Flying commercial can be an experience. And not always a good one. While headlines focus on belligerent drunks causing planes to be redirected or crazed people trying to open the door mid-flight, it’s usually a host of smaller infractions of etiquette that leave fellow passengers – and no doubt many crew – seething. So please remember the following.

1.
Don’t touch my hat! It’s remarkable how many people up at the front of the plane believe that the overhead luggage bin is an extension of their home wardrobe and accordingly attempt to control all access. Sorry, but finding a home for someone’s suitcase takes precedence over accommodating the expansive experimental millinery you’ve purchased for cousin Jill’s wedding in Siena. Really worried? Pop that fedora on your head and wear your packing regret with pride.

2.
When you are asked by the crew to put your phone away for takeoff, please just do it. Again, this behaviour is most egregious at the front of the plane where all too often there’s an entitled fellow who behaves like he’s closing the deal of the century. The cabin crew aren’t buying your Masters of the Universe status and neither are your neighbours. Put it away.

3.
It’s also striking how many people are midway through a brutal telephonic slanging match with their partner as the plane readies for lift off and their signal dies. “I know that you’re sleeping with her, don’t deny it… hello, can you hear me? Hello? Hello, are you still there Simon?” Can be entertaining for people nibbling their nuts in the rows around you but best avoided.

4.
Should you talk to the passenger next to you? Interesting one. I’d say read the signs. If they are constantly holding their headphones an inch away from their ears or keep glancing at their book about accountancy then they don’t want to chat. But even if they are up for a conversation keep the topics light and easy – no emotional downloads, no updates on Simon’s philandering, no medical histories, no sex tips (unless they are really good).

5.
Who has the right to control the window blind? The person sitting next to it of course. This is one of the last remaining tenets of a civilised world.

6.
Can you ask people to switch seats so that you can sit next to your partner? Of course but only if you are not attempting to manoeuvre anyone to a worse seat. And no silliness if they decline your offer.

7.
Seat in the recline position after takeoff? Ask the person behind if it would inconvenience them and take it from there. It’s the sudden jerking back of a seat that causes tempers to fly, especially when people have a laptop out or are eating. Being nice is always a good plan.

8.
Did you and your partner book an aisle and window seat and expect someone to sit in between you all the way to Corfu? I hope your luggage goes missing. You are bad people.

9.
On short-haul flights any meal or drinks service is against the clock. So cut it out with the elaborate drink order. No they can’t make you an extra-spicy bloody mary. You’re not down the Dog and Duck.

10.
Babies cry. Get over it.

11.
Old people are sometimes slow. Get over this too.

12.
Is it OK to bring your own food? Of course. But there are limits. I recently sat next to a muscular gentleman who – judging by the whole roast chicken he devoured – seemed concerned about his protein intake. Or how about the four tech bros dotted around a business-class cabin who were served tubs of health-food nonsense by a private chef who appeared from his seat behind the economy curtain? Tofu time can wait.

13.
God invented headphones for a reason – so children can play video games in silence. And, no, even if you turn down the volume, nobody wants to hear the tinny refrain of Peppa Pig’s latest adventure.

14.
Can you rest your weary bare feet on the fuselage? No, you need some socks, a pedicure and some manners.

15.
Finally, people want to get off this flight, so please perfect your exit. Perhaps practise at home a few times by rearranging your dining chairs in a neat row like on a plane. And remember, coats can be put on once you are off the aircraft. 

Follow these rules and you might not enjoy your flight but at least nobody will fantasise about opening the door over the Med.

To read more from Andrew Tuck, click here. 

When Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as mayor of New York on 1 January this year, he came with several “firsts”. He is the first Muslim leader of the city, the first of South Asian descent, the first born in Africa and the youngest mayor in more than 100 years. But like many of his predecessors, the 34-year-old came into office facing rising housing costs, a troubled public-transport system, a growing divide between low-income and high-income families, and a high proportion of immigrant residents.

To win more than a million votes in the general election, the democratic socialist ran on several key campaign promises. Notably, he proposed a rent freeze, free childcare and a faster and cheaper bus system that overwhelmingly serves the city’s low-income residents. 

Four months into his tenure, a poll conducted by the Marist Institute shows that just under 50 per cent of New Yorkers are supportive of the first-time mayor, though it is too early to judge the long-term success of his initiatives.

At the culmination of Mamdani’s first 100 days, Monocle reviews his promises on housing, free bus fares, small-business affordability and immigration.

Housing

Republicans and Democrats pander to US home owners for a simple reason: people who own their own homes tend to vote at higher rates than those who don’t. But during Mamdani’s mayoral campaign he flipped the script on its head, banking on a loud and direct appeal to the 69 per cent of New Yorkers who rent. The two main promises that he made were to build 200,000 new affordable homes over 10 years and to freeze rents for almost one million New York apartments. These policies won the support of many voters and played a major part in getting Mamdani into office. 

The cost of housing is by far the single biggest expense that most New Yorkers face. More than half of the city’s renters spend upwards of 30 per cent of their income on rent, and a third spend more than 50 per cent. The most significant step towards creating new homes in Mandani’s first 100 days came in late March with the announcement of the Neighbourhood Builders Fast Track policy, which makes it easier for affordable homes to be built on land owned by the city.

Mamdani’s ambition to build those units still faces massive challenges. To realise the plan, the city will need to borrow an additional $70bn (€60bn) over the next decade, and that’s on top of the roughly $25bn (€21.3bn) already committed to affordable housing in the existing capital plan. This would push the city well past its legal debt ceiling and require the approval of New York’s governor and state legislature in Albany, where at least some lawmakers are likely to balk given the additional debt service it would impose on an already strained budget.

