São Tomé and Príncipe sits quietly in the Gulf of Guinea, forming one of West Africa’s smallest nations. Just above the equator, its geographic coordinates are: 1°N, 7°E.

I arrive on a six-hour direct flight from Lisbon, and short 35-minute hop from São Tomé on a 20-seat propeller plane. Landing on the same time zone, no jet lag, just a gentle sense of having slipped sideways into another rhythm. The kind where time stretches rather than presses.

My driver, Osvaldo, meets me at the airport. The road to Praia Sundy is bumpy, red earth rising in clouds, the rainforest closing in on both sides. We stop suddenly. He smiles, cracks open a cacao pod on a rock, and hands it to me.

These are the chocolate islands afterall! The white pulp inside the pod is thick, sticky, almost jelly-like. I chew the first bean politely, hiding my dislike. Osvaldo laughs gently and shows me how: you don’t chew the bean, you suck the pulp off it. And suddenly: sweetness. Tangy, tropical, refreshing. Chocolate, it turns out, begins as fruit.

I was at the Four Seasons Marketing Conference in Las Vegas when Will Guidara took the stage. For those unfamiliar, Guidara transformed Eleven Madison Park from a struggling two-star brasserie into the best restaurant in the world. His talk was filled with stories from his book Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect, and by the end, every participant received a copy.

I devoured mine immediately. It's now covered in underlines, dog-eared pages, and margin notes. I highly recommend it – not just for hospitality professionals, but for anyone who leads a team or serves customers in any capacity. It’s my new favourite leadership book. It is mostly about building a great culture – which takes time and patience.  Not so much “what” to do, but “how” to do it.  Though the context of his personal journey, his approach and passion I really believe will work in any context where the leader wants to build a strong and enduring culture of commitment, excellence and caring.

During my years at Four Seasons Hotel Ritz Lisbon, I witnessed countless memorable guest experiences. But one tradition I've always found particularly compelling – and increasingly rare – is the hotel golden book.

Unlike the standard guestbooks you'll find at reception desks, golden books are something else entirely: leather-bound volumes reserved exclusively for the signatures, sketches, and musings of extraordinary guests. They're not marketing tools or vanity projects. At their best, they're living archives of cultural history, capturing the moments when creativity, power, and influence converged in a single place.

If you love hospitality as much as I do, let me introduce you to a podcast that's become my latest obsession: Hotels with History. And honestly, it's worth listening to if only for Richard E. Grant's voice – that man could read a phone book and make it captivating.

Launched in September 2025, this eight-episode series takes listeners behind the grand façades of the world's most legendary hotels to uncover the scandals, secrets, and remarkable moments that transformed these buildings from mere accommodation into cultural landmarks. Hosted by the incomparable Richard E. Grant and travel expert Jules Perowne – founder and CEO of Perowne International and one of the most respected voices in luxury hospitality – each episode is a masterclass in storytelling.

Days after F1 driver Lewis Hamilton lost his beloved dog Roscoe, someone wrote on a London Underground inspiration board: "If people say 'it's just a pet,' they really don't understand." The message went on to explain how pets become family, how they change our hearts forever.

Those words hit home for me. My three-year-old wire-haired Teckel, Chewbacca, has become such an integral part of my life that I increasingly want him with me everywhere – including on holiday. After over a decade working in luxury hospitality at Four Seasons Hotel Ritz Lisbon, I know what genuine welcome looks like. And I've found two places in Portugal where dogs aren't just tolerated; they're genuinely part of the experience.