Sibton Park Manor House in Suffolk is one of the hideaway properties in Fish&Pips’ UK portfolio

Luxury travel company Fish&Pips began by focusing on alpine holidays before expanding into the Mediterranean and more recently, the UK with a selection of handpicked hotels and remote hideaways. Here, we speak to co-founder Holly Chandler about expanding into new territories and handling the challenges of COVID-19

Holly Chandler (right) & Philippa Hartley

1.How was the concept for Fish&Pips born?

Philippa Hartley (The Pips) and I (The Fish) founded Fish&Pips in 2006. The name Fish&Pips (Holly nee Fisher and Philippa, Pips) was a light bulb moment courtesy of Philippa’s Mum – it just worked – thank you, Jill.

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Philippa and I have been in each other’s lives forever. Our dads were best friends and we have been on holidays together ever since I can remember. Following university, we decided to do a winter season before looking for ‘proper jobs’ in London, and so after some Cordon Bleu training, Scott Dunn took us on at one of their luxury chalets in Méribel. We loved it and ended up winning a Chalet Team 2004 award. It was here that we realised we made a unique team. Whilst working for Scott Dunn, we saw a gap in the luxury market for a small, expert and personalised ski business, that treated its guests as individuals. With a friendly, professional approach to service, a team with a zest for life, a love of food and a background in hospitality, we had the foundations of Fish&Pips.

Over a decade on, after a lot of hard work, Fish&Pips has gone from strength to strength, and over the past thirteen years, it has cemented its reputation as one of the best small specialist ski companies in the UK, catering for 1400 ski guests each winter. Fish&Pips has been built on strong foundations of superb staff, great food and friendly but attentive service.

Fish&Pips’ portfolio also includes super yachts such as Jeannous (pictured here) which offers holidays around the Greek islands

Our loyal guests wanted an option to holiday with us in the summer, so due to popular demand, we launched our thoughtfully curated collection of Mediterranean hotels and villas in February 2019. Our new investor (Blake Rose from Scott Dunn Travel) helped turbo charge this vision, he came with a wealth of knowledge on Mediterranean product, luxury travel and high level customer service. In June this year, we launched our UK collection of hotels and hideaway and despite the current climate, Fish&Pips has been really gaining momentum.

We are now offering a Fish&Pips holiday across the French Alps, Mediterranean and the UK, and there are plenty more exciting things to come. As we grow we want to make sure that we remain The Friendly Travel Experts, a small team with a big heart.

2. How do you select your partnering properties and is there a specific criteria that they need to fill?

Yes, and this list of criteria seems to be ever-growing. All of the properties that we select must have the Fish&Pips factor and reflect what is important to us. We will only acquire properties that feel personal and welcoming, where the team are professional and friendly and the owner or manager lead with great attention to detail. It’s also important that they are well located and that they offer activities and experiences.  They need to be stylish and have something special about the food, whether it be authentic or Michelin-starred. It is important to us to offer a variety of property types in each destination (family friendly hotels, adult and boutique hotels, wellness retreats, villas, hideaways) but they all need to satisfy the F&P criteria.

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We are also committed to working with properties that have a passion and policy for sustainability and supporting their local community. Minimising our impact on the environment is a responsibility of ours that we take very seriously and we are currently developing our approach and strategy on this.

When it comes to selecting properties, each property is thoroughly researched, rigorously inspected, re-inspected, and approved by myself and Philippa. It is so important to us to build a fantastic relationship with the properties and get to know them inside out. This is something we won’t falter on as it is this knowledge and detail which can make or break an experience and sets our offering apart. Over the past few months visiting new properties has had to be put on hold so we have instead spent many hours on zoom with owners and managers, but we cannot wait to see them all in person soon.

Each property that partners with Fish&Pips is personally chosen by the founders based on specific criteria

3. What’s your most popular collection and has it changed over the years at all?

Our original offering of operating ski chalets in Méribel Village is still a huge part of our business. However, we are now into our second year of our hotels and houses collection across Europe and we are certainly seeing this grow, not only with our ski guests, but noticeably with new guests turning to us for our expert advice for their summer holidays.

