It’s day three of a semi-planned, somewhat impromptu road trip that came together thanks to a little bit of direct intervention from some hotel managers (I’m of the view that a hotel is never fully booked), some flexibility with dates and the firing up of a vintage iPod packed with 25 years of my favourite hits. Let’s roll!

Honk, honk!
We set off from Zürich around lunchtime on Wednesday and after four hours and 30 minutes we were turning down the lane to Villa Arnica in Lana – the third time this year. As ever, the sunny crew were on hand to greet us, the pool was a perfect 26C and the menacing storm clouds made a few rumbles but – knowing better than to spoil the mood – politely stayed on their side of the peaks. My colleague Linda (more on our Südtirol outpost at the end of this column) joined us for a super dinner at 1477 Reichhalter and the following morning we set off south. Our destination: Lake Garda.

Wait! Where’s mom?
Worry not, she’s either minding the shop with Linda or she’s poolside at the Villa. Should you swing by our store on Dantestrasse in Merano over the coming days and a woman with big eyewear gives you a little painted ornament or upsells you something bold and graphic on canvas, she’ll likely be my mom. And no, dear reader, I won’t forget to pick her up on my swing back north.

Hey, Mr Deejay!
Last summer we drove the boxy little Jimny from Zürich to Lisbon via San Sebastián and relied on spinning the dial the whole trip to find the right radio stations across Switzerland, France, Spain and Portugal. The beauty of the exercise was picking up a few new songs and getting into various regional moods but the road trip most definitely lacked some of the classic playlists that vanished when my tiny iPod disappeared into some plush upholstery. Thankfully, a very observant reader took notice, went to the trouble of tracking down a fully functioning iPod and offered it as a most thoughtful gift. I’m not big on streaming services and would have been very happy if the Land Cruiser had a CD slot – but the return of the iPod has been nothing short of transformative. Miki Matsubara, Angèle, Saint Etienne, Lisa Ekdahl, Clara Luciani and many more have all been getting plenty of play time.

Another villa
Is it stay number 20? Could it be more? On Thursday afternoon, we rolled down the driveway and crunched to a stop on the gravel at Villa Feltrinelli. For the past 25 years, this establishment on the western shore of Lake Garda has been a summer constant. You know a GM (the delightful Herr Odermatt) and the owners are doing something right when many of the staff from your first stay are still around to look after you at breakfast, round the pool and on the massage table.

Take the plunge
There are few hotel swims quite as satisfying as doing a two-metre dive off the jetty at the Feltrinelli. The long, dark pool cut into the lawn has its fans but the best summer day starts with a pre-breakfast plunge into Garda’s cool, rolling waves.

Continue south
By the time you read this, I should be on the Med and lunching at il Pellicano. As ever, there’ll be a more timely update on Monocle on Sunday and, if you’re game for a thoroughly Monocle road trip across the Alps, take a ride with our Robert Bound as he guides you from Zürich to St Moritz to Merano and all the way back to our little shop at Zürich Airport.

Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns. 

As Japan’s summers grow hotter, the country is trying everything to keep its cool. Wipes, sprays and fans are big business here; the nation is also a leader when it comes to fabrics that counter the worst of the season. Apparel makers are throwing resources into the latter sector for good reason. The global cooling-fabrics market is projected to be worth €2.5bn by 2030. And where Japan goes, others follow. Asia-Pacific is now the fastest-growing market for this sort of heat-busting clothing.

Technical fabrics, once reserved for sportswear, are moving into the Japanese mainstream. Take, for example, Muji’s Cool Touch line-up of shirts, dresses and trousers that uses uniquely shaped cotton and polyester yarns to allow fabrics to absorb heat and diffuse sweat more quickly. Uniqlo’s summer juggernaut is airism, the smooth, moisture-absorbing fabric that the brand developed with synthetic-fibre manufacturer Toray. The North Face’s Japanese line uses its breathable UV-blocking fabric Breeze Range for a fetching line of Aloha shirts.

