Bentley Torcal First Look: New SUV Electrifies The Brand

20hJohn McMahon

Book this boutique Tuscan hotel now before everyone else does... A few weeks ago I stayed at Le Lappe, a country house in the Chianti hills, about an hour’s drive south of Florence.My wife Lara sourced the recommendation through an Italian contact, who said it had been a slightly tired and family-run B&B for two decades – until recently, when they underwent a full renovation commissioned by AD100 designer Remy Renzullo.Now it’s a stunning 11-bedroom retreat that doesn’t know how good it is just yet… and how much money they can (and soon will) charge. No interiors are the same; every room has a fireplace and a bathtub, and the design is captivatingly unique. Book it now for next season before every man and his dog does. It didn’t feel real for the money.

I'm discovering new speakeasies at precisely the right time just as the winter months fade away and the seasonal pollen makes living on the surface a daily battle. Tucked beneath 44 King Street, a new CBD spot has just opened: Ombra, a Venetian-inspired cocktail and wine bar with an incredible selection of rare vintages like Opus One 1983 and Penfolds Grange alongside an inventive cocktail list (including my new favourite Seven Seasons Green Ant Gin). Plenty of reasons to extend those after-work drinks well beyond the calendar invite.

Europe has its mojo back... At least, that’s what Tom Baker found on the ground at this year’s Paris Motor Show, where some of the continent’s biggest marques took the fight to the Chinese brands that have dominated the electric market in the last few years. That’s not to say BYD, Zeekr, Denza, and XPeng simply rolled over, mind you. Hybrid V6s, ludicrously quick electric sports cars, and claims of just a nine-minute charge time stole the headlines in the French capital, and the battle for the future of motoring is looking considerably more interesting. Good. At the end of the day, it’s you, the consumer, who wins.

1dJack Slade

I played golf on the weekend and had a nice time, but not as good a time as Kris Clelland - who shot an albatross and a hole-in-one in back-to-back holes at Sydney’s Lynwood Golf and Country Club on Sunday. The odds? 1 in 72 billion. His shout on the 19th hole, I reckon.

A bumpy ride.. Somehow managed to book myself into a 4DX session of Street Fighter on Friday night and spent two hours being jolted, misted and mildly assaulted by a chair. Fittingly, it suited the film perfectly. The casting is outrageous, the nostalgia is strong, and I had a great time with the sheer absurdity of it all. That said, the story does feel like it’s building towards something that never quite arrives, leaving things frustratingly unresolved. Still, a solid trip down memory lane with the added bonus of seeing Volk on the big screen.

The Bledisloe is back in Sydney this weekend, and, frankly, there are few things more reliably capable of souring an otherwise perfectly pleasant trans-Tasman relationship than 80 minutes of rugby. The Wallabies welcome the All Blacks to Accor Stadium for the second Test of a two-match series, and Australia is in need of a rather substantial response after last weekend’s 50-19 thumping in Auckland. Get there early: the Wallaroos are kicking off a genuinely mad quadruple header, taking on Scotland before both Australian Sevens sides are also in action.