• London

• Paris

• New York

• Los Angeles

• San Francisco

• Miami

GETAWAYS • Hong Kong

Arcade game

The most convincing piece of urban placemaking I’ve seen in Hong Kong isn’t on the street. It’s on the fifth floor of a 1924 building on Pedder Street, reached by the sort of elevator you’d expect to find in an office block. In the churn of Central, it’s easy to miss — undoubtedly, part of the charm.

Pedder Arcade is the work of Mark Cho, co-founder of best-in-class menswear store The Armoury, which began in Hong Kong before expanding to New York. Cho grew up in London with a fascination for its storied arcades: Burlington, Princes, and the characterful runs of small shops gathered under those gilded roofs, tucked into genuinely iconic alleys.

The space is a long-term vision finally brought to life with a remarkably coherent selection of tenants, as if assembled with a retailer’s eye for curation (rather than a landlord’s need to fill space). To help fund this dream, Cho sold around 60 watches from his own collection in a highly publicized auction, which tells you something about the level of conviction involved.

In partnership with Katherine Wong Design, Cho pulled off a small trick of the eye that turned out to be a large idea. They took a gutted upper floor, and somehow, made it read as a ground-level street. There are arched windows, café-style curved glass, door lamps, lit signage, and even post boxes. The lighting is perfect. You step out of the elevator and your brain quietly reclassifies the experience.

The shops are meticulous. The Armoury anchors the arcade, with an edit of tailored clothing from Italy to England to Japan. Phillips Perpetual sells rare collectors’ watches, and Kaneko handles Japanese eyewear with elevated precision. The Whisky Library carries thousands of bottles, and treats curious amateurs as warmly as serious collectors. Lok Man deals in rare books, and it’s hard to set foot inside without walking away with a lighter wallet and, possibly, a first edition of Casino Royale or Lawrence of Arabia. Tucked into the run is The Study, a cigar shop and lounge with comfortable couches, excellent art, and a Concorde sculpture to gaze at.

What works isn’t only the strength of the shopping destinations, but the magnetic pull of places to linger. There’s the espresso bar and the full bar at JK on the 5th, which sits in the middle of the floor like a town square. It’s perfect for a midday catch-up with a friend, or for a drink later in the day. The space easily moves from morning to night: you can have a coffee with someone, wander past the watches, end up trying on a navy hopsack jacket or some loafers you didn’t initially come for, and leave having spent a wonderful hour. People cross paths, linger, and return. Cho calls the place a secret neighborhood, and the perfect mix of experiences is what makes it so.

There’s an instructive lesson here for anyone building anything in a city, and it’s not about budget. The arcade works because someone with a point of view chose every tenant, then gave them a place to gather. Curation plus conviviality is the formula — and tucked away up an otherwise inconspicuous Hong Kong elevator, it works world-class wonders. –Colin Nagy

→ Pedder Arcade (Central, Hong Kong) • 12 Pedder St • Mon-Sat 11a-730p, Sun 12-6p.

REAL ESTATE • Martha’s Vineyard, MA

Three for-sale properties that came to market in the last 10 days.

→ 205 Meetinghouse Way (Katama, Edgartown) • 3BR/3BA, 2844 SF house • Ask: $2.7M • brick patio w/ fireplace, mature gardens • Annual taxes: $5045 • Days on market: 8 • Agent: Thayer Whipple, Sandpiper Realty.

→ 43 Sengekontacket Rd (Oak Bluffs) • 3BR/3BA, 2234 SF house • Ask: $5.995M • at tip of prominent peninsula on Sengekontacket Pond’s western shoreline • Annual taxes: $19,744 • Days on market: 7 • Agent: Peyton Wallace, Studio Realty.

→ 10 & 12 Boldwater Rd (South Shore, Edgartown, above) • 11BR/11.2BA, 9500 SF estate • Ask: $14.5M • multiple structures on 22 acres, including Robert A.M. Stern-designed main residence • Annual taxes: NA • Days on market: 5 • Agent: Patrick McCarthy, Grace Hagerty Real Estate.

GETAWAYS • New York

Argentine vision

Approaching Faena New York, I spotted Alan Faena, seated at a table by the big picture windows at La Boca on 10th Avenue in West Chelsea. The visionary Argentine hotelier insists on dressing exclusively in white, often with a fedora, making him easy to spot in a crowd. But at lunchtime that afternoon, he was among the only figures in the window of the hotel’s ground-floor restaurant, helmed by legendary chef (and frequent collaborator) Francis Mallmann (intel).

When Faena opened on Miami Beach in 2015, it made a big splash as luxury hotels were just beginning to develop the previously underutilized stretch known as Mid Beach, between 24th Street and the Fontainebleau. In New York — with all its density and action — it’s harder to make a ripple. And the days of West Chelsea feeling like a new frontier are long behind it, as the High Line and its canyon of starchitect luxury condos have largely cemented over the frisky nightclubs of 20 years ago.

Still, that doesn’t mean Faena, which opened last fall, can’t find a foothold in the city. Occupying the first 10 floors within a pair of Bjarke Ingels-designed towers — which also house luxury condo units — the 120-room hotel was sold out during my visit.

On approach, compared to Faena Miami Beach — which masterfully restored an Art Deco-era hotel, preserving its historic bones to create a maximalist colossus, decked out with commissioned and blue-chip art, and a palette of red, gold, and leopard print, all while managing to strike a note of elegance, not garishness — the shiny new-build digs can feel a bit sterile at first.

But give it time, and Faena’s maximalist sensibility begins to take hold in New York with a Gatsby-esque flourish. Especially in the second-floor Living Room — a plush, gold-bedecked lounge, where a chanteuse and DJ kept things lively late night during my visit, in a manner worthy of its Miami Beach forebearer. –Shayne Benowitz

MORE at FOUND Miami

GETAWAYS • France

Burgundian escape

Hoteliers Jerome and Alice Tourbier pioneered a new style of wine country hospitality when they opened Les Sources de Caudalie in 1999. Their formula? Find a prestigious wine-country location for a hotel — in this case, on the edge of the Château Smith Haut Lafitte Grand Cru Classé wine estate owned by Alice’s parents Daniel and Florence Cathiard — build or renovate a property with décor that reflects the region’s viniferous and local history, and complete the offer with a spa and wellness program and a gastronomic restaurant and a bistro.

The latest Les Sources property, Les Sources de Vougeot, has just debuted in the charming village of Gilly-les-Citeaux in the Côte d’Or. This hotel was created by renovating the 14th-century Château de Gilly, the former 6th-century residence of the Abbots of Citeaux. This complex of handsome stone buildings with steep roofs tomettes (traditional flat Burgundian terra-cotta tiles) is surrounded by an ancient moat and beautiful gardens.

Though history and heritage are at the core of Les Sources de Vougeot’s identity, A.S.I. architects gave the hotel interiors a well-measured dose of contemporary minimalism, which works brilliantly with the historical buildings’ austere Cistercian architecture. Rooms here — each with their own respective, unique décor — are large and cosseting, with lovely views over the surrounding park and vineyards, or the interior courtyard where porters greet you with wicker luggage wagons. The striking spa, with an indoor pool, sauna, and hammam, is located in the stone-pillared medieval cellar where monks once stored kegs of wine. There’s also a large outdoor swimming pool and tennis court.

Ultimately, Les Sources de Vougeot is one of those hotels where you just want to stay put for a week, because — aside from its warm hospitality, delicious food, and plush comfort — it’s supremely Burgundian. –Alec Lobrano

MORE at FOUND Paris

AROUND FOUND • Bonus Intel & Recs

→ NY: Echo Lake isn’t exactly a tiki bar. But with half a dozen daiquiris to choose from, numerous other tropical drinks on offer, and serious tiki bar pedigree, it more than captures the spirit of tiki in a handsome new way. The new bar is indeed the product of cocktail (and specifically, tiki) royalty: Paul McGee ran the renowned tiki bar Lost Lake in Chicago, and his partner (in life and business) Chloe Frechette is a veteran of the drinks website Punch, and author of the book Easy Tiki. When I dropped in on a weeknight last month, McGee was near the bar, not bartending, but chatting up everyone in the vicinity, obviously excited about his new spot.

→ UPSTATE NY: In a getaway town like Windham, NY, it’s rare to find a place where locals and weekenders alike want to hang out, but Dandies (above) threads the needle. On a recent weekend stay at Eastwind, the Catskills retreat where Dandies recently opened, I found that I didn’t want to go exploring for food because Dandies was right there… and so good.

→ SF: At the recently opened Bar Orso in SoMA, the cocktail menu reads a bit like the elaborately themed dinner menus at Merchant Roots (intel), with cocktails like the Clear Burrata, featuring pisco, ginjo genshu sake, basil, salt, olive oil, and Petaluma buffalo mozzarella milk. There truly isn’t another cocktail experience like Bar Orso in San Francisco, bringing with it the same unapologetically complicated, joyfully effortful dedication to finding new tastes that delight people, just like Merchant Roots provides.

GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket

Notable responses to the FOUND Routine query, “What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?”

→ ALEXANDRA ZATARAIN, co-founder & VP of Brand and Marketing, Eight Sleep (NY): A Pilates reformer for my home. I travel more than 200 days in some years, and I finally realized that making exercise dependent on a class schedule was an unnecessary source of friction. Pilates is one of the few things I have done consistently for years, so having a reformer at home means I can fit in 30 or 40 minutes even on a day full of calls. It was expensive and takes up an absurd amount of space, but I use it constantly.

→ ELISABETTA TUNDO, co-owner & chef, Altamura Trattoria (Miami): Our Italian dome pizza oven! We named it Luigi; he’s the best, and really handsome!

RESTAURANTS • The Nines

Paris restaurants, open in August

The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best.

• Grand Véfour (1st arr), ancient Palais Royal restaurant and recent reboot by Paris Society make this a hot table to try, share catch of the day fish w/ beurre blanc and tipple from impressive cellar

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Across all of the categories, we’re as focused on the way the restaurant makes you feel as we are the food. And while we obsess over brand new restaurants, only those open at least six months were eligible for consideration. To make room for the next set of great restaurants, we’ll update the list twice a year.

As a bonus, paid subscribers have access to The FOUND 45 from all six FOUND cities. Links to access each city’s FOUND 45 list:

• New York FOUND 45

• Los Angeles FOUND 45

• San Francisco FOUND 45

• Miami FOUND 45

• London FOUND 45

• Paris FOUND 45

To further whet your appetite, here are five restaurants from each city’s New Guard section of the FOUND 45.

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RESTAURANTS • FOUND 45

New York City

• Kabawa (East Village, above), the most interesting Momofuku restaurant to open in NYC since the aughts, and one of the most fun and pleasurable places to eat in the city right now. Longtime Momofuku vet Paul Carmichael is cooking vibrant Caribbean food here and at (the maybe-even-more-fun?) Bar Kabawa next door. Intel.

• Borgo (Nomad), artful, cool, grown-up, fun, wood-fired Italian dining via a master of the form (and longtime Brooklyn restaurateur), Andrew Tarlow. Order the focaccia. Fantastic lunch option. Intel.

• Le Veau d’Or (Upper East Side), Frenchette chefs Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr’s note-perfect resuscitation of a longtime uptown classic. Among the best vibes in an NYC dining room, everyone there knows it’s a special spot, and they’re all making the most of it. Intel.

• Le Chêne (Greenwich Village), gutsy, personal, haute Parisian cooking from chef Alexia Duchêne, with husband Ronan Duchêne calibrating vibes in the art-filled dining room. Worthy of a reason to go big, but also totally great on a regular Wednesday night. Intel.

• Penny (East Village), the seafood counter New York needed. From the team behind the (also excellent) Claud downstairs, Penny is best enjoyed starting with an Ice Box, their horizontal take on a seafood tower, served on trays of varying sizes and complexities. Also crucial: brioche with butter (“ordered it twice,” noted one FOUND contributor) and whatever other seafood catches your eye, like oysters confit or Dover sole with bone marrow bérnaise. Rest assured, it’ll be pristine. Intel.

London

• Akara (Borough Market, above), West-Africa-meets-Brazil via crispy black-eyed bean fritters and larger plates. Intel.

• AngloThai (Marylebone), Thai fine dining with British ingredients, sustainably and responsibly sourced. Thai details dot elegant wood interiors, with furniture built in Chiang Mai from indigenous wood, artwork and textiles from all over Thailand, and brass cast lighting reflecting an ancient Thai craft tradition. Intel.

• BiBi (Mayfair), modern Indian tasting menu with counter seating. Intel.

• Chishuru (Fitzrovia), relaxed, modern West African tasting menu spot from chef Adejoké Bakare. Born in Brixton, it moved central in 2023. Intel.

• Legado (Shoreditch), an unsuspecting entrance under a concrete overpass leads to a huge, lively, colourful room kitted out with thoughtful Spanish touches, like tomato-red tiles and terracotta dishes. Come for a cheese toastie and a glass of cava or go the whole hog with a banquet of suckling pig and all the trimmings. Intel.

Paris

• Bus Palladium (9th arr), legendary Paris nightlife address reinvented. Somehow, dinner still feels like the start of the evening rather than the end. Intel.

• Jones (11th arr), seasonal, ingredient-led cooking that’s deceptively simple, backed by a sharp wine list and a dining room full of regulars.

• Datil (3rd arr, above), bright, expressive cooking that borrows freely from across the Mediterranean. Creative without being fussy, it’s the kind of restaurant that defines modern Paris dining. Intel.

• Vaisseau (11th arr), fine dining sans stiffness. Playful, inventive, and built around an omakase-style menu where the joy comes from never knowing what’s next.

• Trâm 130 (11th arr), hidden away from the usual dining hotspots, rewards those willing to make the journey. Thoughtful moderncooking, warm hospitality, remarkable consistency have quietly made it a favorite among Paris chefs and serious food lovers. Intel.

Los Angeles

• Dunsmoor (Eagle Rock), take in the hearth that cooks nearly every dish, from Spanish mackerel to mushroom-crusted pork chop and can’t-miss tortillas.

• Little Fish (Melrose Hill), pandemic darling for fried fish sandwiches grows up, glows up, pivots to dinner. Intel.

• Betsy (Altadena), open kitchen, serious wine, big salads, seasonal vegetables, grilled meats, local familiarity. Intel.

• Holy Basil (multiple locations, above), please welcome the next generation of Thai dining. Intel.

• Baby Bistro (Chinatown), started in chef Miles Thompson’s garage, had an extended stay at Koreatown’s Hotel Normandie, is now one of the city’s most lauded in a century-old bungalow. Intel.

San Francisco

• Maria Isabel (Presidio Heights), duck enmolada is an early hit at this new and wildly impressive Mexican spot, cocktails are equally lauded. Intel.

• Bar Jabroni (Lower Haight, above), witty small plates and an unparalleled wine list from the Palm City crew. Intel.

• Ernest (Mission), cheffy and fun, in all the right ways. Eat the uni toast. Intel.

• Crustacean (FiDi), a second-generation reboot of a longtime classic, in a glam new location, with just enough of the old menu items — garlic roasted Dungeness crab, garlic noodles — to keep the parents happy. Intel.

• Four Kings (Chinatown), shared Taiwanese plates like XO escargot and roast squab from a quartet of hotshot rising stars. Intel.

Miami

• Sunny’s (Little River), restaurateur Will Thompson’s smash hit for dry-aged steak and perfect martinis in a massive and magical indoor-outdoor warehouse setting, warmed up by Old Florida mid-century modern charm. Intel.

• Ariete (Coconut Grove, above), for chef-owner Michael Beltran’s creative, refined Cuban heritage cuisine prepared with French technique, exemplified by the canard à la presse for two ($160), prepared tableside, served with roasted calabaza tamal, duck fricassée pastelitos, and wild mushroom foie gravy. It’s the kind of homegrown Miami restaurant that continues to define the city’s contribution to the global culinary world. Intel.

• Boia De (Little River), the sleeper hit in an unassuming strip mall in Little River that’s now a bona fide modern classic. Keep coming back for the silky pastas, bright crudos and craveable desserts.

