Porchetta

I’m not long back from a wonderful holiday with friends in Umbria, Italy. The bonus of staying in a villa is generally they will have an outdoor wood-burning oven and you just have to take the opportunity to use this to make a really tasty dinner and what better thing to cook than a Porchetta?!…

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Sevilla, Spain

I last visited Sevilla as part of a backpacking adventure travelling around Spain and Portugal about 15 years ago – I loved it and always said one day I would come back. Luckily Easyjet have started direct flights from Edinburgh to Seville, so we decided to utilise the Easter break and take a long weekend in…

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Brother Marcus

Brother Marcus was a recent great little find of mine about 200 yards from my London office along Camden Passage. So one evening I went along with a friend to try out their food – their Instagram account was appetising enough! The concept, as is the trend these days is for small plates.  The menu has…

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Duck & Waffle

Towering above the city on the 40th Floor of the Heron Tower is Duck and Waffle,  a restaurant known for it’s signature dish, after which it’s named after and it’s 24/7 opening hours. Still, after being open for 7 years, tables are like gold dust and only the fastest finger first or luck manages to…

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Kricket

I’ve been spending more time in London recently with work, which gives a great opportunity to knock off a few items from my restaurant bucket list. Kricket in Soho is a modern Indian and my friend and I paid a midweek visit before going to see a film nearby at the Picturehouse Central (which I can also recommend!). …

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Afternoon Tea at Kyloe

Kyloe is not a place I automatically think of for Afternoon Tea. Normally we visit for incredible steaks and cocktails, so I was intrigued to try their Afternoon Tea offering.  I went along with a friend before Christmas to try it out, starting with an obligatory cocktail of course in The Huxley downstairs. We moved…

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Naples

  The next stop on our Italian adventure, albeit a brief one was Naples.  I had been here about 20 years ago and as it turned out, had little memory of the city!  We took the ferry from the harbour in Sorrento, it is only about 45 minutes and when you arrive in the madness…

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Amalfi Coast

It’s been a while since I last wrote a post, but there is nothing better to inspire you to start writing again than spending a week on the Amalfi Coast! Mid-June a friend and I took ourselves off to Italy where we spent 5 nights in the amazing Agriturismo Antico Casale nestled between Sorrento and…

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Maraschino Cherries

I love cherries and back a couple of months ago in Cherry season I collected a pile to do something with.  I like them to eat, put them in cakes and also in cocktails, so I thought I would make my own Marachino Cherries. In the US the term Maraschino Cherry refers to the red…

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Southern Comfort Ice Cream Bread

I had read somewhere ages ago about a recipe for bread which involved only two ingredients – flour and ice-cream!  This intrigued me, how could this work? Curiosity got the better of me and I thought I would give it a go.  I didn’t want to make a plain bread – naturally, so I did…

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