Shoppers understandably don’t want their T-shirts and underwear to look or feel like workout gear, so makers have been refining their yarns to maximise comfort. After learning that sweaty undergarments were its customers’ biggest source of summer discomfort, Gunze set about tackling it. The brand’s sweat-busting Asedoron range of T-shirts, boxers and camisoles has sold more than four million units since its launch in 2024. “The market now is about even faster drying,” says Hidetoshi Takeyasu, Gunze’s general manager of merchandising strategy, “along with the development of hybrid fabrics that combine value-added features, such as UV protection, heat shielding and odour control.”

Sweltering temperatures have become a significant health concern. The Japan Meteorological Agency recently adopted a new term for days of 40c and above – kokushobi (literally, “brutally hot day”) – and employers can now be fined if workers’ smart watches show signs of heatstroke. Workman, a brand favoured by Japanese construction workers, is producing lightweight synthetic fabrics (such as Ice Assist) that cool, block UV and dry quickly while also being durable and cheap.

Some of the best Japanese fashion brands, such as Aton and Comoli, work closely with domestic factories to produce custom fabrics with natural materials that perform well in the heat and humidity of a Japanese summer. History has other answers too. Tanaka Hat has been making its straw hats in Kasukabe, in Saitama, since the end of the 19th century. The hats are made from slender straw plaits – each hand-braided from seven strands of wheat stem – that are soaked in water, then sewn together on a special machine and shaped on a mould. It’s a highly skilled process that involves different craftsmen at every stage. Stray strands are then clipped by hand; the final touch is the decoration, usually a ribbon. “Straw hats breathe well due to the natural material,” says brand manager Kyohei Nakada.

“Consumer demand for cooling fabrics is growing rapidly,” says Gunze’s Takeyasu – which comes as little surprise. “Japan’s traditional four-season climate is giving way to more of a two-season pattern, with summer lasting far longer than it used to.” This shift is evidently motivating the problem-solving brains in the textiles business.

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Discover Monocle’s selection of Japanese products to keep you feeling fresh this summer in our seasonal newspaper:

Are you a plate flipper? I can’t stop myself. Same with glasses. The labels on the towels. Where is this stuff made, I wonder? Often the answer is a delight but too often a disappointment.

Hotel groups have – like lots of brands – locked on to the fact that people are seeking authenticity. And when that comes to travel it means delivering that cliché, “a sense of place”. Guests don’t want to arrive in a room stripped of connections to the spot where it sits and where, as you awake, it’s hard to recall if you are in Milan or Minnesota without opening the curtains.

The only trouble is, if you are a hotel group, it’s very hard to stop your central buying team from dispatching the same plates, towels and even art, to every property in your portfolio. It’s quicker and cheaper. 

I’m in Mallorca on holiday and have been doing a lot of crockery flipping. Last night we ate at a hotel where they emphasise the efforts they have gone to provide a made in Spain – and in particular Mallorca – experience. There’s lots to admire. Yet a quick flip of the plate reveals the mark of an Italian crockery company, the glasses are etched “made in Slovakia”, the pepper grinder is German.

Just down the road from our home in Palma is an example of what happens when a hotel is created by people who want you to flip the plates – and read the wine label, ask where the food is grown, even who made the sofas.

The Terreno Barrio Hotel, which opened this year (we have reported on the project), is owned by hotelier Lydia Piñero and was developed through a series of creative conversations with friends and designers. She was figuring out how to build a hotel that was truly of place and which could be of benefit to its neighbours (this would lead to adding co-working places, an outdoor gym now used by locals). And she signed Ohlab architects, an ambitious practice run by Jaime Oliver and Paloma Hernaiz, to deliver the scheme.

Instead of going to fast-turnaround contract furniture companies, Ohlab commissioned island makers to create as much as possible in Mallorca. It wasn’t easy, took time and required businesses to rescale. But as I sat at the rooftop bar the other night – drinking local wine, eating Mallorcan olives – I realised that there is a subtle manifesto about the future of hotel design in every fibre of this building.

There’s another take on this idea down the road in the new Mandarin Oriental resort at Punta Negra, which also featured in the supplement of our just out Med, Mountains & More newspaper. This Hong Kong-anchored hospitality player could have docked with a property that gave just a few nods to local talent to appease guests – but it hasn’t. And one of the best things they did was to hire the art advisor and curator Paloma Fernández-Iriondo, who filled the resort with specially commissioned artworks by artists based or born in Spain and whose stories reflect Mallorca’s history as a cultural crossroads. She installed works – such as Fran Aniorte’s tiled Balearic Constellation – that are riven with meaning but also fit with a Mediterranean hotel vibe. Fernández-Iriondo focused on finding artists without representation and located many of them by driving around the island, knocking on studio doors. It’s commendable – it took time and required them to ignore the easy path.