• Daniel’s (Coral Gables), opened last summer, Danny Ganem’s impeccably sourced, unapologetically luxurious Coral Gables restaurant is the most interesting new steakhouse to hit South Florida in quite some time. From the Suwanee River wagyu to the lettuce from Homestead, the Serenoa Florida oysters, and the DemKota Heritage elite prime filet mignon, Daniel’s is showcasing the state’s agricultural bounty in a way few have. Intel.

• Recoveco (South Miami), from the eye-catching, artfully plated ballyhoo that graced the cover of Bon Appétit to a dynamic menu of elegant, meticulously constructed dishes, Alter alums and wife-and-husband chefs Maria Teresa Gallina and Nicolas Martinez are putting out some of the most exciting, boundary-pushing food around.

Essentials

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Essentials

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Essentials

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New guard

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Essentials

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Essentials

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RESTAURANTS • São Paulo, Brazil

Meat cute

As a native of São Paulo, you could say I’m particular about my Brazilian barbecue establishments (churrascarias). On a recent trip to the homeland, I went back to Barbacoa in the prosperous Itaim Bibi neighborhood. While the globally recognized Fogo de Chão franchise has become an ubiquitous destination for visitors, it’s Barbacoa that currently wears the crown for me.

It starts at the salad bar, set within mahogany-paneled columns and beneath sky-lit ceiling panels in the center of an elegant dining room. Unlike the pre-made salads at stateside Brazilian BBQ places, Barbacoa’s is filled with a variety of fresh greens and seemingly endless build-your-own salad buffet options, like fist-sized chunks of hearts of palm. The proteins, like crusted ahi tuna, fresh carpaccio, and salmon sashimi, are a far cry from the bulk-buy variations I’ve seen too often at churrascarias lately.

A team of nearly 100 act like they’d bend over backwards for you, a true Brazilian service experience. Even at the bar area, where you’ll wait to be seated on a busy day, baskets of warm pão de queijo (cheese bread) are delivered alongside pre-dinner caipirinhas made with surgical precision.

The meats are procured and butchered by the specifications of chef and partner Jefferson Finger, who’s become an ambassador for Brazilian beef around the world, including in Italy and Japan, where Barbacoa has long-standing locations. On my visit, Finger was circling the room, shaking hands with tables of family regulars and corporate power lunchers, while keeping his eyes on carvers slicing glistening picanha, marbled prime ribeye, and gorgeous lamb chops.

Barbacoa has two other à la carte steakhouses in São Paulo and three more around Brazil, but this is the only rodizio (all you can eat) in the portfolio. And it’s Finger’s attention to every detail that makes this the grandest showcase for what Barbacoa is doing better than anybody else in São Paulo right now. –Adrian Spinelli

→ Barbacoa (São Paulo) • Rua Doutor Renato Paes de Barros, 65.

REAL ESTATE • Providence, RI

Three for-sale properties that came to market in the last 30 days.

→ 85 Congdon St (College Hill) • 9BR/4.2BA, 5500 SF two-family • Ask: $2.15M • side-by-side duplexes w/ private outdoor spaces • Annual taxes: $18,990 • Days on market: 3 • Agent: Spencer Kelleher, William Raveis Inspire.

→ 102 Prospect St (College Hill, above) • 6BR/4.2BA, 6150 SF house • Ask: $3.495M • Colonial Revival built in 1906 w/ Gilded Age craftmanship • Annual taxes: $24,393 • Days on market: 24 • Agent: Jim DeRentis, Residential Properties.

→ 310 Blackstone Blvd (Blackstone Boulevard) • 5BR/4.2BA, 5703 SF house • Ask: $4.895M • new build w/ traditional design, modern amenities • Annual taxes: $12,242 • Days on market: 18 • Agent: Jim DeRentis, Residential Properties.

GETAWAYS • Miami

Icon, reborn

South Beach simply isn’t South Beach without the Delano operating at its full potential. After its shocking 2020 closure, the historic Art Deco hotel returned in June as part of Ennismore. The iconic Rose Bar and famed infinity pool are back, joined by new food and beverage offerings and revamped interiors.

South Beach locals know the lore, and anyone who’s properly visited Miami in the last 30 years has doubtless graced the Delano’s lobby. It was hotelier Ian Schrager who put the hotel back on the map in the 1990s with a surrealist Philippe Starck-designed lobby, creating a legendary nightlife hub graced by the likes of Madonna, Kate Moss, and Lenny Kravitz.

Ennismore, knowing it had some big shoes to fill, smartly tapped Schrager protégé Ben Pundole as chief brand officer. A talented hospitality veteran in his own right, Pundole was also responsible for ushering in the good vibes at EDITION Hotels (another Schrager venture).

Starck’s original lobby color palette of whites and creams with apple green accents has been honored, via potted palms and a voluminous, sculptural sofa. The grand flow-through lobby also features a modern interpretation of its former billowing white curtains with gauzy chandeliers and wallcoverings. It all comes together to feel like an appropriate and luxurious modernization of the space, while paying homage to what made the lobby one-of-a-kind.

After dinner, we descended back to the lobby and found seats at the Rose Bar. Pundole and a Delano Members Club relations manager were milling around the lobby with groups of fashionable looking guests. A tourist couple bellied up to the bar next to us. The woman didn’t know the Delano had closed, but she had fond memories of being there fifteen years ago and wanted to show her husband. The scene felt right: the same familiar motley crew of South Beach characters still roaming the lobby, all these years later. I’m happy to say the Delano is back, baby, and order has been restored to South Beach. –Shayne Benowitz

MORE at FOUND Miami

RESTAURANTS & BARS • London

Not so tame

Meedu Saad is best known as executive chef and co-owner of Kiln, the Soho Thai spot beloved of chefs, FOUND readers – pretty much everyone. In March, he opened Impala, a huge, vibey charcoal grill restaurant with influences from North Africa to north London that’s one of London’s most talked-about openings of the year.

The food is North African-inspired, with influences from Saad’s Egyptian heritage. It starts with Aish Baladi, a puffed-up circular wholegrain Egyptian bread dusted with bran, baked to order, served with olive oil and harissa. A highlight is the pastilla, a paper-thin pastry triangle filled with dense mutton and pickled walnut, plated alongside a fruity and sweet brown sauce. From the slightly larger plates section, grilled short ribs are juicy and light on spice, while sheftalia are standout sausages stuffed with Tamworth pork, wrapped in caul fat with a sticky-sweet glaze. From the mains, monkfish in grape leaves is lightly cooked and could be heavier on flavour, though the accompanying tabbouleh is pleasingly savoury.

Impala got its name from the cherry-red 1964 Chevrolet that Saad drove during his summers in Egypt. It’s a fitting name for a restaurant that’s sexy, colourful and already immensely popular. –Laura Price

MORE at FOUND LDN

GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket

→ KAIT BAUMAN, chef & owner, Norcina & Frankie’s (SF): I’m trying to figure out how to import a 1970 Fiat 500 back from Tuscany. (I’m a bit of a nut for vintage cars — ask my neighbors.)

→ FERNANDO DE NUÑEZ Y LUGONES, CEO & founder, VERTICAL Developments (Miami): My new tennis racket. It’s one of those purchases that immediately makes you want to get out on the court more often. Whether it’s actually improved my game is still up for debate, but it’s certainly made me more enthusiastic about playing.

→ GABRIEL CORTEZ, educator & organizer (SF): I just copped an MPC Live III Retro Edition. Baby was not cheap! But she is very very pretty. For my first one person show, I’m bringing together narrative, poetry, and live sample-based sounds to tell a story of Black diaspora across the US and Panama. I’ve had a pre-owned MPC One for a few years but wanted something a bit more portable that I could more easily haul around as I practice finger drumming around the apartment and eventually bring it up with me on stage. My show, “Between Two Rising Seas,” debuts at MACLA Fall 2027.

AROUND FOUND • Other Notable Intel & Recs

→ NY: Heading into peak season, FOUND NY addressed the annual question, What’s NYC’s Restaurant of the Summer? Two early contenders emerge, and a ROTS Nines is served up for good measure.

→ LA: A highly produced 1970s-Milan-inspired dining room with an encompassing sense of place, Bar di Bello serves well-executed Northern Italian classics, plus a full bar. It opened in Silver Lake in April. Bring a date.

→ PARIS: A tiny counter, tucked just off the noise of Rue Charlot, Okomusu is entirely devoted to Osaka culinary specialty okonomiyaki: a hearty pancake of eggs, flour, and cabbage, topped according to the mood with shrimp, pork, or vegetables. The menu asks for real attention, with enough variations and add-ons that picking one feels less like ordering and more like making a life-altering decision.

GETAWAYS LINKS: When hospitality fails, the problem might be the guest • In the South of France, Dan Flavin is the exhibition we need right now • In Deauville, France, espying the design details at remade Hotel Barrière Le Normandy • Meditations on a French summer vacation • Summer on the Slovenian Riviera.

GETAWAYS • The Nines

Restaurants, Burgundy

The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best.

• Maison Lameloise (Chagny), revered restaurant, since 1921, traditional Burgundian dishes served by tasting menu or à la carte

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• New FOUND locales are coming. We’re seeking contributors based in Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, New Orleans, Hawaii, Barcelona, Rome, Sydney, and Melbourne. A professional writing background isn’t required — mostly, we’re looking for passion about one or more FOUND categories (real estate, restaurants, shopping, culture & leisure, getaway travel & the modern workplace) along with impeccable taste. Is that you, or a friend? Interested candidates, drop us a line at found@itsfound.com and tell us a little about yourself.

• More FOUND Objects are on the way. We’re looking for contributors to write about goods & services that bring them (and their friends) joy — from sunglasses to swimsuits, watches to high-end appliances, and more. Send us your one-sentence pitches at found@itsfound.com.

• We’re seeking a freelance social media manager to give life to FOUND’s accounts on Instagram and potentially other platforms. The ideal candidate has experience managing social for a media brand or creator, is fluent in Canva and/or Illustrator, can adapt newsletter content into sharp, on-brand social posts (feed, stories, reels), and understands and enjoys neighborhood-based storytelling. If you’re interested, please send your portfolio, relevant social handles, and a short note about your availability to found@itsfound.com.

GETAWAYS • Palm Beach, Florida

Sweet dreams

The pool at The Vineta Hotel Palm Beach is like something out of my sweetest dreams. The tidy marble-clad rectangle is lined underwater with wavy green mosaic tile lanes, giving the pool the effect of constant motion. The stainless steel ladder and railing emerges from the water in a candy swirl. To keep the whole scene wiggling like a mirage, the pool deck is striped in wavy gray and cream mosaic tile. The work of art is framed with a single row of scallop-edged umbrellas and lounge chairs with pink bolster pillows, and set inside a courtyard flanked by lush green hedges, palms, and fuchsia bougainvillea. It’s an utterly sublime scene to behold.

There’d been sunshine all week, but on the late spring afternoon I hit the pool deck, piles of grey cumulus clouds darkened the sky and the temperature dropped. A front was approaching, but nevermind. An attendant greeted me with a retro Polarbox cooler filled with a bottle of mineral water, and a tray with a glass and my own personal mini SPF spray bottle.

I had enough time to enjoy a beautiful caprese salad with burrata and heirloom tomatoes before the sky fell out. That’s when I dashed over to a table on the covered patio of the Pool House to finish my Champagne and lazily watch the rain fall into the pool. Soon, the attendant returned with the bottle and said, “I can’t give you sunshine, but…” he could refill my glass. Later, the chef appeared with a simple question: “Do you like ice cream?” and then reappeared with two scoops of strawberry-rose gelato in a metal coupe, my favorite. That was the moment I decided I’d stay in Palm Beach and never work again.

Situated on the corner of Cocoanut Row and Australian Avenue, just two blocks north of Worth, the 41-room boutique hotel opened in March inside the historic Mediterranean Revival space previously occupied by the Chesterfield. It’s the first U.S. property from Oetker Hotels, the venerable hospitality group behind Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes and Eden Rock St. Barths.

Oetker’s revamp renders the property completely unrecognizable from its dark and dated predecessor. The Vineta is all fresh whites and cornflower blues, with refined upholstered furniture, mosaic, terrazzo and marble finishes, all with a subtle sheen reminiscent of the inside of a seashell.

Rooms and suites, designed by London-based Tino Zervudach, are decorated in the same white and blue color palette as the common areas in a style that’d be equally at home in an English country cottage as seaside in Palm Beach. My room was outfitted with a petite sofa, armchair, and pedestal table topped with fresh hydrangeas, plus a full closet with wooden hangers and desk alcove. All en suite snacks and non-alcoholic drinks are complimentary. There’s no gym, but a trolley carrying workout equipment can be delivered to the room.

Bathrooms are clad in Italian stone walls in a dramatic sand and cream-striped diamond pattern. A mirror covers the entire wall behind the sink with its vast counterspace and residential touches, like a ring dish and pretty porcelain vessels for vanity products. The enormous rainfall shower is state-of-the-art with incredible water pressure, and the most sumptuous Santa Maria Novella products in full-size porcelain and metal bottles.

Dining solo at Coco’s one night, the hotel’s plush Mediterranean restaurant imported from sister property Hotel du Cap, I wasn’t sure if my French waiter was in love with me, or just as disarming and bashfully attentive with all of his guests. He approved of my order, a Caesar salad and paccheri pomodoro (“simple, but classic”), and was careful that the bar didn’t rush my second martini. Dinner reaffirmed Palm Beach as one of my favorite places to be a fly on the wall. And by the time I’d finished my profiteroles for dessert, maybe I’d fallen a little in love with the waiter, too. –Shayne Benowitz

→ The Vineta Hotel (Palm Beach, FL) • 363 Cocoanut Row • Summer rates from $713/night.

GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket

→ RICHARD HART, baker, Claridge’s Bakery, Hart Bageri et al (LDN): I’m hankering after a Polaroid camera. I’ve been reading Patti Smith a lot lately, and she and Robert Mapplethorpe are always taking Polaroids, so I got a mini-Polaroid one. I love it. I’m pretty obsessed. I want the top-of-the-range i2.

→ MYLES PRICE, founder, Myles Price (LA): The Nix Spectro 2 Spectrophotometer. Color is one of the most subjective things in design, and this brings some objectivity to it. In production, I’ll use it to hit lab dips more accurately and keep them consistent with the color story. And when I see a color in the world, a wall, a piece of fruit, a tile, I can scan it and drop the exact value into a future collections file. It’s just something that captures inspiration and starts the conversation.

→ LINDSAY REICHART & GUNNAR BURKE, owners & brewers, Springs Brewery (NY): This is going to sound ridiculous, but we recently got rid of our fancy grill and replaced it with a vintage Weber grill from the ’80s that we found for less than $100 on Facebook Marketplace. We’re restoring it now, and even with its decades of character, it’s one of the best purchases we’ve ever made.

→ REBECCA SCHWARTZ SMITH, founder & CEO, Mamala Organics (Miami): New stone for our home. We got this quite busy travertine and this viola marble that actually made me verklempt when I first saw it.

ASK FOUND

One PROMPT for which we seek your intelligence:

• What’s your favorite restaurant that you’ve visited on your travels?

More answers or questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfound.com.

GETAWAYS • Italy

Vino, cucina e camere

High above Finale Ligure, tucked into an ancient valley where olive trees and vines have long shaped the landscape, Valleponci presents less like a hotel and more like a home that happened to grow large enough to welcome others.

The project was founded by three friends fresh out of the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, who chose to create their own place: part farmhouse, part restaurant, part guesthouse. Vino, cucina e camere (wine, food and rooms), simple words that somehow manage to describe an entire way of life.

The cooking is farm-to-table, though the expression hardly does it justice. Vegetables come from the garden, olive oil from their trees, wines from their vines, with a close network of producers filling the gaps. Every ingredient arrives with a story, and every story seems to lead back to someone personally connected to the property.

The sea lies only 10 minutes away by bicycle, if the mood strikes you. Open from April until late autumn, Valleponci is redefining luxury through proximity — to the land, to the people who work it, and to the stories that emerge when food is treated as a different kind of sustenance: something worth gathering around. –Candice Chemel

MORE at FOUND Paris

RESTAURANTS • London

Ageing gracefully

Around 2017, London diners were captivated by a new aesthetic taking over the restaurant scene. Romantic, effortless, these restaurants felt refreshingly bohemian and also aspirational. They were nostalgic cottagecore without the cringe. Everyone wanted to be seen in their candlelit dining rooms, tucked between their bric-a-brac accessories, record players and small plates ‘designed for sharing’ (a novel idea in the late ‘10s, believe it or not).