Our UK hotels and hideaway launch has been incredibly popular; in fact, the high level of enquiries blew us away. Everything was aligned for this launch – stunning properties, some fantastic press coverage and excellent timing with a UK staycation boom. We love what the UK offers – there is so much on our doorstep from heritage and history, to more incredible boutique hotels and unique hideaways. With this in mind, we are continuing to develop our UK collection and are excited to introduce more wonderful properties in the not-so distant future, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The kitchen dining room at Moat Cottage, one of Fish&Pips’ UK properties

Our aim is to become a one-stop shop for travellers. Whether they want a short weekend away in the UK, a summer break in the Med or a ski holiday in the Alps. We want them to be able to come to us eventually for all of their holiday needs. We have big plans!

4. How do you think the coronavirus crisis will affect the travel industry in general and Fish&Pips in particular?

It is certainly a very challenging time for travel and it is difficult predict how it will affect the industry – who knows when normality will resume? With ever evolving policy and travel advice, there is now the added complication of unpredictability! For the industry, there is an element of having to plan ahead, but also to think on your feet and pivot where necessary to react efficiently to these changes. This is where our UK offering has been so successful, as we fast tracked our plans to adapt. It’s definitely takes us out of our comfort zone not being able to make a solid strategy but being small and owner-run, means we can be reactionary relatively easily.

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What I can tell you is how this has shaped the travel industry and Fish&Pips in the short term… At the moment, travellers need the confidence to book. This is where flexible cancellation policies have really become key. This is one of the most important criteria for guests when booking now, whether it be to the Med, Alps or the UK and I can’t see this changing for quite some time.

Sublime Comporta is one of Fish&Pips’ hotels in Portugal, offering a luxurious eco-retreat one hour from Lisbon. Image by Nelson Garrido

The human touch is more important now than ever and I think this will be an ongoing trend. Covid-19 has shown the importance of the ‘human touch’ and we have really felt this when it has come to people planning their holidays this summer and next winter. Guests want to be able to speak to you on the phone and use your expert knowledge and reassurance to build confidence. It is more important than ever for tour ops to be able to be that extra helping hand.

We have seen a bit of a divide with our guests this summer, and again I think this will be ongoing well into 2021. Those that are embracing the abroad escape and those that would rather not travel out of the country.

We have also seen the type of holidays that people are taking shift as travellers choosing not to travel abroad instead choose to spend their money on more of a luxury UK product whether it be boutique hotel, farm to fork country estate, a glamorous hideaway, a contemporary tree house or a splendid 40th birthday!

For us, we just want to make sure we are ready for guests whether they decide they want to stay close to home or to venture further afield. With this mind, we will continue to develop our portfolio in current destinations, grow our villa and hideaway offering across the board, and we are currently working on some exciting new (and slightly chillier) destinations which we hope to launch in September.

Adaptability is key so that we are ready no matter what is thrown at us next!

5. What’s your approach to sustainability?

Sustainability is something we are really passionate about at Fish&Pips and I have actually been nicknamed ‘Swampy’ for always talking about the environment. We always try to have sustainability at the front of our minds, from our chalet operations to when we research and talk to hotels.

From a chalet perspective we have teamed up with an amazing company called ‘One Tree At A Time’ who are really challenging the way that the ski industry operates. They have created a Pledge system whereby companies and individuals commit to changing the way that they operate and live, with a more sustainable future in mind. We were the first chalet company to sign up to the Pledge last winter and have seen some fantastic results. Our aim is to set a tried and tested template for other chalet companies to follow to help reduce their own carbon footprint.

A two bedroom cabana at luxury eco retreat Sublime Comporta

Our aim was to reduce (waste, plastic, consumption, energy, palm oil, carbon), educate (train our team, challenge our suppliers) and plant trees (offset and encourage our guests to do the same). Guests can now offset their carbon with us by planting trees with us. Last winter we planted 6,700 trees in 4 months.

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When we talk to potential properties, one of our top questions is ‘What are you doing to be more environmentally responsible?’ Our UK properties are really quite impressive and are leading the way for sustainability in the hotel industry, from using locally sourced, farm to fork food, no single use plastics and really caring about their local communities.

We are currently working on a F&P Green Stamp that we will award to properties that are actioning a strong environmental policy and doing their best to make the world a little bit of a better place. Nature is one of the most important reasons for travel, so we must protect it so that future generations can have the same opportunities that we have had.

