Picasso, Caviar, Mojitos

That’s The Samling. Now it’s won a Michelin star and has £8,000 bottles of 1989 Petrus on the wine list. Oh and Posh and Becks once stayed there. Is this really the Lake District? Sometimes you find a place so good you don’t want to tell people about it. The Samling is one such. But…
View Post

Effing Fantastic

Caroline Phillips takes a long drive behind the wheel of the new Jaguar. The iconic E -Type Jag was the most beautiful car ever made. Or so said Enzo Ferrari. Jaguar hasn’t made a sports car since. So it’s a tough act for the F -Type to follow. Will it succeed? We’re given the entry-level…
View Post

Misty Blue Charter

Luxury ahoy (and at a special price for LUSSO readers). Want to learn to skipper a super yacht? Or have an intimate week-long stag party with a difference? Perhaps you’re looking to entertain your business associates with real panache? Or have a memorable off-site meeting? Or do you just feel like throwing everything in a…
View Post

Secret Address Book – The Insider’s Guide

Caroline Phillips unearths the 20 people who really matter to the people who really matter. Who celebrities, those in the know and the ultra wealthy have on speed dial… Extracting secrets about services used by the ultra wealthy is like pulling teeth – although the latter will be easy now with the cosmetic dentistry clinic recommendation…
View Post

Showered Not Stirred

Why would a real man want to spa? Asks Caroline Phillips…and finds the answer in a spa fit for OO7. Why would a bloke want to go to a spa? Is it the lure of disposable paper underpants? The idea of spending a day in the adult equivalent of nappies (i.e. a fluffy robe)? A…
View Post

I Was a Four Seasons Virgin

The great retox – Caroline Phillips takes to burgers and cigars in an attempt to overcome a detox. Welcome to the Four Seasons, Koh Samui, Thailand – a resort that deserves a squillion stars (and stripes). After just a day off booze or cigarettes – or even after a serious detox – there can be…
View Post

The iPad Restaurant

With a resort hotel attached, in the middle of a city… Where to stay in Bangkok when you’re en route to a detox at Kamalaya and a retox at the Four Seasons. The Sukhotai may be surrounded by the noisy concrete jungle of Bangkok. Yet it’s that rare thing – a resort hotel in the…
View Post

You Can Get into Intensive Detoxes

OM, OM……OMG the Kamalaya detox. Caroline Phillips aims to balance and revitalise in a spa that’s young and sexy but where they say food should be your medicine. It’s time for me to rejuvenate a body more burnt-out than an old firework. Maybe have the opportunity to live on air alone. Or perhaps do the sort…
View Post

Mistress of the Wardrobe

Main Picture: Specs from Cutler & Gross There are milestones that trigger reassessing your wardrobe: promotion, divorce, fatherhood, decades, marriage, motherhood – not necessarily in that order, of course. Personal stylist Annabel Hodin – the sartorial genius talent spotted by US Vogue’s Anna Wintour – now helps everyone from celebrities and city folk to leading…
View Post

High in the Sky

Main Picture: Instructor Thomas Rast and Caroline Phillips flying above Gstaad I’ll be jumping off a mountain to dangle in the air. As if I were in a cable car – but without being in one. I must be certifiable. I sleep fitfully in a cold sweat of anticipation – thinking about this, my first…
View Post