The mayor’s commitment to freeze rents will only apply to the city’s one million rent-stabilised apartments, whose rental price is set annually by the New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), a nine-member body appointed by the mayor. Although a freeze will come as a relief to renters, landlords who own the apartments worry that the measure could push them into insolvency. Since 2020, expenses for owners have risen while the price of rents hasn’t kept up and many owners claim that they are on the verge of foreclosure.

The RGB is scheduled to have a preliminary vote in May, with a final decision in June. Any changes would apply to leases taking effect later this year. The decision is likely to set the template for the city’s approach to rent-stabilised apartments for as long as Mamdani is in office. But this is not a story that ends with Mamdani or with New York. Renters across the US are dealing with wages that haven’t kept pace with housing costs, home ownership that feels permanently out of reach and a political class that has historically been more attentive to those who own than to those who rent. The successes and failures of Mamdani’s attempts to address these issues are certain to resonate beyond the five boroughs.

Transportation

Among the signature promises that Mamdani made during his campaign, free bus services might have been one of the boldest. The welfare state barely exists in the US and anything “free” seems unimaginable. In a city that’s facing a major affordability crisis, where transportation is the second-largest cost after housing – making up 14 per cent of household spending – a free bus ride could save people hundreds of dollars a year. Although it’s almost unprecedented in the US, there are cities, such as Kansas City and Boston, that have some fare-free routes. But they’re significantly smaller urban areas than New York and fare revenue makes up a smaller percentage of the budget. 

For Mamdani, the route to free bus fares is anything but direct. The MTA, which runs the vast majority of buses in the city, is a state agency and not under the mayor’s control, so he has to get New York governor Kathy Hochul on board. Another challenge is cost. Bus fares generate about $600m (€512m) a year, money that the MTA relies on for drivers’ pay and maintenance costs. One hundred days into Mamdani’s first term and free buses are still more of a promise than a policy, with no clear funding strategy in sight. 

But he has made some headway: speeding up bus services, and extending and constructing bus lanes. He has other options that he can expand on too, such as building on an existing programme called Fair Fares to make fares more affordable. The discount programme grants riders a 50 per cent discount on standard fares but it has drawbacks – only about 35 per cent of those eligible have enrolled and the application process is onerous.

Spotlighting the bus is likely what the city needs. Although most people think of New York as a subway city, more New Yorkers ride the bus than the train. They’re mostly low-income or essential workers in sectors such as healthcare and education who rely heavily on an underfunded and neglected system. It’s important to acknowledge these issues because cutting fares, making buses speedier and hopefully, one day, free, will not only put money back in people’s pockets but restore their faith in local government too. 

Small businesses

One part of Mamdani’s campaign was the promise to make it more affordable to establish small businesses in the city. The permitting process to create a business is complex. Many documents must be filed in person or over the phone, which prohibits many people from even beginning the process. Additionally, there are about 6,000 rules and regulations for small businesses in the city and fines for anyone who flouts the rules. 

Mamdani proposed cutting fines by half, speeding up permitting and making sure that there were more online resources available. One step towards this was creating the role of a mom-and-pop czar, which will cut red tape and ensure that these policies are followed.

Earlier this week, Delia Awusi was appointed to the role. Most recently the women’s business director at the Business Outreach Center Network in Brooklyn, she focused on making sure women-led businesses had the same opportunities as anyone else trying to start a company. In her new role, Awusi will be in charge of helping “ultra-small” businesses navigate the system. 

Another campaign promise was revamping the New York Future Fund loan programme, which is designed to expand access to affordable financing for anyone who wants to start a small business, with a specific focus on minority, immigrant and female founders. In its rollout of the programme, the administration announced that it would lower the minimum loan amounts from $100,000 to $25,000, reduce interest rates and make repayment terms more flexible.

These measures are ambitious but the administration appears to be putting accountability elements in place. Whether they help more small businesses succeed in the city is yet to be seen.

Immigration

Monocle’s editor in chief, Andrew Tuck, interviews Mazin Sidahmed, executive director and co-founder of Documented, a nonprofit newsroom that serves immigrant communities in New York.

Tell us about the response to Mamdani’s mayorship so far.
There are three major immigrant communities in New York: Spanish-speaking immigrants, Chinese immigrants and Caribbean immigrants, though there’s nuance across all of those different communities. Broadly, Mamdani enjoyed widespread support among all of them due to his focus on affordability. We saw a lot of our readers come out and support Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election because they were [concerned by] inflation. People felt like the cost of living had spiralled out of control. Mamdani’s laser focus on that issue got widespread support, while the Democratic Party struggled and lost a lot of support. 

Immigration enforcement has been one of the biggest concerns for immigrant New Yorkers over the past year. Documented did a story a few months ago about how immigration enforcement in the city doubled in 2025 – there are hundreds of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] arrests every week. People are afraid to leave their houses. It has become a petrifying time for a lot of immigrant communities, people fear even taking their children to school. On that front, Mamdani has come out quite forcefully and said that he’s going to try to make New York a city that is safe for immigrants. He created an inter-agency response team. There has been a real focus on preventing the sharing of any data from the New York City Government to the federal government. That’s the one area that a local administration can really control.

