The T List: Five Things We Recommend This Weekon February 13, 2020 at 1:00 pm
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Visit This
An Unfussy, Light-Filled Escape in Oaxaca
By Michaela Trimble
The Mexico City-based hotel developer Grupo Habita has long been known for its modern, design-savvy lodgings in unexpected places and its newest property, Escondido Oaxaca, set in a 19th-century colonial-style house in Oaxaca, is no exception. The architect Alberto Kalach kept the original frescoes and redesigned the property’s communal spaces around the central courtyard, including a rooftop pool and bar, a library and lounge, an Italian restaurant by the chef Saúl Carranza and four bedrooms, each with exposed concrete walls, pinewood furnishings and cement floors covered in handwoven petate mats. He also constructed a contemporary tower in an adjacent lot to house an additional eight rooms, all of which have a balcony or a patio. To fill the onetime house, Cecilia Tena and Lucía Corredor of the design studio Decada selected found objects like 1970s-era Miguelito chairs first made famous by the architect Luis Barragán, contemporary dining sets by the emerging local designer Taller Nacional and palm weavings and barro negro clay pots made by local artisans. The result is a hotel that feels like a home and is, as Corredor says, at once “timeless and true to Oaxaca and its artistry.” From $180, escondidooaxaca.com.
Eat This
In Paris, an Unpretentious Spot for Small Plates
By Priya Krishna
“All the chefs eat here.” That’s how a friend described C.A.M. Import Export, a small-plates restaurant on the edge of Paris’s Marais district that feels like the polar opposite of the glossy, hi-fi bistros that suffuse the city. It was hands down the site of my most thrilling dining experience from last year. Located in an old Eiffel Tower souvenir shop (hence the name), the minimalist space is appointed with assorted houseplants and a rack of indie magazines. It first opened as a restaurant in 2017; less than a year later, its Korea-born, Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef, Esu Lee, left to study at the temple of the famed Buddhist monk and chef Jeong Kwan in Korea. C.A.M. reopened toward the end of 2018, and its new menu deftly weaves between Korean, French and whatever other flavors Lee feels inspired by on any given night; that might mean crisp daikon fritters in Sichuan pepper sauce, silken tofu served with hunks of Brie and salty pops of salmon roe or a melting chocolate bar sprinkled with olive oil and gochugaru. C.A.M. also has a tight wine list that you could drink through in a single evening (I did). Consider it an anti-bistro bistro. 55 rue au Maire, Paris.
See This
Paintings That Confront Japanese-American Incarceration During World War II
By Thessaly La Force
The octogenarian artist Ben Sakoguchi was only three years old when he was separated from his parents who were incarcerated during World War II at Poston War Relocation Center, a Japanese-American concentration camp in Arizona. This month, Ortuzar Projects in New York has mounted an unprecedented exhibition of his paintings. The show includes early work from the 1960s along with selected pieces from Sakoguchi’s “Orange Crate Label” series from the ’70s and ’80s that have a Raymond Pettibon-esque punk-rock quality to them. Most astounding, though, is a group painting called “Towers” (2014) that depicts scenes of various Japanese-American concentration camps, as well as a group portrait of residents of Poston’s Block 13 that includes Sakoguchi as a little boy in the front row. Sakoguchi said he only began painting the camps after the death of his parents, who had struggled to regain their life after the war; his mother had returned to their grocery store in San Bernardino with $1,000 she had hidden in her belt throughout her imprisonment. The painting has a surreal quality that is both devastating and matter-of-fact. “Ben Sakoguchi: Made in U.S.A.” is on view through April 4 at Ortuzar Projects, 9 White Street, New York, ortuzarprojects.com.
Wear This
A Brand That Lets You Build Your Own Watch
By David Farber
In the world of men’s accessories, everything from sneakers to bags to wallets is touted as customizable; when it comes to watches, however, personalization has been limited to engraving and interchangeable straps. Enter Baume, the Swiss luxury brand that lets shoppers build their own timepiece online. There are four different models to choose from: Automatic, which is self-winding; Retrograde, with day and date indicators; Moonphase, which shows the lunar cycle; and Small Seconds, with a subdial for the second hand. Customers can then select the case size and finish, dial and hand color and strap material. (There are over 2,000 different possibilities in all.) Comfortingly, Baume uses recycled and upcycled materials like discarded skateboards and plastic retrieved from the ocean; next month, it will debut its second collaboration with the French ski brand Zag, featuring two new models with casings made from wood thrown out during ski-making and straps created from reused plastic. From $560, baumewatches.com.
Know About This
A Flower Shop Where the Customers Tidy Up
By Kate Donnelly
Taylor Patterson, the founder of the Brooklyn-based floral design studio Fox Fodder Farm, first started to think about a retail experience in 2017: “I wanted a space for people to breathe,” she told me. Come Friday, Patterson — whose wild arrangements are often found in the boutiques of the designers Ulla Johnson and Carolina Herrera — will open a full-fledged shop in a quiet section of South Williamsburg. Patterson worked with the landscape artist Brook Klausing on bringing the outdoors in, installing concrete flooring, brushed plaster walls, timber shelves and a bluestone fountain inspired by a Delaware creek near her hometown. While bonsais and premade bouquets are available, shoppers can make their own arrangements in hourlong sessions from a variety of blooms like poppies and flowering quince branches; for vases, they can choose from natural-toned ceramics by the Seoul-born artist Yoon-Young Hur or vessels from the Massachusetts-based one-man brand Pete’s Rocks, made with stones sourced from the North Atlantic coast. There’s also a broom for customers to sweep up their mess — as Patterson said, “It’s a work space, and things are going to get dirty.” 45 South Fourth Street, Brooklyn, foxfodderfarm.com.
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