It’s been that time of year when we’ve been on our annual cycling/gastronomy tour of France. This year we returned to the Loire Valley. This was our first holiday together 8 years ago. A saga I’ll never forget as when I arrived at CDG airport, AirFrance had kindly left my […]
Reviews
Chefs Week at The French
The French is a fine dining restaurant at The Midland hotel in Manchester city centre. We’ve been wanting to go since it opened under new direction in 2013. Simon Rogan (L’enclume, Fera) has overseen the restaurants transformation. We were lucky enough to visit L’Enclume with its two michelin stars a […]
Chocolate-Bean to bar revolution
There’s a chocolate revolution going on under our feet. It’s called bean to bar. Artisanal crafters have been buying sacks of cocoa pods and going through the whole process of roasting, grinding, conching and tempering the beans. This has actually been going on for a few years, but more […]
Hostellerie De Plaisance
Our second Michelin star dinner of our holidays brought us to the beautiful Hostellerie De Plaisance, perched atop a hill in St Emilion. To say this place was beautiful is an understatement. We had to get three lifts to get to our room as the hotel is built into lots […]
Chateau Cordeillan-Bages
Our Bordeaux adventure had begun. We arrived, minus my phone, in this wonderful French village of Bages. A typical sleepy French village but dominated by two chateaus. Cordeillan and Lynch. When I say chateau, although Cordeillan is one, they are generally big mansions opposed to things like Chenonceau. There are 10,000 […]
Roka-Charlotte Street
We had one of our annual pilgrimages to great London restaurants last week. One night here at Roka, the following evening something more traditional at Clos Maggiore and then a west end show followed by a little bit of food poisoning. A interesting few days were had by all! Roka […]
Pumpkin Veloute, Cod and Onion Bhajis
I’ve been asked to showcase a couple of Dan Moon’s (see below) recipes. Dan has taken over as head chef of Ston Easton Park, a most majestic country estate in the South West, lying on the edge of the Mendip hills. Perfect relaxation and beautiful food await. Today I have interpreted […]
Oustau De Baumaniere
Well, the highlight of our cycling holiday in Provence was two nights at Oustau de Baumaniere. We were supposed to stay at the sister hotel Le Cabro d’Or, it was unavailable but Belle France arranged the other instead. I can’t thank Belle France enough for their help in organising our magical […]
Blogiversary
Today is my first birthday in the blogging world, so as is customary I will give you a run down of my favourite dishes. The most searched and any other trivia I can come up with. 1) My favourite dish: Guinea Fowl, Morel Sauce and Tarragon Gnocchi Every part of this […]