But rhetorically the administration has been quite strong on the labour front. A lot of our readers are delivery workers. They’re cab drivers, they work in restaurants and they’re home-health aides. Mamdani has been delivering a lot more on that front and people have seen some tangible results. But we’ve reported on some tensions as well. He’s strangely been quite opposed to legislation that would provide overtime protection for home-health aides, people who care for elderly, sick or mentally unwell people – often those are immigrant workers. 

If we had a checklist of things that Mamdani promised to do or that immigrant communities wanted from their mayor, what would you be confident about putting a big tick next to?
The universal 2-K could be really transformative for low-wage New York, and honestly, for people across all different classes and wages. [The programme grants free childcare for two-year-olds, with the first 2,000 seats mostly distributed to low-income New Yorkers.] It has received support from Albany and you can pretty confidently put a tick against that happening. 

There’s a pilot programme that will launch this year in a few communities. Whether it gets to the point that Mamdani promised – that any babies from six months old will have access to free childcare – I’m not sure. But you can definitely say there will be some sort of additional support. 

The tradition of reviewing the first 100 days is such an American construct, I believe, from the days of Roosevelt. But what do your readers hope for from day 101 onwards? 
Immigrant New Yorkers today are living in intense fear. There is a feeling that you can’t leave your house. We’ve done a number of stories about immigrant neighbourhoods that are economically struggling because they just can’t get any foot traffic. People don’t want to go out and walk around the neighbourhood and frequent the businesses as they have previously. 

Over the next few years folks will be looking to Mamdani to find ways to protect the city and create safer environments for people to go to work, and have access to support and services. It’s going to be really difficult for Mamdani to deliver on, because as we’ve seen, the local government has very little control of federal immigration enforcement. So how they address that challenge is going to be really telling. Whether or not immigrant New Yorkers will start to blame Mamdani and turn on him for the actions of the Trump administration will be interesting to watch over these next few years.

Japan’s sartorial big hitters have long intrigued the fashion world – and Hirofumi Kurino is right up there as one of the most influential figures in menswear. A co-founder of Japanese fashion retailer United Arrows (UA), where he is now a senior adviser, Kurino’s signature blend of high and low – a tailored jacket and New Balance trainers – is easy to admire and hard to imitate. Relentlessly snapped by street photographers, Kurino knows how to appreciate craftsmanship, whether in an Italian shirt, Japanese wool trousers or a good tweed, but he will happily try something new.

Comfortable in his own skin, unfailingly courteous and curious about the world, Kurino, who is also a consultant for Japanese manufacturing organisation J-Quality, is the embodiment of great style. monocle meets him in the fashion archive of UA’s Tokyo HQ to talk about the art of getting dressed.

---

How do you decide what to wear every morning?
There’s no formula. Sometimes I choose my clothes the night before, sometimes I decide in the morning. It depends if I have a certain image in my mind. I prefer natural fabrics but I’m open to any material or silhouette. Colour is key for me when I’m choosing what to wear; it’s more important than the fit. Royal blue is my favourite. I dress for myself, and maybe for friends who appreciate my style but I’m not interested in showing off or thinking about whether someone is going to photograph me. If I head out in the morning and something doesn’t feel right – maybe the socks are wrong – I’ll turn back. My wife and daughter are the same.

Anything you steer away from?
I don’t like rules for dressing and I think age is irrelevant but I do avoid logos and big luxury brands, and I don’t like pre-ripped jeans. If my jeans tear naturally, that’s different.

Who or what influences your style?
When I was at school in Setagaya in Tokyo, my first style idol was Sean Connery in From Russia with Love, even if I couldn’t afford to replicate his sharp suits at that age. I loved The Beatles too. I also DJ for friends from time to time. I was buying vinyl in the 1960s, switched to CDs and now I’m back with vinyl again, so album covers such as Nursery Cryme [Genesis, 1971] or New Boots and Panties!! [Ian Dury, 1977] can be big style inspirations. I draw a lot from travelling. I recently did a 17-day trip to Europe and attended Dries Van Noten’s final show in Paris, which was very emotional. He did 129 shows in his career and I went to 125 of them.

You spend so much time on the road. How do you pack for a trip?
I’m good at packing a capsule wardrobe and I like a soft Eastpak holdall on wheels. I have 10 of them. 

What are your wardrobe staples?
I still wear a lot of jackets and suits. I’m a big fan of Caruso suits; I love the way they’re relaxed but elegant. I wear shirts from all over the place, but UA is probably the biggest buyer of [Neapolitan shirtmaker] Salvatore Piccolo. I’ve also ended up with an encyclopedic knowledge of white T-shirts and Uniqlo has one of the best. I’m interested in mass production and love the socks from my nearby supermarket. I also go to a local barber. I’ve had my hair the same way for 30 years – if I go somewhere fancy my hair will look the way the stylist wants and not like me. 

Which young labels are you currently enjoying?
Recently, I’ve been interested in Wales Bonner and SS Daley [from London] as well as [Milan-based Japanese label] Setchu. A black Setchu blazer that I have is amazing, it folds up into a B4 envelope and the creases are built in. You just have to hope that nobody tries to iron them out. 

Are you still excited about fashion?
If I think about fashion as trends or big companies, I’m not so thrilled. But if I think about creation, craftsmanship and interesting people, then I’m excited.

The two-week pause brokered between the US and Iran by Pakistan has been presented by president Donald Trump as a decisive diplomatic win. Markets steadied, oil prices decreased and the Strait of Hormuz (the artery for roughly a fifth of the world’s oil) looked as though it might return to normality – until it didn’t. Despite the global relief following the cessation of hostilities, the agreement’s limits were exposed within hours. 

