Librisa Spa pedicure, The Grand Daddy and Maya's Kitchen
GRUESOME details aside, diabetics have to take special care of our feet. While for others having a pamper pedicure or visiting a podiatrist may be a luxury indulgence, to those for whom sugar has become the enemy, it is a pleasant but essential duty. Entering the Librisa Spa at The Mount Nelson Hotel is like a giant exhalation of stress.
Walking from the waiting and change rooms outside into the spa areas is a real relief. Their emphasis is on the healing power of touch rather than high-tech equipment. Treatment rooms are large and calmly decorated. The feet are bathed before being exfoliated (removing dead skin cells) in a beautiful pewter hand-beaten bath. Next nails are trimmed (straight across please). There’s smoothing of the heels and hard-skin areas with a pumice and then some cuticle action. I think a massage followed but I woke up an hour later feeling great with divinely soft feet so I’m a light on the details.
Amazingly, the Mount Nelson Lounge, so famous for its deliciously indulgent Afternoon Tea even had diabetic and wheat free biscuits available.
Librisa Spa. Mount Nelson Hotel. 021-483-1000
The Grand Daddy is the revamped Metropole Hotel. It was bought by the chaps from Daddy Long Legs Art Hotel further up in Long Street after the Metrople’s owner was plunged into scandal.
It’s a four-star property pitched at just under R1000 per room, per night.
Aside from missing bath robes and slippers, the room we stayed in, 306 a corner unit with three wonderful windows, exceeds five-star standards.
Décor is contemporary with a flash of quirky elements. The fabric on our headboard and hanging lights, for example, was a design incorporating South African place names while the two large bolsters that crowned the fabulously comfortable bed had potato-stamp images of South African icons - maps, ostriches etc. Local but very, very lekker.
The great attraction of The Grand Daddy is the roof-top trailer park which has elevated trailer trash to dash with its six Airstream retro caravans that have each been decorated, a la rooms at Daddy Long Legs, by a different artist.
There is a dynamic energy about The Grand Daddy but the Saturday night we stayed we were kept awake late by music from the bar. Perhaps it is better suited to those younger than I.
The First Floor Daddy Cool bar is a hoot - there is so much white that even the “ostrich-leather” chairs are virginal. There is bling and gold accents.Look out for the collection of gold chains that act as a visual curtain for the bar’s anteroom.
The Grand Daddy 021-424-7247
Maya’s Kitchen is a kitchenware brand with retail stores in Sea Point and Cavendish Square. To mark a decade of trading and fresh rebranding, they arranged an event at The 7th Floor, the fabulous venue at Foodcorp’s Observatory offices. I was asked to act as Master of Ceremonies at a staging of a “Ready, Steady, Cook” type of cook-off between chefs Peter Goffe-Wood (Cassia Restaurant and others) and Neil Jewell of Bread & Wine in Franschhoek. Watch the video at www.zoopy.co.za.
www.mayaskitchen.co.za.
[20-Mar-09]
Brian Berkman
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