6. Where do you go to get away from it all?

In the summer I actually live on a stunning tiny Channel Island called Alderney. I’ve grown up between there and London, and have holidayed there since day dot. It has always been my solace, and place of calm, although the social scene on an island 3 miles by 1 is pretty hardcore! At the moment, Alderney feels more away from it than ever before with strict 14 day quarantine restrictions in place for anyone entering, but once you’ve stuck it out then it is totally worth it as it is business as usual – everything’s open, no masks, no bubbles, no social distancing. I am truly spoilt by the beauty of the beaches here, honestly they are out of this world and with only a handful of people to share them with. We can also escape to Guernsey, Sark or Herm by boat should cabin fever kick in. So this is my current getaway and I am actually relishing it, enjoying the peace on this beautiful, untapped island.

Come Autumn, I will absolutely be ready to travel again and I can’t wait to get back to the UK to explore all of our wondrous UK properties and scour the country for more gems – a weekend break away in any of those is my idea of heaven, and Scotland literally blows me away. In the winter, there is nothing like the feeling of freedom that skiing gives you and I won’t give up my ski holidays for anything as they are engrained in our lives having lived in Méribel for 14 winters and my husband is also ski instructor. If I have the time between running businesses (I have a couple in Alderney too) and bringing up my children, I absolutely love heading to the slopes for a few hours, followed by a large glass of wine.

As for travel outside of the UK and France, I adore the variety that Europe has to offer from villas and yachts, beaches and coves, to out-of-this-world authentic dining, to countryside retreats, and icy open space up Iceland and Scandinavia. When things settle down I cannot wait to get back out there and explore more far flung destinations, but for now, Europe offers more than enough for me.

Find out more: fishandpips.co.uk

“I worked in nature as if it was in the studio. The vineyards seemed to me a very poetical, mysterious and playful environment.” – Marie Benattar

Louis Roederer makes what might just be the world’s most famous champagne, Cristal, and a range of others all renowned for their sophistication and complexity. Less known is the family-owned company’s visionary art foundation, and foray into the luxury boutique hotel industry. Darius Sanai speaks to CEO and 7th-generation family scion, Frédéric Rouzaud, about photography,
art, hospitality, and almost everything except champagne

Frédéric Rouzaud

Travelling from the heart of London to the heart of Paris is, in some ways, like stepping from one luxury universe into another. In Mayfair, every conversation is about money – what’s for sale, what’s being sold, who might buy what. A brand is a currency, there to have its value inflated and sold on to the next wheeler-dealer.

Paris may be the home of the global luxury industry, but despite this, or perhaps because of it, it is – mostly – not considered appropriate to have the same conversations. For every private equity group buying and selling companies like card sharps distributing aces, there is a celebrated company (don’t call them brands) that has been in family hands for centuries.

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This is one of the first thoughts that flows through my head when I meet Frédéric Rouzaud in a hotel lobby in the chi-chi 16th arrondissement. Through the Maison Louis Roederer, Rouzaud may be the family owner and CEO of one of the world’s most celebrated luxury brands – who doesn’t know Cristal, after all – but it’s apparent that this thoughtful, understated and gently smiling gentleman in a dapper suit is a different breed to many modern CEOs. Louis Roederer is a Maison, not a brand.

Photography by Michel Slomka

We settle in quickly to an easy conversation about art, and in particular photography. Recently, Louis Roederer invited young abstract artistic photographers to create images of the champagne house, its cellars and grounds, giving them carte blanche to interpret whatever they wished, however they wanted.

The results, which have never been publicly exhibited, are published on these pages. But Rouzaud, who expresses an enthusiasm for photography and 20th and 21st century art, is doing so much more in the world of art through the Fondation Louis Roederer (a private foundation), and has a plan to develop a collection of luxury boutique hotels. Here is a polymath who is plainly not interested in being pigeonholed. And, of course, the Louis Roederer brand owns several wine estates and makes some of the world’s most celebrated champagnes – not just Cristal, which needs little introduction – including a personal favourite, the complex yet ethereal blanc de blancs.

