florence’s finest flavours | locale firenze

Jared Wybrown and Raissa van Dijk.

Nothing compares to the feeling of purchasing fresh vegetables, soft bread and local produce – especially when all we know is where to find these at larger market chains. West London, Belgravia specifically, has gained a new reason to reconsider the weekly food shop. London Epicerie, the latest venture from London Cheesemongers founders Jared Wybrow and Raissa van Dijk, has opened on Ebury Street with a proposition that combines the neighbourhood grocer, specialist food shop and the type of place where buying a loaf of bread can unexpectedly turn into dinner for six. 

The concept grows out of more than a decade spent building London Cheesemongers, an independent artisan shop on Pavilion Road in Chelsea that originally started when Wybrow maxed out a personal credit card to buy 200kg of Le Gruyère AOP. Having built a reputation around a tightly curated, seasonally rotating counter of 30 to 50 cheeses, Wybrow and van Dijk developed deep, long-standing relationships with independent growers across Britain and Europe. Instead of keeping those specialist connections confined to cheese, London Epicerie expands the idea into a full food shop, bringing seasonal fruit and vegetables, fresh bread, farmhouse cheese, charcuterie, wine, dairy and pantry staples into the same space.

“London Epicerie was created from a belief that people shouldn’t have to choose between convenience and quality,” explain the founders. “By bringing together trusted producers, transparency and expert curation, we aim to make better food easier to buy and enjoy every day. We hope that small, informed choices can contribute to a healthier and more sustainable food system.” 

James Retief.

James Retief.

Among the available products, Westcombe Dairy supplies clothbound Cheddar from Somerset, while Alpine cheesemakers bring L’Etivas raw-milk cheeses made in mountain chalets during the summer months. Alma Bakery provides bread, Noja Progetto Agricolo contributes ancient-grain pasta and Piro brings early-harvest Tuscan olive oil. There is also traditional balsamic vinegar from Bonini, Maison Marc cornichons and charcuterie sourced through Ham & Cheese Co., a long-standing partner of London Cheesemongers. 

The founders have taken a similarly considered approach to the people behind the shelves. Wine Director Daniel Garcia Thomas brings experience from The Goring Hotel and Brat, where he spent four years as Head Sommelier, and has shaped the wine selection around growers with character and a clear connection to their land. Nutritional Therapist Edmund Swinburn adds another perspective, helping make the store’s approach to nutrition a lot more practical and engaging.

Wybrow brings more than three decades in food to the project, having worked as a chef before moving into specialist retail at Neal’s Yard Dairy and founding London Cheesemongers in 2014. Van Dijk, who has a background in clinical psychology as well as training in fitness and yoga, has spent the past three years managing the cheesemonger alongside Wybrow, bringing a focus on customer experience and the relationship between food and wellbeing.

James Retief.

The shop itself was designed by Deidra Hodgson, taking cues from traditional European food stores without recreating one as a museum piece. Natural light, oak, warm stone and a restrained material palette give the space a contemporary feel, while shelving, crates and preparation areas are built directly into the architecture. A subtle grid runs through the interior, giving the shelves their own rhythm as customers move between fresh produce, pantry goods and the more specialist finds. 

London Epicerie is now open seven days a week from 8am to 9pm at 65–69 Ebury Street, Belgravia. And yes, you can still go in for just one thing.

Find out more here.

photography. courtesy of James Retief
words. Gennaro Costanzo

Sanctum. photography. Caterina Stahl

Set within a restored medieval monastery beside the Plantentuin botanical garden, Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp has quietly assembled one of the most notable collections of restaurants in Europe, several of them Michelin-starred. Now the hotel turns the page again. At the heart of the estate, two new dining rooms have opened under the direction of Yves Mattagne, one of Belgium’s most celebrated chefs, who held two Michelin stars at Brussels’ legendary Sea Grill. They are Sanctus, an intimate room built around ritual, and Hidden Garden, its worldly, all-day counterpart. Both are shaped by the same setting: walls that have stood for centuries, and a kitchen intent on honouring them.

