Get the low-down from the original style-seekers' latest good-time hunting expeditions, find destination inspiration and insider tips from around the world. Welcome to the official Smith blog: we hope you enjoy your stay
It can be tough sometimes, working for boutique travel experts, whose daily tasks include jetting around the world, seeking out glamour-soaked hotels in wow-factor destinations. No really, it can. Especially when said work involves testing out our luxurious hotels’ facilities, just to check they are still as top-notch as ever - the spa for instance, [...]
LEWES BONFIRE
Date 5 November
Place Lewes, East Sussex
Style Pyro pandemonium
Setting Not-so-sleepy Sussex streets
Indulge your pagan and your pyromaniac urges with the UK’s greatest bonfire bacchanale.
Event Highlight The Bonfire Societies signal the start of the processions by racing barrels of burning tar down the High Street at 6.30pm, after which the whole town seems to parade past [...]
As summer slowly slips away, and the music and alfresco festivals have dismantled their seasonal gazebos to make room for the fallen leaves lacing our London streets. But it’ll take more than a chilly autumnal breeze to keep us Smiths from venturing out to savour the gastronomic delights of the very first London Restaurant Festival [...]
There are a few things you can rely on finding at the English seaside: fish ’n’ chips and candyfloss; stocky-legged kiddiwinks with buckets and spades. Less predictable is the weather. And something you really might not expect? A world-class Italian pasticceria – that’s a patisserie, for those in the know.
So imagine our delight when [...]
To be fashionable these days, it seems you need to be in pop-up format. Walls, foundations and just plain standing still have become deeply uncool, due to a recent flurry of fold-away activity, from eateries to bars, boutiques to parties. Smith HQ jumped on the (unstable) bandwagon a while ago – we’ve lusted after vintage [...]
Yup, it’s that time again. No, not the weekend (though undeniably, ’tis also that), but instead, the moment when we cast our spotlight on this week’s best-in-show hotel. Having waxed lyrical about a cosy Norfolk cottage, a traditional Thames-side inn and a boutique Cotswolds guesthouse, we’re keen to get back to nature at our chosen [...]
LA TOMATINA
Date 26 August
Place Buñol, Spain
Style Paint the town red
Setting Fruit-soaked Mediterranean square
My heart belongs to Painswick. No, it’s not a tubby waistcoated Dickens character, it’s an adorable tiny town in the South Cotswolds. I’m a shallow soul really. A gorgeous boutique hotel, a sprinkling of couldn’t-be-cuter shops (Ha’Penny Antiques, left), an excellent deli and a country pub and I’m smitten. Throw in your chocolate-box Cotswold-stone village [...]
It’s fun playing tourist in your hometown – especially when the sun is out. No, I don’t for a moment mean queuing up at Madame Tussaud’s (what is with that obsession for waxworks when there are so many better things to do in London?), let alone hitting senses-assaulting Piccadilly Circus. I am talking about seeing [...]
All aboard the eccentric carriage of culinary and cocktail curiosities making its way across the UK courtesy of Hendrick’s. Its bonkers bar-cum-dining room rolled into Edinburgh today until Sunday; Manchester, 30 July–2 August; London, 1–4 October. No, we haven’t been drinking – not today at any rate…
Ever imagined munching aphrodisiac lavender marshmallows? Or rose bush [...]