Israel’s strikes on Lebanon on Wednesday – among the deadliest of the conflict, with more than 250 people killed and upwards of 1,100 injured – have punctured any illusion of calm. The scale alone is destabilising; the timing makes it something more consequential. It raises a basic but unresolved question: was Lebanon ever meaningfully part of this ceasefire?

The answer depends on who you ask. Pakistan and Iran appear to interpret the framework as inclusive of Lebanon. Washington and Tel Aviv do not. US vice-president JD Vance has been explicit: “The Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t.” A ceasefire that is not universally defined by all parties is one that is, by design, open to breach. 

Trump’s approach to diplomacy has often prioritised speed and spectacle. This ceasefire, hastily assembled in the final hours before “sending Iran back to the stone ages”, carries those same hallmarks. It has created a pause but not a framework robust enough to manage what comes next. 

That next phase could hinge on scheduled talks in Pakistan this weekend, where Vance will lead the American delegation of Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. They’ll likely meet Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, with Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and Field Marshal Asim Munir mediating. Considering that the ceasefire is already under strain, there is a growing expectation that its terms will require adjustment or risk becoming irrelevant before the two-week window elapses. 

There is also a temporal illusion at play. Shipping is a slow business and many of the oil tankers currently docking in Asia and Europe departed before the worst of the disruption. The real economic effects of instability in the Strait of Hormuz – tighter supply, higher insurance costs, rerouted cargo – are still working their way through the system. When they arrive, they will do so with force. The global economy is, in effect, still consuming yesterday’s stability.

Then there is the question of who was – and was not – in the room. Gulf states, despite withstanding the bulk of Iranian retaliation and economic fallout, appear to have played little meaningful role in shaping the agreement. This omission is more than a diplomatic slight: it risks becoming a structural problem in the ceasefire agreement. Mahdi Jasim Ghuloom, a junior fellow at Observer Research Foundation, is blunt about the consequences. “The ceasefire has been announced with little apparent regard for Gulf states, even though they have borne the brunt of Iranian retaliation throughout the conflict,” he says. “Gulf interests are conspicuously absent from the framework.”

The reality on the ground appears to support that assessment. “The threat has not abated,” adds Ghuloom, pointing to Iranian strikes on Bahrain and heightened alerts across the region in the immediate aftermath of the announcement. That absence of relief is feeding a more assertive mood in Gulf capitals. “Gulf states won’t sit idly while Trump and Iran celebrate a ceasefire,” says Ghuloom. “There will be a lot of diplomatic pushback and clarification needed as to what happens with the Strait of Hormuz.”

That governance is now the crux of the next phase. Iran has floated the idea of asserting greater control over the strait, including potential tolls on shipping, a radical departure from established norms. “The acceptance of any tolls will not be tolerated by the Gulf,” says Ghuloom, suggesting that states might instead explore alternative export routes or apply pressure on Washington and its partners to address the issue swiftly.

All of which returns us to the central question: can this ceasefire last? That will depend less on the text of the agreement than on the behaviour it produces. Can Israel refrain from further escalation, particularly inside Iran and Lebanon? Can Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps maintain discipline across its various factions? And can Trump sustain a more measured tone, resisting the incendiary rhetoric that, only days ago, threatened the death of “a whole civilisation”?
 
For now the ceasefire is best understood as a temporary measure rather than a permanent outcome. It has created space for diplomacy, for recalibration and for markets to steady themselves. But it has not resolved the contest over security and control of one of the world’s most critical waterways. In that sense, what’s in a ceasefire is not peace but the possibility of it – and the just as likely possibility of another rupture. 

Inzamam Rashid is Monocle’s Gulf correspondent. 

Further reading: 
– The UAE is walking a tightrope between self-defence and wider deterrence

– Can Pakistan broker the peace that Washington and Tehran cannot?

– Rising rhetoric and deepening Gulf tensions push the Middle East to the brink

On 2 September 1987, readers of The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Boston Globe beheld a full-page advertisement placed by property developer and celebrity blowhard Donald Trump. The ad took the form of an open letter, headlined “There’s nothing wrong with America’s Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can’t cure.” Then, as now, Trump was somewhat capricious with his capitalisations.

The text, loftily addressed “To the American People”, was a fanfare of a theme that has become familiar: that the US spends fortunes to protect idle, ungrateful allies. Amusingly in the current context, Trump was particularly vexed by US policy in the Persian Gulf, “an area of only marginal significance to the United States”. But his resentment was broad. “Why,” he demanded, “are these nations not paying the United States for the human lives and billions of dollars we are losing to protect their interests?” The world, he feared, was “laughing at America’s politicians.” Imagine that.

The letter did not mention Nato specifically, though at that point Trump might not have heard of it: he had not previously expressed any great interest in foreign policy and had certainly never seemed the type to think it worth spending $94,801 (about $273,000 today) to address the nation on the subject. But he had clearly come to believe that the US should detach itself from the alliances that it had built during the Cold War. Coincidentally, Trump had only recently returned from his first visit to Moscow.

Since Trump emerged as a potential, then actual, presidential candidate, disdain for Nato has been a recurrent motif. This has built to an especially petulant pitch in recent weeks as the other members of the alliance ignored Trump’s commands to participate in whatever the US believes itself to be doing in Iran. Earlier this week, the president sneered at Nato as “a paper tiger” and whined again that he was denied the prize of Greenland. He now knows that the Danish and other European troops deployed to Greenland after he threatened to seize it were under orders to resist any American invasion. It seems not to have occurred to Trump that when you threaten your allies, compel them to scramble soldiers to defend their territory from you, then deride their contributions to your country’s previous wars, they might be less inclined to turn up for your next one.

