Sirolo - Restaurant La Cambusa

We ate here 4 nights out of 7. The three other nights we thought to try other restaurants and were utterly disappointed.

This place is not on the main piazza but on a side street. It is a small and lovely place with a few tables and a familial atmosphere. I must admit that there are restaurants in Sirolo with a nicer view as Sirolo is on top of a cliff overlooking the sea and La Cambusa sadly is not one of these restaurants. We did not mind. I prefer good food and good service over a view. We tried these 'restaurants with a view' too and we only liked the view. The area and streets around La Cambusa gave an insights to the lives of the local italians - you could hear the telegiornale (news) from an open window, two houses over an family set the table in front of their house to eat outside, the doors and windows were open and for the evening you felt as if you were not dining in a restaurant with your family but you were part of the entire town.

In addition, in La Cambusa the service was excellent.

We have been a bit weary lately with our 2 year old to go to restaurants. He eats nicely and never demands "kids menu" but ... keeping him sitting for c.2 hours plus is a challenge. La Cambusa gave us a nice table (that became "our" table) at the end of the street and L. was free to roam around the streets nearby as the center is closed to traffic.

During the course of these four evenings we had a chance to try out quite a large selection of their menu. We liked it all. My italian husband said that there was one food that was not excellent, but admitted that he was at fault for ordering it as he should have known that there was a ban on fishing in the region and the fish he ordered is good only is caught and cooked on the same day. Everything else, excellent!

I do not know exactly how to express my gratitude towards La Cambuso. Eating is such an important part of our lives and we enjoy eating out and we were afraid that L would not allow us this luxury over the holidays (God knows we have been trying to educate him on restaurant behaviour - but...). We try and we try and often you go to restaurants and yes, they have a child seat, and yes, they have a children's menu (the purpose of which escapes me) but the looks on their faces when you come in with a kid say it all: "PLEASE GO!". However, La Cambusa was not like that. OK, they did not have a child seat but they were welcoming, they thought of ways to make our lives easier (location of our table - cleaning L's fish before bringing it to the table) and they made our holiday that much better as eating out was an enjoyable experience for the entire family.

I highly recommend. The address is Via Cialdini 13, Sirolo, Italy. And the only way I could think to thank them was to write a raving review on Tripadvisor!

Here are some photos:

Our table:

The food:

L eating fried rosmarine

My absolute favourite!

Paris - to do

I love reading the FT Weekend How To Spend It section.

I love the pretty things even though they have a price tag that is way out of my reach and sometimes I really wonder, who are these people who are buying these. Mostly I love the fact that even though the magazine is all about the best of the best, it is still humble.

One of my favourite sections of the magazine is Perfect Weekend and I am linking here Pierre Herme's Paris perfect weekend as I want to remember the places he talks about for next time we go to Paris. Enjoy.

Bouneweger Stuff

I find most cafes and bars in Luxembourg either boring or stuffy. Not at all the types of places you would like to hang out more than once. So I was interested to see in the Good Idea newsflash an ad for Bouneweger Stuff: Link here

Cannot wait to try it out!

Brunch in NoLita - Cafe Habana

If the place looks the same, smells the same, tastes the same, feels the same and is still the same way completely full 3 years later - they must be doing something right!

I welcome you to Cafe Habana in New York. An amazing place to have brunch or lunch or breakfast or dinner. It is very close to where I used to live in NY so we went there as often as we could.

From the outside

As the name implies they serve Cuban food. I cannot comment on the ethnicity of it as I have never been to Cuba. However, the food at Cafe Habana makes me want to go to Cuba. We have had pretty much everything on the menu and if you can only make it there once, I would recommend the corn (which I just learned from their website is Mexican style) and the cocktails. Everything else is the icing on the cake. 

Food

Eating corn

The place itself is relaxed, loud and messy in the best possible way. It's ALIVE! and when you are there, you feel ALIVE. I would not go there in my evening gown but 'just off the beach' wear. Really, if this place was not in the middle of the concrete jungle they could as well lift it and place it just next to a beach and it would fit there beautifully.


Now - as usual, a picture is worth a thousand words (especially if the writer is me...) so here are some more:

Highly, highly recommended!!!