One of the bastions of this alternative dining direction was the Westerns Laundry restaurant collective. The group’s holy triumvirate – Jolene, Primeur, Westerns – together presented a brave new version of how London dining could look and taste. Gone were the stuffy white tablecloths lit garishly by the Big Light. Instead, rooms of muted tones, dried wildflowers and mismatched crockery. Waiters with ostentatious accents were swapped for beautiful young people with interesting earrings and an extensive knowledge of this newfangled natural wine stuff. The flavours were just as exciting as the space: bottarga grated over sea bream, hand-rolled pasta with wild girolles and new-season olive oil, brown butter tarts.

Almost a decade on, Westerns Laundry could easily have lost its allure. Such is often the arc of establishments that lead trends. Happily, this is not the case for Westerns. In fact, it’s aged gracefully into its position as a stalwart of its quiet north London community, an area better positioned for pre-Arsenal match boozing than post-footie fine-ish dining. –Anna Van Dyk

MORE at FOUND LDN

AROUND FOUND • Other Notable Intel & Recs

→ MIAMI: After a temporary closure and $100 million revamp, The Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne welcomed guests back last December. The new look — awash in a color palette of creams, pale pink and green with sculptural overhead lighting and a marble-clad reception area — does justice to the resort’s lofty, regal bones. The grand flow-through lobby, with a double-height wall of windows opening up to the ocean, always made a strong first impression, but now the space feels appropriately modern and airy.

→ LA: Chef Josh Skenes, notably of Saison and Angler, has returned with Lynx. After testing his mettle for a pizza and cocktails concept at since-shuttered Leopardo, Skenes is giving it another shot, though this time on a smaller, arguably more focused scale.

→ PARIS: Step out of Gare de l’Est, climb the flight of stairs, and suddenly the sky opens above the railway tracks. Café Les Deux Gare’s terrace looks onto a pedestrian street. No cars, no traffic, and no noise: just a classic Parisian bistro terrace, beneath an unexpectedly generous patch of sky.

REAL ESTATE • Houston, TX

Three for-sale properties that came to market this week asking ~$3M.

→ 945 Harvard St (Houston Heights) • 7BR/6.3BA, 6483 SF house • Ask: $2.999M • landmark estate built in 1908 w/ ADA-compliant bungalow • Annual taxes: $52,177 • Days on market: 2 • Agent: Amanda Smith, Boulevard Realty.

→ 408 7th St (Houston Heights) • 4BR/4.3BA, 6817 SF house • Ask: $3.495M • double corner lot w/ wraparound porch and gardens • Annual taxes: $65,204 • Days on market: 5 • Agent: Michelle Reyna, The Reyna Group.

→ 5615 Pine Forest Rd (North Tanglewood, above) • 4BR/5.1BA, 7463 SF house • Ask: $3.55M • Venetian-inspired Mediterranean w/ elegant formal rooms • Annual taxes: $45,127 • Days on market: 3 • Agent: Walter Berin, Martha Turner Sotheby’s.

GETAWAYS LINKS: Can World Cup darling Cabo Verde convert attention into bookings? • Banyan Tree makes European debut on Mamula Island • The Four Seasons sets sail • On the north Cornwall coast, taking the long way round • It’s not a hotel, it’s a world (these too) • Somebody fix the hotel gym.

GETAWAYS • The Nines

Hotels, Paso Robles, CA

The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best.

• Ava Hotel (944 Pine St), fantastic rooftop space w/ heated saltwater pool, Baja-inspired restaurant/bar, $487, intel

Read more

• New FOUND locales are coming. We’re seeking contributors based in Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, New Orleans, Hawaii, Barcelona, Rome, Sydney, and Melbourne. A professional writing background isn’t required — mostly, we’re looking for passion about one or more FOUND categories (real estate, restaurants, shopping, culture & leisure, getaway travel & the modern workplace) along with impeccable taste. Is that you, or a friend? Interested candidates, drop us a line at found@itsfound.com and tell us a little about yourself.

• More FOUND Objects are on the way. We’re looking for contributors to write about goods & services that bring them (and their friends) joy — from sunglasses to swimsuits, watches to high-end appliances, and more. Send us your one-sentence pitches at found@itsfound.com.

• We’re seeking a freelance social media manager to give life to FOUND’s accounts on Instagram and potentially other platforms. The ideal candidate has experience managing social for a media brand or creator, is fluent in Canva and/or Illustrator, can adapt newsletter content into sharp, on-brand social posts (feed, stories, reels), and understands and enjoys neighborhood-based storytelling. If you’re interested, please send your portfolio, relevant social handles, and a short note about your availability to found@itsfound.com.

GETAWAYS • Costa Rica

Blue crush

From the sandy Costa Rican roadside, Somos could be any of its neighbors, another tropical-brutalist, indoor-outdoor eco hotel, bar, and restaurant with surfboards lined up out front. But then you step inside, and the property’s unique energy comes into full view.

I was here in Santa Teresa, right on the western tip of Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, because it’s a hot surfing destination and I was on a surf trip. Quick note on surf destinations: They lie on a very certain spectrum. On one end, the traditional, far-flung, off-the-radar situations. Multiple flights, overnight layovers, maybe a boat, and always a satellite-GPS-led drive to some mattress on the floor, never-working shower, limited electricity setup with a reeling, uncrowded, dreamy wave right out front. On the other end, there are the Balis, Bajas, and Portugals: places that popped up after surfers and yogis caught word, came over, and went full Jesuit missionary by embedding themselves in the local population. Only, the good word in these cases is more focused on the sanctity of third-wave coffee, remote work, and hot pilates.

Santa Teresa sits about 20 to 30 percent off the center, toward the Bali end: more built-up, busy, and in with the 30-plus crowd. It’s crowded, but it’s not Rio or Barcelona. And there’s always either a yoga studio or an acai bowl somewhere nearby. The surf’s fantastic, and an empty, perfect beach with a wave is only a jungle drive away. But it’s not the easiest to get to, with a flight into San José or Liberia Guanacaste International, then a roughly four-hour drive from there. Or, you can hop on a very short, very small plane with a firm weight limit instead of getting a rental. I opted for the direct flight to Liberia from LAX and the drive.

The Nicoya Peninsula is also one of the world’s seven “blue zones,” those places reportedly laden with people living longer, healthier lives on account of the local lifestyle. Clever international tourism initiative or not, the place is very much an agreeable, low-stress spot. Which is exactly how a Somos stay feels.

Somos’s collection of rooms includes two-story lofts and family-style camper suites with a full kitchen, multiple living spaces, and multiple pools. They’re all fixed with local artwork, handmade rugs, modern edges, and howling air conditioning. All the toiletries are organic, the soap in the shower is lemongrass-scented, and there’s plenty of space. It’s all lovely.

In the main courtyard, the morning cafe that later turns into a restaurant and bar is everything you want from a hotel restaurant. Coffees are organic, locally sourced, roasted by friends and neighbors, and excellent. There’s a healthy selection of smoothies with eggs, toasts, and bowls as well. Lunch is salads, sandwiches, and wraps, and dinner goes grilled with great cocktails.

Out front, there’s an incredibly fun surf break right there, maybe a two-minute walk away from where coffee is served. If you didn’t come prepared for it, there’s an entire surfboard shaping bay on the second story. The rental rack is always well-stocked. Also on the second story, more rooms, plus a fully stocked gym with yoga, pilates, movement classes, and personal training options, surfing-specific or otherwise. They were putting the finishing touches on a steam room and cold plunge fixtures when I was there as well.

The staff will also connect you to options for boat trips, fishing, horseback riding, and waterfall and national park exploration opportunities. We were really itching for our own beach and the hotel manager, with staff, escorted us across two rivers, multiple miles of off-road jungle, and sand to our own private break. The waves ended up only being fine. But even with fine waves, it was an above-and-beyond experience.

The waves out front and all around read remote surf jaunt. But Somos’ unique, relaxed, and comfortably lux digs are a welcome contrast to the usual setup. My best advice? Get there before everyone else does. –James Royce

→ Somos (Santa Teresa, Costa Rica) • Frente a Lora Maravilla, 25 m al sur, lote • Rates from $285/night.

REAL ESTATE • First Mover

5 for-sale waterfront properties that came to market in the last 30 days asking ~$10M.

• 807 Esplanade (Redondo Beach, CA) • 4BR/5BA, 3525 SF house on Pacific Ocean • Ask: $9M • Cari Corbalis, Sotheby’s.

• 24 W Salisbury St (Wrightsville Beach, NC) • 4BR/7BA, 5406 SF house on Lees Cut • Ask: $9M (reduced $900K 06/29) • Barbara Pugh, Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage.

• 518 Blue Mountain Rd (Santa Rosa Beach, FL) • 4BR/2BA, 1760 SF house on Gulf of Mexico • Ask: $9.5M • Bridgett Hall-Cotton & Wade Cotton, A List Beach Realty.

• 109 Eel River Rd (Osterville, MA, above) • 7BR/5.1BA, 6368 SF house on West Bay • Ask: $10.5M • Paul Grover & Matthew De Groot, Berkshire Hathaway.

• 41 Ocean Rd (Narragansett, RI) • 5BR/4BA, 5099 SF house on Atlantic Ocean • Ask: $10.95M • John Hodnett, Hopewell Real Estate.

GOODS & SERVICES • San Francisco

Spa vista

During a late April stay at the Huntington Hotel on Nob Hill, I was struck by how the hotel’s upgraded lobby and rooms felt newly luxurious in a pleasingly understated way, drawing a comparison in my mind with LA’s Sunset Tower, one of my favorite hotels in the world. The Huntington’s restaurant, The Big Four (intel), reopened over just a month at that point, didn’t have an empty seat in the house the two nights I stopped in.

But what I consider the Huntington’s grandest comeback, I didn’t experience until my final afternoon in town, when I descended a set of stairs from the lobby down into the three-level Nob Hill Spa, which like the hotel and restaurant had been shuttered since the pandemic. I’d last set foot in the spa over a decade ago, but the impact of the stairwell’s intricate mashrabiya screens — slyly revealing the view across the pool atrium to the floor-to-ceiling windows framing the San Francisco skyline — hit me hard: surely, this is one of the great spa settings at any hotel in the country.

After a deep-tissue massage, I unwound in the pool atrium, reclining in one of the lounges that flank the room’s small dipping pool, off of which sits an outdoor terrace with another set of lounges grandly overlooking the city. I cycled between the (very pleasingly hot) steam room and sauna in the men’s room several times, returning to my perch in between; at poolside, bites are available from the Big Four along with a menu of tonics and teas. Spa day passes are available Mon-Thu, $125 per.

Shout it from the hilltops: the Nob Hill Spa, like the Huntington Hotel itself, is so very back. –Lockhart Steele

MORE at FOUND SF

GETAWAYS • Palm Beach

Eau-asis

At Eau Resort & Spa Palm Beach, two expansive pool decks (one for adults, the other for families) are perched on a retaining wall above the Atlantic Ocean. With a front row of cushy lounge chairs looking straight out to sea and an uncrowded, unhurried air, it’s as idyllic a place as any to while away an afternoon swimming and sunbathing in South Florida. A poolside bar and restaurant with an attentive staff, a lobster Cobb, and ample Champagne and rosé on the menu adds to the sense of ease.

Situated in Manalapan — part of the southern stretch of Palm Beach’s narrow barrier island — the sand here is a little darker, and the beach has the feeling of an unspoiled nature preserve (albeit with a stretch lined with multimillion-dollar private estates). I shared a morning walk only with a white heron playing in the surf.

A long weekend at Eau has a cumulative effect: with each passing moment, you can’t help but surrender to the resort’s tranquil environs and Palm Beach’s natural beauty, all aided by a warm and gracious staff at every turn. –Shayne Benowitz

MORE at FOUND Miami

AROUND FOUND • Other Notable Intel & Recs

→ LDN: For part two of Water Week, FOUND LDN went deep on two watery neighborhoods, Little Venice and Hackney Wick.

→ PARIS: FOUND Paris paid a visit to Lac D’Annecy, the cleanest lake in Europe with water so pure you can officially drink its waters (above).

→ LA: On a visit to the restaurant Gwen, meet Martin Riese, the most well-known (and perhaps only) water sommelier in Los Angeles. Here, even a complete teetotaler can feel like the finest gourmand.

RESTAURANTS • The Nines

Seafood restaurants, Los Angeles

• Little Fish (Melrose Hill, above), sources from variety of local, small-scale fishing crews and dry-ages vermilion rockfish, yellowtail, ocean tilefish, more in-house

Read more

Our cup of tea

At Hanamurasaki, the 100-plus-year-old ryokan in the tiny town of Yamanaka Onsen, check-in is intentionally slow. Over a welcome cup of tea from their in-house tearoom, Sabo, arriving guests take in the view of the Kakusenkei Gorge while settling into a new pace.

The property’s sixth-generation owner Kohei Yamada and his wife have updated the ryokan, mixing ancient craft and tradition with a contemporary, modernist feel. We’d booked a Modern Suite — one of the rooms revamped during the 2023 renovation — with its own private open-air soaking bath. Consisting of a large living room space, expansive bathroom, and small windowless bedroom that gave me the deepest sleep of the trip, ”Modern” here is interpreted in the industrial, wabi-sabi minimalism sense: tidy, neat.

In addition to our private open-air bath, overflowing with warm water from the nearby hot springs, the ryokan has two public onsens, including one on the roof overlooking mountains and the tops of homes in the petite, extremely charming town of Yamanaka Onsen. The onsens are single-gender, as is customary, and in the late afternoon I was the only woman floating on the roof, the warm water contrasting the crisp November air.

The one-street town is a quick walk from the hotel and mostly filled with craft stores (lacquerware is a specialty around here), many of which offer hands-on experiences that the hotel can help you book. There’s an excellent (and in-demand) sake bar, and a meat shop where no one spoke English and they served steaming hot croquettes to a line out of the door. Walking trails along the Daishoji River are also accessible out the backdoor of the hotel.

Still, if you never leave Hanamurasaki, that would be ok, too. Breakfast and dinner are included in the stay and as much a draw as the baths themselves. The first night, we arrived at the dining room in ordinary clothes, the odd ones out as we looked around at everyone else in their yukata (robes). We then enjoyed a Kaiseki set meal of 10 courses, which included local fish, vegetables, and specialty cultivated rice harvested from nearby fields in Ishikawa.

The next night we were in for a treat: a special kaiseki for snow crab season, consisting of the crustacean prepared seven ways. And breakfast, my personal favorite, was either Japanese or American, featuring more food than I could ever consume that early, every last bite delicious. In between meals, we lounged in our private tub, listening to the gorge, forgetting anyone else existed — a special rarity in tourist-infested Japan. –Sylvie Florman

→ Hanamurasaki (Yamanakaonsen Higashimachi) • Suites from $505/night.

“Keanu in the store. Yeah, he stopped by earlier for a burrito at Country Kitchen next door. Vince Klyn, though, you know? He played Warchild in Point Break, yeah. He should be by later. He always comes by in the afternoons.”

SURF THE WAVE: Catch Water Week across the FOUND universe: New York (part II!), Los Angeles, San Francisco (part II!), Miami, London, and Paris.

REAL ESTATE • The Nines

9 for-sale waterfront properties across America that came to market in the last 30 days asking ~$5M.

• 37 Alliquippa Rd (Phillipsburg, ME, above) • 6BR/4.1BA, 5913 SF house on Casco Bay • Ask: $4.95M • Pete Molloy, Town & Shore.

• 31 Dale Ave (Barnstable, MA) • 5BR/4.1BA, 5610 SF house on Nantucket Sound • Ask: $5M • Brian Dougherty, Corcoran.

• 149 Nanaquaket Rd (Tiverton, RI, above) • 4BR/4BA, 5158 SF house on the Sakonnet River • Ask: $4.795M • Gustave White, Sotheby’s.