It’s not as easy for Trump to withdraw the US from Nato as he might prefer. In 2023, in anticipation of a possible Trump restoration, then-president Joe Biden signed into law a measure that prevents his successors from pulling the US out of Nato without the agreement of two thirds of the US Senate: one of the bill’s co-sponsors, incidentally, was then-senator Marco Rubio, now Trump’s secretary of state. But as everyone well understands, all that really matters is whether the US would react in the event of Article V-level crisis – a Russian lunge for the Suwalki Gap, little green men in Narva. As long as Trump is president, that decision is his – and nobody, friend or foe, has the least idea what the US would actually do.

This is usefully discombobulating to Nato’s antagonists. And this is no way for Nato’s members to live: more than one current European office-holder has muttered to me words to the effect that you cannot defend a continent continually adjusting for the possibility that American voters might elect to Earth’s most powerful office someone untethered to convention and unmoored from reality.

The one thing that Trump has been right about is that Europe has, since the Second World War, taken a decades-long nap beneath a stars-and-stripes-spangled umbrella. Europe can – and should – hope that the transatlantic alliance will hold but the continent absolutely has to act on the assumption that it won’t.

Europeans have had 40 years of warnings of what Donald Trump thinks of them. And they should know better than most that nothing lasts forever: among the European countries now members of Nato and/or the EU, it is difficult to find a pair who haven’t fought each other at some point. But despite facing an uncertain future they have the advantage that, at least for the moment, they’re all on the same side.

Andrew Mueller is the host of Monocle Radio’s global-affairs show ‘The Foreign Desk’. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

For the design of its most significant expansion since opening more than 200 years ago, the National Gallery in London has tapped 71-year-old Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. Famed for his work on Tokyo’s Olympic stadium, Kuma won over the gallery’s jury panel with his proposal for a hefty buildout. 

The new wing will allow the gallery to extend its historic collection into the 20th and 21st centuries. Traditionally it had not dealt with art made after the year 1900 in accordance to a deal made with Tate. It’s a move that the gallery says will allow visitors to view the entire history of Western painting. And the project’s funding is already well under way with receipt of two £150m (€172m) donations – the largest cash donations ever given to a gallery.

Though previous National Gallery redevelopments have caused controversy, the Japanese starchitect has a strong record of perfecting such projects. Here are three Kuma-designed spots found in Monocle’s City Guides:

1.
Lisbon
Calouste Gulbenkian Museum and Centro de Arte Moderna, Palhavá

The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum’s art collection was amassed by Armenian oil magnate Calouste Gulbenkian, who was advised by the man who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen, Howard Carter. The gallery contains some 6,000 pieces that stretch from 2500BC to the 20th century, from colourful mosque lamps and Iznik pottery to French furniture and illuminated manuscripts. At the other end of the museum’s magnificent gardens (worth a visit on their own) is the Centro de Arte Moderna (Cam), which opened in 1983. The building was recently renovated by Kuma to feature an impressive curved ceramic-and-timber canopy that stretches across its exterior. Cam’s rotating exhibitions tell the story of Portuguese art in the 20th century. [read the full guide]

2.
Tokyo
Nezu Museum, Aoyama 

The Kuma-deisgned Nezu Museum houses an outstanding collection of artworks from Japan, China and East Asia. The expansive garden, dotted with stone lanterns and traditional wooden teahouses, draws kimono-clad tea practitioners from across the country. Its winding paths are also perfect for a post-exhibition stroll.  [read the full guide]

3.
Kyoto
Ace Hotel Kyoto, Kurumaya-cho
Designed in 1926, the Shinpuhkan mall has been renovated and expanded upon by Kuma to form part of Ace Hotel’s first opening in Japan. The 213-key property features interiors by Commune Design, which crafted a layered aesthetic that weaves Western and Japanese sensibilities. [read the full guide]

How do we evaluate good design? It’s a question that I’m continually mulling over. While I have some strong views on aesthetics – and others can be wrong – I appreciate that beauty is in the eye of the beholder (though this doesn’t mean that “sustainable innovations” need to look like they grew from a vegetable patch). This means that looks alone cannot be the benchmark. Louis Sullivan’s 1896 axiom, “Form follows function” is the rallying cry of modernism and still feels like a good way of evaluating design. The idea that an object or building should be shaped by its intended function ensures that the world is in service to the user. But such an approach can discount ornamental or craft traditions that bring much joy. What is more, neither the aesthetic or utilitarian viewpoint properly considers the means of manufacture, whether rooted in cultural traditions or contemporary quality.

Speaking to Samuel Ross for Monocle’s April issue, however, has unveiled a new matrix for design evaluation. “Our practice really comes down to being able to syndicate our ethos through every factor of what it means to live daily,” says Ross, who co-founded British studio SR_A with Yi Ng in 2019. “This work fundamentally draws from the well of eudaimonia – or human flourishing – through the lens of design.”

Eudaimonia is achieved by practicing virtue and cultivating practical wisdom. For me, this ancient Greek principle developed by Aristotle leaves room for holistically evaluating a design based on good form, great function, quality manufacturing and aesthetics. Imbuing this in a design practice translates to products and buildings that intend to serve people and their communities. As for practical wisdom when it comes to design, this is rooted in the idea that objects should be made with an intelligent eye for stripping unnecessary parts or processes to reveal essential functions, while care is still given to building methods and localised manufacturing.

