A weekly letter. One moment worth living — held up to the light each Sunday. Whether a hotel, a table, or a quiet afternoon.
La Lettre
The Gilpin
A family-run country-house hotel near Windermere — small private-tub lodges, two distinctly drawn kitchens (one Michelin-starred), and a sister Lake House half a mile away with its own tarn.
June 8The Newt in Somerset
A working Somerset estate set around a Georgian house and a walled garden, with two hotels, a Roman villa and a cyder press — quietly run, slowly farmed, and hand-built down to the apple labels.
June 1Swinton Estate
A castellated North Yorkshire country house on a twenty-thousand-acre family estate — Samuel's Restaurant in the oval room, a country club and spa set in the woods, a cookery school upstairs, and the longer English weekend in the dales.
May 25Palé Hall
A Victorian country house in the Dee Valley, looking toward Snowdonia — twenty-two rooms, a working wine cellar, and Luke Selby's kitchen at Henry Robertson.
Between letters, the shorter notes — a verdict, a detail, a quiet caveat — added to the register week by week.
Le Carnet
- May 7Quattro Passi · NeranoA three-Michelin-star Mellino-family table on the Sorrento peninsula at Nerano — opened by Antonio and Rita as a pizzeria in 1983, awarded its first star in 2000, the second in 2011 and the third in November 2023, when Fabrizio Mellino, then thirty-two, became the southernmost three-star chef in Italy.
- May 6Atelier Moessmer Norbert Niederkofler · BrunicoA three-Michelin-star table set in a 19th-century manor on the grounds of the historic Moessmer woolen mill in Brunico, South Tyrol — Norbert Niederkofler's land-only "Cook the Mountain" kitchen, opened in May 2024 with thirty seats and a Green Star carried over from St. Hubertus.
- May 6Antica Corona Reale · CervereA Piedmontese inn on Via Fossano in Cervere, kept by the Vivalda family since 1815 and held to two Michelin stars by Gian Piero Vivalda — six generations of cooking, a vaulted brick cantina, an Orto Reale at the back, and the porro di Cervere on the door.
- May 6La Madia · LicataA two-Michelin-star Sicilian table on the south coast at Licata, kept by Pino and Loredana Cuttaia since 2000 — a kitchen built on memory, where a piece of cod smoked over pinecones and an emptied cuttlefish shell stand for a whole island's storytelling.
- May 6Uliassi · SenigalliaA three-Michelin-star Adriatic table on the beach at Senigallia, kept by the Uliassi siblings since 1990 — Mauro at the pass, Catia in the dining room, and a kitchen that has spent thirty-six years turning the cuisine of the Marche coast through its own laboratory.
The weekly letter
One moment worth living, every Sunday.
A hotel, a table, or an afternoon — chosen each Sunday from anywhere in the world. Sent to your inbox with the care of a recommendation made in person.
A quiet letter. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.