• 29 Sweeney Farm Rd (South Hero, VT) • 4BR/6BA, 6514 SF house on Lake Champlain • Ask: $4.895M • Averill Cook, LandVest.

• 217 Lockwood Ct (Annapolis, MD) • 5BR/2.2BA, 4107 SF house on Spa Creek • Ask: $4.995M • Sandra Libby, Long & Foster.

• 4577 Waters Edge Ln (Sanibel, FL) • 5BR/3.1BA, 2459 SF house on the Gulf of Mexico • Ask: $5.2M • Cecilia Liichow, John R. Wood Properties.

• 14065 Scenic Hwy 98 (Fairhope, AL) • 4BR/3.1BA, 4114 SF house on Mobile Bay • Ask: $4.8M • Laura Norton, Wise Living.

• 5087 Forest Beach Dr (Harbor Springs, MI) • 7BR/4BA, 5300 SF house on Little Traverse Bay • Ask: $4.95M • Emily Comer, Birchwood.
  211 W Lake St (McCall, ID) • 3BR/2BA, 1632 SF house on Payette Lake • Ask: $4.95M • Nicole Roldan, Keller Williams.

• 7733 Hansen Rd NE (Bainbridge Island, WA) • 3BR/3.1BA, 4442 SF house on Port Orchard • Ask: $4.99M • Ty Evans, Windermere.

GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Beauty

Makeup game

Ciele is the first SPF makeup line that actually performs like makeup — no separate sunscreen step, no chalkiness, no white cast, no grease. LA-based makeup artist Nikki DeRoest and beauty industry veteran Cerre Francis launched Ciele in 2023 around the premise of making cosmetics that take sun protection as seriously as skincare. Every product in the line is formulated with broad-spectrum SPF and clean ingredients.

The standout is the Tint & Protect SPF 50+, a skin tint that evens out your complexion without looking like you’re wearing makeup. As someone with sensitive, acne-prone skin who already layers SPF under my makeup, finding a product that seamlessly folds both steps into one without any tradeoff was the kind of thing I immediately needed to tell everyone about. It’s the only complexion product I plan to wear all summer. The blush is worth noting, too, for its SPF in a product that almost never has it. –Loren O’Neill

→ SHOP: Tint & PROTECT SPF 50+ (Ciele Cosmetics) • $44 per.
→ SHOP: Blush & PROTECT SPF 50+ (Ciele Cosmetics) • $34 per.

GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Objects

Elevated water accessories, 3 ways

ON THE WATER: Boat days are fun, in theory. And for those who are simply guests on a seaworthy vessel, perhaps in practice, too. But, for the host, they can be chaotic and stressful. Yes, there are the practical elements: Do we have enough gas? Are we stocked with life vests? But then there are the essentials: Do we have enough snacks and drinks packed in appropriate containers? Junedays (above) makes coolers for life on the water, helping take some of the work out of pre-voyage planning.

Unlike traditional, popular coolers, which are hard, bulky and heavy, Junedays’ water-repellent and lightweight coolers are designed with lugging in mind: up and down a dock, back and forth from the beach, to and from a park picnic. They’re also made with food-grade material and feature a modular storage system, so lots of different snacks and sodas fit in separate compartments, all in one cold bag. I’m a particular fan of the Winnie 2 Bottle Wine Cooler, which I pack with a bottle of bubbles and plenty of cups. It’s water days made easy.

→ SHOP: Winnie 2 Bottle Wine Cooler (Junedays) • from $34.

MAKE IT SPARKLE: Many people stock their wedding registry with high-thread count sheets and Ginori 1735 china sets, but when I got married, all I wanted was the Aarke Carbonator 3. Having lived many years with a hand-me-down SodaStream, I was ready for an upgrade from this Swedish home brand that defines elevated essentials, transforming mundane moments around the house (like carbonating water) via eye-catching sleek accessories.

I’m not sure I can say with full confidence the Carbonator’s (very fizzy) bubbles are any fizzier than my previous machine, but the bubbles were never the issue — it was the ugly, plastic office-looking device that had to sit on my counter. Aarke’s models are composed of stainless steel and in addition to plastic bottles, they also sell stainless steel and (for other models) glass water vessels. As soon as my Aarke arrived, I happily put my SodaStream on the Brooklyn stoop — still totally usable for someone who was blissfully unaware of this superior option they could display with pride on their kitchen counter.

→ SHOP: Carbonator 3 Kit Stainless Steel (Aarke) • $275.

COME FLOAT AWAY: As the saying on the needlepoint pillow says: “Any day on the water is a good day.” But it’s an even better day with the right pool float. In the category of elevated pool floats, the Frontgate Lazy Day Pool Seat reigns supreme. Shaped like a classic chair, legs dangle freely in the water, while bottoms are fully submerged, torso and arms completely free to hold drinks or books. The floats are insanely durable, capable of surviving summers going from pool to ocean and back again. They’re the buoyant upgrade to those plasticky Amazon-specials currently deflating in your pool. –Sylvie Florman

→ SHOP: Lazy Day Pool Seat (Frontgate) • from $71.

GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Shopping

Miami swimsuit brands

LULI FAMA: Luli Fama’s bikinis are built on two things: bold prints and fit. The Miami brand with Cuban roots has spent 20-plus years designing cuts that work across body types, in colors saturated enough to hold up against bright sun and water. The aesthetic is unapologetically Miami: bold over minimal, color over neutral, maximalist by design. Lincoln Road is the home base, but the brand can be found worldwide.

→ SHOP: Luli Fama (South Beach & various locations).

SIGAL: Designer Sigal Cohen Wolkowiez hand-paints every print herself and transfers them onto natural, sustainable fabrics in limited runs. The collections span swimwear and resortwear built around destination-inspired landscapes and visually striking botanicals. Venezuelan-born, Miami-based, Sigal can be found at Soho House, Anthropologie, and boutiques worldwide.

→ SHOP: SIGAL (above).

MONTCE: Montce started in Alexandra Grief’s Fort Lauderdale apartment in 2009 as a made-to-order operation. The suits feature barely-there bottoms in nostalgic prints and textured fabrics, construction tested to hold up any body shape. Now a celeb cult favorite and stocked at boutiques worldwide Miami is the brand’s home base. –Olee Fowler

→ SHOP: Montce (Coconut Grove, South Beach & various locations).

GOODS & SERVICES • The Nines

Swimwear

• Farm Rio banana flower swimsuit, £182, if Carmen Miranda opened a beachside boutique, she’d stock this colourful collection w/ parrots, bananas, tropical flowers

• Hunza G Katya UPF 50+ swimsuit, £165, worthy of Baywatch-era Pamela Anderson, from cult brand known for crinkle fabric that stretches to fit most body shapes, see also this season’s Burberry collab

• Reina Olga Brigitte bikini, £137, go-to for Italian bombshell energy

• Boden Rhodes cup-sized swimsuit, £53.40, somewhat forgotten high-street brand experiencing renaissance, this Pucci-esque swimsuit is a standout

• Wolf & Badger crossing reversible one-piece £157, (above), 2 gorgeous swimsuits for price of 1, w/ matching reversible accessories like headscarves and cover-up skirts, game-changer for packing lightly

• Pjerino Emperatriz one-piece, £123, Versace-leaning black costume for poolside glamour w/ a baroque edge

• Rigby & Peller Sarda swim sha, £166, impossible to miss, available in a wide range of cup sizes, impeccable fit

• Flannels Jean Paul Gauthier wet look effect swimsuit, £139, trompe l’oeil design, available w/ matching items

• Oceanus Pandora luxe hand-beaded black swimsuit, £380, eye-catching, w/ beads that catch the sunlight beautifully while sunbathing

In the window

There was a window, probably in the late nineties, when the Maldives still felt genuinely remote, genuinely otherworldly, and genuinely worth the effort.

Palau, in Micronesia, is in that window now. Go. But know what you’re signing up for.

The archipelago sits in the western Pacific, roughly four hours from Taipei. The sprawl of more than 300 rock islands rising from water is so blue and strange it looks digitally rendered. Somehow, it over-delivers up close.

To be very clear, this isn’t Mykonos. There’s no Nikki Beach, no thumping house music always off somewhere in the distance. Palau’s remote, soulful, and almost absurdly beautiful, but the luxury here is mostly the kind nature provides. This is, first and foremost, a place to dive. Certified divers will find the conditions, visibility, and marine density enough to justify the journey on their own; plenty come here as a kind of pilgrimage. Beginners can learn and get certified in conditions that will ruin them for almost anywhere else. It’s like learning to ski in Chamonix during an epic winter — spoiled from the jump.

The best way to see Palau is aboard the Four Seasons Explorer, a 39-meter catamaran “luxury floating resort” that spent its first 21 years in the Maldives before relocating to Palau in late 2024. What the vessel solves (beyond the obvious luxury question) is access. Palau’s most extraordinary dive and snorkel sites and its most remote islands are scattered across a large swath of ocean. True to its name, the Explorer can move through it, repositioning overnight to put guests on untouched reef systems and uninhabited islands most will never reach.

There are 10 staterooms for two guests each, plus a single, very plush Explorer Suite. The interiors are polished but not overdone: comfortable beds with the cult Four Seasons pillows, proper linens, a cozy library, a small bar, an al fresco dining deck, and sun loungers set up for stargazing. The food is well-executed, and the crew — Maldivians, Palauans, marine biologists, dive professionals, and other adventuresome people who seem to have chosen this life deliberately — has the right mix of warmth and competence.

For beginners, the onboard PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) instruction means a first certified dive can happen in conditions most dive schools never approximate. The presence of marine biologists also changes the tone of the trip. You aren’t just being shown pretty things underwater; you are being taught how to see them, and why they matter.

There’s plenty beyond diving, like kayaking through the southern Rock Islands, cycling the WWII sites on Peleliu, visiting village sites, island picnics, paddleboarding, birdwatching, and quiet hours watching the clear water undulate under the sun.

The conservation story is not incidental. Palau protects the overwhelming majority of its territorial waters, and the Palau National Marine Sanctuary remains one of the most ambitious ocean-protection efforts on earth. Every arriving visitor signs the Palau Pledge, printed directly in the passport, and the Green Fee helps fund protected areas across the country’s sixteen states.

To get to Palau, route through Taipei, which should be treated as a feature, not a bug. Stay two, ideally three nights. Eat well, explore the polished retail, and let the contrast with what follows build deliberately. China Airlines operates nonstop service from Taipei Taoyuan to Koror in under four hours with flat bed business seats, and United now runs service from Tokyo for those routing through Japan.

Palau isn’t close to anything. That’s the point. And for the right kind of traveler, unquestionably worth the trip. –Colin Nagy

→ Four Seasons Explorer (Palau) • Staterooms from $3200/night.

GETAWAYS LINKS: Bali’s Potato Head isn’t really a hotel. That’s why it works •  Forthcoming Waldorf Astoria London - Admiralty Arch now taking reservations for next year • The best luxury experiences leave some slack in the system.

REAL ESTATE • First Mover

Three for-sale properties in Aspen, CO, that came to market in the past 10 days:

→ 10 Popcorn Ln (Aspen, above) • 4BR/4.1BA, 4392 SF house • Ask: $17.5M • recast 1941 miner’s cabin on Roaring Fork River • Days on market: 10 • Annual tax: $14,944 • Agents: Lex Tarumianz & Ed Zasacky, Sotheby’s.

→ 115 Meadowlark Ln (Aspen) • 6BR/6.2BA, 8123 SF house • Ask: $24.5M • multi-structure compound on 9 actress w/ 250 acres of surrounding open space • Days on market: 11 • Annual tax: $38,480 • Agents: Joshua Saslove & Riley Warwick, Douglas Elliman.

→ 520 N 8th St (Aspen) • 5BR/6.1BA, 4210 SF house • Ask: $24.995M • recently redone in West End, will 360-degree rooftop deck • Days on market: 10 • Annual tax: $44,673 • Agent: Wendy Wogan, Compass.

GETAWAYS • Palm Springs, CA

Desert oasis

I downed a shot of cucumber vodka after a Swedish massage; learned how to play both croquet and petanque; splashed around in an empty adults-only pool under the stars; sipped wine with a bunch of cheekily dressed guests from Willamette Valley; ate a “Wagner’s Ring” made of watermelon and assorted fruit; and possibly — quite possibly — rediscovered my will to live at the Parker Palm Springs, the sumptuous, immaculately-landscaped 13-acre resort ideal for couples and close confidantes.

Located on the former Gene Autry estate, the whimsically Jonathan Adler-designed hotel has been one of the desert’s most sought-after premium lodging options since 2004. In spite of a handful of minor issues, the unbridled emphasis on hedonism is largely intact over two decades later.

Given the sheer number of fire pits, public hammock areas, the two swimming pools, the tennis and (relatively new) padel courts, I suggest staying at the Parker for the type of vacation where you have zero intentions of leaving the premises. This summer, the property will also unveil a third outdoor pool and exclusive guest-only performances in the newly built amphitheater, which seats 120. Consider me Parker-pilled. –Patricia Kelly Yeo

MORE at FOUND LA

GOODS & SERVICES • Paris

Kitchen treasures

Steps away from the Bourse de Commerce in Paris’s 1st arrondissement, there is a place where professional kitchens, ambitious home cooks, and culinary history have been crossing paths for more than two centuries.

Stepping inside E. Dehillerin feels like stepping slightly outside of time. Staff dressed in green coats embroidered with the house name in yellow move briskly through the aisles, guiding customers through what is, at first glance, a wonderfully overwhelming maze. Finding what you are looking for is something of a treasure hunt. Laminated binders hang throughout the store, listing prices by category rather than displaying them directly. To know the cost of a knife, a copper saucepan, or a pastry mould, you first need to locate its reference number and then track it down in the corresponding catalogue.

The narrow aisles require a certain choreography. You negotiate passage around fellow shoppers to inspect a fish spatula, squeeze past someone comparing stockpots, or circle towering wooden shelves that rise nearly five metres high. Every available inch seems occupied by kitchen tools.

What makes Dehillerin so compelling is that it never feels curated for nostalgia. It remains, first and foremost, a working shop. Professionals come here because they need reliable tools. Home cooks come because they dream of becoming just a little more professional. You may arrive looking for a simple paring knife, and leave an hour later having considered an entire batterie de cuisine. –Candice Chemel

MORE at FOUND Paris

GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket

Select answers to the FOUND Routine query, What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?

→ MEGAN MULROONEY, owner, Megan Mulrooney (LA): Paintings by Grace Bromley and RF. Alvarez, both artists whom we work with. I love living with our artists’ work.

→ MARINE GALY, chief brand officer, Riviera Dining Group (Miami): My Whoop 4.0. It’s been fascinating to better understand recovery, sleep, and overall wellness while balancing a demanding schedule.

→ ALEXANDRA TANGEN, owner, KABIN (NY): Our wedding. We’re incorporating a lot of very Norwegian elements throughout the weekend, including floating saunas on the Oslofjord, boat rides, and long summer evenings by the water. In many ways, it’s everything I’ve always wanted to bring to New York through KABIN, just on a much larger scale.

AROUND FOUND • Other Notable Intel & Recs

→ NY: Sitting 23 stories up, gazing across an open early-evening view of the New York skyline stretching from Wall Street to Midtown, I found myself living the city summertime dream earlier this week. A civilized rooftop scene? In Manhattan? Indeed, the secret isn’t yet out (and the masses not yet in) at Guardian, the new rooftop bar opened this spring at the remade W Union Square.

→ LA: It’s true: Seemingly every it-girl in Los Angeles has gone gaga for Spencer’s Spa, the New York City import that first brought approachable, refined massages and facials to West Hollywood at the end of last summer.

→ SF: The closure in January of Squat and Gobbl left a void in San Francisco’s sleepy West Portal neighborhood. Five months later, Tur swung open in its place: a restaurant with similar daytime service hours to S&G, but a decidedly different menu. Is the change-averse neighborhood ready for seven kinds of jook at 8a?

GETAWAYS • The Nines

Restaurants, Hudson, NY

The Nines are FOUND’s curated lists of the best.

