The T List: Six things we recommend this week

A riverside retreat in Vietnam, a luxurious duffel bag — and more.

View in browser|nytimes.com January 8, 2025 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 New Vietnamese Retreat Where Every Villa Comes With a Pool Namia River Retreat in Hoi An, Vietnam, comprises 60 pool villas featuring design elements inspired by the nipa palm forest and the river just outside. Courtesy of Namia River Retreat By Devorah Lev-Tov Namia River Retreat opened last month on the banks of the Thu Bon River in Hoi An, a coastal city in central Vietnam. The tranquil setting — all 60 villas stand between the water and a palm forest — inspires the resort's wellness program. Activities include yoga, meditation and duong sinh (an Indigenous form of tai chi) sessions and swimming in the saltwater pool; there's also access to riverside saunas, bamboo bicycles to explore Hoi An and sunset river cruises. An indoor-outdoor spa specializes in traditional Vietnamese medicine using herbs grown on the property and in nearby gardens. The villas themselves are more indulgent than you might expect at a wellness resort. Each comes with a private pool, a sunken bathtub and an outdoor shower, while the décor is replete with local touches, from the ash-wood furniture made in nearby Da Nang to the artisan-carved wooden wall hangings and photographs depicting Vietnamese life. And for food, you can choose between two restaurants: the Fisherman, a seafood spot, and the Merchant, where the playful menu offers cocktails inspired by street food (the Hoi An Chicken Rice Com Ga features a local rum infused with rice and chicken broth) and equally nontraditional dishes like cao lau carbonara, whose sauce is made with duck egg. From $700 a night, slh.com/hotels/namia-river-retreat. EAT THIS The Parisian Chocolatier Reviving a 19th-Century Trading Card Tradition Debauve & Gallais, the 225-year-old Parisian chocolatier, has revived the 19th-century tradition of Chromos pictorial cards. The artist Ilya Milstein created five new cards featuring the shop's notable past clients: Marie-Antoinette, Louis XVI, Napoleon, Marcel Proust and Sonia Rykiel. Thomas Tissandier By Lindsey Tramuta The Parisian chocolate company Debauve & Gallais was founded 225 years ago by Sulpice Debauve, a pharmacist to Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette who later became the official chocolate supplier to the kings of France. He introduced the confection as a health remedy to the royal court and, according to the brand, invented the era's first chocolate one could bite into instead of drink. Those chocolats à croquer — flat medallions shaped like old coins — became a signature that remains a Debauve & Gallais best seller today under the name Pistoles de Marie-Antoinette. Along with chocolate bars, truffles, Croquamandes (chocolate-covered almonds created for Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807) and other confections whose recipes have seldom changed, the Pistoles are still displayed like jewels behind the shop's original semicircle apothecary counter. But when Domitille Jollois joined the company as its president in 2022, she unearthed a cellar full of old packaging, drawings and recipes that inspired an update to the institution. The packaging got a light refresh, while the U.S.-based illustrator Ilya Milstein worked on reviving a long-forgotten Parisian tradition: chromos. A form of advertising in the mid-19th century, these small pictorial cards depicting scenes from daily life or fables were created by the era's leading illustrators and printed using chromolithography; they were popularized by Le Bon Marché's founder, Aristide Boucicaut, and released weekly for decades. Debauve & Gallais would hide their own illustrated cards in chocolate boxes that children could collect and trade. Beginning this month, customers can find five new chromos inside all chocolate boxes featuring the likenesses of Marie-Antoinette, Louis XVI, Napoleon, Marcel Proust and Sonia Rykiel. "We wanted [an artist] who would capture the childlike spirit of the tradition and highlight our most illustrious clients," says Jollois of Milstein. "It's chocolate that connects them all." From about $28, debauve-et-gallais.com. WEAR THIS A Luxurious Leather Duffel Bag Made in Providence, R.I. Lindquist's Rhodes duffels (shown here in indigo and black) are handmade from milled vegetable-tanned leather in Providence, R.I. John Hesselbarth & Kate Foster By Roxanne Fequiere In 2020, the designer Lindy McDonough launched Lindquist, a leather goods brand that hand makes bags, wallets, belts and more at its headquarters in Providence, R.I. "[We're] a local company that's thinking about sustainability and isn't necessarily prioritizing exponential growth over everything," McDonough says. Lindquist's milled vegetable-tanned leathers come from a century-old, family-owned Brazilian tannery that transports their wares in salt rather than in a solution containing heavy metals. In an effort to minimize waste, the brand reworks its leftover leather pieces, repurposing them as components of larger items or accessories. Its newest design, the Rhodes duffel, is made from a single piece of leather and embellished with solid brass hardware made in Switzerland. The handles, shoulder strap and piping are all crafted from the same leather — "no fillers, no canvas, no cardboard," McDonough says — and the waxed linen thread that holds it together comes from one of France's oldest thread manufacturers. And for travelers whose luggage never seems to make it to the end of an excursion without incurring some kind of damage, Lindquist's customer service continues after the purchase is completed. "Just send it back to us," McDonough says. "We'll take care of it." From $2,400, lindquist-object.com. DRINK THIS A Food Delivery Service With Wellness in Mind — and Broths on Offer Bone broth, borscht, and other jarred soups from Laroot World, a meal delivery company based in New York. Armando Rafael By Luke Fortney ​In 2022, N​atasha Poniatowski, a former fashion consultant, looked at the crowded food delivery industry and saw a void. No one, she says, was taking a holistic approach to health and nutrition. "We are a wellness service for foodies," she says of her company Laroot World, which offers dishes like Ukrainian borscht​ and Indian daal. Laroot sold ​its first meals ​to New Yorkers in 2023; ​since then, delivery has expanded ​to New Jersey and Connecticut.