“I found in champagne perfect elements related to dreams… it appears as a perfect opportunity to explore a fairy direction.” – Marie Benattar

LUX: Tell us more about your hotel projects?
Frédéric Rouzaud: We bought our first hotel last November, in the Alps in France. A hotel seems far away from the wine world, but not so far when you look for a long-term strategy that you need to have for hotels. Like for wine, it’s about the French ‘art de vivre’. It’s about gastronomy, the experience and wine. My idea is to create a small boutique hotel collection, and also by having some private houses open to private consumers who would like to live a very nice experience around wine in our different properties. [Outside of Champagne] we have wine properties in Provence, Portugal, two châteaux in Bordeaux, one in California. The idea is to create a small collection either by buying hotels like we did in the Alps or by creating some hotels within our winery sites, which are generally very nice places to stay.

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LUX: Will there be a particular aesthetic?
Frédéric Rouzaud: We will try to make people feel comfortable and at home. We will work with some designers that have this sense of conviviality, [to create] a nice experience. We will adapt to each place – the style, the sense of the place. It will be a five-star hotel that is casual and comfortable, family friendly.

“I worked at night by the light of the moon. I have aspired to build mirage images in order to reveal what can not be mastered by man, the very power of nature. The artificial lights were developed to unmask ghostly presences, unreal scenes, dreamlike horizons.” – Lucie Jean

LUX: There is a very powerful partnership between your Maison and the art world. The photography for the prize that you do is very abstract. Is that something you initiated yourself and how has it grown?
Frédéric Rouzaud: The story started 20 years ago, when we met the president of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. They have a fantastic collection of more than five million images – old photographs from the beginning of the creation of the photography – but they didn’t know what to do with it because they are more book-orientated. So they asked us if we would be interested in helping them show the fantastic collection to the public. That is how we started our collaboration, and we did a lot of very nice and interesting exhibitions there. We sponsor all of the exhibitions and they are fantastic. It is a very serious, rigorous and interesting collection of photography with plenty of artists.

“Views from above of the symbolic interiors of Roederer were completed with images of starry skies from the vineyards. This face- to-face seemed to us to be a poetic metaphor for what champagne represents, a kind of cosmic union between earth and sky.” – Simon Brodbeck and Lucie de Barbuat.

LUX: What about the young photographers we feature here?
Frédéric Rouzaud: We asked the Bibliothèque Nationale de France to select for us eight or ten young photographers who went to Champagne; there was lots of creativity and they decided to photograph Roederer as their own perception.

LUX: What did you think of what they did?
Frédéric Rouzaud: I think it was great. I think it was so different and their approach was phenomenal.

LUX: You must have a personal passion for photography to give it such support?
Frédéric Rouzaud: I am interested by art and photography – because photography is really a contemporary art form. I think it is approachable for people who sometimes do not understand or find it difficult to approach contemporary art. Photography is always approachable, understandable… and I see a big future, a big potential for photography. It is a very nice, aesthetic art.

“The intervention of man gives a very graphic aspect to the vines. I sought, through the strength of this vegetation and nature,
visual haikus which would plunge us between the lines from what is immediately visible.” – Lucie Jean

LUX: Do you collect photography yourself ?
Frédéric Rouzaud: I have some, I don’t only collect photography – I collect many things. I buy lots of intuition and inspiration (laughs). I am not a collector in the sense that I buy everything, I am more for going into galleries on the weekends/ auction sales to see what is going on – I can buy photography, a chair, a lamp…

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LUX: Does your foundation have a physical home that people can visit?
Frédéric Rouzaud: No, not yet. The purpose of the foundation is to help institutions and museums like Palais de Tokyo and Le Grand Palais to show to the public their fantastic collections. I think we are much more for that approach rather than to say, ‘Hey, look at my foundation, look at my collection, come and visit it.’ We are a small company, we are more for helping the French big institutions, like Bibliothèque Nationale, trying to choose the artists that really talk to us in a way – that is the first point. The second point is the different prizes that we have created now; we like to discover new talents. That is really the two things helping the institution with known artists – because there are lots of artists who we have sponsored who were known, but we also like to give prizes to new talents.

