Hidden cutlery
Restaurateur-approved. Plus 130-plant herbal elixirs, décor tricks, Lemaire's post-show menu & more Delightful Living Intel from London & Paris
Welcome to Concorde, Blackbird Spyplane’s “women’s vertical” that the fellas love as well. Every edition is archived here.
Our new guide to How To Pack for a Trip Swaggily is here. Specifically what I pack in my carry-on is here.
Over in the Global Intel Travel Chat Room, the Rome thread is crackling and people just came through with recon for Taipei and Prague. Spyfriends are looking for tips for China & Bali!
While tucking into the platonic-ideal Greek salad at one of our favorite restaurants in London last month, I (Erin) was stopped midchew by the weight of the cutlery. It felt solid, yet lightweight; the balance was ideal. The shapes were soft and curved, but not as cutely plump as, say, the flatware used on the actual Concorde. We’d been sleeping on this stainless-steel set, and it costs considerably less than, say, the Sabres we felt fine about running at home until we price-checked these and slapped our foreheads.
ID on the tines? That’s below, along with a bunch of other notes I took during our recent European Recon Mission, including:
The florist every designer wants to work with,
A can koozie by Julia Heuer, & handmade knives that our bar-owning Paris friend bought out of an illustrious dude’s trunk,
The food served after the Lemaire runway show,
Décor ideas, including two from the vibiest house we’ve ever set foot in,
Non-torched packaging inspiration from rural France, including goat-milk soap made by dour-looking old ladies, and a wood-encased herbal elixir made by Carthusian monks
My ideal gravestone, spotted in a field of wild grasses in the south of England. Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about it!
Let’s get to it —
We know from the Spy Talk Chat Room that even the most capable reconnoiterers in Spy Nation have at times struggled to find beautifully designed cutlery with the kind of weight distribution that makes your fingertips feel pampered. It takes engineering to get it right, so it makes sense that the set I found was designed by an architect: