So … New Zealand! Where to start? Well, it was 1993, I had a one-way ticket and a one-year working holiday visa for Australia.

But before landing in Australia, my girlfriend and I were planning on taking advantage of the free stop that came with our plane ticket. We landed in Auckland, New Zealand with plans to spend one month travelling from the North Island all the way down to the South Island, where we would fly out of Christchurch. And what a month it was!

I have such exceptional and fond memories from our time in New Zealand. The combination of spectacular scenery with the genuine kindness extended to us from every Kiwi (code name for a New Zealander) we met … from a sweet older lady who invited us to stay with her at her home in the town of Rotorua, known for its geothermal mud pools and boiling crater lakes, to the countless strangers who picked us backpackers up on the side of the road and gave us a lift on our journey.

Honestly, if there is one place you must go visit before you die, it’s New Zealand.

Check out all there is to see in New Zealand — seriously, you’ll be amazed that one small island can offer everything from glaciers to beaches to rolling green hills dotted with sheep — at this site: http://www.newzealand.com/travel/Canada/.

NYC still an international melting pot

An unexpected, but lovely, lilting accent greets restaurant guests to New York City’s latest darling, Double Crown. French-born restaurant manager, Leslie Affre, first came to New York City on holiday in 2007 with her then-boyfriend Christopher Rendell, a sought-after international chef, and it hooked her hard.

“I really fell in love. I thought it was just so beautiful — the city’s mix of old and new. I remember that when we left, I just cried.” It took little prompting then for the couple to pack up their London-based life, where they were both working at the celebrated Mews of Mayfair restaurant, to help AvroKo Restaurant Group open their latest architectural and culinary sensation, Double Crown restaurant.

For Rendell, this is the fourth in a series of highly successful openings that have included The Grocer of Elgin and the Mews of Mayfair in London, as well as Public* in New York’s NoLIta neighbourhood. “You start with rubble – literally — then build a space, menu, and a fully functioning restaurant. It’s not the lack of sleep that attracts me, that’s for sure. But it’s satisfying to be part of a creation.”  Double Crown’s key players, which include Rendell, its chef de cuisine, and Affre, its manager, worked around the clock to ensure a smooth launch less than one year ago, and it’s paid off with favourable reviews and consistently full tables.

Double Crown’s name plays upon its inspired concept of the British colonial empire’s presence in the East, including India, Singapore and China. The influence of eastern flavours upon British traditional fare results in a menu that includes Venison Wellington, Miso-glazed Bone Marrow, Pheasant and Licorice Pie, and Rendell’s favourite dish, Tandoori Foie Gras Torchon with Earl Grey. Reflecting this concept, the restaurant’s décor is eclectic – Indian soapstone screens, teak tables, red neon lights and ceiling fans turned by leather straps mange to be brilliantly intermingled.

Double Crown’s Reigning Couple

The combinations of Asian spice with British cuisine, and modern décor with eastern artifacts, aren’t the only unlikely pairings at this restaurant. Rendell and Affre, now newly weds, have created a cultural combination of their own. Rendell, a city-raised Australian who doesn’t speak a word of French and Affre, raised in a small French village outside of Cannes, are bound together in their love for the restaurant business.   

 Photo credit: Ellinor Stig

It is fitting then that the couple’s romantic sparks were first ignited over a great restaurant experience. “My parents had come to London to visit me,” Affre explains, “and we went to the Mews restaurant, where I worked as a manager, to celebrate my father’s birthday. Chris was head chef, and he prepared the most amazing meal for us. It was just so special. We’ve been together ever since.”

Affre’s interest in the restaurant business began when she started to follow the career of her brother Olivier, a chef in a 3-star Michelin restaurant in France. Now it has a firm hold on her:  “You provide people with an experience – you make their night. For me, it is just so rich.” Rendell echoes this kind of deep engagement, saying he “just can’t imagine not being in the kitchen. It’s a part of me.”

Together, the couple makes their marriage work by coordinating their schedules so that they have a least one day off each week together, which isn’t always easy since Rendell’s role demands regular work weeks of 60-70 hours. On holidays, they often take advantage of the short flight-time to France and visit with Affre’s family and participate in celebrations, such as the recent Christening of Affre’s nephew, where Rendell was honoured as Godfather.

 Bowery: Where Grunge and Glamour Intersect

Across the street from Double Crown stands the now-closed CBGB club, made infamous in the mid-1970s by featuring underground rock bands such The Ramones, Talking Heads and Patti Smith. The streets of this area, a small district in the southern portion of Manhattan called Bowery, were once lined with flop houses and strewn with the bodies of drug addicts and drunks. “Ten years ago, you wouldn’t walk alone here, but now there’s $7,000-a-month-lofts above our restaurant,” says Rendell.

If you visit the Bowery soon enough, you’ll be able to witness the intersection of its gritty history with its impending, gentrified future as New York City’s next SoHo. Although this sixteen-block stretch is now home to upscale hotels, restaurants and fashion boutiques, guided walking tours provide glimpses of its seedy edges and are an excellent way to learn about the area’s fascinating immigrant heritage and gang-land lore, as featured in Martin Scorsese’s film Gangs of New York. The nearby Lower East Side’s Tenement Museum also offers guided tours of apartments that recreate immigrant life in the 19th and 20th centuries.

After slumming around in the area’s past, you can visit the latest resident on Bowery, the New Museum, where some of the world’s most contemporary art is showcased. Designed by Tokyo-based architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, the museum opened in 2007 and treats weekend visitors to panoramic city views from its Sky Room. Families may also want to take advantage of the short walk to the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, a five-floor marvel of age-specific exhibits on literature, science and arts.

*I know it will sound a bit crazy, but the bathroom at Public is so gorgeous that it almost rivals the amazing food!