• Ambos, serious live-fire operation in new Pocketbook Hotel w/ cocktails curated by Arley Marks of Bushwick’s Honeys

Read more

Magic town

Against all odds and determined developers, the Pacific-facing side of Baja California Sur has held onto a sliver of uncrowded coastline in a part of Mexico overflowing with foreign investment. For more than a decade, I’ve been coming here to do blessedly little more than surf, eat, and siesta, thanks to the long, empty white sand beaches running parallel to the desert, seafood that goes way beyond fish tacos, and an elemental torpor that attunes me to the rhythms of nature instead of Slack.

Whether it’s still the bohemian haven it’s advertised to be is another story. But fierce local resistance, bumpy dirt roads unlikely to get paved anytime soon, and a lack of fresh water have so far kept mega-resorts at bay.

Where to Stay: Just north of Todos Santos, the surf-town-turned-budding- digital-nomad-destination, Villa Santa Cruz is spread across 20 acres on Playa La Pastora, an advanced surf break that’s humbled me plenty of times. We literally stumbled upon it by accident more than a decade ago, mistaking the inviting open-air lounge with fireplace, bar, and ocean views for the popular Green Room restaurant located steps away on the beach.

Californians Matt and Jessica Canepa have owned the land since 2001, and what started as a small B&B grew into a sprawling hacienda-revival property with tall arches, a burnt orange acid-washed cement pulido facade, and 23 rooms — four of which are beachfront glamping suites, with fire pits and a deck from which to sip complimentary coffee and graze on rotating flavors of mini muffins each morning.

The property has miraculously retained its intimate roots in spite of its size. During our last stay, we rarely saw other guests (and when we did, found them to be simpatico in their desire for discretion and light banter). The staff, though attentive and inquisitive, felt like hosts.

Descending the hand-tiled steps of our bungalow for breakfast meant a short stroll through the property’s farm, which provides produce for the onsite wood-fire restaurant Caracara (of all things, get the burger), a spa with dry sauna and temazcal, horse stables, and tennis, pickleball, and bocce courts. Normally by day three I’m desperate to escape the minimum-security prison feel of most resorts, but here I give myself permission to do nothing, settling as much into the property as into myself.

Where to Dine: For something humbler than Caracara, drive into town. On approach, Pacifica Fish Market offers the ideal of a southern Baja fish taco, a little heavier and more savory than its northern counterparts, with the tortilla practically bursting at the seams with Cajun-spiced seabass and a thick layering of ingredients. In Todos, El Santo Chilote is just as good. A bright green open-air palapa, it sits kitty-corner from the glamorous, bachelorette-friendly Oystera. The fish tacos resemble tempura, unadorned, lightly fried, fresh. I go easy on the toppings bar, preferring little more than lime and a squirt of crema.

Further south in Cerritos, I nursed my irritation about having to compete for waves with overeager beginners by plopping down with my wife at Barracuda Cantina, where we ate fried shrimp tacos and cubed tuna tostadas covered in guacamole, salsa macha, and pickled red onions, with Pacificos in our hands and our feet buried in the sand. After being featured on Netflix’s Taco Chronicles, the restaurant crept closer to the beach amid a new complex of restaurants and stores that hint at Cerrito’s rapid development.

For something less written-about than the verdant vegetarian specialties at Hierbabuena or suckling pig at Chef Javier Plascencia’s Jazamango, there’s Plascencia’s take on Baja-Moroccan at Bar Bar Not Bar, an oasis with a big menu of slow-simmering tagines, couscous, and shawarmas. We came here on the advice of Caracara’s general manager to put down a mezcalita or three to the DJ’s blend of pleasantly insipid hotel-lounge electronic music.

Where to Drink: At La Copa, a cocktail bar connected to the recently opened Todos Santos Boutique Hotel, I inhaled the carajillo made with citrusy Licor 43, espresso, Avena Amaro, and Nixta, a sweet liqueur of nixtamalized heirloom corn and piloncillo.

Where to Spa: As much as I love surfing and fish tacos, I sometimes think we come to Baja so often specifically to reinhabit the world of sisters-in-law Maria Lourdes and Maria Antioneta, whose Dos Marias Day Spa in Pescadero is unlike anything you’ll find at a hotel.

We usually spend the better part of a day here, sweating in the temazcal, soaking in a rose petal and herbal clay tub, and surrendering to one of the best massages of our lives. Somewhere in the first half hour, I stop working at relaxation, and feel myself disappear. The ocean waves, rustling palms, cascading windchimes, and tropical birds keep me anchored in this place. Afterwards, the Marias bring out hot tea or cold glasses of herb-infused jamaica and tell us to hang out for as long as we’d like. –Shona Sanzgiri

→ Villa Santa Cruz (Todos Santos, Mexico) • Camino a la Playitas S/N 23300 • Rooms from $490/night • Book.

GETAWAYS LINKS: The most interesting thing Hoshino Resorts is doing isn’t luxury • Who owns your hotel? A wonky deep dive into the world of hotel ownership structures • Egypt emerges as victor in Middle East’s travel shakeup • Inside Mandarin Oriental’s luxe new Mallorca resort • September opening set for new Nobu Hotel Madrid • Plans announced for Four Seasons Sevilla, opening 2028.

RESTAURANTS • San Francisco

Boom cycle

If you’re looking for old money in San Francisco, try the top of Nob Hill, where the Huntington Hotel opened in 1924 during San Francisco’s third cycle of bust-and-boom. Its Big Four restaurant followed in 1976. Both borrow names from the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, robber barons whose narrative arcs have been replicated across SF’s history ever since. After a long pandemic closure, change in ownership, and deep renovation, the hotel and its restaurant reopened in March, the latter back as a glorious steakhouse that channels the Gilded Age of California.

Acclaimed designer Ken Fulk renovated and restored the Big Four’s clubby interiors, featuring dark wood panels, a gleaming brass bar, green leather booths, and hushed tartan carpets. You’ll pass oil portraits of railroad tycoons, a golden bear statue, and ram horns twisted on walls. “This looks like the kind of place that Willie Brown would love,” my friend said, and she called it — as he was wont to do prior to its closure, the former mayor was back in his corner seat, surrounded by business diners and their dates.

The menu delivers classics with flourishes. The Louie wedge salad stars local avocado and asparagus, and why wouldn’t you pile on Dungeness crab? Servers finish cioppino at the table, pouring saffron broth over clams, squid, and yellowtail. One pro expertly sliced round the rim of our puffed pot pie, and asked if we’d like a splash of sherry to spike the cream sauce. There are only three cuts for steaks and chops, and it feels like a moment for filet mignon, alongside creamed spinach swirled with Boursin cheese. –Becky Duffett

MORE at FOUND SF

HOTELS & RESTAURANTS • Paris

It scene

It’s been a long time since Paris had a restaurant that reigned as the city’s Big Room, that white-hot, popular-but-exclusive place where the crowd offers a working definition of Those Who Makes The City Cool. But this season, dine there enough times, and you’ll spot everyone interesting in Paris come through Le Restaurant.

Designed by Studio KO, the hottest interior design firm in Paris, the great moody décor of this intimate dining room in the just-opened Bus Palladium hotel gets its wonderfully odd visual DNA from an elision of Tom Jones and Sid Vicious, or that raggedy time period in Paris when disco and punk rock overlapped for a while. This is because the Bus Palladium, now a 35-room five-star hotel in increasingly gentrified Pigalle, was one of the best and most enduringly avant-garde nightclubs in Paris from its original opening in 1965 to 2022 when it closed.

Now, in addition to the sexy party-pad rooms upstairs and a revived club in the basement, the reason Parisians are flocking here is to discover the cooking of young chef Valentin Raffali, who was recruited from his restaurant Livingston in Marseille to run the kitchen here. Luscious and luminously beautiful, Franco-Moroccan Raffali’s cooking has a poignancy that comes from his deep desire to please and the way his culinary creativity is disciplined by an exacting technical precision. –Alexander Lobrano

MORE at FOUND Paris

GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket

Select answers to the FOUND Routine query, What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?

→ YONI LOTAN, actor/comedian (NY, above): TICKETS TO KNICKS GAME 3 HELLOOOOOOOO but I also bought this basketball head to wear at the game on Amazon.

→ OR AMSALAM, co-owner, baker & operator, Lodge Bread Co. & Full Proof Pizza (LA): Our pizza oven for Full Proof (our forthcoming new pizza spot). We will be working with an electric Moretti Forni deck oven and we can’t wait to start using it.

→ BANBURY CROSS, burlesque showgirl & cabaret director, Palace Theatre (SF): A custom acrylic champagne glass designed for my 80s Centrefold performance, along with several recent bespoke feather and Swarovski-crystal costumes and jewelry handmade in Italy. Investing in pieces and props that are beautifully made and uniquely mine makes every performance feel a little more magical.

AROUND FOUND • Other Notable Intel & Recs

→ NY: Just opened at JFK’s Terminal 8 is Peach Palace by Momofuku. With wraparound bar and plenty of tables, it’s the biggest Momofuku ever opened in NYC. The full menu features Momo classics like the pork bun, but also, breakfast, as well as a very compelling new spin on sweet and spicy wings.

→ LDN: Chef and farmer Tommy Banks is best known for The Black Swan (intel), his pub-turned-fine-dining destination in Oldstead, North Yorkshire. His flagship makes for a fantastic vacation, but if you only have time for a day trip from London, you can’t go wrong with Roots, a similarly brilliant restaurant just moments from York station.

→ PARIS: It’s a family affair at BẾP. Marie Nguyen and Émilien Quéméner, the duo behind Montmartre natural wine bar Sobremesa, have teamed up with Marie’s brother, chef Antoine Nguyen, to open the Vietnamese restaurant in the 9th arrondissement, a neighborhood that has never been a particular hotspot for Vietnamese food. It debuted in April.

ASK FOUND

One PROMPT for which we seek your intelligence:

• What’s your favorite restaurant that you’ve visited on your travels?

More answers or questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfound.com.

RESTAURANTS • The Nines

Casual, Notting Hill

FOUND’s 9 favorite casual restaurants in the iconic London neighborhood.

• Permit Room (Portobello Rd), Dishoom spin-off, multi-floor pub-turned-restaurant w/ top-floor lodgings, intel, book

Read more

Oasis of restraint

Dubai is open. A recent trip confirmed the city is still functioning well, and for the intrepid traveler, still very much worth a visit or stopover.

Even as traffic’s abated from pre-conflict hyper-saturation, Dubai remains one of the most competitive five-star hotel battlegrounds on earth. At the full-on spectacle end, Atlantis The Royal dominates. Bvlgari holds the yachts and oligarchs private-island position. Mandarin Oriental Jumeirah and The Lana (operated by Dorchester Collection) have also raised the bar for design and service. The remaining gap in the market? A property that matches Dubai’s scale and ambition with genuine restraint.

Jumeirah Marsa Al Arab, which opened in March 2025 on the beachfront peninsula between Jumeirah Beach Hotel and the Burj Al Arab, makes that case. The architecture is by Shaun Killa, who designed the local Museum of the Future, and here, he’s completed the Jumeirah beachfront architecture trilogy — sail, wave, yacht — with curved balconies and horizontal lines that feel fluid (rather than monumental). A dramatic arch at the base frames the Burj like a deliberate act of deference to the over-the-top opulence that defined the original era.

When you walk inside, the restraint becomes more clear. Designer Tristan Auer and Wilson Associates delivered a lobby broken into a sequence of intimate rooms (soft neutrals, lacquered wood, and a nice interplay of contrast colors) rather than the Gulf’s standard marble arrival halls that are engineered for maximum effect.

The food and beverage program is where the operating acumen really shows itself. There are 11 restaurants and four bars, clearly zoned: Bombay Club for Indian, Rialto for Italian with a rare green marble bar known for being a solid Negroni perch, a discreet gin room off the back, Iliana for Greek beachfront lunches. The overall approach seems to be aiming for repeat visits from locals and visitors alike, not just one-night corporate card blowouts.

An 82-berth superyacht marina with its own casual dining boardwalk gives the property a social perimeter. In the rooms, minibars are stocked with interesting, handpicked desserts rather than the usual Snickers and Pringles minibar fare. It’s a small touch, but shows someone’s thinking about what actually delights a guest.

Rooms facing the mighty Burj al-Arab are the obvious photo-snapping tourist play, but the city-view could be a deeper option. The prestigious low-rise Umm Suqeim neighbourhood below, one of Dubai’s older residential quarters, tells a quieter version of Dubai, one of restraint and more subtle urban hum. The duality is part of the appeal. –Colin Nagy

→ Jumeirah Marsa Al Arab (Dubai, UAE) • Jumeirah St – Umm Suqeim Third – Umm Suqeim 3 • Rooms from AED 4500–6500 ($1225-$1770/night).

RESTAURANTS • First Person

In bloom

Spring is a fitting time to welcome back chef Daniel Patterson after a decade hiatus from fine-dining kitchens. His new Hollywood tasting menu restaurant, Jacaranda, opened at the start of May. In less than a season, it’s already blossomed into an LA favorite.

Tucked away just a block off the corner of Highland and Melrose, the restaurant could be home to a boutique architecture firm from the outside. There’s plenty of concrete, darkened wood overhangs, and a fully draped floor-to-ceiling window. But the cozy inside smooths out any edges. My party was welcomed in with a warm violet light, conversation, and an invitation to take a seat at the full-wall banquette. Above, a shelf held potted flowers and home-brought paintings, and the speakers played a heavily Gen-X-tilted soundtrack.

Sarah Lewitinn, former music journalist and producer (explains the playlist), is Patterson’s wife-slash-partner and Jacaranda’s head host and entertainer. After she greets the night’s guests (there’s only one seating), she spends the rest of the evening floating around the dining room, starting and joining conversations, introducing one party to another, and vibing, essentially. We met and then talked to our neighboring two-top for about 30 minutes. Despite our decades-wide age gap, we both knew and loved a deeper-cut, early aughts Beck song that played over the fourth plate of the 10-course ($295 per) tasting menu.

The menu, an evolution of the tasting program Patterson oversaw at San Francisco’s famed Coi, is quite the journey. Highlights include a puffed rice cracker decorated with avocado and radish that was as fresh as starts get. Then, a more savory yuba roll, with whipped miso wrapped in tofu skin, and whipped tofu underneath a gelatin made from Monterey Bay seaweed and caviar. I marked the latter as “caviar tiramisu” in my notes. –James Royce

MORE at FOUND LA

GETAWAYS • Colombia

Cartagena cloisters

The Four Seasons Hotel and Residences Cartagena opened its doors in April. Instead of feeling like a shiny new build resort dropped into Cartagena, the hotel is folded into the city’s history, weaving together a 16th-century cloister, restored theaters, and the historic Club Cartagena into one sprawling luxury property in Getsemaní, on the edge of the walled city.

Spanning a series of restored landmark buildings, the developers assembled a team of architects, designers, restorers, and artisans focused on preserving the property’s sense of place. Some spaces feel grand and dramatic, while others are more quiet and intimate, with breezy courtyards, colorful tiles, and lush vignettes that draw guests in.

There are two broad categories of rooms to choose from: contemporary rooms that are classic, bright, and everything I’d expect at a Four Seasons, with a chaise lounge chair and desk area. Then there are the rooms located in the historic Cloister. These so-called Colonial rooms are darker and moodier, with high ceilings, four-poster beds, and a much more unique aesthetic, plus direct access to the property’s peaceful courtyard.

It’s also home to Major Food Group’s first South American outpost with The Grand Grill (a riff on The Grill in New York City) and Bar LeLarge. On my visit just a few days after opening, a glamorous steakhouse energy was already evident at the former, and I sipped tropical cocktails made with local fruits at the latter. There’s also a lovely rooftop with two pools and a separate restaurant with panoramic views of both the city and the sea, plus Pizzeria Della Chiesa on the ground floor with a patio that spills out into the street. –Amber Love Bond

MORE at FOUND Miami

GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket

Select answers to the FOUND Routine query, What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?

→ EMILY STRAUSS, founder, EF Collection (LA): I bought this Chanel bag in Paris from Matthieu Blazy’s debut collection. It’s current and fresh, but also a forever bag. I just love it!