Brunch in Brooklyn: Vinegar Hill House

I would have never found it if it was not for M-L. There is no sign outside and I had not heard of it before. Lucky for us that our favourite local knew where to go. We also timed our arrival perfectly as we got the last free table and suddenly after us there was a long line of people wanting to come in to this wonderful place. As it is mainly a walk-in restaurant then timing is everything!

I said Wonderful? Yes. I thought so. It was a lovely mixture of French and Italian and American and being in your friend's summerhouse. The place itself is small with small tables and little space between tables. Luckily still enough space that you are not forced to hear every word the other table says. (About this later in another post). The interior design looks like someone went to the local flea market and bought a whole lot of things they liked and then found a place for each and every one of these things. I liked the interior but completely loved the garden that I saw in the back (on my way to the toilet). Had we known about the garden beforehand we would have probably asked to be seated there. Next time...

I also liked, scrap that, loved the service. They were kind and helpful and not at all in a fake way. They were accommodating to people coming in who clearly had had a late night before as well as families with babies. Somehow, smoothly, they fit us all in so that the overall atmosphere was such that I really did not want to leave.

Now, for the food and drinks:

As we got there around...hmmmm....13 to have breakfast we started off of course with a couple of mimosas. Delicious.

Then I had an 'Sunny duck egg': egg on toast and salad with spicy sauce which was quite frankly amazing and the duck meat hidden below was like a trying to get the picture at the bottom of your plate when you were a child. The pleasure of finally getting to it was truly satisfactory:

We were way too full for dessert, but decided to try this drink everyone seemed to be having:

And even though it looks cool and is served in a huge plastic cup I strongly advise against it. It was disgusting (sorry). But really. My best guess is that this serves as a hangover drink, for which it would be quite perfect. However, with no hangover...stay clear!

Highly recommended if you are in Brooklyn and need a place for a lovely brunch!

Check out their menus and info on their website 

Restaurants to try: Antwerpen

As usual, we turned to the NYTimes travel section when looking for travel tips and advice before our Antwerpen trip.I did not make it to all the restos they recommend so I quickly quote them here, as I want to remember to go there next time

This is from the article A Fashion-Forward guide to Antwerp: 

"Graanmarkt 13’s restaurant is overseen by the young, talented chef Seppe Nobels, who trained at Michelin star establishments (Graanmarkt 13; 23-3-337-7991;www.graanmarkt13.be). By day it serves country club food like caviar and club sandwiches; at night Mr. Nobels offers modern versions of European classics like beef carpaccio with foie gras and pork cheeks cooked sous-vide with spring vegetables.

Antwerp’s local fashion crowd and academy students tend to hang out and drink coffee at either Biologisch Dynamische Bakkerij (Volkstraat 17; 32-3-216-0042), a cozy organic bakery and cafe, or the Cafe ‘In de Roscam’ (Vrijdagmarkt 12; 32-486-425-606), which hosts a festive Sunday brunch.

Almost a year before the anticipated May opening of the Museum aan de Stroom, the museum’s ground-floor Storm cafe (Hanzestedenplaats 5; 32-3-231-4300; cafe-storm.com) started drawing crowds of locals curious to check on the building’s progress. And they keep returning — for the harbor views, tasty sandwiches and, on occasional Saturday nights, live music."

I must say, I was pleasantly surprised when now I saw from 'restaurants we recommend' in the NY Travel section Chez Fred being one of the 8 top restaurants and having a New York Times pick. Go Fred!  

Antwerpen - YOUR

As I am in the shopping mindset, here is another one for you. YOUR in Antwerpen.

I must say that the selection in this concept store is lovely and ranges from books to small decorative items to jewelry to clothes and shoes and electronics and watches + they have a beauty salon inside the store.

BUT better than that is the Service! The Service, with a capital S is absolutely phenomenal in this store. The assistants are extremely helpful without being pushy and they are honest (or appear to be) in their opinions and they assist. Tremendously.

So we went in just to take a look...and we bought and bought and bought...and we are still happy with our purchases.

They call their store as: YOUR premium store for damn fine products.

I agree.

Better yet, it is open on Sundays...

and ladies, don't miss out on the YOUR shoe store across the street where you can get shoes in over 100 colours - choose from a few classic designs and put together your rainbow!

www.your-antwerp.com