The team at SR_A have taken this outlook to deliver products that are materially innovative and culturally significant, including everything from furniture and pavilions to watches and clothing lines. For proof you only have to look at the timepieces that the practice has produced with Hublot. The pieces tap into the hidden potential of the historic Geneva-based firm (practical intelligence) to produce timeless, durable wares (good intent). There’s also their work for Indetex, with Zara, which allowed them to bring well-designed clothing (good intent) to consumers at an accessible price point (practical intelligence). By rooting their work in this philosophical outlook, the studio’s varied portfolio has a cohesive vision. “[It works because] the same consumer that wants to purchase a watch from us also wants those same values in their house, their bathroom or the consumer electronics that they’ll be wearing,” says Ng. In this case, they’ll also get a product that speaks to their flourishing too.

Nic Monisse is Monocle’s design editor.

Further reading:
SR_A share their strategy behind building a luxury brand portfolio through innovation and partnerships

In the quest for environmentally friendly transit, many people turn to bicycles. The (usually) two-wheeled vehicles have zero emissions and take up very little parking space. Visit any climate-conscious city and you’ll find a network of cycling lanes, with shops and mechanics that fuel a local bike culture. 

But as anyone uninitiated who has ever entered a cycle shop knows, the process of buying a bicycle is anything but simple. Options seem infinite: hybrid, road, mountain, commuter or cargo? Do you want a steel or carbon frame? How many gears will you need – or do you need to shift at all? Those are just the top-level decisions. And we haven’t even begun to talk about the brands. Navigating the market can feel like pedalling across a chaotic highway: some are trustworthy, others are not and the stakes are high.

For those on the hunt for high-quality rides that will reliably take you from A to B, here’s a round-up of four manufacturers from our archive – and one maker who can take you even further afield (for a price).

Achielle
Made in: Pittem, Belgium
Known for: Premium bikes that blend performance, style and heritage for discerning cyclists.

Peter Oosterlinck and his brother, Tom, are steering their third-generation family business, Achielle, back to the front of the continental peloton. “When my grandfather Achiel started building frames in 1946, there were about 250 companies in Europe doing the same,” says Peter. “By 2000, there were only four.” The cause of this decline? Cheap Asian imports of steel bicycle frames. Rather than go toe-to-toe on price, the Oosterlincks changed gears, deciding to construct entire bicycles using high-quality European-made parts and accessories, including Brooks England saddles and Busch & Müller headlights from Germany.

Read more about the 80-year-old manufacturer.

Flinc
Made in: Zürich, Switzerland
Known for: Compact cargo bikes made from a special steel alloy that weighs 16kg, about a third of the weight of the average cargo bike.

Markus Freitag’s passion for pedals was first ignited in 1982 while watching Steven Spielberg’s ET. Some 40 years later, the Zürich-born entrepreneur has created a Spielberg-inspired bicycle brand that’s perfect for nipping around his hometown. Called Flinc, its namesake model is a svelte two-wheeler that is as compact as an urban minibike, as capacious as a cargo bike and as sturdy as ET’s BMX. “Our niche is an easily manoeuvrable model with a simple but sophisticated luggage system,” says Freitag. 

Read more about the Zürich-based bicycle brand.

Canyon
Made in: Koblenz, Germany
Known for: A range of custom-build models and innovative e-bikes tailored to your needs.

Founded as a bicycle retailer called Radsport Arnold in the 1990s, Canyon now has an extensive number of both pedal and e-bikes – from road to mountain – on offer via its website. It’s determined to be at the forefront of a bicycle industry that’s continuing to develop at almost the same lick as the automotive trade. The company, which employs nearly 1,700 people worldwide, including at a hub in Amsterdam, isn’t aiming to be the next Specialized or Giant Bicycles. In fact, being the biggest bike company in the world isn’t part of its game plan – it’s aiming to be the most innovative and inspiring. The brand is banking on differentiation to stand out from the pack as it looks to tweak its catalogue. Part of the plan, being an e-commerce player, is striving to provide the best customer service and extending the ways in which consumers can interact with the brand. Canyon’s physical presence is also being extended with the growth of its Canyon Factory Service (CFS) centres – essentially repair workshops – that are currently operating in towns including Rotselaar in Belgium, Eindhoven in the Netherlands and Tres Cantos in Spain.

Read more about the brand and take a tour of Canyon’s headquarters.

FES
Made in: Berlin, Germany
Known for: High-speed bicycles made for Olympians.

FES, short for Institut für Forschung und Entwicklung von Sportgeräten, was founded in 1963, when this part of Berlin was inside the GDR. With the Cold War as a motivator, East and West Germany were often racing helmet to helmet in Olympic velodromes. Many of FES’s bicycle innovations were quickly adopted across the Iron Curtain, including making frames from carbon fibre and switching from spokes to disc wheels. Preserved post-reunification, the institute works with a modest budget – about €10m in 2024. Only a few firms can rival the wheels moulded at FES. “Regulators often look for features that only FES has and ban them,” says director Michael Nitsch. “We take it as a compliment.”

