What was your most memorable trip this
year? Yangon (a.k.a. Rangoon), in Myanmar, a romantic,
rain-soaked British imperial city like something out of Kipling.
Your most memorable meal (not necessarily
on the same trip)? Luc Rabanel in Arles, for the hip atmosphere
in an old house in the heart of town, friendly service, wonderful wine list,
fair prices, and a very personal riff on southern French food.
What was the most exciting thing that
happened close to home? The opening of the Musee des
Arts Decoratif, which is superb, and Jean Nouvel's Musee du
Quai Branly, for its intriguing architecture, as well as its
collections of African, Oceanic, Asian, and Native American art. For
restaurants, I'm sending everyone to Le Chateaubriad, a hip
bistro in the 11th, and La Gazzetta, a cozy place near the
Bastille where Swedish-born chef Petter Nilsson is doing incredibly original
things with textures and ton sur ton acidity.
Did you stay in, or visit, a hotel that
particularly wowed you? I fell in love with the Hotel
du Palais in Biarritz all over again. The sea views are amazing, and
it's so vieille France it should be declared a living landmark.
What place did you find overrated or
disappointing? Hotel Fouquet's Barriere in Paris—cold, flashy, and much too expensive.
What was your worst (or funniest) travel
experience? Funniest: I was recognized in the London
Underground by a woman who used to sell carrots at the North End Road market
when I was a student 30 years ago. Also, several Japanese secretaries and I had
a laugh when the stationmaster in Krakow forgot to turn off the PA system after
jacking up "That's Amore" in his control booth.
2007: RING IN THE NEW
What's going to be hot this year?
With the opening of the TGV Est line to Strasbourg, eastern France is about to be rediscovered. Le Havre, in Normandy, has become a hip destination for its concentration of modernist postwar
architecture; it was recently classed as a World Heritage Site
by UNESCO. There's a fabulous restaurant there—Jean-Luc Tartarin's La
Villa du Havre. Europeans are hot for Madagascar and
the Cape Verde Islands off of Senegal.
What is going to be the big-deal hotel
opening? The Shangri La in Paris and the Grand
Hotel in Bordeaux, the latter with an over-the-top design by Jacques
Garcia.
Is there a restaurant or a chef whom
everyone is watching? Alain Ducasse's revamp of the Jules
Verne restaurant in the Eiffel Tower.
What trips do you have planned for 2007?
Phu Quoc, in Vietnam, and Transylvania, in Romania.
Where do you most want to go in the world
that is still a dream away? Iran. My grandmother traveled
extensively in what was then Persia when I was a boy, and her accounts of the
rose-scented streets of Esfahan left me with a permanent
desire to explore that country.
Where wouldn't you go even if you won an
all-expense-paid first-class trip? There's nowhere I'd pass up,
but Atlantic City and Crawford, Texas, are last on my list.