“For me, photography is a way to discover and observe the world, to embrace its complexity without feeling too much gravity. It is also a way to take time, spend it and even try to stop it.” – Marie Benattar

LUX: Is the private sector becoming more important in supporting art?
Frédéric Rouzaud: Museums don’t always have the means to do these exhibitions for the public so they seem very happy to have that kind of foundation to help. I think it is very important, yes. Even if in France it is less usual to have funds from a private company or foundation like it is in the UK, it is very normal. But I think it is coming and definitely there are never enough funds to help art. If the approach is quiet, organised, long-term and focused on what we like, I think there is no reason that it doesn’t work, because again in our approach we are more behind museums that have the savoir faire, the connection. We prefer to be maybe a little bit behind the scenes.

LUX: Are wine and art similar?
Frédéric Rouzaud: Of course, there is a link. But I always say to my team, ‘Don’t consider yourselves artists. We are not artists. We are artisans, dedicated to nature, trying to interpret each year what nature likes to give us: climate, size of grapes, concentration…’ And we try to make, modestly, with that, a wine that we sell. Artists have total freedom. We don’t. We have to ferment the wine, we have to press the wine, it has to be vigorous. It’s close to the artists’ work – but we don’t have the freedom. The only thing you have to do as an artist is express what you have in your head. So there is a very natural link between the world of wine and the world of art, but we are not artists.

“The need and the desire to create cannot be explained. It’s like a breath, a small voice and sometimes even a cry that animates you and takes you to creation.” – Laura Bonnefous

LUX: Is it true to say the world of wine is more objective than art?
Frédéric Rouzaud: Yes, in the world of wine we have to follow rules, some tools, some gestures. In art, you do what you want – you are much more free. We are free in the way that we are free to search the best soils to plant the vineyards, we are free to search the best way for pruning the vineyards, the way of fine-tuning our grapes, our methods, our pressing process, our fermentation, our storage – we are free for that. But at the end of the day, the focus has to be a bottle of wine that is appreciated by the consumers. An artist, if he makes something and it pleases collectors, it is good. If it doesn’t please them, it is fine also!

Read more: Spring Studios’ Founder Francesco Costa on building a creative network

LUX: With wine, is the product the most important thing? Or the brand?
Frédéric Rouzaud: (Laughs) The brand comes after the product, in our approach. We do small quantities, small production in our own vineyards. We don’t buy grapes, we don’t buy wine, so it is a small production and we produce a small quantity of wine – not enough for the world and we are fine with that, because we don’t know how to do more at that level of quality. For us the brand is more a Maison; it is a family-owned company and we make a product the best way we can and if it becomes a brand, fine! But we are not trying to make a brand and then make the product. We were founded in 1776 and my brothers and sisters have done a great job to make a brand today – called Roederer – but still the team is really not in that approach of branding. We are really behind our product, behind our vineyards.

“A Cristal bottle is transparent; I tried to make the production process transparent by highlighting the talented people working in the vineyard, the cellars, the factory, the office…” – Sandra Reinflet

LUX: Tell us why you chose Val-d’Isère for your first hotel?
Frédéric Rouzaud: Why Val-d’Isère? This resort in terms of value, authenticity, purity of skiing… it really is the resort in France, if you like to ski. I like to ski and I have been to lots of resorts in France. After testing Val-d’Isère you will be disappointed if you go elsewhere – if you like to ski. Plus the fact that it is a historic hotel, one of the first of the resort, and it belonged to a family – the same family who built the hotel.

LUX: How important is China for you?
Frédéric Rouzaud: It is small yet. We are very strong in Hong Kong, but China is quite small at the moment. First, we do not have the volume. Second, the market is very young. Sometimes champagne is considered as goods which should be offered for parties. I don’t know why – champagne as a commodity. In an emerging market like that you have to sponsor a lot if you want to be in some places and we are not in this game, because we do not have the volume. We have such a respect for the wine itself that we don’t like to give it for free. We only do it sometimes, as a special prize.

LUX: We were talking about biodynamics…
Frédéric Rouzaud: We are running the Cristal estate in Champagne, 100% biodynamically, it has been ten years now so we are very happy with it. I am not a technician, but I have tastes; the grapes and maturities, the balance of the grapes concentration, acidity, level of alcohol – and it is working very well.

LUX: What difference does it make to the products when you make it biodynamically?
Frédéric Rouzaud: It is difficult to express but I think it gives it more vibrancy, more life in the wine.

Find out more: louis-roederer.com

This article was originally published in the Autumn 19 Issue