Food 2018 – Le Cigalon, London

Monday, 9th April 2018 – Le Cigalon, London Le Cigalon sent me an email inviting me to test drive their new 5 course menu for £29.50 a head (it’s normally £36.50 for 3 courses), which for central London is a massive bargain. Having discussed catching up over dinner with our friend Janice I asked her…

Food 2018 – Launceston Place, London

Sunday, April 1st 2018 – Launceston Place, London In London for a couple of exhibitions, we decided that we should stop off for an Easter Sunday lunch somewhere close to the Design Museum where we had tickets for Ferrari: Under the Skin in the afternoon. The morning saw us at the National Gallery, viewing Reflections:…

Travel 2018 – Vienna (Ideas for Tourists)

Monday, 19th March 2018 – Vienna Ideas To an extent this was a post for a very specific person back in 2005, but it was also a very useful exercise for me as a planning post – I’ve rechecked all the links and they are fully up to date so when next I visit it…

Food 2018 – Cassons, Tangmere

Saturday, 16th March 2018 – Cassons, Tangmere There are areas of the country that seem very bleak from a culinary point of view. Sussex, thankfully, is better than most counties in this respect, so while we were not exactly spoiled for choice when we went down to Goodwood, we did at least have a decent…

Food 2018 – Le Mirazur, Menton

Sunday, February 18th 2018 – Le Mirazur, Menton Back before Christmas we were sitting at home watching the latest series of Masterchef: The Professionals, and it was the penultimate programme. The remaining three competitors were shipped off to the south of France to cook at Le Mirazur. It looked amazing, and given that we knew…

Food 2018 – Blue Bay Restaurant, Monaco

Saturday, February 17th, 2018 – The Blue Bay Restaurant, Monaco We’d been looking for somewhere good to eat that wasn’t going to be stupidly expensive (which ruled out almost everywhere up by Casino Square) and I’d settled instead on the Blue Bay, just along the coast road towards Menton, at the point almost of the…

Food 2018 – The Oxford Kitchen, Oxford

Saturday 20th January, 2018 – The Oxford Kitchen, Oxford Finally, 8 days after my birthday, we actually got to go and have a celebratory dinner. We had intended to do it the previous weekend, but I was outsmarted by OpenTable, and my booking at The Harrow in Little Bedwyn somehow got transposed from Saturday to…

Food 2017 – Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Great Milton

Friday 13th October, 2017 – Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Great Milton If there’s one restaurant in the UK that I would sell my grandmother to eat at, it’s probably le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons. I make no secret of my admiration for Raymond Blanc, and having met him a couple of times now, I’m even more…

Travel 2017 – Moselle Road Trip, Day 14

Friday October 6th – Day 14 – Ahrweiler, Bad Neuenahr, Ligneuville Now we really were on the last part of the journey, where we would leave Germany and spend a night at our old favourite stomping ground in Belgium, close to Spa-Francorchamps, before catching an overnight ferry back to the UK. First however, we planned…

Travel 2017 – Moselle Road Trip, Day 13

Thursday October 5th – Day 13, Kinheim, Beilstein, Cochem, Walporzheim, Ahrweiler It was Thursday in week two so we were on the move again as we began a slow haul towards home. I did manage to get a run in that morning, down to the Enkirch lock and back, with a head wind all the…