→ AYSIA CENTENO, head of membership, The Ned NoMad (NY): On a trip to Barcelona, I stumbled upon ADN Galeria and splurged on a framed print. Getting it home was a challenge, but it now anchors a corner of my apartment and instantly brings me back to Gaudí and those winding Barcelona streets. In New York, Poster House is where I’d go for something similar, as they always have beautifully curated exhibitions and prints.

→ NII-AYI EVANS, pastry chef, The Surf Club Restaurant (Miami): Recently, I bought the Roomba Plus 505 Combo Robot, and it’s been fantastic.

REAL ESTATE • California

Three for-sale properties in Montecito, CA, that came to market in the last 10 days:

→ 1060/1064 Ladera Ln (Montecito, above) • 4BR/4.1BA, 5316 SF house • Ask: $4.75M • on 45 acres in the hills, with gracious interior courtyard • Days on market: 5 • Annual tax: NA • Agent: Cristal Clarke, Berkshire Hathaway.

→ 195 Sheffield Dr (Montecito) • 4BR/4.1BA, 4074 SF house • Ask: $7.95M • Spanish hacienda w/full-floor, spa-quality primary suite • Days on market: 6 • Annual tax: $30,880 • Agent: Don Johnston, Sotheby’s.

→ 709 San Ysidro Ln (Montecito) • 4BR/5.1BA, 6000 SF house • Ask: $12.975M • 1926 Andalusian estate in Golden Triangle w/ sweeping mountain views • Days on market: 9 • Annual tax: $71,320 • Agent: Frank Abatemarco, Sotheby’s.

AROUND FOUND • Other Notable Intel & Recs

→ UPSTATE NY: When Gaskins, the Americana restaurant in Germantown, NY, closed in 2024, the small town collectively mourned and then gossiped about what would replace one of the only restaurants in town. In April, NINES finally filled the void. The space is brighter and softer. This new aesthetic aligns nicely with the food, which emphasizes Italian and French flavors and preparations, with the ingredients and twists beloved by (and local to) Hudson Valley diners.

→ CALIFORNIA: A boutique hotel smack in the middle of the Danish-themed village of Solvang in the Santa Ynez Valley, The Landsby is a sea of understated charm in the middle of what could easily be mistaken for a Hallmark movie.

→ LONDON: Traditionally a high-end destination for jewellery, watches, hats and handbags, the historic Burlington Arcade is now home to a different type of gem: master pâtissier Nicolas Rouzaud’s eye-popping pastries. Opened in January, Le Café by Nicolas Rouzaud is an elegant spot fitting of the 200-year-old shopping arcade, yet colourful and modern enough to attract a much younger clientele.

GETAWAYS LINKS: Brace: ASE (Aspen) airport closing April-November 2027 for runway shift • Checking in at new Red Cliffs Lodge Moab • A case for bringing back the Concorde • Who’s actually running the hotel?

ASK FOUND

One PROMPT for which we seek your intelligence:

• What’s your favorite restaurant that you’ve visited on your travels?

More answers or questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfound.com.

GETAWAYS • The Nines

Hawaiian villas and residences, family stay

The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best. Here, 9 villas to book in Hawaii:

• Four Seasons, Hualalai (Big Island), all 3 BR, Hawaiian Loa Presidential Villa (10 guests), Makaloa Villa (12 guests), Ho‘oneanea Villa (7 guests), all w/ second stories, ocean views, concierge team, book

Read more

On the threshold

The new Capella in Kyoto wasn’t part of the plan. I was passing through, planned a quick fly-by, but ended up staying longer than I meant to. And of course: it was my best hotel stay in at least five years.

Opened in March as the brand’s first property in Japan, it’s set on the former site of the Shinmichi Elementary School in Miyagawa-cho, with architecture by Kengo Kuma and interiors by Brewin Design Office. The concept is the modern machiya, and Kuma holds the line on it: The street façade is discreet; you slip through a shoji-lit passage inspired by Gion’s laneways, with ambient water sounds and subtle pauses that compress before they release into a tsuboniwa courtyard crowned by a karahafu roof.

The whole property reads as a sequence of thresholds rather than a destination, which is what Kyoto actually feels like when you get it right, and almost no hotel does.

The rooms match the architecture. I was in a Premier Temple king looking over Kenninji temple with the rooftops of Gion in the distance. The living space managed to be visually disciplined while staying plush where it counts, the standout detail being a small console of analog switches that control everything in the room. This sounds like a low bar, until you consider the late-night, iPad-menu scavenger hunt that defines most luxury hotels since 2015.

The service playbook is the other reason this property holds. I stay with Capella often enough now (Bangkok, Sydney, Taipei) that they understood the file when I arrived, and the choreography reflected it: fresh fruit instead of the obligatory boozy welcome amenity, yoga mat already in the room, dietaries checked once and then handled, recognition by name without unnecessary overlay. Compared to the current Four Seasons brand at scale, it feels more personal, and compared to an Aman, it feels warmer with more of a culture pulse.

The signature dining is SoNoMa by SingleThread, a partnership with Kyle and Katina Connaughton’s three-Michelin-starred Sonoma restaurant, with chef Keita Tominaga running a 12-seat counter and a 20-seat ochaya-style lounge bar. Smartly, they didn’t try to enter the kaiseki arms race in one of the most competitive kaiseki cities on earth. Instead, SoNoMa runs a California-Japan synthesis built around the produce of both the Kansai region and Dry Creek Valley, including a mango dessert I’m still thinking about three weeks later. (And I’m not a dessert-person.)

Yoi, the late-night kappo room, is the one that stayed with me for non-culinary reasons. The space is fitted with reclaimed timber and lighting from the original elementary school, so you eat dinner or have a drink under lamps a generation of Kyoto kids did their homework beneath.

The site itself is in a three-part development along Shinmichi Street, together with the restored Kaburenjo theatre and a new community center. In a city ground down by overtourism, a property with genuine local goodwill earns access in Kyoto money can’t otherwise buy. The crowd at Capella was cool, culturally fluent, and nobody was filming their breakfast (at least that I saw). It’s an important distinction in a city flooded with tourists.

For now, Capella still feels like an insider proposition, and John Blanco, the cluster GM, has the property running like a Spring Drive Grand Seiko a month in: no friction, and no openings-stiffness.

FOUND Pro: Ask for a Premier Temple room with the Kenninji view, book SoNoMa for the first night, and book a private onsen room (living room, shower, and hot spring bath) by the hour for the morning you leave. –Colin Nagy

→ Capella Kyoto (Kyoto, Japan) • 130 Komatsucho, Higashiyama Ward • Rooms from JPY 394,200 ($2475) • Book.

GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Sponsor

Bringing self-care rituals into everyday life

We leave the city searching for calm, yet rarely build it into our daily lives.

Meet The Clock by BALMUDA, the Japanese design brand known for bringing thoughtfulness and beauty into everyday life. Designed to help you step away from your screen and reconnect with the rhythm of the day, The Clock transforms routines into intentional moments of pause.

Wake gently with a fade-in Alarm, stay focused with the Timer, and unwind with Relax Mode, filling your space with ambient sound and a softly glowing dial.

A calmer, more mindful way to experience time at home.

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GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket

Select answers to the FOUND Routine query, What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?

→ JENNIFER HOREV, chief brand officer & co-founder, Pura Vida (Miami): I bought the Bottega Veneta Andiamo Large Suede bag a few seasons ago, but with how much I’ve been traveling lately, I find myself reaching for it constantly. It’s one of those rare bags that’s both beautiful and incredibly functional. It’s spacious enough to hold everything: laptop, extra pair of shoes, even another handbag, but still feels elevated and polished. The shoulder strap makes it easy for travel, too. Highly recommend, if you want something that can truly do it all, without compromising on style.

→ TELLY JUSTICE, executive chef & co-owner, HAGS (NY): I just got a Mill home composting receptacle. It’s not cheap, but this thing is magical. You can throw almost any food scrap in there and within hours it’s transformed into healthy, gorgeous, aromatic dirt. We use it at the restaurant and it’s totally changed my relationship to composting. Whenever I bring it up to people in conversation, inevitably they’ll ask me if it’s truly worth the price. The answer is yes. Hard yes.

→ SARIT PACKER & ITAMAR SRULOVICH, co-founders, Honey & Co (LDN): Our biggest indulgence is art – we love the work of Kate Boxer. We have our eye on one of her prints so we’re waiting for a big birthday to splurge. If someone is looking for a gift idea for us, we wouldn’t mind one of Simon Gaiger’s works in our living room.

RESTAURANTS • New York

Pizza, party

Summer’s finally here, and Balera is ready. Opened in March in East Williamsburg, it’s one of the city’s most fun restaurants, new or otherwise, with a kitchen cranking until 1a on weekends serving some of its best new pizza, too.

Behind it, the culinary director/co-owner of La Rina and Brescola, and wine distributor Lorenzo Rubini (among others) and a pitch-perfect origin story: Italian expats meet in New York, become friends, come back from day of surfing, decide to open their own spot. Which is exactly what it feels like, a sun-kissed pizza party replanted onto Graham Avenue after being ripped straight outta Rimini (the Romagna coast beach destination Rubini hails from, and where the first balera — a kind of traditional Italian dance hall — opened in 1910).

Call it “coastal Italian” if you’ve gotta; for my money, it’s more “cosmo Italian” or just “Italo disco.” The tired Italian seafood menus slapped with the former label around the city, this ain’t. This is unfinicky Italian party food, done masterfully, framed by an extremely reasonable, mostly Italian wine list of natural and traditional, plus (befitting a party spot) a punchy grower-only biodynamic champagne section and novel cocktails (including a “DOCG” Martini, gin and vermouth mixed with a three-day-aged Parmigiana Reggiano infused reduction). As for the plates, they read like a rundown of dishes perfect for post-gaming a long day at the beach or pre-gaming a big night out. –Foster Kamer

MORE at FOUND NY

GETAWAYS • Kent, England

Sweet deal

A few miles inland from Deal on the Kent coast, restaurant-with-rooms Updown Farmhouse has been serving Italian-influenced feasts from its wood-fired grill since 2022. Now, guests can sip fig leaf Negronis and aperitivi from its sassy cocktail spot, Bar Vita, which opened earlier this year.

Hospitality is an art and a craft, and owners Ruth Leigh and Oli Brown have serious game in both: front-of-house Leigh grew up in the business, while chef Brown is a veteran of Le Café Anglais. They’ve confidently built a dedicated following at Updown with their casual, family-friendly approach, great value weeknight set menus, and regular visiting chefs, from Adejoké Bakare (Chishuru) to Max Rocha (Café Cecilia), along with Jeremy Lee (Quo Vadis) and Henry Harris (Bouchon Racine).

The house itself is a renovated 17th-century farmstead that’s welcoming and generous in every sense, from deep beds and huge baths to an honesty bar. A pool opened last year. My favourite of the 10 rooms is bedroom three, which enjoys a corner spot in the main house with views across the treetops. Groups and families can take Fig Tree cottage, a two-bed suite, the brand new Beech Cottage, which sleeps six, or interconnecting rooms in The Stables. –Sophie Morris

MORE at FOUND LDN

REAL ESTATE • Netherlands

Three for-sale waterfront properties in Amsterdam that came to market in the last 14 days asking 2-3M €.

→ Hilverbeekstraat 32 (Markengouw-Zuid) • 5BR/3BA, 272 M2 detached villa • Ask: 2.15M € • on green lot in quiet residential setting w/ folding glass façade overlooking water • Days on market: 11 • Agent: Peter van den Berg, DSTRCT | Forbes Global Properties.

→ Herengracht 263 (Felix Meritisbuurt, above) • 3BR/2BA, 193 M2 canal house • Ask: 2.465M € • 1620 house on prestigious stretch of canal, renovated in 2000 • Days on market: 10 • Agent: Joshua Somogyi, Amster Vastgoed.

→ Prinsengracht 989 (Vijzelstraatbuurt) • 5BR/2BA, 288 M2 canal house • Ask: 2.95M € • 5 floors w/ 120 M2 garden on canal in city center • Days on market: 3 • Agent: Babs Persoons.

AROUND FOUND • Other Notable Intel & Recs

→ HAWAII: Spanning 81 acres on the Kona Coast of the Big Island of Hawaii, Kona Village (a Rosewood Resort) has reimagined the former Kona Village Resort that was mostly destroyed in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. A relic of this pre-tsunami era is Shipwreck Bar, housed in the former schooner of the resort’s original owner. The bar mixes nostalgic yet reimagined tropical cocktails inspired by characters of local lore like “Mick, The Jungle Bird,” alongside a selection of tiki drinks. For the rest of 2026, Kona Village is hosting cocktail pop-ups centered around Shipwreck Bar, bringing in mixology stars from all over to sling drinks this summer and fall.

→ SF: Giulio De Monte Gaspardo, a former sommelier at Bottega in Yountville, has just opened Polenta, a cozy new restaurant in Alamo Square dedicated to his native Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northeastern Italy. With the flavors and wine as dialed in as they are, this place is all but certain to be a sleeper hit in the coming months.

→ LDN: Despite the French-sounding moniker, Auguste is actually Italian (it’s named after a clown in a painting that features in its colourful dining room). It opened in April just off London Fields, and retains the structure of the site’s previous resident, beloved seafood restaurant Papi. It’s offering great value for unusual fare in a lively spot that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

GETAWAYS LINKS: Aman opens bookings for new Mexican resort Amanvari, debuting 08/01 • My unfiltered thoughts on new Six Senses London • Galicia becoming second-home bolt-hole for the climate conscious • Six new waterside getaways for the summer • A few roadtrip crib notes.

ASK FOUND

One PROMPT for which we seek your intelligence:

• What’s your favorite restaurant that you’ve visited on your travels?

More answers or questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfound.com.

RESTAURANTS • The Nines

Roof terraces, London

The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best.

• Forza Wine (Peckham), impeccable views, flatbreads and snacks in former car park

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Three for-sale properties in Nantucket that came to market in the last 30 days.

→ 76 Sankaty Rd (‘Sconset, above) • 3BR/2.1BA, 1668 SF house • Ask: $3.45M • ‘Blue Whale,’ just off the bike path, HDC-approved expansion and pool plans • Days on market: 3 • Annual tax: $8,434 • Agent: Laura Belair, Great Point Properties.

→ 156 Madaket Rd (Madaket) • 6BR/4.1BA, 3741 SF house• Ask: $7.75M • on almost 2 acres, renovated in ‘24, including new septic • Days on market: 16 • Annual tax: $9,619 • Agent: Spencer Heydt, Fisher Real Estate.

→ 16 India St (Old Historic District) • 3BR/3.1BA, 7,2326 SF house • Ask: $8.2M • 14K-SF lot in town, same ownership for 55 years • Days on market: 14 • Annual tax: $13,883 • Agent: Liza Ottani, Lee Real Estate.

GETAWAYS • FOUNDLISTING

The Storybook Coast

Explore Carmel-by-the-Sea, one long weekend at a time

Few places in the world compare to Carmel-by-the-Sea — the quaint town favors whimsical cottages and secret passageways that encourage wandering more than overplanning. Originally an artist colony, Carmel has managed to maintain an endearing charisma and picturesque allure. Days unfold here between the white-sand Carmel Beach, locally sourced dining, and hidden courtyards lined with independently owned galleries and shops. Just a couple hours south of San Francisco, it feels refreshingly analog, the kind of place that rewards lingering a little longer.

→ Book a trip: Carmel-by-the-Sea [spon]

GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket

Select answers to the FOUND Routine query, What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?

→ CHLOE FRECHETTE & PAUL MCGEE, partners, Echo Lake (NY): Last summer we bought a 1984 Mercedes station wagon to cruise around in. It can barely make it up hills, but on a flat road with the windows down, a cassette playing, and the dogs in the back, it feels like heaven.

→ MICHAEL SCHWARTZ, chef & restaurateur, The Genuine Hospitality Group (Miami, above): My Triumph Bonneville T-100 motorcycle!!

→ CLAIRE WADSWORTH & NIKKI HILL, owner & GM / owner & chef, La Copine (LA): Massages. Get one every time you’re on vacation. Also, oracle readings — support your local witches. And to our customers, we can’t recommend a trip to Joshua Tree without also recommending a visit to the Integratron and Noah Purifoy Outdoor Art Museum.