​ Each week, the brand's culinary director Makai Brown maps out a new set of dishes for delivery. The ones that make the cut — Swedish turkey meatballs, kung pao sweet potato — have been approved by a board of medical professionals with a range of backgrounds, from clinical nutrition to traditional Chinese medicine. "We want you to feel like someone cooked for you this week and made sure you were taken care of," ​Brown says. For the new year, the chef launched a three-day meal kit meant to aid people in detoxing from the holidays. The package includes three broths a day, among them an oxtail bone broth that's been simmered for over 24 hours, plus soups, stews and teas. Items can also be purchased individually through the company's online shop. From $350, larootworld.bottle.com. GO HERE A Sunny Lisbon Hotel Full of Apartment-Style Rooms Left: the restored facade of the Verse hotel in Lisbon. Right: in one of the 15 guest rooms at the Verse, the original ceiling beams are exposed. Irina Bom By Gisela Williams For years, the former British diplomat Anna Richardson traveled from her home in London to Lisbon for work and vacation — with friends, with her husband and then with her three young children. But, she says, she never found a hotel that felt "just right," one that was "intimate but spacious, with all the comforts of home." When her father, the real estate developer Andrew Richardson, bought a historic Lisbon building with his business partner, David Clarkin, in 2018, she was given the chance to help create her version of the perfect hotel. The result is the Verse (its name inspired by poetry and the local fado music), which opened in the Sao Bento neighborhood last month. Each of its 15 apartments features a Campeggi sofa bed in addition to a king bed, a Sonos sound system and a well-equipped kitchen. For the interiors, Richardson hired the Portuguese artist and architect Joana Astolfi of Studio Astolfi, who commissioned local artists and artisans to make tiles, rugs and paintings. Many of the walls, wardrobes and tables are painted light hues of sand, pink and terra-cotta to reflect the hues in the Portuguese landscape. The ground-floor lobby and bar menu are also inspired by their surroundings, with a selection of local organic cheeses and charcuterie on offer. And because Richardson doesn't drink much alcohol, there's an array of nonalcoholic cocktails. Her personal favorite is the Jasmine Breeze, a refreshing tonic concocted with jasmine tea and cucumber and lemon juices. From about $210 a night, theverse.com. COVET THIS Loro Piana's New Line of Sumptuous Textiles and Furniture Left: Loro Piana Fiore Di Cardo armchairs, upholstered in wool jacquard. Right: the Trama bookshelf, designed by Francesca Lanzavecchia, and the Palm armchair, designed by Raphael Navot for Loro Piana. Courtesy of Loro Piana By Megan O'Sullivan The Italian fashion house Loro Piana was founded by Pietro Loro Piana in 1924, but its origins date back to the 1800s, when the Loro Piana family started trading wool in the northern Italian region of Piedmont. Known for its soft cashmere clothing, the brand expanded beyond fashion in 2006, fabricating furniture and design pieces using cashmere sourced from baby goats in northern China and Mongolia, and Merino wool from Australia and New Zealand. This month, at the design fair Paris Déco Off, the brand is unveiling its latest interiors collection, including new textiles like an ultrafine merino wool and a velvet linen. Furniture pieces include those created by the designers Raphael Navot, Francesca Lanzavecchia and Paola Navone's Otto Studio. Navot is behind the Palm armchair, a curved chair made in upholstered velvet and wicker, while Lanzavecchia designed the Trama, a bookcase and room divider inspired by latticework and crafted with panels of solid walnut and fabric. A special capsule within the new collection, named Fiore Di Cardo, offers wallcoverings and silk and wool upholsteries that are embroidered, printed or woven with a thistle flower motif, representing the tool once used to brush the surface of precious fabrics in the original Loro Piana factory. Available Jan. 15 to the trade, prices on request, loropiana.com. FROM T'S INSTAGRAM Ilya Milstein It's a familiar story: You buy a beautiful notebook, intent on starting a journal, only for it to sit untouched for years. While the benefits of journal-keeping are well established — it "can raise levels of optimism and life satisfaction," says the psychology researcher Justine Richelle, and strengthen creative writing skills ("The lines between what I write for myself and what I will ultimately write for publication are pretty blurred," says the novelist Pico Iyer) — that knowledge doesn't necessarily make the blank page less intimidating. So we asked a handful of longtime journal-keepers to share advice that may inspire you to try again and stick with it. Click here to read all of their tips and follow us on Instagram. And if you read one thing on tmagazine.com this week, make it: Luisa Dorr The 10 Architectural Sites You Should See in São Paulo These buildings and places capture the city's playful approach to concrete-and-asphalt Modernism. By Michael Snyder Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for T Magazine from The New York Times. To stop receiving T Magazine, unsubscribe. To opt out of other promotional emails from The Times, including those regarding The Athletic, manage your email settings. To opt out of updates and offers sent from The Athletic, submit a request. Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app Connect with us on: Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018