There has been a lot of shuttling back and forth to Paris since February when we opened our bureau in the city. On many of my stays, I have lodged at the small four-star Hôtel Pulitzer, a short walk from our office. They make a good omelette. I like the rooms. They have me, however, because the staff are nice. At breakfast on Tuesday, it was the same gentleman in charge as usual. He smiled and said, “Hello Mr Tuck, you’re back!” But my favourite part has become the welcome notes that they leave in my room. In the beginning these were a simple “I hope you enjoy your stay” style of greeting but this week there was a note thanking me for my loyalty across the year and explaining why this commitment matters to a hotel. “Guests like you are a gem” it stated (or perhaps I misread the handwriting and it actually said “guests like you are a germ”? I hope not). And someone has noticed where I work – and perhaps even read this column – because another recent note sent best wishes to Macy, the fox terrier. They even congratulated me when I won an award (no, it wasn’t for flower arranging or the nicest plums at the county fair). This week I decided to turn the tables and, on a Monocle card, wrote a thank-you-for-the-thankyous, which I left at reception. Let’s see how competitive this gets.

At dinner with friends last week, I commented to someone who I know very well that he was looking great, annoyingly fresh-faced and youthful all of a sudden. “It’s my testosterone replacement treatment,” he beamed. “It has been a transformation. I feel happier. I’ve got so much energy,” he added with an almost Tigger-ish bounce. Tell me more, I replied, thinking that this sounded like a no-brainer. He then began to detail the self-injection routine that he now follows and, as someone who has a needle phobia, my interest was already becoming flaccid when he added that every few months he would also need to have a pint of blood extracted to prevent it thickening in his veins. And as for prize plums, these might shrivel. That seemed quite a lot to contemplate for the chance of better skin and the potential of more bed ballet with one’s partner. But he was evangelical, even offered to introduce me to the folk at his clinic. But I think I’ll stick to my moisturiser in the morning routine and then a good book at night. Not every evening needs to include a Nutcracker performance.

It would be remiss of me not to remind you that it’s The Monocle Christmas Market in London this weekend. An event, held at our offices in Marylebone, that has become an annual tradition for many of our readers and listeners. There’s Santa, there are reindeer, there are stalls displaying covetable gifts and there’s some booze too. Come along – it would be nice to see you.

Oh, and thank you for reading this column. I mean it.

To read more columns by Andrew Tuck, click here.

Opening night at Japanese kimono specialists Y & Sons’ new outpost in Omotesando was a party (writes Ben Davis). Saké and sesame tofu were passed around the room as the brand’s ever-stylish cohort mingled with loyal customers, many of whom were donning kimonos themselves. 

The shop marks the label’s third location in Japan but the manager of its Paris outpost, Gen Hiramatsu, was in attendance too. “As the centre of fashion in Japan, Omotesando was chosen to express the kimono as a fashion piece,” Hiramatsu tells The Monocle Weekend Edition.

Channelling the brand’s familiar aesthetic with black herringbone parquet floors, crisp white walls and oak fixtures, the shop’s interior is filled with ready-to-wear pieces and collaborations with the likes of Graphpaper and Norwegian Rain. There are also bolts of original fabrics from across Japan – the starting point for the label’s signature made-to-order kimono service. 

Batoner knitwear, Kijima Takayuki hats and footwear from Aurora Shoe Co also feature in a lineup composed with a mix-and-match approach to styling in mind. “By respecting the beauty of traditional Japanese clothing while incorporating the right amount of modernity, we propose ways of styling kimono that can easily become part of daily life,” says Hiramatsu.
yandsons.com

Monocle’s latest book, Switzerland: The Monocle Handbook, scales new heights to bring the country’s best bits within reach. Here we share one of our favourite places to unwind and catch a film.

Capitole, Lausanne
Switzerland’s largest cinema evokes the golden age of film. Capitole reopened in 2024 after its third renovation since the 1920s; original art deco features were restored with both cinephiles and design lovers in mind. A 140-seat subterranean screening room now accompanies the original 724-seat auditorium.
cinematheque.ch

Want more tips from Switzerland? Pick up the new handbook here.

If you visit Frederick the Great’s grave at Sanssouci, you’ll often find raw potatoes scattered on the stone (writes Florian Siebeck). It’s a nod to the enduring tale of a king who had to coax his sceptical subjects into eating the strange new tuber by posting guards around his potato fields – not to protect them but to make them appear valuable enough to steal. Prussians, the story goes, only embraced the potato once it looked like something they weren’t supposed to have.

I used to loathe potatoes. My parents served them with unwavering devotion: pale and boiled. Germans are often teased about Kartoffeln (potatoes) and honestly, it’s not entirely unfair. Postwar cooking favoured the dependable over the dazzling and in the 1950s, the average German ate a staggering 186 kilograms a year, enough to fill a small cellar, which many families (mine included) dutifully did.

My potato fatigue, it seems, mirrored a broader cooling-off. National consumption has slipped to a modest 60 kilos a year, less than in the UK or even Algeria. Rice, pasta and a parade of more fashionable carbs have quietly asked the humble spud to grab its jacket and head home. So it caught me completely off guard in a quiet little restaurant in Germany’s Nahe wine region, when I was served five neatly arranged potatoes that were so astonishingly good that I asked the waitress how they were prepared. She returned from the kitchen wearing a faintly apologetic smile: “The chef says to boil them in water and then put them on a plate.”

When I told a friend about this awakening, she looked genuinely puzzled. “Sounds like you just haven’t met your potato soulmate yet,” she said. “I’m more of a Laura person myself. But Linda is lovely too.” She had a point: there are hundreds of varieties, each with its own quirks, textures and temperaments. And there is one season in which the potato truly comes into its own: winter. A steadfast ingredient that demands very little yet gives back a lot.

Start with potato salad – ideally with sausages, a German Christmas classic – or a pan of Bratkartoffeln that can rescue even the gloomiest Tuesday. Slip boiled potatoes under a curtain of Alpine raclette. Pair a golden rösti with gravlax (homemade, if you’re feeling ambitious) or tuck a baked potato beside lamb loin and a handful of fried mushrooms. And for dessert? Try poppy-seed potato Knödel with cherries and vanilla sauce. If you do one thing this winter, make it this: find the potato that loves you back.

For our December/January issue, 10 friends of Monocle shared the best things that they have watched, read and listened to in the past year. Here’s one to entice but you can read them all here.

Tim Weiner, writer
The best thing I watched:
The Seed of the Sacred Fig, directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, who fled Iran on foot last year after repeated jailings, arrests and harassment. It’s a brilliant movie (pictured above) about repression and resistance in Iran, when “women, life, freedom” was the rallying cry. 

The best thing I read:
Barbara Demick’s Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: China’s Stolen Children and a Story of Separated Twins is an epic of literary non-fiction describing the ripping apart – and the reunion – of sisters born under the one-child policy.

The best thing I listened to:
The song “Breaking” by Anohni and the Johnsons [from the sessions for the album My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross]. Like Édith Piaf, Anohni has a voice that encompasses all the terrible beauty of the world. 

Weiner is an American writer and the author of ‘The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century’. You can read his opinion piece about how the agency has changed under Trump here. Have a super Saturday.