The current diary is equal parts flights, long lunches and balancing the regular workload.
It’s the season we wait all year for, and also the one most likely to leave us frazzled: too many time zones, too many late nights, not quite enough water. The trick to doing it well isn’t slowing down so much as staying steady, keeping yourself nourished and focused enough to actually enjoy the swims, the sun and the spritzes. This week we are spotlighting the ritual to keep you balanced as you travel, the terrace worth booking for a long alfresco dinner, and the country spa escape made for pressing pause.
REPLACE YOUR MORNING COFFEE WITH THIS MOGU
Summer is the season of movement – long-haul flights and time-zone chaos – and MOGU is how you stay steady through all of it. Born from founder Emily Tan’s own burnout (and a childhood spent in the “fungi kingdom” of Southeast Asia, where food and medicine are intertwined), the brand distils 8,000 years of Traditional Chinese Medicine into rituals that slot effortlessly into your life. Think of it as a full-day rhythm in three acts: a vivid ceremonial Mushroom Matcha, spiked with Lion’s Mane and Cordyceps, to sharpen the morning into clear, unhurried focus; a smooth, low-acid Mushroom Coffee that switches you on without the jittery crash; and a caffeine-free Mushroom Cacao, laced with Reishi and Tremella, for the evening exhale after a day of doing too much. The ingredients are organic, traceable and minimal – four to a blend – and the whole thing is designed to travel. This is a transportable quiet reset you can carry from your kitchen counter to a hotel room half a world away.
EAT ICE CREAM HERE Loewe Perfumes Ice Cream Bar
Spanish house Loewe has brought a taste of its playful luxury to De Beauvoir, transforming The Dreamery into a pistachio-hued dream to mark the launch of its new Pistachio scented candle. Set in a repurposed 19th-century building, The Dreamery was opened in 2024 by Alex Young and George De Vos, the pair behind natural wine bars Goodbye Horses and Stable Wines, and it’s become a firm neighbourhood favourite for its inventive scoops, from croissant-and-custard to blueberry-and-ricotta. For the takeover, the whole façade has been washed in that unmistakable pale pistachio green, and a limited-edition pistachio flavour is served exclusively for the duration (until 30 July), dreamed up with The Dreamery’s own ice cream makers. Inside there’s whimsical seating for around 20, plus a chance to experience the candle itself – creamy, nutty and gourmand, housed in Loewe’s signature glazed terracotta vessel. It’s scent, taste and a hit of Spanish summer in one deeply chic package.
TAKE A SPA DAY HERE Seed to Skin at The Newt in Somerset
A meeting of two worlds rooted in the land: Seed to Skin, the cult Tuscan skincare house, has become the exclusive skincare partner at The Newt in Somerset – making the celebrated country estate the first dedicated Seed to Skin spa in the UK, and the brand’s first British country-estate home. It’s a natural pairing. Just as Seed to Skin grows its botanicals on a regenerative Tuscan estate and transforms them through advanced Green Molecular Science, The Newt is internationally lauded for its gardens, biodiversity and painstaking restoration of a historic Somerset landscape. Guests can now book the full range of signature facials – The Reverse Signature, The Deeply Hydrating, The Restorative, The Purifying – alongside immersive body rituals including The Cocoon, the aptly named Jet Lag Remedy, The Wild Bloom Body Ritual and The Scalp Renew. As founder Jeanette Thottrup puts it, this is a setting where the integrity of the land meets advanced science, and skincare becomes part of a deeper, holistic experience.
TAKE A TERRACE SEAT HERE The Italian Greyhound
Take a terrace seat at this modern Marylebone institution, a favourite neighbourhood spot made for aperitivo evenings. Martini fans, indulge in the new martini menu created with sustainable British distillery Sapling Spirits: the Pomodorini pairs vodka with clarified tomato water and a sundried tomato-and-mozzarella skewer; the Perello is built on crushed olives and umami bitters; while La Dolce Vita leans sweet with yuzu, salted caramel and a lemon cantucci on the side. For something softer, the Fiore Fresca (cucumber-infused vodka, elderflower, watermelon soda) or the raspberry-laced Valentina, finished with foamed hearts. To graze alongside, a concise line-up of cicchetti – octopus gildas, toasted garlic-and-rosemary flatbread, courgette fritti with a knowingly ‘dirty’ aioli. And for those settling in for the evening, a new seasonal à la carte turns Mediterranean and summery: seabass with watermelon, meyer lemon and capers, tuna crudo with Sicilian orange and ponzu, red snapper with pickled apricots and girolles, veal saltimbocca with sage and prosciutto.
BOOK THIS AUGUST GETAWAY The Thinking Traveller's “Bring Your Own Boat” collection
For the summer’s most seductive brief (and last minute August getaways), arrive by sea with The Thinking Traveller’s curated “Bring Your Own Boat” collection: a portfolio of waterfront villas with direct access to the water, from private jetties and secluded bathing platforms to hidden coves and glassy Mediterranean shallows. The joy is in the freedom of it: mooring at your own door, and exploring the coastline at your own pace. In Lefkada, Michaela sleeps up to 18 across nine bedrooms, with a private jetty, a 22m heatable infinity pool and colonial-inspired interiors – made for a big family summer, complete with daily housekeeping and a private chef. On the exclusive Costa coastline of Porto Heli, Koralli overlooks the Aegean with manicured gardens, sweeping terraces and a garden gate that opens straight onto a secluded pebble beach, moments from Spetses and Hydra. And in the Sicilian fishing town of Brucoli, the smaller, more intimate Azzurra faces the Ionian Sea with views to Mount Etna, its own bathing platform, a stone plunge pool, an outdoor kitchen and kayaks for drifting along the coast between Syracuse and Noto.
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