Brooklyn-based designer Alyssa Ettinger has just introduced gorgeous lanterns made from translucent porcelain, which give off a firefly-like glow when a votive is added. The molds are hand-cast from antique mason jars; a thin wire handle makes them perfect for hanging at backyard barbecues. They're available on Etsy.

 

 

One of my favorite things to do when I travel is to wander through foreign grocery stores, seeing how people in other parts of the world (or the country, even) label, display and buy their food. That’s why I love the new book crEATe: Eating, Design, and Future Food. The writers, who are British trend analysts, scoured the earth to find the latest developments in everything from restaurant design to food packaging to fad diets. What makes me want to spend some quality time with the book, though, are the images—of cooking schools, kiosks and food innovators across the globe. Two ideas I fell for were the Illy Push Button House, which looks like a shipping container but turns into a gleaming white five-room house (complete with kitchen) at the push of a button, and a Japanese designer’s chocolate pencils, in a range of cocoa blends, that you sharpen over your dessert to get chocolate shavings.

 

Dream kitchen makeovers, complete with super-techy appliances, may need to be put on hold as we move into more frugal times. But just because we’re in a recession doesn’t mean you have to deal with an outdated kitchen for another year. In our December issue, interior designer extraordinaire Jeffrey Alan Marks shares his value-minded tips for transforming a kitchen. His trick: select one or two fabulous accent pieces that bring new personality to the room.

Marks’s mantra popped into my mind when I stopped by Anthropologie’s Rockefeller Plaza store earlier this week. The store’s gallery showcases the work of rising star artists from around the world on a rotating basis. The current exhibit featured Leslie Oschmann, Anthropologie’s former visual director who is now creating gorgeous vintage paintings and furniture in her Amsterdam-based studio named Swarm Home. Marks would love these quirky chairs, which Oschmann finds at flea markets and then paints or covers in needlepoint designs.
 
Just one of these funky seats could instantly up the style-factor of my tiny studio kitchen. Keith Johnson, Anthropologie’s gallery director and antiques buyer, agreed and was debating which pieces he wanted for his own apartment. These functional works of art start at $580—less than a state-of-the art range, but still pricey. Holly Becker, founder of one of my favorite design blogs, Décor8, suggests a DIY decoupage chair to get a look similar to Oschmann’s.

 

                      
  

In our December issue, we give a food-and-design-savvy insider’s guide to Miami’s Design District —a must-read for anyone headed to Art Basel Miami Beach. The sister fair to Art Basel Switzerland—and the most important art fair in the U.S.—kicks off tomorrow and runs through the weekend. Here, insider’s tips on where to eat and shop while navigating the art-filled weekend.

Retail design extraordinaire Murray Moss tells the New York Times which bars have the most incredible crowds.

F&W dishes on what Miami’s local art-and-design crowd orders at their favorite Design District hangout, Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink.

Nisi Berryman, cofounder of the incredible style store NiBa Home, e-mailed me today to say Senora Martinez, the new venture from Miami darling Michelle Bernstein, opened last night and has a stellar tapas menu. For shopping, Nisi says Marni just opened last night, Tomas Maier opened last week and En Avance recently moved locations from SoBe to the Design District—all are a couple of doors up from Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto’s boutique, Y-3, and close to Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink.

Stephanie Monserrat Laurent has plans for a Miami branch of Buzina Pop, her superstylish Brazilian restaurant on New York City’s Upper East Side. Tonight, she’s taking over Miami's Maison d’ Azur and will be serving Buzina Pop’s signature dishes (grilled prawns over honey-ginger coconut quinoa) and cachaca-spiked cocktails and debuting her new bikini collection.        

Le Tourment Vert, an authentic French absinthe, makes its South Florida debut this week with a special tasting tomorrow night at the Florida Room in the Delano Hotel featuring cocktail recipes created by master mixologist John Lermayer.      

      

                                                  

              

Madeline Weinrib, the superstylish rug and textile designer of ABC Carpet & Home fame, is launching a line of table linens featuring gorgeous hand-embroidered napkins and chevron patterned placemats and runners. The linens have an heirloom quality to them, much like her rugs. 

I was overly ambitious when planning the itinerary for my first trip to London. I wanted to see the iconic sights (the London Eye, Big Ben); do some cheesy tourist things (be photographed in a red phone booth and try to make the guards at Buckingham Palace smile); and eat at the great restaurants and food spots (Borough Market, St. John). But my inner Food & Wine curiosities had me reaching out to the city’s food and style insiders in search of the newest bars, shops, restaurants and trendsetters in the city. I didn’t sleep much, but I did leave feeling like I'd tasted the perfect mix of old and new.

