Istanbul’s new Raffles goes above and beyond.

Why Go: Zincirlikuyu was not a destination detailed in Istanbul guidebooks until 2013, when the four-tower, $2.5 billion Zorlu Center opened in the hilltop district. At the complex, among Turkey’s largest performing-arts center, a high-end shopping mall, residences, and office space, Raffles Istanbul welcomed its first guests in September. Panoramic views over the city are one of the 181-room hotel’s biggest selling points, and its metro-accessible location is m…

To show off the speed and athleticism of its two new aftermarket Volvos, the Swedish tuner Polestar has brought the racecar driver Thed Björk—winner of the 2013 and 2014 Scandinavian Touring Car Championships—to the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., to put the 2015 Volvo S60 Polestar and V60 Polestar through their paces. Björk deftly whips the S60 through the turns and tears down straightaways, demonstrating the impressive capabilities of this special-edition automobile.

After Björk pulls the S60 off t…

Founded by Jules Leleu in 1924, the French interior design studio Maison Leleu is best known for the art deco pieces it produced during the 1920s and 1930s. The Maison Leleu: 1960s exhibition and sale at New York City’s Maison Gerard gallery, however, will display 60 pieces of furniture, lighting, and carpets from Maison Leleu’s post–World War II years, when the studio began to introduce elements of modernism into its designs, using materials such as aluminum, steel, glass, fiberglass, and even plastic.

The…

The collins is a classic cocktail with a confusing past. The original was named for its creator, John Collins, who worked as a bartender in a London hotel during the early 19th century. His recipe, which combines dry gin, lemon juice, sugar, and club soda, is identical to a fizz, except that it is served in a tall collins-style glass with an orange wheel or cherry garnish. It’s also closely tied to the sour, but includes club soda.

Learning to perfect a classic like the collins is a great way to build skill…

Up until the mid-18th century, European brewers aged their beers in oak barrels, but they abandoned the technique during the Industrial Revolution when metal vats became the new standard vessel for fermentation. More than two centuries later, U.S. craft breweries resuscitated the practice. Today, those breweries are making more varieties of beer using oak barrels than their European counterparts ever did, and they’re doing so with a truly American sense of exploration. From those exploratory efforts have come …

I was invited to judge Iron Chef America once. The battle was Bobby Flay versus chef Hong Thaimee, chef and owner of the New York Thai restaurant Ngam. The Chairman did his dramatic thing to unveil the special ingredient through a thick mist of disco-era fog. I was hoping for Kobe beef, turbot, whiskey—some glamourous or luxurious foodstuff worthy of its own fog machine.

But when the fog dissipated, I was left staring at a table overflowing with . . . tamarinds. Harrumph. My mouth puckered on instinct.

T…

Chicken soup is the tonic that soothes all wounds, from a light sniffle to an emaciated IPO. And yet ordering chicken soup at a great restaurant seems a bit like going to a cocktail haven and ordering a tall rocks glass full of the city’s finest tap water.

For all its cockles-warming charms, chicken soup is a simpleton bore of a dish. That is, unless you’re in a Thai restaurant. Thai cuisine’s version of chicken soup is tom kha gai, and it’s wondrous. The literal translation is “chicken galangal soup,” but …

Mauricio Cordoba fidgets in his seat at a corner table of his cigar club. Scanning the room, Club Macanudo’s general manager takes note of patrons reclining on various leather couches or seated at the dozen or so candlelit tables—tables that recast the main gathering space of the club into an upscale dining room as much as the leather couches transform it into a relaxed cocktail lounge.

Billows of cigar smoke waft upward from a group of businessmen seated on a couch in the room’s center and also from a jovi…

York Street Studio, a Connecticut design company that specializes in luxury home decor, has introduced its first handcrafted backgammon set (starting at $1,800). Founded in Brooklyn in 1988, York Street Studio originally specialized in designing bespoke furniture for clients but has since expanded into home accessories and decorative hardware. Though the materials of company’s new 28-inch backgammon set can be customized to suit the customer’s preferences, the standard interior is made with fine-grained calf l…

VIP Completions has announced that its latest custom jet interior will feature a world’s first: a flowing-water display backlit with LED lighting, known as a bubble wall. The owner is able to manipulate the colors of these LED lights via a smartphone app. The bubble wall is the centerpiece of the new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner’s interior, which emphasizes light, reflections, and a palette of black, silver, and gray—creating a clean, relaxed, contemporary look. 

The forward section of the Dreamliner’s cabi…