Welcome to the T List, a newsletter from the editors of T Magazine. Each week, we share things we’re eating, wearing, listening to or coveting now. Sign up here to find us in your inbox every Wednesday, along with monthly travel and beauty guides, and the latest stories from our print issues. And you can always reach us at tmagazine@nytimes.com. STAY HERE A Hotel in Houston With ‘Acid Trip Meets Arts and Crafts’ Interiors
The Heights, a residential neighborhood in northwest Houston, is known for its walkability, independent shops and laid-back sensibility, making it a natural landing spot for the Daphne, a new boutique hotel that intends to be a local hangout. The 49-room property in a newly constructed bright-white brick building is the latest project from Bunkhouse Hotels, the Austin, Texas-based hospitality brand that also debuted the stylish Saint Augustine hotel in Houston’s Montrose area earlier this year. With the Daphne, “we were going for something like ‘acid trip meets Arts and Crafts movement,’” says Tenaya Hills, Bunkhouse Hotels’ head of design. Interiors feature handmade tiles, layered textiles and a palette of warm neutrals and saturated jewel tones (a suite with dusty rose colored walls; a decadent dark teal library). Hypsi, the hotel’s downstairs restaurant, offers an Italian take on Gulf Coast ingredients with dishes like squid ink pasta, Duroc pork Milanese and a tableside mozzarella cart with a variety of cheeses and seasonal accompaniments. From $360 a night, hoteldaphnehtx.com. EAT HERE In East London, a Natural Wine Bar Opens in a Former Bank Vault
The London restaurateurs George de Vos and Alex Young are used to crossing De Beauvoir’s Elizabeth Avenue, moving between their wine bar, Goodbye Horses, and their wine-and-ice-cream parlor, the Dreamery. Now, the duo will have more of a commute with the opening of Stable Wines, a bottle shop and subterranean cave a few blocks north. A slim, glass-walled structure features a wall of fridges and a table of interlocking Sicilian volcanic rock and oak plinths by the Swiss architect Leopold Banchini, who designed the space alongside Young. That table will display bottles and, the founders hope, encourage a more communal, convivial way of opening and tasting them. At the shop’s rear, a staircase descends into a labyrinthine cellar with arched ceilings, once the vault of a 19th-century bank. The space is open nightly to drinkers and diners, with generous English snacks — Guinness rarebit-topped oysters, cheese toasties — as well as larger dishes like a whole fried round of Mont d’Or cheese and a silver tureen of chocolate mousse from the chef Jack Coggins. Etchings by the artist Lucy Stein appear directly on the walls alongside shelves of bottles. De Vos and Young, alongside their wine director, Nathalie Nelles, want to share a version of the drink that’s as wild as possible — nearly every wine on offer was produced adhering to the zero-zero ethos: nothing added, nothing removed. stablewines.com. WEAR THIS A British Style Icon Inspires a Party-Ready Shoe Collection
As a teenager in London, Kim Sion cold-called Vivienne Westwood’s shop, Worlds End, and landed a job. She later launched an agency for up-and-coming stylists and photographers, building a roster that came to include Glen Luchford, Venetia Scott, Edward Enninful and Steven Klein. She co-founded a gallery, wrote a food blog and once ran an online bazaar of treasures picked up on her travels — all while catching attention for her personal style. “My husband [the musician Jarvis Cocker] always says, ‘You love an odd shoe,’” Sion says, which explains her latest project: a capsule collection created with the line Le Monde Béryl. “At the core, it’s about feeling sexy for oneself,” says the brand’s co-founder Lily Atherton Hanbury. Sion’s exuberant early references included the artist Ron Nagle’s ceramic glazes, glossy red lips and beauty pageant photos. What resulted is a trio of heels that explore the overlap between raffish and refined. The Sable pump, in black or a dark khaki the color of a military coat, features a plunging vamp. “We really pushed the boundaries of what could work in terms of construction by making the décolleté so low,” Atherton Hanbury says. The Cherry mule — a saturated sky blue is the standout color — features a sculptural lacquered base. The knee-grazing Madison boots, which come in black stretch patent or burgundy leather, seem made for a big night out. Sion hopes the whole collection will invite a sense of freedom: “Even in this crazy world we live in, getting dressed can be so much fun.” From $820, lemondeberyl.com. GO HERE The Independent Bookstores Flourishing From Berlin to Cairo