The rundown:

I had the pleasure of meeting visionary designer Ilse Crawford at her studio, where she and her super-talented team updated me on their latest projects (Soho House Miami for 2010; a new boutique hotel in Stockholm; and the fabulous remake of the just-about-to-open Kettner’s restaurant and bar in London’s Soho neighborhood). Over drinks at Cecconi’s, a classic Italian restaurant in the Mayfair district that Ilse redesigned spectacularly in 2005, she fed me her of-the-moment recommendations: the Rothko exhibit at the Tate Modern; the extraordinary Patricia Urquiola exhibit at the Design Museum exploring the creative process behind Landscape, the Spanish designer's recent tabletop collection for Rosenthal; the Comme des Garçons Printed Matter exhibit at Dover Street Market, the six-floor designer-label mecca conceived by Comme des Garçons founder Rei Kawakubo that stocks Lanvin, Rodarte, Zero Maria Cornejo and, tucked away on the fourth floor, an outpost of Paris’s divine Rose Bakery; and finally lunch at chef Skye Gyngell’s adorable garden café at Petersham Nurseries.

Notes in hand, I rushed around the corner for dinner at the Connaught.The hotel recently underwent a huge refurbishment that has transformed it into the latest hot spot, anchored by Michelin-starred French chef Hélène Darroze’s eponymous restaurant. There, I had an extravagant meal that included her signature starter, an oyster tartare topped with caviar jelly and a purée of haricots verts, and a decadent spit-roasted grouse with grilled foie gras and Brussels sprouts.

After dinner I ignored my jet lag so that I could properly experience the hotel's much-buzzed-about new bars. I was smitten with India Mahdavi’s playful design in the Coburg Bar and equally impressed by the mixology geek menu of drinks dating back to the 1700s. In stark contrast is the flashier Connaught Bar, which received a sparkly, Deco redesign from David Collins. By 1 a.m. the leather and marble space was still packed with a glam crowd sipping vintage cocktails, absinthe and Champagne from gorgeous stemware. I knew I’d need a killer recovery breakfast in the morning and luckily had a long list of options that I’ll blog more about next week.
 

 

 

While fashionable restaurants tap noted clothing designers to create staff uniforms (Narciso Rodriguez for Del Posto, Maria Cornejo for Buddakan and Morimoto), the owners and seriously talented chefs at supercasual restaurants and bakeries (Momofuku; Resto; Sullivan Street Bakery; Portland, Oregon’s Pearl Bakery) have their staff sporting comfy T-shirts with hip designs and witty sayings. The ever-growing trend inspired a post on the food blog Serious Eats last month declaring the restaurant shirt the new concert tee.

Lately, the restaurant shirt has become my souvenir of choice to bring back to food-obsessed friends. A few weekends ago I was in Washington DC and had brunch at chef Jamie Leeds’s awesome new gastropub CommonWealth. The hearty, Brit-inspired food—Scotch eggs, bangers and mash, bubble and squeak—and impressive U.K.-focused beer list are complemented by the staff’s clever T-shirts. My favorite was an organic-cotton tee depicting a beer butcher chart. Leeds originally wanted a pig motif but realized she needed to incorporate the pub side of CommonWealth into the shirt. She approached the General Design Co., the same designers who created the restaurant’s logo, to brainstorm the perfect marriage of the two. The parts of the bottle are loosely based on parts of livestock and bottles, and all of the phrases (“Thanks mate” and “Oh, you little tart”) are based on “Britishisms.” If you read the chart closely, you can follow how the course of events/dialogue might take place as you get through a beer.

 

 

 

I love Australia-based Dinosaur Designs' well-curated little shop on Mott Street in New York City, which sells jewelry and homewares. Its new Delicate collection—with glass decanters for wine or water and tiny resin salt cellars—reminds me of sea glass and the smooth rocks you find on the beach.

 

 

 

Louis Marra and Allison Julius, the brother-and-sister team behind Bridgehampton's four-month-old Maison 24 (hands-down one of the most exciting new design shops to open this year),  just launched a website selling items from the store. My favorite finds: mod Papabubble candy, gorgeous handblown glassware by Vellum NY, saddle-stitch paper placemats by Françoise Paviot, and over-the-top silk-screened Lucite Louis chairs by Aïtali.

 

 

 

 

 

One of my favorite designers, John Derian, has launched a fabulous line for Target, featuring his signature decoupage plates and trays in durable melamine.  Available at target.com through mid-October, they're shockingly inexpensive (prices start at $9.99). Up next at Target: British designer Orla Kiely's home and kitchen accessories, debuting in February '09.