We’ve got a new vice. It’s this: self-catering stays attached to National Trust properties. Okay, not as exciting as you were hoping. But so far it’s been great, staying in a historic building, in what have been huge and well-equipped apartments or cottages, and with free access to roam around the grounds (when no-one else …
I had no idea the Chilterns were such proper countryside; only a stone’s throw from London but with proper twisting lanes, bosky woods, hilltop views and bucolic villages. In one of them, Bennett End, is the old red brick Mash Inn, a restaurant with rooms. We stayed overnight in a garden room with dinner and …
Brighton has always been one of my favourite places; colourful, eccentric, full of stuff. But it was only after people began thinking of it as a commuter base for London that the food scene really took off. And now you get little home-grown empires of dining to match pretty much anything in London, like the …
Really quick one. The Palm is an Indian restaurant, one of those odd ones that is planted in a totally random location along a quiet stretch of an A-road, in this case the A40 in Wiltshire. The incongruity of the starkly modernist (circa 1990) building with bold colours, magnificent light fittings and abstract wall art… …
My favourite thing at Mana. They made a fudge by reducing down 120 litres of cucumber juice to a mere dollop. It no longer tasted of cucumber exactly, but still had a green note along with a deep sticky-sweet flavour a bit seaweedy. This blob made a superb relish for some insanely well cured sea …