I don’t want to put Italian crockery makers out of business. But as hotel brands offer up increasingly elaborate stories of provenance, it’s important that they are true, that their stories withstand scrutiny. We need brands to do the hard work, to be genuine. Otherwise, the plate flippers will catch them out.

Want to read more of Andrew’s columns? Click here

Settling on a scent for the summer is a delicate pursuit. The warmer months call for bright, clean perfumes to wear on coastal holidays and weekend escapes. From a chilli-and-lime-infused scent by Australian perfumer Flâner to a heady combination of fig and cedarwood from Italian luxury house Bottega Veneta, we have selected our favourite options for your seasonal rotation.

Five of our favourites are listed below, and the full ten feature in Med, Mountains & More, our seasonal summer newspaper. If you’re not a subscriber, pick up a copy of the paper here. Subscribers can enjoy the printed copy delivered to their door, and read the digital version here.

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Copenhagen Fashion Week has been celebrating its 20th anniversary edition in the past week, drawing international buyers and editors to the Danish capital as it continues to carve out a distinct identity in an increasingly crowded fashion calendar. But whether it’s the brands being showcased or the mission underpinning the week, that effort to be distinctive hasn’t always gone according to plan. 

On the mission front, a key element of Copenhagen’s positioning in the past few years has been a framework for sustainability, which was introduced in 2020 to establish the city as a benchmark for responsible fashion. Among its provisions was a requirement that at least 60 per cent of each participating brand’s collection be made using recycled or deadstock materials. But that requirement was suspended for the spring/summer 2027 season, while the criteria is apparently undergoing revision.

Still, the event’s appeal has always extended beyond its sustainability ambitions. This season once again brought together many of the designers who exemplify Copenhagen’s collaborative and close-knit creative community. Showcases favour intimacy over spectacle, opting for pared-back settings – from the garden of a museum to the backyard of a family home – rather than the grandeur associated with some of the industry’s larger fashion capitals. “Copenhagen Fashion Week has always been about something broader than the runway,” says Isabella Rose Davey, chief operating officer of Copenhagen Fashion Week. “I’ve seen inspiring creativity across every aspect of what goes into making each edition better than the last and it’s those elements that continue to set Copenhagen Fashion Week apart.”

The schedule also served as a reminder of the region’s most compelling emerging designers. Among the highlights was Nicklas Skovgaard, a semi-finalist for the 2025 LVMH Prize, who staged another of his signature theatrical presentations in a deserted car park on the edge of Nordhavn. Models emerged from vintage cars, wearing colourful, checked, 1960s-inspired silhouettes that were co-ordinated yet distinctly individual. “The collection is ultimately about different expressions of femininity, where glamour, emotion and individuality exist side by side,” Skovgaard tells Monocle. The designer, who has shown at Copenhagen Fashion Week for the past three years, attributes much of the event’s appeal to the network of designers, makers and collaborators behind it. “It has never lost sight of the local creative community that makes it unique,” he says. “There’s a real sense of openness and collaboration here.” 

Among this year’s signature moments was the homecoming of By Malene Birger. Founded in 2003 by its namesake designer and long regarded as one of Denmark’s leading fashion labels, the brand returned to Copenhagen Fashion Week for the first time in six years. Its showcase also marked the runway debut of newly appointed creative director Emilie Martinsen-Kønigsfeldt, who presented a collection built around the brand’s signature sleek tailoring and a restrained monochrome palette. For Martinsen-Kønigsfeldt, returning to Copenhagen was as much an introduction to her vision for the house as it was a gesture towards the city where the brand was founded. “It’s a way to reconnect with the community that has helped shape Danish fashion on the global stage,” she adds. “The show itself is intended as both a celebration of our return and a statement of where the brand is today.” 

