15 hours ago
Playful Tables Topped With Tiles
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A French Hotel With Mediterranean Views, Minimalist Interiors and a Storied Past
By Alexander Lobrano
'It's beautiful here. The sea outside our balcony doors crashes against the rocks. The rooms are refined and pleasant,' the German writer Thomas Mann wrote in 1933 during a stay at Les Roches, a hotel in Le Lavandou, France, that was then known as Les Roches Fleurie. In the decades since, the property welcomed everyone from Jean Cocteau and Christian Dior to Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. This month, it reopened after a renovation that highlights its original Modernist architecture and the exhilarating sensation the French describe as pieds dans l'eau ('your feet in the water'), or being right on the edge of the sea. Every room has the same spectacular view over the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean, and most include a terrace. Inside, the décor is inspired by the minimalism of Japanese ryokans, '30s ocean liner cabins and the Riviera itself, with oak parquet or terrazzo floors, blond wood headboards and accents of petroleum blue. The chef Anthony Gras, who holds a Michelin star at Les Barmes de l'Ours, Les Roches' sister property in the Alps, serves a contemporary seafood menu at L'Oursin, the hotel's restaurant, which also features a wine list focused on varietals from the South of France, many of them natural or organic. Other amenities include a bar, a gym and a spa with an indoor pool. Rooms from about $920,
In Season
The Salty Italian Plant That's Inspiring California Chefs
By Emma Leigh Macdonald
Wild agretti is a small green plant that comes from the same family as both spinach and succulents. It thrives in coastal regions and is known in its native Italy as barba di frate (or 'friar's beard') for its appearance, which can range from resembling the branch of a pine tree to looking more like a bundle of broccolini. Historically it was harvested as a source of soda ash, used for making glass and soaps. Now agretti's salinity is prized by chefs. Over the past decade, California farmers have popularized the vegetable stateside — particularly in the Bay Area, where coastal conditions and mild winters can mimic a Mediterranean environment. The chef David Nayfeld gets his supply from County Line Harvest Farm starting in mid-May, when the first agretti is harvested. At Che Fico, his restaurant in San Francisco, Nayfeld and his team will lightly cure the plant's green leaves — this year, about 75 pounds of them — in olive oil, salt and vinegar to allow for use beyond its season. This summer, Nayfeld is pairing agretti with stone fruits in a salad. At Flour + Water in the Mission district, agretti from Bryan Jessop, a forager based in the region, is served in a rock cod involtini pasta from mid-June through early July. The produce distributor Natoora sources agretti from California, upstate New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont, which is how the chef Jess Shadbolt has ensured a regular supply for her menu at King in Manhattan's West Village. She says it has 'a marshy, almost aquatic flavor, with a great texture that's unctuous and has a nice bite.' She blanches the plant in lightly salted water, then dresses it with oil and lemon. This month, she served it with asparagus, fava beans and bottarga.
Covet This
Designers Embrace Ceramic Tabletops
By Monica Khemsurov
In the late 1940s, the ceramic artist Roger Capron set up a workshop in Vallauris, France, with a mission to democratize his craft, devoting part of his practice to serially produced functional objects and furnishings. His vibrant tile-topped tables, in particular, became his legacy and, nearly a century later, a new generation of designers are reviving the style for modern homes. The New York-based designer Tyler Hays makes hand-painted ceramic tiles and says he looks for 'any excuse' to put them on furniture. In 2020, he made his first tile-topped coffee table and released new versions set in chunky, cylindrical wood frames this spring. Julia Eshaghpour and Kevin Hollidge of the New York studio Sunfish recently debuted a coffee table whose top is made up of glazed sardine forms. They were inspired in part by Capron, and in part by Eshaghpour's father, a mosaic artist. The New York designer Danny Kaplan also cites Capron as an influence for the tables he recently tiled for the furniture brand Stillmade, as does the French interior designer Dorothée Delaye, whose new Levant tables are a collaboration with the young ceramist Diane Fekete but have the same mottled, painterly feel as midcentury French pottery. The Marrakesh studio Lrnce's tables are based on the founder Laurence Leenaert's drawings — she commissions local artisans to recreate them with zellige tiles. The Spanish artist Fran Aniorte paints directly onto his ceramic tabletops, like he would any other canvas. He considers the pieces a reference to his childhood home of Alicante, where the street benches and fountains are wrapped in tiles. His interpretations, he says, are a testament to how artisans have always brought beauty into everyday objects.
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