Despite studies that show a decline in people reading for pleasure, new bookshops are opening around the world, offering cultural events alongside new titles. In Egypt, the sisters Hind and Nadia Wassef and their friend Nihal Shawky first opened the bookstore Diwan in 2002 with the goal of fostering community and cultural exchange. Now there are 13 locations, the latest of which is scheduled to open early next year in Cairo’s new Grand Egyptian Museum. Every week, most locations host lectures, music or poetry-writing workshops, and children’s reading initiatives in Arabic and English. Last week, in a former butcher shop in Berlin’s Moabit district, the literary agent and former publisher Sharmaine Lovegrove opened Chapters, a bookstore where she plans to hold events including political lectures and podcasting sessions. (A recording studio is in the former walk-in refrigerator.) Lovegrove, who runs her agency from the back of the shop, says her dream is to create a literary universe in which “someone is inspired by the books on the shelves, then signs up for a creative writing workshop, then I read their work and get it published and they return to Chapters for a reading.” In Istanbul, the couple Nazim and Petek Tokuz founded their shop Minoa — selling both Turkish and English titles — in 2014. Their seventh shop, a two-story space in an elegant Art Deco building in the Pera neighborhood, opened at the end of 2022. The store recently held a Scrabble night and a concert featuring the young Turkish harpist Merve Kocabeyler. The Lynx, a bookstore that was co-founded last year by the novelist Lauren Groff in Gainesville, Fla., champions the work of BIPOC and L.G.B.T.Q.+ authors, with a particular focus on literature that the state has banned from schools. VISIT THIS A Tour of Monumental Land Art in the Moroccan Desert
Between 1980 and 2003, the German land artist Hannsjörg Voth built three rammed earth structures in Morocco’s remote Marha Plain. The “Stairway to Heaven” (1987) ascends nearly 53 feet into the sky; the Fibonacci-inspired “Golden Spiral” (1997) descends to a well where visitors find only their reflection in the ink-black water; and the seven towers that comprise the “City of Orion” (2003) are positioned to mimic its namesake constellation. The structures are open to the public by day, but now the adventure travel company Epic Travel has exclusive permission from Voth’s foundation to set up a luxury overnight camp that reveals the artworks’ celestial connections. The journey starts in Marrakech with three days immersed in Arab astronomy and numerology, Zen meditations and private dinners with artists and architects. Then a private plane transfers guests to a palm tree oasis for explorations of an ancient mud brick ksour (fortified village) and Indigenous Sahrawi culture, before they arrive at a candlelit camp at the “City of Orion,” where safari-style tents are furnished with Beni Ourain rugs, leatherbound art books, vintage washstands and comfortable camp beds. The storyteller and interpreter Zouhair Khaznaoui guides visits to the monumental structures, while an astrophysicist and astronomer lead stargazing sessions. Cocktails and meals are also inspired by the cosmos and local culture, and dawn brings a morning meditation atop the “Golden Spiral.” From $27,000 for a six-night journey for four people, epic.travel. COVET THIS Desk Accessories That Riff on Ancient Roman Symbols
The second-generation Italian jeweler Renato Cipullo founded his brand in 1972, infusing it with symbolism: his turquoise cornicello pendant, for example, is based on a traditional Italian talisman worn for good luck and protection, while his zodiac collection translates the star signs into gold pendants and rings. Cipullo has also created ornamental home accessories over the years. His latest objet d’art collection, Memento Amori, takes inspiration from ancient Roman iconography and themes of mortality and legacy. Pieces include a pen adorned with a snake, a carved jade letter opener featuring a skeleton, a skull pendant set with ruby eyes and a sterling silver heart key ring. It also represents the continuation of Cipullo’s own heritage: the collection was designed in collaboration with his daughter, Serena Cipullo, who now runs the brand alongside him. From $140, renatocipullo.com. FROM T’S INSTAGRAM Everybody Wants to Be Gen X
Gen X — the generation that includes individuals born between 1965 and 1980 (though there’s widespread confusion about these parameters) — is not just a time period, Amanda Fortini writes in T’s latest issue. “It’s a moment, a mood, an ethos and an enduring way of being, the hallmark characteristics of which — anticorporatism, anti-authoritarianism, ironic detachment, artistic independence, an existential horror of selling out and a live-and-let-live philosophy of life — feel like the antidote to a lot of what’s currently wrong in our culture.” Here, some of Gen X’s greatest artists reflect on how the cohort once synonymous with slacking came to leave such an indelible impression. Click here to watch the full video and follow us on Instagram.
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