At a time when some of the week’s best-known names have chosen to look elsewhere – Ganni, arguably Denmark’s most internationally recognised fashion brand, left the Copenhagen schedule in 2023 in favour of Paris – the return of an established house such as By Malene Birger suggests that there is still confidence in Copenhagen Fashion Week’s ability to shape the conversation around Nordic fashion. As it enters its third decade, the real question is not whether it can compete with the scale of Paris or Milan but whether it can remain true to the qualities that have made it distinctive. In a city that is modest in size yet rich in creativity, the event’s greatest strength is the innovative ideas and people behind it.

For more on Copenhagen Fashion Week, tune in to Monocle Radio’s conversation with CEO Cecilie Thorsmark on ‘The Globalist’.

At its best, a summer reading list isn’t one list at all. It’s a set of options matched to conditions and mood. What you might want to read on a plane isn’t the same as what you’d want to read on a beach lounger at 16.00, half asleep and sun-drunk – or even drunk-drunk. It’s about finding books that match both mindset and situation. 

Long-haul flights need scale, something big enough to swallow the hours. Poolside afternoons need pace and perhaps a little mischief, narratives you can dip in and out of without losing the thread. A warm evening on a terrace is for a story that could spark your dinner conversation. And when the rain comes, reach for something a little more weighty.

As the host of Meet the Writers on Monocle Radio, I’ve read many different books in many different places. I’ve learned the key to choosing a good book is to match it to the place you’re in and the weather in your head, not just the conditions outside. Here are 14 titles that do just that. 

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American media loves a political bunfight, especially an intraparty one. The New York Times reports that moderate Democrats are preparing for war with the party’s progressive wing after the victory of Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan state primary this week. The Third Way, a centrist Democratic group, says that it plans to spend $15m (€13m) to help defeat the democratic-socialist movement, as embodied by the likes of El-Sayed and New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

For a party that should be on the upswing, thanks to the general unpopularity of Donald Trump, spending money against a wing of your own party is obviously not a good look. But nor are many of the prescriptions of democratic socialism, not simply because they’re further left but because their chief ideas are not new. “Medicare for All”, the key policy platform of El-Sayed that would bring an NHS-style system to American health care, is a well-worn topic. So are promises to “take money out of politics”.

The current battle among the Democrats is largely about whether moderate common sense or stick-to-your guns progressivism is the best way to defeat the Republicans in November’s midterms. Progressives present themselves as the ones with the passion, beliefs and conviction needed to oppose Trump’s Maga ideology, compared to the moderates sorely lacking in identity and backbone. But the focus, for both sides, should be less on who’s most passionate and more on new and innovative ideas. Let’s be clear: Medicare for All is a pipe dream in a country as hopelessly divided as the US, something that has been talked about for decades without ever having a real path to becoming law. So is abolishing ICE. For all the agency’s faults and misuse under Trump, it’s responsible for monitoring US borders. How about some pragmatic, daring, left-wing fixes for American health and border security that actually have a chance?

Agree or disagree with his approach, Trump has upended traditional policy and got things done: for example, through pressurising pharmaceutical companies to sign deals giving the US “favoured nation” status, thereby lowering drug prices. It’s a surprisingly statist bit of intervention from a Republican president (one that Democrats probably wish they’d thought of) but at least it’s something new. Democrats need bold-but-enactable policies in response. Because while they might succeed in rallying their own voter base by keeping the state-run health-care dreams of Bernie Sanders alive, it won’t win them elections in moderate swing states.

The UK’s prime minister, Andy Burnham, has made some steps in this direction: a more left-leaning Labour leader than his predecessor, Keir Starmer, he’s started off with practical fixes aimed at tackling the spiralling cost of living. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni is an example from the other end of the spectrum, a right-winger who preached political stability (a rare feat in Italy) as a means of staying in office. Therein lies the rub: any anti-establishment candidate who enters government still has to adapt when their ideals collide with the realities of office. If we really want to rebuild trust in politicians, why not try campaigning on things that are actually enactable?

The point here is that, whether they’re progressive or moderate, fresh ideas are the way forward. Democrats of all stripes need to work together ahead of November to reform their manifesto and expand their voter base, rather than merely playing to their die-hard supporters. Trump was re-elected in 2024 not by his base but because of inroads he made into minority communities, independents and even younger voters. Democrats can wring their hands as long as they like about how he achieved such a miracle but it’s a reality that still needs to be addressed by the party. Otherwise, despite an unpopular war and the rising cost of living, Republicans will once again hold on to Congress in November.ublicans will once again hold on to Congress in November.