Mattagne arrives in Antwerp with a reputation built over four decades, and largely at a single address. Born in 1963, he trained at the Hilton International before a rise to head chef in London, and a formative stint at the Parisian seafood house Divellec. But it was Sea Grill, the Brussels dining room he took over in 1990, that made his name. He won its first Michelin star within a year and a second by 1997, then held both for more than two decades, a rare run of consistency that turned the restaurant into shorthand for Belgian fine dining. He later bought Sea Grill outright, and remained there until it closed in 2019, before reviving the grand La Villa Lorraine and winning back its two stars almost the moment it reopened.

left. Sanctum. photography. Caterina Stahl. right. Hidden Garden. photography. Pieter D’Hoop

It is telling, then, that a chef of his standing has chosen Botanic Sanctuary as the place to begin his next chapter. Mattagne works alongside chef Charles Broutard, who runs both new kitchens day to day. Together they join a hotel that already keeps rarefied company: the two-starred Hertog Jan, the one-starred Fine Fleur, the all-day Bar Bulot and a new afternoon-tea ritual from pastry chef Roger van Damme at The Gingerbread House. With Sanctus and Hidden Garden joining that roster, Botanic Sanctuary becomes the only hotel in Belgium to hold three Michelin stars on a single site. For a chef drawn equally to ceremony and reinvention, it is an unusually sympathetic home.

The two restaurants are best understood as a pair, pulling in opposite directions from the same hand. Sanctus is the contemplative of the two. Set in one of the monastery’s most atmospheric spaces, it serves a single tasting menu and seats just one table a night. With no à la carte to navigate, the evening rests entirely in the kitchen’s hands. The chefs remain present throughout, finishing dishes at the table in full view, dissolving the usual walls between kitchen and dining room. What arrives leans on Mattagne’s first love: the Belgian seafood of his Sea Grill years, reimagined in a lighter, more surprising register – a recent menu featured Eastern Scheldt Lobster with ponzu butter and grapefruit – and changing from one month to the next.

left. Hidden Garden. photography. Pieter D’Hoop. right. Sanctum. photography. Caterina Stahl.

If Sanctus turns inward, Hidden Garden looks out. Here the essence is communal, a space where locals and travellers can linger over the same long lunch, and its menu carries the imprint of a lifetime’s travelling. Shaped by years in Japan, Thailand and further afield, his cooking carries those flavours home to Belgian produce. The result is a kitchen fluent across cultures. The all-day menu ranges widely: finger food such as Crispy Avocado with shichimi and ghoa cress, or Smoked Eel and Foie Gras Rice with miso and nori; from the reef, Baby Lobster with dan-dan butter and fried garlic; and, for comfort, there is White Dune Asparagus, Flemish-style, and a plate of North Sea Grey Shrimp Croquettes. The theatre Mattagne loves runs through all of it: whole Royal King Crab from the Bering Sea, Imperial Gold Caviar service, Beef or Balfegó Bluefin Tartares cut at the table. Anchoring the mains is a Sea Grill favourite: Roasted Turbot on the Bone. Through summer, an outdoor kitchen carries the experience onto a terrace in the hotel’s monastery garden.

left. Hidden Garden. photography. Pieter D’Hoop. right. Yves Mattagne. photography. Caterina Stahl.

For all the technique, Mattagne insists the cooking is only ever half the story. “I want people to feel something – not just eat,” he says. “The food is important, yes, but what makes a restaurant today is the service, the atmosphere, the conversation. I want every dish to have a history. I want guests to see the preparation, to be part of it. The experience is the whole thing.”

It is a philosophy the setting has been anticipating. Antwerp already holds more Michelin starred restaurants than any other city in Belgium, and among the most per head anywhere; Botanic Sanctuary has simply gathered that ambition under one roof. “Our vision has always been to bring together exceptional hospitality, heritage and haute cuisine,” says Roy Tomassen, the hotel’s managing director, who calls Mattagne’s creativity and international outlook “a perfect match” for the estate’s ambitions. In a monastery built centuries ago for devotion, his two rooms now ask their guests to slow down, pay attention and treat the table as something close to sacred.