RESTAURANTS • London

Remix to ignition

High-end Mayfair Japanese restaurant Humo has been restyled and reimagined as Igni, a restaurant that draws inspiration from its open-fire stove, under ex-Cycene chef Theo Clench. Visually, Igni appears almost identical to Humo. The narrow space offers both countertop (ideal for watching the chefs in action) and table seating, and the vibe is refined and expensive, though not ostentatious. Service is very attentive and friendly, particularly from the sommelier.

From the menu, choose between three, five and eight courses, all of which showcase Clench’s love of seafood. The bread course, a bao-inspired potato bun served with burned leek butter, is immensely satisfying — if this bread was for sale, I’d buy it weekly. Some of the dishes, like the asparagus and the turbot, are over-presented and over-tweezered. Others, like the hogget, are aptly balanced and compelling, making great use of the live fire. Desserts are top-notch, especially apple sorbet, and silken tofu served with melted chocolate. –Emily Zemler

MORE at FOUND LDN

GOODS & SERVICES • New York

A plus

As a Southern California native and longtime Miamian who sometimes grows wistful over the spa and wellness culture of my former homelands, Sage + Sound hits a sweet spot. The upscale Upper East Side wellness complex, situated behind a storefront of interconnected businesses on Third Avenue, is anchored by a spa and “study,” which offers daily classes and workshops from meditation to movement.

Sage + Sound’s spa lineup includes facials, bodywork, and lymphatic drainage treatments. Facials feature a range of advanced techniques, including microcurrent, radio frequency, and negative ion oxygen therapy, using products like Biologique Recherche. I keep coming back for the blissful 90-minute Face and Body Lymphatic Ritual, a head-to-toe lymphatic massage, including a hot oil scalp treatment and the intraoral buccal method, followed by a private infrared sauna session with lemon water and detox tea for the road. I emerge feeling reborn and freshly swaddled. Acupuncture and energy healing are also on offer and the shop sells an array of beauty products. –Shayne Benowitz

MORE at FOUND NY

AROUND FOUND • Other Notable Intel & Recs

→ NY: FOUND’s summer previews for The Hamptons and Upstate New York detail the new restaurants and hotels we’re most excited about this summer.

→ NY: Chef Hasung Lee, who ran the kitchen at Atomix and is also known for his star turn as “Culinary Monster” on Korean cooking show Culinary Class Wars, struck out on his own earlier this month and opened Oyatte in a Murray Hill townhouse. Over a series of preview dinners and the real deal, FOUND team members Kat Odell, Lee Pitofsky, and Lockhart Steele each dined there and came together to share their experiences.

→ Miami: Restaurateur Stephen Starr’s latest Miami opening has officially landed with Slim’s, taking over the former Makoto space and replacing Le Zoo, Starr’s previous restaurant at Bal Harbour Shops. A moody, vintage-inspired steakhouse dripping in old-school glamour, it’s got the relaxed polish of a Houston’s with a more bespoke, less-boxed-experience touch.

→ SF: Formerly Cafe Flore (and more recently rebranded as a short-lived restaurant called Fisch & Flore), the highly central Castro cafe at Noe and Market just reopened with a makeover from Cow Hollow wine bar owner Jacob Paronyan. The new business, Parasol at Cafe Flore, is a better fit for a long-beloved space and an historic neighborhood.

GETAWAYS LINKS: Following long soft opening, W Sardinia officially opens • Checking in at new Park Hyatt Cabo del Sol • On taste and travel, and what the best-of awards don’t tell you • The hottest reservation on the Amalfi Coast this summer.

ASK FOUND

One PROMPT for which we seek your intelligence:

• What’s your favorite restaurant that you’ve visited on your travels?

More answers or questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfound.com.

GETAWAYS • Nice

Make it Nice

Read more

• We’re newly on the search for an editorial assistant. It’s a fractional job requiring 5-10 hours per week, and includes organizing FOUND’s editorial calendar, communicating with contributors, updating FOUND’s website, and if you please, some writing. The position’s remote, though the ideal candidate is based in a FOUND city.

• Speaking of, the wheels are turning on new FOUND cities. We’re looking for contributors based in Chicago, New Orleans, Hawaii, plus Sydney and Melbourne. These are very flexible freelance roles that don’t necessarily require a professional writing background — mostly passion about FOUND categories along with impeccable taste. Is that you, or a friend?

• We need a paid social guru to manage a small spend.

If any of these opportunities excite you, drop us a line at found@itsfound.com and tell us a little bit about yourself.

REAL ESTATE • First Mover

Speaking of New Orleans, three for-sale properties in the Crescent City that came to market in the last 30 days.

→ 6226 St Charles Ave (Audubon, above) • 9BR/9.2BA, 7992 SF house • Ask: $3.1995M • one block from Audubon Park, 1903 home, first time to market in 75 years • Days on market: 7 • Annual tax: NA • Agent: Shaun Talbot, Talbot Realty.

→ 1812 Palmer Ave (Audubon) • 6BR/5.1BA, 760 SF house• Ask: $3.35M • ‘The Jewel of Palmer,’ fully renovated in 2023-24 • Days on market: 4 • Annual tax: $20,914 • Agents: Neil Maki & Brent Talavera, McEnery Residential.

→ 2727 St Charles Ave (Garden District) • 10BR/10.1BA, 7671 SF house • Ask: $3.2M • currently configured as B&B w/ top-floor owner’s suite, JazzFest posters not included! • Days on market: 29 • Annual tax: $24,340 • Agent: Brittany Picolo, Keller Williams.

GETAWAYS • Tokyo

Tokyo zigzag

The thirsty greenscreeners of luxury travel Instagram would have you believe there’s no other place to stay in Tokyo than the Aman. Sure, the hotel is genuinely excellent. It’s also filled to the brim with some of the world’s most annoying people.

Pan out, and the city’s luxury hotel landscape (if you know where to look) is one of the world’s most interesting. Tokyo’s always rewarded curious travelers looking just past the consensus. Three properties in particular deserve more of that conversation.

At the edge of the Imperial Palace East Gardens, Palace Hotel Tokyo occupies about as prime a position as you can get in town. It’s also perfectly placed for an early morning run among the immaculately-clad Japanese runners on a park loop that holds up in all seasons (start very early in Tokyo’s summertime furnace heat, however). The Palace isn’t trying to impress you with volume or spectacle. It’s old-school, attracting passionate staff who don’t tend to defect to other brands.

That starts with the guest experience: built on restraint and precision, rooted in anticipatory service, with a sense of formality that never tips into stiffness. A quick survey of the breakfast room confirmed that, get this, there are still Western travelers with decorum who understand that Ex Officio outfits from REI might be inappropriate for all occasions. The rooms looking onto the moat and pines are among the finest urban views available at any price point in Asia; be sure to opt for one with a balcony (one category up from the entry room). This is what traditional Japanese luxury looks like when it’s assembled by people who actually believe in it.

•••

Hotel Okura‘s Heritage wing is a different kind of argument. The lobby was immaculately restored to its original 1962 glory, and remains one of the great interior spaces in the city: pendant lamps, latticed screens, hexagonal motifs running through the furniture, all showcasing postwar Japan’s attempt to synthesize Modernism with its own design traditions (also see: the elegant Seiko world clock). The location is steps from the American Embassy in Toranomon. Given the proximity to the Ginza Line, it’s also among the best in the city for anyone whose Tokyo visit is also a working one.

Selected suites in the Heritage Wing include steam rooms, a grace note easy to overlook in the booking process, and difficult to forget after that first time you climb into it, fresh from Haneda. Take a morning stroll into the perfectly manicured park adjacent to the hotel, then settle in for breakfast at Yamamoto, the hotel’s Japanese restaurant. It’s the kind of meal that makes you reconsider your assumptions about what a hotel breakfast can be: grilled fish, dashi, pickled vegetables, perfectly cooked rice, immaculate staff in traditional dress. There’s a reason Thom Browne stays here.

•••

On the edge of Yoyogi Park, Trunk Hotel is the outlier in this trio. Where the other two trade in heritage and institutional gravitas, Trunk is unambiguously contemporary, a design-forward property that’s solved a problem most boutique hotels can’t: how to have a genuine point of view that doesn’t get in the way of a good night’s sleep. The pool overlooking the park’s canopy (above) is the knockout differentiator, especially in autumn, when you can watch the leaves turning (let alone the spring bloom).

Rooms are designed by people who appear to have actually stayed in many hotels and thought carefully about what they would change. The location, adjacent to Yoyogi, gives the property a residential feeling miles away from corporate luxury. Eat an excellent Neapolitan pizza on site at L’ombelico, then take a short walk around the corner for an espresso and people-watching at Fuglen. Book early, as the property regularly sells out.

Clearly, this city doesn’t have a hotel problem; far from it. It’s got a recommendation problem. Some of the city’s best stuff isn’t impossible to find, and only requires turning your head just a few degrees past where everyone else is looking. –Colin Nagy

→ Palace Hotel Tokyo (Chiyoda City, Tokyo) • 1 Chome-1-1 Marunouchi • Rates from $451/night.
→ The Okura Tokyo (Minato City, Tokyo) • 2 Chome-10-4 Toranomon • Rates from $650/night.
→ Trunk Hotel, Yoyogi Park (Shibuya, Tokyo) • 1 Chome-15-2 Tomigaya • Rates from $500/night.

GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket

Select answers to the FOUND Routine query, What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?

→ EYAL SHANI, chef, Good People Group (Miami): I recently purchased the Leica M6 film camera. I’ve always loved Leica as a brand for the quality, the history, and the precision. There is nothing quite like it. I had my eye on the M6 for many years, but I was never generous with myself. Last week, I decided to change that and allow myself to indulge. What makes it special is the way it teaches you to see. You have to train your brain to work manually, to be patient, to be precise, and in doing so, you begin to tell stories in a new way.

→ SYLVIA WHITMAN, bookshop owner, Shakespeare and Company (Paris): A special Paris treat is a facial at AIME.

→ SARAH LEWITINN PATTERSON, co-owner & guest relations, Jacaranda (LA): To be honest, the most recent big-ticket purchase I made was this freaking restaurant. I can’t stress enough how expensive opening a restaurant with your own money can be. I guess before that, I spent the very last of my remaining money on getting 80 units of Botox from my neck up. I asked the nurse to “freeze my fucking face and neck.” Thankfully, that was still good by the time we did our press photos.

GETAWAYS LINKS: The global private club boom has a blind spot • Auberge debuts in Africa with 9 luxe safari lodges and camps • Anticipated new resort Siari, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, opens on Mexico’s Pacific coast • Nantucket v Aspen • The West Country of England’s food renaissance • What’s the current deal with hotel booking sites?

GETAWAYS • Italy

Message in a bottle

Through a gate, up the hill, around the turn, and, suddenly, the Selvadolce estate reveals itself. A breathtaking view of the sea stretching as far as the eye can reach, vines facing the sun, rows lined with bright green grass dotted with small yellow flowers. It leaves you momentarily speechless. As Selvadolce’s proprietor Aris Blancardi puts it: how could you make bad wine from a place like this?

And yet: Blancardi tasted the wines made here before he converted the family vineyard from conventional farming to biodynamic, and couldn’t believe the difference. The same land, the same grapes, yet entirely different expressions. One is shaped by control, almost fear; the other, by trust in nature.

He believes many winemakers in the region, by the French-Italian border, struggle to trust their land. Liguria is not easy, with its steep terraces, dry conditions, and constant exposure. But still, Blancardi says, “If the French had Liguria, they would have made a second Burgundy.” Standing there, facing the sun and the sea, mountains at your back, the idea of the cosmos suddenly feels tangible. –Candice Chemel

MORE at FOUND Paris

GOODS & SERVICES • London

Tactile experience

Present & Correct is obsessively ordered in a way that would make Wes Anderson swoon. The Islington shop lines pens, notebooks, files and rulers with fittingly geometric precision, each item resting in its place as if part of a diagram. Colours are muted, materials chosen for tactility and balance, and everything from paperweights to staplers is arranged to maximise visual symmetry.

There’s a quiet satisfaction in moving through the aisles: The layout imposes calm, and even the smallest decision – testing a pen, flipping a notebook, stroking brush bristles – is, inasmuch as it can be, a bliss-inducing retail experience.

Among the stationery lie little ephemera Easter eggs: 1980s Crayola bags or 1970s Dutch Summer stamps. It shows how mass-produced tools of daily life can, with time, acquire the weight of cultural artefacts. In bringing together the utilitarian and the collectible, the shop underscores how design history is not only preserved in museums but also in the overlooked objects we once used daily (and now in the technological age, perhaps took for granted). –Amy-Rose Holland

MORE at FOUND LDN

AROUND FOUND • Other Notable Intel & Recs

→ NY: In a downtown increasingly crowded with concept restaurant openings, Cleo works as something simpler (and arguably, harder to pull off): a genuinely good restaurant that turns neighbors into regulars, and makes visitors wish they were neighbors.

→ LA: Opened late last year on a quieter stretch of York in Highland Park, self-proclaimed “Japanese brunch bistro” Ine is a polished, attentive izakaya, with modern touches and some restrained fusion from chef Sang Tae. The dining room is a respite on a cool evening. Mostly two tops and bar seats, it provides an intimate setting for close conversation.

→ SF: Sol Bakery owner Marisa Williams grew up in the Haight, then started baking her way through SF. She spent several years mastering croissants in Copenhagen before swinging back to the Bay, where she launched Sol Bakery as a pop-up in 2024. In April, she debuted a permanent space in NoPa. At 8a on a recent Friday, the queue ran down the quiet residential block.

ASK FOUND

One PROMPT for which we seek your intelligence:

• What’s your favorite restaurant that you’ve visited on your travels?

More answers or questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfound.com.

RESTAURANTS • The Nines

Hot new restaurants, NYC

The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best of the best.

• Marcel (Upper East Side), mostly French cooking from La Mercerie team inside Breuer Building’s dramatic downstairs setting, intel

Read more

• We’re newly on the search for an editorial assistant. It’s a fractional job requiring 5-10 hours per week, and includes organizing FOUND’s editorial calendar, communicating with contributors, updating FOUND’s website, and if you please, some writing. The position is remote, though the ideal candidate will be based in a FOUND city.

• Speaking of, the wheels are turning on new FOUND cities. We’re looking for contributors based in Chicago, New Orleans, Hawaii, plus Sydney and Melbourne. These are very flexible freelance roles that don’t necessarily require a professional writing background — mostly passion about FOUND categories along with impeccable taste. Is that you, or a friend?

• We need a paid social guru to manage a small spend.

If any of these opportunities excite you, drop us a line at found@itsfound.com and tell us a little bit about yourself.

GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket

Select answers to the FOUND Routine query, What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?

→ HASUNG LEE, head chef & owner, Oyatte (NY, above): I recently purchased Cook the Mountain by the three-star Italian chef Norbert Niederkofler. His narrative and philosophy on sustainable cooking are fascinating and have been a great source of inspiration lately.

→ ARASH HASHEMI, creator, ShredHappens & Kaizen Food Company (Miami): Hiring an AI coach. As both a creator and consumer packaged goods co-founder, I’m beginning to understand that leveraging AI and integrating it into what I do day to day isn’t optional anymore. I wanted to go beyond surface-level experimentation and understand how to build systems around it so I can operate more efficiently and ultimately serve my community at a higher level. It’s taking some adjustment, but I’m already learning a ton.

→ PAULINE GAUTHIER, head of food, drinks & agrifoodtech, Business France – UK & Ireland (LDN): I bought my electric bike from Compton Cycles, where the team is brilliant. To me, cycling is the best way to travel across London – you don’t get crushed on the tube and you discover new corners of our city every day.

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GETAWAYS LINKS: Anticipated St. Regis Costa Mujeres, Cancun sets 06/25 opening, reservations now open • Nobu planning country escape on 185 acres in English countryside • Morocco’s Waldorf Astoria Rabat-Salé opens in Africa’s third-tallest skyscraper • Farm-fresh hotels • 50 details that make a hotel so f’ing good.