Milan is a city of bakeries. In some areas, it feels as though there’s one on every street corner, peddling the sweet delights that Italians often start their days with (we’re thinking pistachio-cream-filled croissants). In recent years, a new wave of bakers has been setting up shop alongside old-school businesses. From spots serving ancient grains and cinnamon rolls to babka and cruffins, here are five of Monocle’s favourites.

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Signor Lievito
Run by Latvian baker Natalia Nikitina, a resident of Milan for more than 15 years, Signor Lievito is a small Nordic-inspired bakery located in Porta Romana. You can place online pre-orders for bakes ranging from cinnamon rolls and lemon cruffins (a cross between a croissant and a muffin) to flan parisien (a vanilla custard tart) and pick them up the following morning to avoid queues. The shop’s design was overseen by Hannes Peer (who recently worked on Merano’s Hotel Aurora) and features terracotta tiles, abstract line drawings and a Foglio wall light by Tobia Scarpa. One thing: this bakery’s name definitely sounds better in Italian. In English, it translates to “Mr Yeast”. 
Via Maestri Campionesi 26; signor-lievito.com 

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Tondo
This tucked-away spot in the Isola neighbourhood refers to itself as a “radical oven” for artisanal bread. Set up by Silvia Cancellieri in 2020 and focused on sourdough, Tondo cares deeply about the provenance of its raw ingredients, including the organic flour. Bread is always centre stage here, with special loaves made from ancient grains and buckwheat. Pick up a slice of speciality focaccia or a brioche filled with cream and topped with blueberries. Planning on staying in Milan a little longer? Tondo also teaches courses in bread- and focaccia-making.
Via Cola Montano 12

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Davide Longoni
Davide Longoni arguably set off the new wave of bakeries in Milan. His café-cum-bakeries mean that you can sit down for a coffee, juice and a pastry, or alternatively take away a loaf. Longoni uses grains grown south of Milan and sells everything from dried pasta to wine. His shops have expanded into nine locations, two of which are inside markets. Longoni is also a serial entrepreneur, opening a vegetarian Indian restaurant Govinda in the city centre and founding food magazine L’Integrale in 2020, which is run by Iperborea publishing house.
Various locations; davidelongoni.com 

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Slow Bread Lab
This off-the-beaten-track bakery might be the best spot for bread in Milan right now. To reach the shop, visitors must ring a doorbell and walk through an inner courtyard, where they can enter the kitchen to buy takeaway goods. The space was founded by husband-and-wife team Michele Dogati and Kaisli Kiuru, who changed professions to open the business. Kiuru says that they bake pastries and seeded loaves with the same love as when preparing something for their own family – and we would be hard-pressed to disagree. After picking up a loaf, cross the street to visit another Monocle favourite, Balay, for Philippine-inspired dishes.
Via Achille Maiocchi 29

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Pan
“This is the kind of space that you can find in New York, London or Tokyo,” says Pan co-founder Alice Yamada. “But it was missing from Milan.” She has a point: the Japanese-inspired bakery and café that she founded with business partner Yoji Tokuyoshi wouldn’t look out of place in any of the world’s great metropolises. Its clean neutral tones, prevalence of wood and flashes of green details seem to be going down well with punters, if the tables of people eating ham-and-cheese shokupan (Japanese milk bread) sandwiches are anything to go by. Yamada and Tokuyoshi turned to Studio Wok for the interiors with sage-green drapes hanging from the ceiling, which are inspired by noren curtains. Recent additions include takeaway counter Piccolo Pan and lunch-focused Pan Deli in Porta Nuova. 
Various locations; panmilano.com 

Monocle’s Quality of Life Survey, now in its 19th year, grew out of a debate about what makes certain cities good places to live. When we started, there was a proliferation of indices using data sets to rank cities on liveability. Many of these are useful resources but we believed then, and still do, that liveability is about more than hard data points such as GDP per capita and ambulance response times. What makes a place great hinges on unquantifiable factors, such as the beauty of its architecture, the excitement of its nightlife and the quality of its retail offering. We drew up a questionnaire and sent it to our global correspondents. 