The manufacturing process begins with the frame, made almost entirely from carbon fibre. It arrives pre-mixed with glue and rolled up like a textile, before being cut, moulded and baked into shape. The B20, FES’s latest model used at the Paris Games, is made from more than 500 components – all individually engineered and moulded in-house. The improvements included a tweaked fork (the bit that connects the wheel to the frame) and a carbon-fibre crank (the part that the chains bolt onto). “At this level, the improvements are tiny tweaks,” says Nitsch. “Everything counts.”

When Monocle asks whether we can take a bicycle out for a spin, Nitsch looks appalled. “We don’t even let these bikes roll on normal floors,” he says. “It makes no sense.” Only professional athletes – as well as the occasional lucky intern – are welcomed into the FES velodrome. Still, there is hope. Olympic regulations stipulate that all gear used by athletes must be commercially available, so FES bikes are for sale. These Weltspitze wheels could yet be ours – for a mere €70,000.

Read more about these bespoke bicycles.

Want more stories on two wheels?

• The Commute: Tag along Rebekka Bay’s bike ride through Copenhagen

Whether meeting with established colleagues or looking to cement new partnerships, the work lunch can be a boon to any business relationship. The format can be a great way to discuss the details of a project or explore the possibilities of a new venture. That is, if you follow a few basic rules: always show up on time, leave your laptop on your desk and keep an interesting conversation going. And, of course, choose a suitable restaurant that’s easy to find. 

Not sure where to start? Here are six spots in the UK capital that reward those who work up an appetite. 

1.
Poon’s
Somerset House

Amy Poon first learned the restaurant trade while working in her parents’ establishments, the first of which opened in London in 1973. Despite the family’s success – including earning a Michelin star – Poon initially decided never to open a place of her own. “I knew how hard it would be – the effect on your family life, the hours, the commitment,” she tells Monocle. So what changed her mind? “It must be in my blood. I love feeding people.”

After several successful pop-ups, including a year-long residency at Carousel in London, Poon’s has now found a permanent home in the new wing at Somerset House. The beautiful, high-ceilinged space is kitted out with murals, while the charmingly illustrated menu includes the restaurateur’s celebrated wontons and classics from her parents’ eateries. 

What to order: The wind-dried meats on claypot rice, Covent Garden duck salad, Lisle Street zha jiang noodles and The Hill That Amy Didn’t Die On – a labour-intensive prawn toast that her mother urged her to include on the menu.

2.
Simpson’s in the Strand
Covent Garden

Jeremy King and Shayne Brady have launched some of London’s most enduring dining spots over the past 15 years but the duo’s latest project, Simpson’s in the Strand, carries a legacy stretching back nearly two centuries. The chess-club-turned-restaurant first opened in 1828 and, since 1904, has been known for dishing out roast meats and Yorkshire puddings on silver trolleys. The Edwardian venue closed in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and has been undergoing extensive renovations since King purchased it in 2022. 

Simpson’s has now opened its doors once again. There are several distinct venues under one roof: the traditional Grand Divan, theatrical Romano’s, the classic Simpson’s Bar, the seductive Nellie’s bar and a small ballroom. 

In 1862, Simpson’s former owner Edward William Cathie insisted that the restaurant serve only British food, christening its menu the “Bill of Fare”. More than a century on, King upholds the tradition with dishes that remain “English to the core”. This includes carvers wheeling silvery trolleys of Devonshire beef between tables in the Grand Divan; Romano’s, which is more intimate and convivial, offers lighter plates beneath portraits of 20th-century playwrights who once dined here. 

What to order: The food at Simpson’s is traditional British, with hearty roasts in the Grand Divan and lighter contemporary meals in the smaller Romano’s. At Nellie’s Tavern, cocktails are served until 03.00. Try the signature peach melba sling.

3.
Mountain
Soho

On a Beak Street corner in Soho you’ll find the redbrick building – formerly a Byron burger joint – that houses Mountain. The appeal of the Spanish restaurant is instant: a heavy wooden door, good soundproofing and a bar hewn from English elm in a room surrounded by just-so joinery by designer Dan Preston. Light fills both floors of the 100-cover space too: whether it’s from the vast windows or the low-hung, dimly lit pendants presiding over the patchwork of busy tables. 

The food is a paean to Welsh chef Tomos Parry’s love of freshly netted seafood and great produce. The final ingredient and reason for the restaurant’s name is Spain’s mar y montaña cookery, but this magnificent menu is more than just immaculately delivered Iberian surf and turf. There are lots of rich little sharey bits: tangy sobrassada, shatterings of rosco onion, sprouting broccoli and wild garlic fritto, and a spider crab omelette that achieves a perfect wobble with Japanese precision. 

What to order: The whole-lobster caldereta and its fish-based entrées – Dover sole, John Dory or sea bass when Monocle visits – can’t be faulted, nor can a selection of sirloins. There are also beef sweetbreads or tripe, which all help adventurous orderers find less likely delights (and give the rest of us reasons to revisit). 

4.
Sune
London Fields

Located at the foot of bustling Broadway Market, Sune fits perfectly with its east London neighbourhood. Launched by Honey Spencer and Charlie Sims, the restaurant is a welcoming, unfussy space without a hint of haughtiness, despite Sims’s background of working front of house at Noma. Its comely interiors are all timber floors and tabletops, with high stools beside the floor-to-ceiling window and a zinc-topped terracotta-brick bar.

Chef Michael Robins’s inventive snacks include a confit egg on a thick, Jenga-block-shaped wodge of potato and strozzapreti (a pasta whose name literally translates as “priest stranglers”), which comes freckled with pickled mushrooms and an egg yolk. For dessert we ordered poached pear on a creamy white-chocolate crème anglaise that refuses to be left unfinished. A menu this pleasing demands a second visit.

