This is the weekly Style File, featuring what’s on the radar of The Globe’s Lifestyle desk – from travel to home and design, wellness, fashion or beauty. Sign up for The Globe’s arts and lifestyle newsletters for more news, columns and advice in your inbox.
Travel
On three Veuve Clicquot Solaire Journeys, 15 Veuve Clicquot vintages are on offer, with cellar master Didier Mariotti steering passengers through the bubbly tastings.Bobby Allin/Supplied
Champagne rails
Passengers on board the old-fashioned opulence of the Eastern & Oriental Express are in for a Champagne-soaked journey, perhaps more than usual for the Belmond train. Up to 15 Veuve Clicquot vintages, including bottles from the Grande Dame and Cave Privée series, will be opened and poured on the train once it leaves Singapore and winds its way through Malaysia. Steering passengers through the bubbly tastings is Veuve Clicquot’s cellar master Didier Mariotti, while chef André Chiang creates meals to accompany all that fine fizz. During this special Belmond itinerary, passengers can sip and soak in the views as the Pullman rail cars trundle through the jungle with exploration stops at Taman Negara National Park and Penang Island. The trip is the first of three Veuve Clicquot Solaire Journeys, which continue July 4-6 on board Belmond’s legendary Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train running from Vienna to Reims, France. Then in late October, the Veuve flows for five days in Peru on board the Hiram Bingham (to Machu Picchu) and Andean Explorer (to Lake Titicaca, La Raya Mountains and Arequipa). – Catherine Dawson March
Home
Dish Cubed, the latest zero-waste cleaning innovation from North Vancouver brand Nellie's Clean.iulia agnew/Supplied
Zero-waste scrub
Nellie’s Clean, the North Vancouver brand dedicated to planet-friendly cleaning, has launched its newest green product, a dish pod that comes without the outer PVA (also known as polyvinyl alcohol) plastic shell. Designed to give your dishwasher the eco-upgrade it needs, the family-owned company calls its latest innovation Dish Cubed, and says it packs all the scrubbing and grease-cutting power of Nellie’s Dishwasher Powder but without the plastic casing. Most traditional makers of dish and laundry pods tout PVAs as dissolvable, but environmentalists say they never completely disappear, leaving minuscule plastic particles – invisible to the naked eye – to make their way into the water supply. Nellie’s Dish Cubed is biodegradable, septic-safe, phosphate-free and zero-waste, meaning the only “gross stuff going down the drain will come from your plates,” says the company, so-named to honour founder James Roberts’s late mother, who was always on the lookout for planet-friendly ways to clean. The toxin-free cubs are $10 for 16 loads and can be purchased at nelliesclean.com or nelliesclean.ca. – Gayle MacDonald
Dining
Jennifer Low and her husband, chef Deon Kim, opened Korean restaurant Sarang Kitchen in 2023 to cater to neurodivergent people.Supplied
Comfort food
Finding a quiet place to dine out can be difficult in Toronto, but finding restaurant music that is inclusive can be a bigger struggle, according to Jennifer Low, an autism specialist and co-owner of Sarang Kitchen. Low and her husband (chef Deon Kim) opened the Korean restaurant in 2023 to cater to neurodivergent individuals. Since 90 per cent of people with autism experience some form of hyper or hyposensitivity, which can affect the way they experience touch, smell and hearing, for example, the space has reduced lighting, sensory boxes and a multisensory room. This month, they released on Spotify an original sensory friendly music album for public places, The Breaking Barriers EP. It was created with INNOCEAN Canada and Jazz Hands Music Place – a group representing neurodivergent musicians – based on research into the emotional effect of tempo, tone, rhythm, brown noise and instrument choices. “It was also important to us that the neurodivergent community had the opportunity to create the music themselves,” said Low.