Jan 8
🔝5️⃣ A little bit of annual self-indulgence so apologies in advance. My 2022 Top Five’s begin with food.
The restaurant industry is in recovery mode after the pandemic, but sadly restaurant closures in the UK have been worse since as owners wrestle with rising energy costs, staff shortages and simply people not having the disposable income to splurge on going out to dinner.
Please click for moreThe only other time I went to Barbados I stayed with my son up in the north of the island at Saint Peter.
That was 19 years ago, but this past year I was in Barbados twice, both times (first) and (second) to watch my daughter represent Bermuda swimming. Those trips centered around the Aquatic Centre, which forms part of the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex on the outskirts of the capital Bridgetown. The national football stadium Wildey Turf is also there.
Please click for moreI’ve been working this week from Sarasota in between making room for some Christmas festivities, and tip toeing around the obligatory workman at the house.
We have just got in from an early dinner, and there is a real chill in the Florida air. Tonight is expected to be the coldest night in Sarasota and most of Florida for 30 years with the temperature set to hover just above freezing. Extreme weather warnings are being sent all across the country with the rather dramatic threat of bomb cyclones closing in around the Great Lakes.
Please click for moreOur daughter becomes a teenager this week, and to kick off her teenage odyssey we took her to New York this past weekend.
We’ve taken her to NYC a few times before, but she was much younger then and her fascination with life has matured.
Please click for more🔝5️⃣ Two more of these Top Five’s to share. Bermuda is like no other place in the World in so many different ways. It’s is peculiar and beautiful in equal measures.
Please click for more🔝5️⃣ Restaurants are the next subject of my 2021 Top Fives. My dry January and eating healthier hasn’t quite gone to plan. Very off plan in fact, and may explain my love of the nice things in life.
Eating out has been a very different experience since the pandemic and restaurants have suffered more than most. Many need support, and I was lucky to enjoy some great meals out attempting in some small way to do that last year. Here are my 2021 Top Five Favourite Restaurants 🥩
Please click for more🔝5️⃣ A global pandemic has curtailed a lot of eating out, and it has been the year of the take-away. Even Bermuda now has a delivery service 25 years after Pizza Hut first started doing it.
Like elsewhere for long parts of this year restaurants were shut on the island (fortunately for us they are open again although with plenty of restrictions), and we are lucky that for most of the time we are able to sit outside.
My next 2019 Top Five picks surround food, and, well, more food.
My waistline is evidence of lots of good eating out last year, although I did seem to do that mostly in Miami and New York. It was tough to select my Top Five Favourite Restaurants but I narrowed it down to a handful in the end plus some notable mentions.
Last one from last year. I like to explore, I like to travel, I like to eat.
I keep a list of the restaurants I visit, mostly away from Bermuda, and gee, last year was a difficult choice. It’s a little New York centric, but pride of place goes to an absolute gastronomical experience in my kinda town, Chicago. There were two or three great places that never made My Top Five Favourite Restaurants from 2018, but these ones did:
Next on my personal Top Five’s from 2018 are right here on my doorstep. Bermuda is not the place to come for big restaurant openings, star-studded theatre, cool music concerts, cutting edge art shows or world class museums, it’s so much simplier here. The outdoors, the beach, the ocean.
I gave it some thought and these are My Top Five Favourite Bermuda Things from last year:
Last summer we spent a week for my birthday in the volcanic Caribbean island of St. Barts, or Saint Barthélemy (St. Barths) as the French call it in the French West Indies. Miami is 3.5 hours away and St. Barts lies 160 miles east of Puerto Rico and immediately south of the French and Dutch shared island of Saint Martin, where we flew into to jump on a noisy seaplane for a 15-minute journey across the water to St Barts. The flight is not for the faint hearted but there is the option of a boat, which takes slightly more than an hour.
The island has a jet-setting reputation of photo shoots, paparazzi and huge homes owned by billionaires that mostly sign idle. The haunt monde reputation began in the 1950’s when David Rockefeller bought two plots of land, including one on Gouveneur Beach. That move compelled the Rothschilds to follow and they arrived with a suitcase of cash and developed an estate in a coconut grove nextdoor to the Rockefellers. Today the Rothschild property is the Hotel Guanahani & Spa.
The island certainly has an air of chic. A mixture of St-Tropez sophistication with Caribbean laissez-fare, but the island doesn’t come across as pretentious. Just over 9,000 people permanently live on St. Barts, although around 200,000 tourists visit the just over 9 sq. miles during it’s summer months.
In Miami for a day and night en route to Colorado for some last minute skiing. The snow omens are good with a fresh powder of snow covering the Rockies. We get to Vail tomorrow lunchtime.
The Easter weather in Bermuda has been chilly (yep I know) but we could feel the warmth as we left Miami Airport this morning, possibly because we had our ski stuff on to save packing it, but the sun has warmed us all, and there were a lot of burnt bodies sat this afternoon by our pool in Miami Beach.
I got a little waylaid with these, well actually I forgot. But selfishly I wanted to post them, so close your eyes if you’re not interested in a little narcissism.
I going to post my final three 2017 Top Five’s in quick succcesion starting with Restaurants. Picking five wasn’t easy but I’ve had a crack so these were my Top Five Favourite Restaurants of 2017:
Bermuda has been home for nine and half years which is scary in so many ways. One of my problems with living on a small island in the Atlantic Ocean, and I appreciate this for some has it’s advantages, is that rarely do things change. Yet in the recent year or so brought about by the Americas Cup, I’ve witnessed a renewed confidence in the local economy and a surge in young and talented Bermudians willing to challenge the status quo.
The Island has seen an uptick in overseas visitors and they have witnessed a much more thriving island, Hamilton in particular where autonomous stores and places to grab a drink or food, often owned by young creative individuals or partnerships compete with the established but often humdrum and uninspiring names, all owned by just a handful wealthy families.
The American’s are responsible for a lot of things – disposable nappies, the light bulb, mac & cheese, the computer (these are in no particular order) and of course Thanksgiving, once described by my old boss as a 4-day Sunday where all you can do is eat, drink and watch sport on TV, with no added pressure of buying anyone presents. God bless America and all that sailed in The Mayflower.
Chicago Addick 