Café (marioscafe.com.au) for plates of spaghetti carbonara or lining up outside Nico’s Sandwich Deli (nicos.melbourne) for truffle mushroom melts. Nearby, the paint was drying on the Punters Club (puntersclubfitzroy.com), a legendary live music venue from the late ’80s to the early aughties that has been resuscitated by a trio of new owners, including Jet bassist Mark Wilson. Clearly, the winds of change are blowing — and it has a lot to do with a single launch. Around the corner…

Arriving at the hotel’s Grand Canal jetty via motoscafo (water taxi), you step through grate-like sliding doors into a dim chamber framed by ancient brickwork. Underfoot, slabs of Istrian stone rise from a shallow reflecting pool — an homage, I later learn, to the revered 20th-century Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa. Near the foot of a candlelit stairway at the back of the room sits a marble Madonna. At first glance, the sculpture appears to be a replica of Michelangelo’s Pietà — except in this rendition, by Fabio Viale, the body of Jesus is absent from his mother’s lap. It lies instead on a plinth of its own placed diagonally across the room, completing an arrangement that proclaims this to be unlike any other stay in Italy’s floating city. Welcome to…

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA The Lyall More pied-à-terre than traditional hotel, this designled bolt-hole in Melbourne’s stylish South Yarra has long been a byword for discreet luxury. Now, after a two-year closure and top-to-toe revamp, that refined polish has been lifted to another level, from the light-filled but intimate lobby with its whimsical Gillie and Marc sculpture to the 52 guest rooms, suites, and penthouse. There’s meticulous attention to detail at every turn: textured wallpapers, alpaca velvet textiles, blackwood timbers with inlaid brass—not to mention a Japanese maple garden by celebrated landscape designer Paul Bangay. Service is exemplary. Don’t miss breakfast in the hotel’s chic café terrace (harissa chili eggs with Turkish bread, perhaps?), then later in the day, order a champagne and cheese platter at the bar as lights twinkle outside.…

WHEN THE FIRST bridge spanning the silty waters between the Macau Peninsula and Taipa Island took shape in the 1970s, few could have envisaged the project would kick off a decades-long construction spree. These days, three soaring viaducts carry traffic over the same channel. A fourth link has just been completed. And that’s not counting the 55-kilometer bridge and tunnel system stretching the whole way across the Pearl River Estuary to Hong Kong. But Macau, a city of around 700,000 souls on the South China Sea, has been in the business of building bridges for centuries. The Portuguese leased the slender, hilly peninsula from China’s Ming dynasty as a trading post in 1557, catapulting its fishing villages into a place of global significance. You could say the fledgling harbor town…

THE GOLDEN-GRAY SWEEP of Hac Sa Beach looks fiendishly inviting on a hot weekday morning. But I sigh and turn away from the sand. I’ve come to Macau’s southern fringes to hike the Coloane Seac Min Pun Ancient Path, a nearly 1.4-kilometer-long trail that was once the sole overland route between the villages of Hac Sa and Coloane. After falling into disuse with the arrival of a paved road in the 1960s, the forgotten track was restored and reopened at the turn of the millennium. I’m curious as to where it will take me. At its starting point, an easy stroll from the bus stop above Hac Sa Beach, the pathway quickly ascends into the trees. Yellow butterflies dance in the air to a soundtrack of other critters, the occasional…

24TH MACAU FOOD FESTIVAL Held in Sai Van Lake Square opposite the Macau Tower, the city’s muchanticipated food fest (Nov. 15–Dec. 1) will feature street stalls, booths, and tents serving local specialties alongside dishes from mainland China and abroad. Accompanying events include a photography contest and a competition involving traditional Chinese costumes known as hanfu. MACAU GRAND PRIX First run in 1954 as a club race for local motoring enthusiasts, the Macau Grand Prix has evolved into one of the world’s most exciting street circuit races. Held November 14–17, this year’s adrenaline-fueled competition will once again see teams of international drivers vie for motorsports glory on the legendary Circuito da Guia, a 6.1-kilometer track that winds through the narrow city streets of the Macau Peninsula. PROCESSION OF THE PASSION OF…

Trained as an architect in his native California, Alán Ramiro Manning has spent the last few years traveling the world to create online sketching courses for his website SeeTheLines (seethelines.com). One recent trip brought him back to Barcelona, the city that had reignited his passion for urban sketching while he interned there in 2014. “Barcelona is the city of Antoni Gaudí — but a decade ago you wouldn’t have found me sketching Gaudí buildings quite yet,” the artist says. “I was still discovering my style back then and his architecture can be quite daunting from a sketcher’s perspective.” Manning has since put such qualms behind him, to judge from this depiction of Casa Batlló, a fantastical, organically inspired 1904 residence-turned-museum that shares a spot on UNESCO’s World Heritage List with…