Nineteen years later, we still send our survey to people whose opinions we trust. Using their answers – and a list of metrics that cover areas such as governance, security, the cost of living, transportation, culture and nightlife – a team of Monocle editors decides the final top-20 ranking. Every year we tweak the questions and data points to reflect the times. For our 2026 survey, we placed an emphasis on excitement and ambition: how pleasurable it is to live somewhere and whether a place feels optimistic about its future. 

This year we also sought specific data points from property specialist Knight Frank and EIT Edition’s Copenhagenize Index 2025, which has its own ranking based on how favourable cities are to cyclists – its bicycle modal share measures the proportion of total journeys on bikes each day, while its protected bicycle infrastructure records a city’s discrete and safe cycle lanes. You might notice that no cities in the Americas (except Vancouver) or Africa made the cut this year, largely because of issues around safety and inequality. We do not claim that our survey is the final word on liveability; indeed we hope that it will be the beginning of a friendly and lively debate. For the first time, we’re sharing excerpts of our correspondents’ answers and the data we used to decide which cities made the cut.

The basics

1.
What is the population (both in the city proper and the metropolitan area)?

2.
What are the average hours of sunshine per year?

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Getting around and away 

3.
Is public transport clean, affordable and efficient?
– What is the cost of monthly travelcard?
– What per cent of journeys are taken by public transport? 

4.
Does the city have a good cycling culture? 
– What is the cycle share per cent of all journeys? 
– How many kilometres of safe cycling infrastructure are in the city?
– Is there a public bike-share scheme?

5.
What number of international destinations are served by the city’s airports?

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Urban life and vibrancy

6.
Can you get a decent meal after 22.00? 

7.
Are the streets safe, busy and lively at night?
– What is the usual time that bars close on a Saturday night?
– What is the city’s murder rate?

8.
Is the city welcoming to newcomers?
– What has been the per cent of population change in the past year? 

9.
Are people integrated well? 

10.
What are the levels of trust in police?

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Housing

11.
Is housing attractive, abundant and well-made? 
– How many homes were built in the last year? 
– How many social housing units are there?

12.
What is the average rent for a three-bedroom property in city centre?

13. 
What is the average cost to buy a three-bedroom property?

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Education

14.
Is the public school system a success?

15.
What is the per cent of people with a university education?

16.
What is the number of universities in the top 1,000?

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Business

17.
What is the average time it takes to register a business?

18. 
What is the tax regime like?
– What is the average salary in the city?
– What taxes are set at the city level?

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Media, culture and sport

19.
Is there a good city newspaper?

20.
How many cinemas are in the city?

21.
How many public swimming pools does the city have?

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Retail

22.
Are shops open on a Sunday?

23.
Is there a good retail scene?
– How many independent bookshops are there?
– How many vape shops are in the city centre?

24.
How much does a flat white cost?

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Health

25.
What is the average life expectancy?

26.
Is it a supermarket or a fresh food city?

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Environment 

27.
How much green space is in the city?

28.
What’s the park culture like? 

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Infrastructure and planning

29.
Does the city have ambition? How does it talk about itself? 

Tokyo
Fiona Wilson, Tokyo bureau chief
Tokyo’s 23 special districts are served by one of the world’s most extensive and punctual public-transportation networks. Trains, buses and stations are meticulously cleaned every day. Graffiti and litter are virtually non-existent. Fares are distance-based, starting at 170 yen (€0.91). Eighty-four per cent of the area inside Loop Road No 7 (encompassing central Tokyo) is within a 10-minute walk of a train station, while an efficient bus network connects the rest of the city proper.

Lisbon
Carlota Rebelo, senior foreign correspondent
Public transport in Lisbon has a great cost-benefit ratio. It’s cheap for a European capital (single tickets range from €1.50 and €1.90 depending on whether you top up a travel card or use contactless payment) and has a good network comprising metro, trams, bus, urban trains and the boats across the Tejo. However, in recent years waiting times have increased, driven by a rise in demand as more people have moved to Lisbon.

