Monday 20 February 2017

Aster Cafe, Victoria

Aster Café, Victoria
150 Victoria Street, London SW1E 5LB

Nordic & French cuisine



Aster Café is a lovely trendy place with impeccable service and lovely food. The staff make you feel welcome straight away.
 
 
 
The décor is elegant. In addition, the cocktails were amazing. But, most importantly, the food was exceptionally good with an excellent selection available from the menu.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
The only thing that could be improved was the dessert. We ordered poached pear which comes with semolina pudding and chocolate ganache. Sadly, the ganache was just dark chocolate pieces and the semolina pudding was very dry. I would imagine the pear will taste better with something cold and actual molten ganache. Also I really, didn't like the way it was served in a bowl - very amateur. I would love to try the breakfast here (Danish pastries of course!). Overall, great experience and would go back
Style guide
This is  not a formal café though you cam dress up a little on the weekend so smart casual? I paired up my Armani blouse and palazzo pants with my new blue Chanel messenger!

 
 
 

 

Tuesday 14 February 2017

Travels: Stratford-upon-Avon




This year, for Valentines' we visited the town of the King of romantic sonnets (amongst other things), William Shakespeare. It's a lovely little town and not too far from Warwick castle so you can do a lot there as a tourist. However, our main aim was to chill so we booked at the Welcome Hotel & Spa.

The town



Stratford-upon-Avon is a lovely little town with many tea houses, shops and of course numerous tourist attractions related to Shakespeare. Shakespeare's house is a lovely little Tudor cottage, which I recommend visiting. Don't forget to pick up some literary souvenirs at the Shakespeare Gift Shop!



There are also some lovely antique shops, jewellery shops and British homemade candy shops! How quaint!



Hallmark Hotel The Welcombe
Warwick Road, Stratford-upon-Avon CV37 0NR, England







We selected this hotel due to its location, lovely grounds and spa. The hotel is beautiful and the grounds are stunning. It also has a golf course, if you are a golf-player. However, the service was thoroughly disappointing. I had requested flowers and chocolate cake for hubby's birthday. Not only did they forget the cake, but they argued with me that I had asked for chocolates! However, believe it or not there were no chocolates there either! So they made a mistake on their mistake! And they charged me for these! There was no attempt to make it up to us at all. In fact, they asked me to show proof of my order! They didn't even bother looking up their own email correspondence. I had requested these from Reservation Manager who obviously does not communicate with the hotel staff.


















All right - we decided to let it go and enjoy the stay. However, it was not to be. Both at breakfast and dinner, the hotel staff were inattentive. They had to be told 2 or 3 times to get our drinks/food because they forgot. One of them actually started walking away while I was ordering my tea! Great training!





The spa is ok but looks like any regular gym so not exactly a relaxing haven.



 
 

Very disappointed and wouldn't go back.
 


Bensons
40 Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon CV37 6QW

We went to this café, situated opposite Shakespeare's birthplace, for lunch.  We ordered chicken goujons and salmon and asparagus rosti. The food was lovely and the service was very good. The place has a great atmosphere and I loved the ghost in the window - how Hamlet! I would highly recommend this place!




 
Warwick Castle



The castle grounds and the castle were beautiful. Alas the weather was so miserable we had to cut our visit short!  I do hope to return sometime in the summer though to explore this historical landmark!





Style Tips

As I was there in February and it was freezing, I would recommend bundling up and layering is the way to go. I have selected two looks below to help provide some idea of what to wear in winter!


For this look, I paired up H&M polka dot blouse with J Brand jeans and an extremely warm shaggy gilet from Asos. I had my Benetton Coat and Fatface snood over it. The gilet allowed my to take off my coat for a few moments for the all important photos!!







 



For the second look, I wore a black polo neck with J Brand jeans and my ultra warm cape sweater from Anthropologie!


Ever practical Prada Madras bag was all I needed for this trip!



 Finally, the spa day included one piece swimsuit and cover up by Monsoon and my Havaianas