What to order: The red mullet is seasoned with salty sea herbs and is served swimming in a smoky broth. We particularly enjoyed the side of grilled potatoes in a silky brown-butter sauce.

5.
Camille
Borough Market

Launched by Clare Lattin and Tom Hill, the restaurateurs behind Soho’s Ducksoup and Dalston’s Little Duck, Camille recreates a Provençal cave à manger in a neighbourhood that prides itself on British produce. Pig’s trotter terrine is served with Dijon mustard and crunchy cornichons. Diners are encouraged to share seasonal (not-so) small plates bearing such treats as crab toast along with nutty pied de mouton mushrooms, crispy purple sprouting broccoli or a polished potato pavé. The generosity of portions extends to the sweets, which are well worth saving space for. The brown-butter tart encased in pâte sucrée and flambéed with a gentle lick of the blowtorch is an offer that few will be able to refuse. 

What to order: A seasonal menu means that diners can expect a roster of new dishes as the weather turns.

6.
Sweetings
City of London

The City of London is a strange, old place where Roman temples sit beneath gleaming skyscrapers. Half a million people descend on the Square Mile every weekday but fewer than 10,000 call it home. As property prices soar across the capital and samey sandwich shops proliferate, it might be hard to fathom how Sweetings, an unassuming 65-cover seafood restaurant founded in 1889, has endured for so long while steadfastly resisting change. You can’t book a table in advance and it doesn’t serve tea or coffee. It’s only open on weekdays and only for lunch (11.30 to 15.00) – the same hours that it kept in the 19th century.

Nevertheless, regulars can’t get enough of this long-unrenovated restaurant, with its wooden wainscotting and nicotine-cream walls offset by linen place settings. Waistcoat-and-tie-clad staff members clip across the terrazzo floor between tables, serving specialities such as the house-cured gravadlax, oysters and Dover sole. When Monocle visits we hear champagne corks popping and the clinking of pewter tankards carrying black velvets (champagne and Guinness) bound for a table of punters in pinstripes. There are private tables for intimate conversations, communal ones for larger gatherings and barstools from which to see and be seen by colleagues or, perhaps, adversaries.

What to order: Skate wing with a caper-and-black-butter sauce, native oysters, the Dover sole and black velvet cocktails.

More restaurants worth your while:
– Five tables to book this spring – from Paris’s latest Korean opening to a late-night cocktail spot in Hong Kong

– Grand destinations and luxurious travel essentials to add to your 2026 plans

When friends come to visit in Shenzhen, I always take them to the same restaurant. It’s a place where warm light falls softly across dark wood panelling and porcelain teapots – a far cry from what most first-timers would expect to find in China’s digitally augmented metropolis. Recently, two different guests (one from Europe and another from South America) both had the same observation after our meal: “This place feels very Japanese.” It isn’t.
 
Everything in that room was unmistakably Chinese: the ceramics, the materials, the careful balance of shapes informed by feng shui. Yet both instinctively associated the atmosphere with Japan. It revealed something larger than a simple misunderstanding, exposing instead a problem of perception.
 
China has spent decades building cities, industries and infrastructure but far less time shaping how its cultural sophistication is understood abroad. Globally, its image is dominated by a handful of loud signals: speed, scale, manufacturing, electronics and rapid expansion. These are valuable traits that travel well but they have simplified the country in the global imagination.

Yes, entire cities have spawned in a single generation and infrastructure expands at a rate the world has never seen. But that has led to the narrative being one of acceleration rather than refinement. Beneath the speed lies another approach that is slowly gaining traction: often referred to as “New China style”, it’s a contemporary reinterpretation of traditional Chinese aesthetics that leans on cultural roots. Take Zen, for instance, though widely associated with designers from Japan, it arrived as a Chinese import known as Chan Buddhism. Its calming compositions and perfected proportions still influence artists and architects today. This is why many brands and studios are built on a culture of balance, harmony and attentiveness to detail. These values – as they do in Japan and beyond – shape architecture, hospitality rituals and everyday objects. When the pace of the country’s modern economy becomes overwhelming, places where the atmosphere is designed become small refuges that ground you.

Shanghai-and-London-based fashion label Samuel Gui Yang is a good example of this cultural reinterpretation. The brand draws inspiration from Chinese workwear, Mao-era tailoring and historical, everyday garments, transforming them into modern silhouettes that resonate with a global audience. Studio Neri&Hu Design and Research Office follows this trend too. Its projects reinterpret elements such as courtyards, brickwork and layered thresholds, translating them into new buildings. 

Then there’s Jingdezhen, the city that has produced porcelain for more than a thousand years and is experiencing a revival. Artists and designers are rediscovering ancient ceramic techniques and pushing them into contemporary practice, while studios, workshops and small galleries now attract creatives from far and wide. 

China is a cultural heavyweight but it has lacked a nuanced narrative for its more considered design and architectural concepts in recent years. For decades, the country focused on building the future rather than explaining the cultural foundations underpinning it. If branding is ultimately about shaping expectations before arrival, then China’s challenge now is learning how to tell (and sell) that story to the world. 

Shenzhen-based Milanese designer Sara Biancaccio is co-founder and creative director of Panglossian Studio. 

Keen to learn more? In three weeks’ time, Monocle will host The Entrepreneurs Live conference in Shanghai, bringing together founders, investors and business leaders shaping the region. Check out the programme and book a ticket.