Clive Darby, founder of roguish fashion label Rake, drives the Bentley Continental GT V8 through the less-travelled roads of Hong Kong, discovering its urban energy, colonial splendour and subtle cool.

A great drive needs three things: variety, a view and a serious motor. The journey from Central in Hong Kong along the harbour and up the Peak certainly has the first two: winding roads, colonial splendour and a magnificent panorama of Asia's finest skyline. And if you do it in a Bentley, it has the third: the Continental GT is a dream car.

Driving through the streets, you can tell every angle of space is used. There is a real sense of dynamism: young, creative people are starting up new art galleries and bars everywhere. Hong Kong harbour has an unmatched intensity, it's like the Thames must have been in the 19th century.

Driving up to Hong Kong's Peak is a phenomenal journey. You feel like you're in a tropical forest one minute and surrounded by incredible, contemporary buildings the next. And then when you arrive at the top, you truly appreciate the value of serenity in the heart of the city.

Rake, 77 Duke Street, London W1.
rakestyle.com

Bubbledogs' back room is leading the new wave of chef's table experiences as David Annand finds out.

We're perched on high chairs, momentarily silent. Everyone is caught up in the theatre of it: the eight plates lined up on the stainless-steel counter, the four chefs crouched over them, their movements synchronised like a circus act. The chargrilled onions and wedge of potato cake are being artfully placed, the perfect pink circle of beef perched just so, the jus drizzled precisely; all of it seems to be happening at once.

Kitchen Table is Knappett's single, 19-seat, horseshoe-shaped table that he runs with his wife Sandia Chang in the back room of their phenomenally successful champagne-and-hotdogs joint Bubbledogs in London's Fitzrovia.

Watching the head chef crush the ice for a fabulous mango dessert makes you newly appreciative of the labour of the kitchen, how involved it is, all that pinching, turning, monitoring, tasting and squeezing. And how relentless it is: no one stops, not once. All this effort is worth it, for this threatens to redefine our nights out. Dinner and a show is now dinner as a show. West End, watch out.

Kitchen Table at Bubbledogs,
70 Charlotte Street, London W1.
bubbledogs.co.uk

Personalised pampering in Monaco almost turns David Annand into a work of classical sculpture.

Like Michelangelo sculpting clay, Anne-Sophie is a woman in complete control of her material. Rhythmically and precisely, she kneads and manipulates in search of harmony, balance and grace. It is testament to her skills that she achieves at least the first two of these, given what she has to work with: my pale pallor with its deadline-day wrinkles.

Even more remarkable is the place in which she strives for this Zen-like equilibrium. For, traditionally, Monte Carlo is a place for watching F1 cars, romancing dangerous women and staking your house on the turn of a card. But it turns out that the place to get your heart pumping is also, surprisingly, the place to get your shoulders loose and chakras aligned. Or at least Anne-Sophie's corner is: ESPA at Hôtel Metropole Monte-Carlo, with its beautiful treatment rooms and three-tier heat experience.

Alongside the spa, the hotel also houses a Karl Lagerfeld-designed swimming pool and three Joel Rubochon restaurants, among them Yoshi, his take on Japanese cuisine. After the facial, my skin is alabaster smooth and post-massage my body feels sculpted. I may not be Michelangelo's "David", but I feel statuesque.

ESPA at Hôtel Metropole Monte-Carlo,
4 Avenue de la Madone, 98007 Monte Carlo.
espaonline.com