Vancouver
Tomos Lewis, Monocle’s Toronto correspondent
Vancouver is a cycling city. It has spent years building hundreds of kilometres of protected bike lanes, many of which connect to other parts of the network, such as train stations, bus stops and park-and-ride locations. City Hall says that 13 per cent of commuters cycle at least part of their daily commute. The network also makes use of Vancouver’s stunning natural setting – the 22km route along the city’s sea wall is frequently used and a big draw.

Vienna
Alexei Korolyov, Vienna correspondent
Vienna is still fairly conservative when it comes to late dining (and drinking): strict noise rules kick in from 23.00 for establishments on the ground floor of residential buildings and kitchens tend to close towards 22.00, though many places in the tourist-heavy first district continue serving later.

Seoul
David Lee, Seoul-based Monocle contributor
South Koreans have a word for late-night eating: ya-sik. Ordering fried chicken, jokbal or ramen after 22.00 is a civic ritual. Most neighbourhoods still have 24-hour restaurants with dishes such as sundae-gukbap and kongnamul-gukbap. Local chain Kimbap Heaven also remains a staple.

Sydney
Callum McDermott, Sydney-based Monocle journalist
Even though Sydney’s beaches get all the headlines, residents take most advantage of the parks. They’re evenly distributed across the city, from Centennial Parklands, a sprawling network of large parks in the east, to Sydney Olympic Park and Western Sydney Parklands, Australia’s largest urban park, in the west.

Kyoto
Luke Tamada, editorial intern at Monocle’s Tokyo bureau
Seasonal events such as hanami (cherry-blossom viewing) and koyo (fall foliage) bring a lot of people to the parks. Spanning 31km, the Kamogawa river cuts through the heart of Kyoto and its banks are a popular hangout spot for all ages. Drinking in public is legal, which means that parks can feel quite lively.

Read Monocle’s 2026 Quality of Life survey here

Were it not for graphite, you would presently be staring at a blank screen. The naturally occurring carbon is a crucial component of the batteries and cooling systems of phones, computers and electric vehicles – and demand for it is expected to cause severe deficits by the end of the current decade. For Western countries, this might prove especially testing. As things stand, China enjoys a near-monopoly of battery-grade graphite, controlling 95 per cent of global supply – and Beijing has demonstrated during its ongoing trade war with the US that it is prepared to at least threaten to restrict exports.

Graphite is therefore worth going a long way to get. Late last year, Greenland’s government granted UK-based mining company Greenroc Strategic Minerals a 30-year licence to extract graphite at Amitsoq, in the south of the vast island. The graphite deposit is not a new discovery – there was a mine there from 1914 to 1922, before demand tapered amid a general economic slump after the First World War. But it is known that the graphite at Amitsoq is the good stuff. 

“It’s really rich,” says Stefan Bernstein, CEO of Greenroc Strategic Minerals. “And with graphite, it’s not just about how pure it is. It’s also about the physical properties of the flakes. The main market for graphite today is for anodes in lithium batteries and there you need to change the morphology – the shape of each grain. So it’s not just a question of how clean you get the graphite but also the shape and size of the grain.”

Greenroc hopes to begin extracting this treasure by 2030. “We are aiming for production of about 80,000 tonnes per year,” says Bernstein. “Who knows what Europe’s graphite demand will be in 2035 or so but the mine will provide between 10 and 15 per cent of it.” Bernstein adds that the new Amitsoq mine will also generate about 200 local jobs, with 50 people on site at any one time and most of the workforce commuting by boat from the small town of Nanortalik. “Most other mines in Greenland rely on a fly-in, fly-out workforce,” says Bernstein. “We’re hopeful that we can have a very strong local engagement in the mine, and have people working in it who will still be able to maintain a normal life, like in a mining town in the UK 50 or 60 years ago.”

The EU has granted the Amitsoq mine strategic project status under its Critical Raw Minerals Act – a designation that accelerates the issuing of necessary permissions. Greenland itself has served, this last year or so, as another reminder that Europe needs to look after itself. Indeed, for one bizarre week back in January, it looked like it might need to find a way to defend Greenland from the US. Donald Trump is not the only person taking a close interest in what might lie beneath the ice.

“There’s definitely a boom in interest and investments right now,” says Bernstein. “Mainly from the US and Australia. There’s a close connection between a lot of the investments that we see now and the growing importance of Greenland in a geopolitical context.”