I am always very jealous of my top five restaurants in London but I can’t help sharing this special place with you. Some years ago, I spent a beautiful vacation in one of Italy’s hidden gem, Le Marche region… and it was love at first sight!

Imagine beautiful landscapes, sloped hill medieval towns, Crivelli’s altarpieces timidly hold back in small churches and a deeply traditional food – blessed with bounty from the mountains, farmland and sea. Needless to say, my hair was wonderful.

Happily, you can taste a piece of Le Marche in London too, at Rossodisera restaurant.

Handily located near Covent Garden’s theatreland, Rossodisera restaurant is done up like a typical Italian country house (the wall are tiled with ancient red bricks directly from Le Marche). With traditional products sourced from small producers in Le Marche. You can try olive all’ascolana here, along with prosciutto, fettuccine with goose sauce, roast lamb with garlic and rosemary served with artichoke casserole, and oven-roasted stuffed rabbit.

There’s a great selection of drinks too, including Varnelli Anice Secco, a special liquor, ideal to have your Caffè Corretto!

There is place in London where Le Marche really shines…

Sir John Soane’s advice was not to visit his extraordinary collection of antiquities in case of bad weather, because clouds, fog and the grey light of the city would have spoiled all the exquisite hues and magical effects of mirrors, stained glasses and colour patterns within his house.

The house at 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields in fact offered no possibility to allow light into the internal spaces through a conventional window. These restrictions saw Soane design a series of roof lanterns – known as lumiére mystérieuse – that provided him with the possibility of letting luminescence through a space along a flank wall, reflecting it into the interior, and illuminating objects on display in a dramatic way: he wanted to recreate the souther Italian light!

The distinguished British architect John Soane (1753-1837) has transformed and influenced the way we look at and experience spaces through the modulation of light and views.

Sir John Soanes: Sir John Soane’s Museum, London. Skylight in Museum.

Our suggestion? No matter the weather, go and experience a real emotional challenge!

It’s my day off today and to escape is the greatest of my pleasures; street haunting in winter the greatest of adventures! Have you ever walked along a street and imagined the lives of the strangers that you pass? 

Lose yourself following the “Mrs Dalloway’s walk” and spend your day in street-haunting.

This was Virginia Woolf favourite sport! To walk alone in London is the greatest rest, dipping in and out of people’s minds as they move through the city’s crowded streets.

Let’s followed her advice, on the day of her birthday… .