RESTAURANTS • New York

Concrete jungle

The base of the staircase to the subterranean dining room at 945 Madison — the famous Breuer Building on the Upper East Side — is (like most of the building) fashioned from concrete. It’s a grand entrance into one of New York City’s very best dining rooms, which as of last month is home to the new restaurant Marcel.

Walking down that staircase for the first time since 2019, when chef Ignacio Mattos operated the terrific Flora Bar here, I was struck anew by the room itself: double-height ceilings framing windows looking out across the building’s unique moat and up to Madison Avenue. This time around, the restaurant space is in the hands of the design group Roman and Williams, who own and operate Marcel in partnership with Sotheby’s. Here, they’ve applied their luxurious style with lots of new dark walnut for the bar area, dining room, and the ceiling that overhangs about half of the room.

Still, no amount of wood can win out over the brilliance of the brutalist concrete structure, the work of architect Marcel Breuer, who designed the building for The Whitney in the ’60s (Sotheby’s bought the building in 2024 as its new headquarters).

Seated at a banquette situated just outside the perimeter of that wood ceiling on Saturday night, our group of four soaked up the menu, a very fancy, mostly French affair. Besides their design aesthetic, Roman and Williams have brought Marie-Aude Rose uptown (from their straight-ahead French restaurant La Mercerie in Soho), to cook in the open kitchen tucked into the restaurant’s rear corner. Here, she’s doing more sophisticated work. –Lockhart Steele

MORE at FOUND NY

GOODS & SERVICES • Paris

Memory cabinet

Tucked just off the Palais-Royal across from France’s Ministry of Culture, the new boutique GIFTSHOP is easy to miss. There’s no flashy storefront, just a discreet door marked with the name. Ring the doorbell and climb the beautiful old staircase to the second floor, where the boutique subtly reveals itself.

A highly curated, design-led souvenir concept that’s part boutique, part creative studio, GIFTSHOP produces objects tied to the city’s best addresses, old and new. Inside the apartment-like space, a bistro table is set with linens from La Fontaine de Mars, Café des Ministres wine glasses, and an ashtray from La Closerie des Lilas, objects that carry the memory of crowded tables and slow, sunlit afternoons. In the next room, a wooden cabinet holds bistro plates from Brasserie Lipp, Le Paul Bert, and Au Pied de Cochon, their typography instantly recognizable to anyone who has lingered late into the evening at these iconic Parisian establishments.

A polished brass luggage cart, more hôtel particulier than retail fixture, holds a varsity jacket, scarves, and colorful hats from Folderol. And the pièce de résistance, an orange bike from À la Mère de la Famille (whose craques might be among the most addictive chocolates in Paris), leans against the wall. Each item is part of the setting, yet everything is for sale. –Sam Brenzel

MORE at FOUND Paris

AROUND FOUND • Other Notable Intel & Recs

→ NY: In Midtown, Bar Chimera is the latest brainchild of restaurateur Simon Kim. Coming off the juggernaut that is Cocodaq, Kim’s viral fried chicken restaurant, it must be said that the man knows how to give the people what they want. In this case, it’s martinis.

→ MIAMI: San Juan’s historic oceanfront resort on Condado Beach, La Concha, completed an extensive $80 million renovation last year, including a guestroom redesign, three new restaurants, and a new spa and salon. Puerto Rico knows how to party, and this is especially evident on La Concha’s pool deck, with three infinity-edge pools, and late nights at the oceanfront Fifty Eight nightclub. The people-watching is superb.

→SF: Chef Christopher Kostow, who remains on an extended, fire-related hiatus from his lauded Napa spot Restaurant at Meadowood, got into the bagel business in 2022 with the opening of Loveski Deli at Napa’s Oxbow Public Market. His modern take on Jewish deli fare — in particular. the Montreal-by-way-of-Cali-style bagels — became a hit spawning a Larkspur location, and in March, an outpost in the heart of San Francisco’s Jackson Square.

REAL ESTATE • First Mover

Three for-sale single-family residences in Traverse City, MI, that came to market in the last 14 days.

→ 2770 Nelson Rd (Traverse City, above) • 4BR/2.2BA, 2,626 SF single-family • Ask: $2.5M • on Old Mission Peninsula w/ boat slip and panoramic Bay views • Days on market: 11 • Annual tax: $6,675 • Agent: Shawn Schmidt, Coldwell Banker Schmidt.

→ 55 S Hope Ridge (Traverse City) • 15BR/11BA, 15383 SF multi-family • Ask: $3.5M • 8 homes and 4 barns over 40 acres • Days on market: 9 • Annual tax: $NA • Agent: Matthew Dakoske, RE/MAX Bayshore.

→ 3515 Jefferson Ave (Traverse City) • 5BR/2.2BA, 5724 SF house • Ask: $3.85M • 1880 house on 10 acres atop Jefferson Hill • Days on market: 6 • Annual tax: $6873 • Agent: Jennifer Gaston, RE/MAX Bayshore.

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One fresh PROMPT for which we seek your intelligence:

• What’s your favorite restaurant that you’ve visited on your travels?

More answers or questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfound.com.

GETAWAYS • Amsterdam

Dutch treats

FOUND checks into two unique styles of luxe digs in the heart of Amsterdam, with rare plant-focused dining experiences.

“You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another,” Hemingway once wrote. I disagree. In Rome, the gluten-phobic slurps glossy carbonara. In the Marrakech souk, the bashful traveler transforms into a cunning haggler. And in Amsterdam, a weed-shy journalist might find herself taking leisurely puffs while strolling along the canal, the sun shimmering on the water on a rare blue-skied March day.

Recently, I traveled to Amsterdam in search of a relaxing, so-called adult vacation. I had booked stays in two high-end hotels, each with its own distinct take on luxury. It was a chance to get away from the relentless, capricious Paris scene; to eavesdrop on a new language with its own melodies; to let my eyes trace the high windows and brick façades and curvy roofs of the local architectural style. I would bike. I would chill. I would embrace the city and its cultural offerings, delicious surprises and all.

In the central but relatively calm museum district (the “Upper East Side” of Amsterdam, as one staffer put it) sits Conservatorium, a former bank turned music conservatory turned luxury hotel, recently acquired and recast by Mandarin Oriental.

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Upper peninsula

London’s luxury hotel market is — depending on your tolerance for legacy and letdown — either one of the world’s great collections, or a study in diminishing returns. Classics like Claridge’s, The Connaught, and The Lanesborough earn their reputations through accumulated idiosyncrasy and a kind of benign institutional stubbornness. The newer entrants are more mixed: some impressive, others struggling to justify their rates with build quality that doesn’t hold up on close inspection.

The Peninsula opened on Hyde Park Corner in 2023. Sir Michael Kadoorie’s group spent enormously, and it shows in the way that actually matters: the materials. Stone, wood-lined hallways, bronze, joinery — nothing here feels value-engineered. The pool and gym are exceptional, both the kind of amenities that earn the rate rather than merely justifying it on paper. Even the hue of the poolside light makes you forget you’re in a sub-basement in the middle of London.

Arrival is warm and pitch-perfect. The location rewards the decision too: Belgravia, Knightsbridge, St. James’s, and Marylebone are all walkable, giving the hotel a geographic optionality most London properties at this price point can’t match. You’re also surrounded by some of the finest parks in the world.

The tech is its own subplot. Kadoorie’s well-documented affection for Q-branch theatrics manifests throughout. The Toto toilet features a control panel that could plausibly launch a small satellite. Lighting adjusts in barely noticeable increments. A valet appears to collect laundry from a private box at the entry with minimal prompting. Suites have printers, AV, and other electronics connections that most hotels quietly retired years ago. (Most guests won’t use them, but they’re there, which is precisely the point.) Even the lens cloth left near glasses on turndown is high quality. The coffee served throughout the property is exceptional. All of this is the result of someone, somewhere, caring about details well past the point of commercial logic.

The food program has range. The club sandwich is one of those deceptively simple tests a hotel kitchen either passes or fails; Peninsula passes convincingly. Little Blue, the casual spot restaurant on-site, serves dim sum and dan dan noodles at a level that would be notable in a standalone context, let alone within a hotel’s. Canton Blue, anchoring the main dining, channels the group’s Hong Kong origins with real conviction rather than decorative nostalgia.

On departure, the bell team knocked at exactly the requested time. Clockwork, delivered with Peninsula’s characteristic consistency across the brand.

This isn’t cozy or clubby — it won’t feel like an old members’ club with Brompton sofas that have lived several lives. But that’s not the point. Peninsula London is a new hotel that doesn’t cut the corners other luxury brands are increasingly addicted to. In a market where that’s a rarer proposition than it should be, it earns its place at the top. –Colin Nagy

→ The Peninsula London (Belgravia) • 1 Grosvenor Pl • Rates from around £1200/night.

ASK FOUND

One PROMPT for which we seek your intelligence:

• What’s your favorite restaurant that you’ve visited on your travels?

More answers or questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfound.com.

RESTAURANTS • London

Game on

Sally Abé made her name at Fulham gastropub The Harwood Arms before setting up The Pem, a female-run fine dining restaurant in a Westminster hotel. After a stint at The Bull at Charlbury in the Cotswolds, she opened her first independent restaurant, Teal by Sally Abé, in Hackney last month.

The food is elegant, original, and nostalgic. Abé has revived retro British dishes such as locket’s savoury, a rarebit-like snack of melted stilton on toast with a sweet kick of wafer-thin pear. It’s worth ordering most of the appetisers, including devils on horseback (bacon-wrapped prunes stuffed with thin chicken liver parfait) and the more substantial brawn Scotch egg. Starters are similarly strong: there’s bacon (a theme), thick, pork belly-like slices with tangy crème fraîche, shimeji mushrooms and the most marvellous, delicate sliver of pork scratching. We went heavy on starters and picked just one main: a generously portioned beef sirloin with outstanding, flaky short rib, punchy wild garlic sauce and soft, sweet onion.

Playful, nostalgic and wonderfully original, Teal brings out the best of British cuisine in what is undoubtedly one of the London openings of the year. –Laura Price

MORE at FOUND LDN

RESTAURANTS • San Francisco

Chicken out

New izakaya TBD is a bit of a full circle moment: After nearly two decades of eating across San Francisco, one of my few regrets is never making it to the original Akikos, a Folsom St. omakase trailblazer opened by the Lee family way back in 1987. Son Ray Lee took over the business in 2009. I didn’t exactly have omakase budget back then, and in 2023 Lee moved Akikos to a glittering high-rise in the East Cut, soon after he opened the exclusive Friends Only in Nob Hill. But now Ray Lee has turned the former Akikos space in FiDi into TBD, with Hina Yakitori chef Tommy Cleary running this grill.

TBD has a freshly painted deep blue exterior, opening up into a rich, walnut wood interior. It’s kept its weirdly perfect layout for a Japanese restaurant, with the best seats pulling up to the long omakase counter, and a few tables tucked into the front corners and the back room.

The showstopping hot karaage (above) is a complete claw, outstandingly crunchy and drenched in honey-butter-chile glaze. Cleary told FOUND he’s been ordering whole heritage birds, with less breast meat and dark red thighs. And Lee has gotten him into dry-aging, so they’re hanging those parts for several days. You hate to ever call chicken chewy, but he really pulls out so much flavor and texture into every last tidbit. It’s an exceptional chicken dinner, at a laidback izakaya price. –Becky Duffett

MORE at FOUND SF

GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket

Select answers to the FOUND Routine query, What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?

→ COLLEEN BROOKS, co-founder, Moss (NY): Medicube Age-R Booster Pro. This was a no-brainer purchase for me about two months ago. The funny part is, I finally took it out of the box this past weekend, tried it once, and now I can’t wait to make it part of my daily routine. It honestly felt like a legit at-home facial.

→ MATTHEW ACCARRINO, athlete & chef, Mattina & SPQR (SF): My new Ventum racing bike. I spend a dozen hours or more on it a week!

→ VERONICA DEL ROSARIO, co-founder & chief brand officer, Smalls (NY): How big a ticket are we talking? We got a Rivian a few months ago and it feels like a major life upgrade from our Muskmobile. If a bit smaller, these Overland sheepskins made such a cozy difference in our house through the winter. So did our Carepods in our bedroom and the nursery! One more thing: we got this Alice Waters Tuscan Grill to do some fireplace cooking.

REAL ESTATE • First Mover

Three for-sale properties in Dallas that came to market in the last 14 days.

→ 7310 Dominique Dr (Lakewood) • 4BR/3.2BA, 5416 SF house • Ask: $3.25M • classic home adjacent SoPac Trail • Days on market: 4 • Annual tax: $50,158 • Agent: Chris Hickman, Ebby Halliday.

→ 7122 Lakewood Blvd (Lakewood) • 4BR/4.2BA, 6929 SF house • Ask: $4.25M • dramatic staircase, bar, ‘resort style’ backyard • Days on market: 11 • Annual tax: $45,699 • Agent: David Bush, David Bush Realtors.

→ 10920 Strait Ln (Preston Hollow, above) • 6BR/8.2BA, 11,211 SF house • Ask: $9.99M • clean lines, big spaces, 5-car garage • Days on market: 3 • Annual tax: $26,028 • Agent: Eric Narosov, Allie Beth Allman & Assoc. Open house Sun 1-3p.

AROUND FOUND • Other Notable Intel & Recs

→ NY: Chef Hirohisa Hayashi has recast his acclaimed Soho kaiseki restaurant Hirohisa into Soba Ulala, a place that honors Hirohisa’s same principles of pristine hyperseasonal ingredients, but in a more casual à la carte format, and anchored by housemade soba. It’s akin to an unbuttoned kaiseki experience unbound by the rigidity of a tasting menu.

→ MIA: Set on a wild barrier island just north of Jacksonville, FL, Omni Amelia Island spans over 1300 lush acres overlooking Fernandina Beach. It’s an easy place to slip into nature, whether biking across seven miles of resort trails or kayaking and paddleboarding through salt marshes. Fresh off a multimillion-dollar renovation of all its guest rooms and public spaces, the resort boasts a fresh coastal color palette with art to match.

→ ITALY: Perched in the heights of Pigna, the old town of Sanremo on Italy’s Ligurian coast, Babeuf is the project of four friends brought together by a shared desire to create something alive — somewhere between a restaurant, a meeting point, and a rhythm. In the summer, it becomes a kind of shelter, with warm stone surrounding you, the air still, and conversations stretching late into the night.

GETAWAYS LINKS: Inside the new Soho House Tokyo: ‘we just sort of went in for it’ • Anticipated St. Regis Budapest, in former Hungarian palace, opens • 5 new Stockholm bakeries • All things Egypt • The joy of making everything a cafe.

RESTAURANTS • The Nines

Restaurants, Raleigh, NC

The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best.

• Ajja (Five Points), Mediterranean flavors meet North Carolina produce at Cheetie Kumar’s airy inside/outside space, sharp cocktail program

• Brewery Bhavana (Downtown), brewery, dim sum restaurant, bookstore, and flower shop in one, set in light-filled, high volume space

• Crawford and Son (Person Street/Mordecai/Oakwood), Scott Crawford’s polished neighborhood restaurant, refined American cooking w/ local seasonal produce

• Figulina (Warehouse District/Downtown, above), British chef David Ellis’s spot for handmade pasta, seasonal plates, and a tight cocktail list, set in former warehouse

• Mala Pata (North Raleigh/Gateway Plaza), masa-driven kitchen, with superb heirloom tortillas and punchy Mexican/Latin cooking; drink before/after at their “minibar,” Peyote

• Poole’s Diner (Downtown), Ashley Christensen’s modern diner, cornerstone of Raleigh dining, w/ chalkboard menu and iconic mac and cheese

• Sam Jones BBQ (Downtown), heritage whole hog BBQ the Eastern North Carolina way, smoky, vinegary, as local as it gets

• St. Roch Fine Oysters + Bar (Downtown), Cajun-inflected seafood, oysters and a lively bar that brings New Orleans energy to North Carolina

• Stanbury (Person Street/Mordecai/Oakwood), no reservations, shared plates and a packed room, cult favorite table that is in constant motion, part canteen, part clubhouse