Sanctum. photography. Caterina Stahl.

Read more about Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp in issue 1 of Schön! alive.

words. Olivia Cichero
edit. Huma Humayun
photography. Caterina Stahl + Pieter D’Hoop

There is a priceless charm that only nature can provide. It’s weaved within the hum of a river flowing over centuries of stone and in the distant chime of cow bells as they graze among alpine meadows. This is what it feels like to traverse through the winding roads that lead to Lech am Arlberg in Austria. The landscape is perhaps the closest things you’ll find to a storybook paradise, filled with lush greenery, roaming horses and trees that tower so tall, you’re reminded of how awe-inspiring the world is outside of a big city.

Although winter is high season for the Austrian Alps, there is just as much to explore during summer, like breathtaking mountain views, serene hikes, and if you stop by Rote Wand Gourmet hotel, there’s a foodie hotspot nestled within the town’s magical landscape. Ran by Josef Walch, Rote Wand is a picturesque wooden property with a bold design sensibility. Inside, there’s a contrast of alpine practicality with eccentric touches like crimson hallways that look straight out of a Kubrick movie.

“When we built our first underground connection between the main house and what are now the family lodges—formerly the old horse stable—we wanted to reference traditional methods of protecting wood. In the past, timber was sometimes treated with animal blood as a natural weatherproofing technique,” Walch tells Schön! about their signature red. “We even considered recreating this historical approach, but quickly realised it was not exactly the most practical solution. Instead, we chose a deep red colour that visually recalls this tradition while giving it a contemporary interpretation.”

There is a fluidity between Rote Wand and the environment that surrounds it. The mountainous backdrop informs every detail of the hotel down to its name. “The name Rote Wand already existed long before the hotel. It refers to the beautiful mountain at the end of the Zug Valley, near Lake Formarin. In the afternoon sunlight, the mountain takes on a beautiful reddish glow because of its mineral composition,” explains Walch.

Rote Wand has built a reputation for attracting the crème de la crème of gastronomy. They hold several culinary events throughout the year with menus curated by world class chefs. “Chef’s Table has become one of the leading culinary destinations in the Alps, and Rote Wand has built a strong international reputation. For ambitious young chefs, working here provides an exceptional platform to develop their skills and gain international recognition,” says Walch.

It’s an amazing playground for a foodie to try local wine and gourmet cuisine from talent across the globe. Schön! visited during the hotel’s Sommerfest in June which included a diverse array of food-centred experiences like dinner roulette where guests taste the menus of various chefs at different locations across the property. Guglielmo Chiarapini (Ristorante Gilioli), Francesco Dolcetta (FEG Kitchen) and Laura Santosuosso (Sandi Ristorante) collaborated on a menu that reimagined authentic Italian cuisine using ingredients forged from the local land. It was experimental and impressive, using unexpected ingredients to replicate familiar Italian flavours. While Julian Stieger crafted a refined local menu for the Chef’s Table, accompanied by wines from Weinskandal.

Rote Wand exists in tandem with the local environment, so on walks throughout the area you’ll find the wooden home where the chickens sleep and the newborn calves of the cows who produce the milk and butter for the hotel. Everything about the area is interconnected and tells a story of the people who care for the land. “We do not see ourselves as a hotel that simply protects local culture, traditions, heritage, or the environment. We actually live these values every single day. We are not preserving traditions simply because they are old. We believe they remain highly relevant today and can play an important role in shaping the future,” says Walch.

The property is a family affair and the local community is tight knit. Thanks to Walch’s deeply personal connection to the area, there is an ethos preservation rather than exploitation that the tourism industry is so desperately in need of. “Tourism can only be successful in the long term if the local community also benefits. When people in the region thrive, they support tourism, and this creates a healthy and sustainable ecosystem for everyone,” he says. Community so clearly sits at the heart of every single decision in the area, from what time local buses are allowed to operate to preserving the architecture that makes Lech am Arlberg so memorable. 

photography. Rote Wand Gourmet Hotel/ Lucy Deverall
words. Shama Nasinde