Given that I’m going to spend November confined to my four walls, I’m kind of pleased I had the ridiculous October that I did. I started it on holiday, went to several starred restaurants, filmed a showreel, helped launch a restaurant, started a business, and flew to Italy to eat in what’s widely regarded as the best restaurant in the world. I drank a lot of wine. A lot of negronis. I was living my best life, as the kids say. Quite possibly the culinary highlight of this was a solo lunch at Adam’s. It was a happy coincidence; I’d planned on cycling into town for a meeting but blew a puncture ..read more

“He came from Henley, he had a thirst for rowing. I did a tweet about Opheem without then knowing, he’d take me up. Next thing we’d booked”. And that truly awful rewrite of a Pulp classic is how I met Steve. I tweeted about Opheem’s lunch deal being great value and suggested that if anyone was without a companion, I would join them. Incredibly several people tried to take me up on the offer, and Steve was the only one I could work a date out with. My girlfriend thought it was weird to meet strangers over the internet, conveniently forgetting it’s kind of how we met. We met in a pub, he didn’t ..read more

Yes, you did just read that correctly. The Grand Hotel, the iconic Victorian building which fronts much of Colmore Row, is once again open thanks to the small matter of a £45 million refurbishment. From November 4th guests can stay in one of the 185 rooms for a staycation, to meet and drink in Madeleine, the chic cocktail bar. Then, from November 12th, a festive Afternoon Tea will be served at the bargain price of £25, until 30th November, including a glass of champagne. As the pictures will testify, it’s a beautiful space that has restored the Art Deco and French Renaissance features, whilst ..read more

Fast forward to the end of the first night of the staycation at Hampton Manor and we’re sat in the bar, whisky in hand whilst Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’ hums away in the background. I’m on whisky number five, maybe six, each handpicked by Fraser’s impeccable taste based on my preferences. Salty, smoky numbers, I’m introduced to distilleries I never knew existed. In all we’ve had a great night; pre-drinks before dinner in their more casual offering, Smoke, then this. The food was tremendous, the setting even better as we found ourselves alone in the dimly lit vine house whilst others dined in th ..read more

For me, one of the biggest plus points of last year was the success of the Tabor House project. Every Wednesday evening, at 6pm sharp for twenty weeks, we fed the 15 guests of a shelter in Digbeth some of the best food from Birmingham and further afar. We had pizza, curry, burgers, chillis and so much more, not only allowing the budget of the shelter to be spent elsewhere, but also providing an aspirational quality of food to the residents they wouldn’t usually have been accustomed to. At the point of the pandemic closing down the shelter we had pledges of enough Wednesday meals to take us thr ..read more

Right now the world feels like the end scene of Fight Club, the bit where two people stand hand-in-hand watching as the world crumbles to nothing in front of them. The apocalypse played out to the reverberating notes of The Pixies as the demolition job reduces the skyline to dust. Tyler Durden, full of arrogance and bravado, is dead, whilst his pessimistic, nervous, and bleak counterpart looks to the outside world emotionless and cold. He has little understanding of how it got to this. This post was scheduled to be a lovely weekend stay, though that chipper piece will have to wait. The governm ..read more

The bad news is this blog post is even worse than my usual crap. The good news is I’m back at Ynyshir in a few weeks to rectify it. And whilst I offer no apologies for getting in the state I did, I probably should have done it in the pub and saved myself a very large sum of money. We’d never been and shared a table with anyone other than ourselves, but we like Kyle and Lucy and they drink a lot, so it made sense. There were beers and wines consumed whilst getting ready, then gin in the bar before Kyle suggested double vodkas (no mixer) which seemed like a great idea at the time. Then wine. So ..read more

#AD 8 is a restaurant which needs to be seen rather than read about. On paper the 16 seater restaurant where all of the 8 courses are based around the number 8 might seem a little gimmicky, until, that is, you are on one of those stools, with those plates in front of you eating some seriously good food. It is here that you see a chef unleashed; his own food and ideas on a plate, following a career of cooking to other people’s briefs in high profile restaurants. Cards on the table, I have had a tiny amount of involvement in the restaurant. I arranged a couple of launch events – one for chefs ..read more

We were several hours late to check in to Another Place because I insisted we take the scenic route. “Let’s get some pictures” I said, as we crawled through the cars that block the road on the tourist trap that is Bowness upon Windermere, taking the wrong turn towards Ambleside, then eventually up to Ullswater. We needn’t have bothered. All the scenery we needed was found at the hotel. The view from the bedroom directly on to the lake, the lakeside position of the badminton, the jetty that looks over to Arthur’s Pike and across to the boat club, and that infinity pool that seamlessly joins the ..read more

A couple of nights ago we were fortunate enough to do a staycation at Hampton Manor. On the Saturday of this glorious weekend, hungover on whisky and feeling very full, we attended a wine tasting with MD James Hill which forms part of the schedule. James would start by telling us this was a session led by an enthusiast and not an expert, one whose eyes had been opened by a wine specialist named Sam Olive. With a copy of the book ‘Natural Wine’ nestled on the counter, James spoke about how Sam had stripped away the bullshit behind wine, and used a language which was accessible. He told the grou ..read more