Bangkok's best
Best Bangkok fine dining, Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni, Lapaba, Maison Douce Époque, Cape Cod real estate, MORE
GETAWAYS • Lake Como
Tanti baci
From the marble floors to the textured ceilings with al frescos dating back to when the hotel was a private villa, every inch of the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni fits its “grand” billing. But it was outside the hotel’s entrance, where the pool seamlessly merges into the glistening lake set amongst mountains, that stole my focus.
Bellagio’s only 5-star luxury hotel, Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni is going on its 152nd year. It’s welcomed guests ranging from Winston Churchill, to Al Pacino, to my parents in the ’90s. The hotel has done a fabulous job of maintaining its original charm and grandeur, while also consistently updating and refurbishing. This past season brought with it the Baci da Bellagio Beach Club.
This new shoreline space called to me. While I typically feel the need to be on the go while visiting European cities, the wide, plush loungers around the pool coaxed me to relax. Similarly, the boardwalk leading down to chairs resting in soft sand facing Lake Como was too hard to resist.
To fully experience Lake Como, take the stairs from the beach into the lake where a floating dock beckons. At the beach club, cocktails and a casual beachside menu are available, and the gelato cart, in line with the rest of the nautical Italian coastal decor, is stationed outside. A cold vanilla gelato paired with a cool Italian summer’s breeze? Chef’s kiss. –Dyana Lederman
→ Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni (Bellagio, Italy) • Rooms from €2100/night/summer • Book.
REAL ESTATE • Massachusetts
Three for-sale properties in Cape Cod that came to market in the last month.
→ 46 Washington Ave (Hyannis Port) • 5BR/4.1BA, 2972 SF house • Ask: $5.99M • ‘The Laundry,’ built in 1900 and once a grand hotel • Days on market: 31 • Agent: Danny Griffin, Griffin Realty.
→ 240 Baxters Neck Rd (Marstons Mills) • 6BR/4.3BA, 8713 SF house • Ask: $7.95M • 2023 waterfront estate w/deep water dock on Prince Cove • Days on market: 16 • Agent: Paul Grover, BHHS.
→ 75 Winsor Rd (Bourne, above) • 4BR/4.1BA, 6839 SF house • Ask: $10.9M • Rocky Island, fully renovated in 2014, connected to the mainland by a wooden bridge • Days on market: 29 • Agent: G. Stewart Young, LandVest.
GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket
Select answers to the FOUND Routine query, What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
→ LASZLO MARIE BADET, chef & model, Cantine Laszlo (Paris): A vintage Moschino orb dress, bought for a song… typically resells for over €600. For me, it’ll stay in my closet (or on me). It’s silk, with black heart tubing. Found it for a dear friend’s wedding.
→ TOM MARCHANT, co-founder, Black Tomato (LDN): My electric moped from Horwin has changed how I move around London. I’ve got my eye on an electric motorcycle from Maeving next.
→ BRIAN BORNEMANN, chef & owner, Crudo e Nudo (LA): I got the 145n bottle wine fridge from Wine Enthusiast to expand our wine program at Crudo e Nudo. Feels good!
RESTAURANTS • Los Angeles
High bar
Perched at the busy corner of Sixth and Western in Koreatown and opened late January, Lapaba is a highly anticipated, slightly buzzy neighborhood pasta bar that skillfully blends quintessential Korean flavors with Italian cooking. Husband-and-wife chef team McKenna Lelah and Matthew Kim first met while working at Osteria Mozza, which shares ownership DNA with Lapaba. (Nancy Silverton is also an advisor.)
At some fusion restaurants, the mashup is loud, brash, and in-your-face. Here, Lelah and Kim opt for a far subtler marriage of Korean and Italian cuisines — so subtle, in fact, that the Koreanness of the menu was almost lost on me at certain points throughout the meal. Ingredients like jjajang (black bean sauce) and bulgogi (sweet soy marinade) are incorporated into (respectively) pasta Amatriciana and meatballs in tomato sauce, though the overall impact on the flavor is minimal. My favorite dish was the quartet of Calabrian chili fried chicken lollipops, which simply tasted like buffalo wings. –Patricia Kelly Yeo
GETAWAYS • Normandy, France
Lush life
Normandy’s popular, pretty beach town Deauville is known for its annual cinema festival and well-preserved maisons à colombages. But the place also oozes a certain bougieness: the pastel-hued collared shirts, the gold flashes of Gucci belts, the high-end boutiques like Hermès and Dior tucked inside historic buildings. My travel partner recoiled at the scene like a cat splashed with water. If we wanted the bling, we could have stayed in Paris. We needed some breathing room, some green, a place to disconnect.
Luckily, Deauville was just a sandwich pitstop on our way to Maison Douce Époque in Benerville-sur-Mer, a 10-minute ride (and a world apart) from Deauville. It’s a restored 19th-century villa perched on low cliffs overlooking the Côte Fleurie coastline. From the back terrace, preferably glass of wine in hand, you can take in sweeping views of the beaches, from Deauville to Trouville, and sometimes even spot horses from the nearby Deauville-La Touques race course trotting along the shore. Observing it from up above gives the feeling of a noble from another era, looking out upon the city from your hushed residence. –Caitlin Gunther
AROUND FOUND • Other Notable Intel & Recs
→ LDN: Charlie Mellor, the man behind much-loved Hackney restaurant and wine bar The Laughing Heart, which closed in 2022, is back. His new spot is Osteria Vibrato, an Italian trattoria a few doors from Noble Rot in Soho. With co-owner and fellow sommelier Cameron Dewar, he’s serving up great vibes and hearty, regional Italian food in a warm, laidback dining room decorated with art from his own collection.
→ Miami: Set within The Plaza, the new mixed-use development in Coral Gables, Mottai brings Japanese culinary precision to a dining room, with French decorative drama, via a Brazilian hospitality group. And guess what? The sushi is genuinely good.
→ SF: New Richmond District restaurant Clementina began as a pop-up in the Marina location of Italian restaurant Montesacro, after owners Gianluca Legrottaglie and Viviana Devoto learned that their youngest daughter has celiac disease. Last month, they opened this entirely celiac-safe and gluten-free restaurant. To look at the menu, you’d be hard-pressed to think anything was missing from the array of Italian classics and inventive dishes.
GETAWAYS LINKS: Amex opens first lounge in China, at SHA (Shanghai) • Hotel Rome Cavileri unveils two-year room revamp • Checking into the Fairmont Mumbai • The rush to build hotels around food • Surprising trip combos • Seven design-led homes on the market in Mallorca.
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RESTAURANTS • The Nines
Fine dining, Bangkok
The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best.
Gaa (Thonglor), MasterChef India’s Garima Arora serves unique Indian food in restored wooden traditional Thai home w/ sexy metallic curtains separating tables, reserve