Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

Business trends

Table hopping

Business breakfast

Milan If you want to know how to look cool in the middle of summer, you have to study the Italians. Grab a quick breakfast and a caffeine jolt at the Caffè della Pusterla (24 Via De Edmondo Amicis, tel: 2 ) and watch stylish business folk gather from 7am for an early-morning bite from a daily-changing menu. During the summer there are outside tables, which are sheltered from the traffic, if you really need to strike a pose with your laptop. If you’re not an early riser, you can check out the café in the evening, when it becomes a popular aperitifs spot.

Business lunch

Brussels Fed up of Brussels sticking its nose into your alcohol consumption? Get your own back by having lunch at Winery (18 Place G Brugmann, ), a Brussels wine bar and wine shop institution. As well as being a temple to the grape, Winery’s informal interior is a good place for a menu-on-blackboards type of lunch, usually comprising cold meats, cheeses and desserts, in a city where formality is well catered for. Winery is open from 11am to 8pm, and during the summer months you can eat outside on the terrace, if you can find a spot. If you do have a more formal piece of business to take care of, there are private rooms that can be booked for meetings or private receptions. And, if you need to buy a corporate gift, you need only walk through a plastic curtain and you’re in a well-stocked shop.

Business dinner

Istanbul The very nature of Turkish cuisine means that usually dishes do not all arrive at the same time, which is partly why business meals have not caught on big-time in the country. The Sunset Grill & Bar (2 Adnan Saygun Cad Yol sok, Ulus, tel. 03 57), which introduced the prix fixe business special a decade ago, is still great for lunch but even better for a more leisurely business dinner. Located on the hills of Ulus, it has one of the best views of the city, overlooking the Bosphorus. The food is a mixture of international cuisine and fish-heavy local dishes. Unusually, it also has two well-regarded sushi bars – the outdoor one open through the summer months – if time is an issue. If not, the terrace is a good place to enjoy the delights of the cigar and wine menu.

Between meetings in… Berlin

Want to escape Berlin’s heatwave? It’s not too late to catch the 19th-century French masterpieces from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, on display until 7 October at the Neue Nationalgalerie (Kulturforum Potsdamer Platz). Opening times are 10am-6pm (Tuesday, Wednesday), 10am-10pm (Thursday) and 10am-8pm (Friday-Sunday). Earlybird Tickets, which can only be bought in advance online for €10 (www.metinberlin.org), give admission between 8am and 8:30am Tuesday-Friday. After all that French art, why not book dinner at Paris Bar (Kantstr. 23, 2). Or check out Galeries Lafayette (Französische Str. 7, ) for stylish department-store staples.

Sound and visionary

Altec Lansing has added to its range of computer and home entertainment sound systems with the slinky XT2 high-quality laptop speakers, which plug into the USB ports of laptops instead of the headphone socket. While this eliminates the need to have annoying headphone wires dangling, these speakers also charge up from the laptop, so there’s no need for a transformer and power lead. This idiot-proof system means that the sound bypasses the laptop’s soundcard – which is good news because unless your laptop cost more than your car, it is not going to be that great. The speakers also have an integrated microphone for Skype, which you should be using anyway until hotels finally begin to pass their own VoIP-enable savings on to their customers. The XT2 speakers cost €120. www.alteclansing.co.uk

One to watch… Jumeirah flying

Everyone is familiar with Dubai’s sail-shaped all-suite Burj al Arab hotel, but the crown in the portfolio of the Emirate’s Jumeirah Group is set to be complemented by a necklace of business-oriented hotels. As part of Jumeirah’s ambitious plans to manage 57 hotels worldwide by 2011, Jumeirah aims to open its third hotel in London by 2011 – the $1.2bn, 261-room Beetham Tower will follow the imposing Carlton Tower and the smaller Lowndes – and is eyeing suitable properties in Frankfurt, Berlin, Moscow, Paris and other European ‘gateway cities’. Derek Picot, Regional General Manager, says no two hotels will be the same and promises the emphasis will be on high-tech gadgets to delight the most jaded business traveller.

A good night’s sleep in… Jerez

If you’re tired of the boxy aesthetic and wall-to-wall beige that comes with most conference hotels, you’d do well to head ten minutes out of town to the Hotel Villa Jerez. Unlike most business boltholes, the hotel, which is set in a refurbished 18th-century mansion, retains much of its classic Spanish charm. Although there’s a fully equipped conference centre with the capacity for up to 60 people, or for smaller gatherings, a reserved meeting room for 20, the hotel really comes into its own between meetings. If the 4000m² of lush surrounding gardens and steady supply of local sherry aren’t enough to keep you in the grounds, you can take a short stroll into Jerez to see the famous dancing horses of the Royal Equestrian Academy or catch some of the fieriest Flamenco this side of Seville.

Best of chains

Looking for an unusual place to hold your conference? Want to ensure your sales team won’t sneak off during the PowerPoint blackout? Consider Helsinki’s 106-room Hotel Katajanokka (5 Linnankuja, 00160 Helsinki, , www.bestwestern.fi). Best Western’s latest European “luxury hotel for business and leisure travellers”. Hotel Katajanokka is inevitably described in its press blurb as “a verdant oasis in the middle of a concrete city” (as opposed to a barren oasis), and has a “Festival Hall” conference room, sauna, gym, and “an idyllic summer terrace for all sorts of events from seminars to concerts and summer festivals”. The hotel’s unique selling proposition, though, is that it used to be a prison. Yes, you read right. You can crack jokes about Katajanokka’s “prison-themed restaurant”, the exercise yard and mini-bars to your heart’s content, but look closely at the photos on the hotel’s website: is it just us or do the windows in the guest rooms look unusually small and high?

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