4 November 2026 |
The artist partnered with The Luxury Collection on a delicious advent calendar.
Any culinary world Laila Gohar creates, we’d like an invitation. This Christmas, that world consists of 24 drawers, with an equal amount of good reasons to open every one. Partnering with The Luxury Collection, Marriott Bonvoy’s grouping of 140 boutique hotels, the artist and designer has dreamed up an advent calendar that travels through key destinations, one chocolate at a time. Kyoto today, Paris tomorrow? It might be the closest we get to teleportation this festive season.
Gohar has made a career of ensuring every meal feels like an occasion. Her food installations have brought her into the worlds of Prada, Hermès, and Simone Rocha, while Gohar World, the tableware label she founded with her sister Nadia, carries that playful sensibility onto the dining table. An advent calendar makes a fitting next course for her experiments.
Created in her role as The Luxury Collection’s Epicurean Global Explorer, the limited-edition calendar takes its cues from 24 locations across the brand’s hotel and resort portfolio. “Each drawer is a small world of its own,” says Gohar, who loves the anticipation of opening a calendar as much as anyone. Translating those worlds into chocolate is Rafael Prieto, founder of Casa Bosques, who worked with the hotels’ culinary teams to develop a distinct flavor for each destination. Dubai arrives in saffron, Kyoto in black sesame, and South Caicos in toasted coconut. Elsewhere, banana and sea salt evoke Waikiki, hazelnut praline takes us to Paris, and smoked mesquite conjures Los Cabos. It really is an itinerary we could happily eat our way through.
Before you get to the chocolate, though, there’s the matter of the calendar, created to resemble a hotel. Illustrator Joana Avillez imagined a fantastical grand facade, its surface alive with scenes of travel, gathering, and celebration with each numbered drawer holding another edible getaway. It’s a miniature palace you want to peer into, discovering a new detail with every look. The sweet treats might not make it to Christmas, but we’ll be keeping the calendar well into January.
For anyone who would like to step further into Gohar’s world, the collaboration also extends to retail pop-ups at Prince de Galles in Paris, The Joseph in Nashville, Solaz in Los Cabos, and The Laurus in Singapore. Inspired by old-world Parisian chocolate shops and Milanese apothecaries, the installations bring together display windows and banks of drawers in what Gohar envisions as a “chocolaterie in miniature.” At Prince de Galles, artist and set designer Alix Bortoli has conceived special vitrines that turn the chocolates’ raw ingredients into magical festive landscapes. Select hotels will also host festive programming through the season.
The limited-edition advent calendar is available now online as well as on Gohar World in select international markets, and at participating hotel pop-ups.
