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Côte Brasserie, Quakers Friars, Bristol – A Hug in Slipper Form
Read full review: Côte Brasserie, Quakers Friars, Bristol – A Hug in Slipper FormSometimes — and I know this will offend the ‘small-plates-served-on-slates’ brigade — you just want to go somewhere nice, sit down, and have a good meal without the faff. No QR code menus, no foam, no bloke in a beard explaining the origin story of your butter. Just food. Hot. On a plate. With cutlery.…
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Vivat Bacchus, Farringdon – A Lunch Upgrade Worth Logging Back Into Teams For
Read full review: Vivat Bacchus, Farringdon – A Lunch Upgrade Worth Logging Back Into Teams ForThere’s nothing quite like an impromptu business lunch to lift the spirits and recalibrate your day. One minute you’re weighing up whether to endure another Super Green Falafel from Pret or gamble on that egg mayo baguette that’s been sweating quietly in the chiller since 8 a.m., and the next—you’re in a real restaurant. With…
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Hotel 1898, Barcelona — A Boringly Brilliant Stay
Read full review: Hotel 1898, Barcelona — A Boringly Brilliant StayYou know when you book a hotel and you’re not entirely sure what you’re getting? That’s how I felt with Hotel 1898 in Barcelona. I’d clicked around their website for a bit, expecting… well, I don’t know what. Something faintly forgettable, perhaps. A boutique business stopover with slightly too much beige? A faded Spanish colonial…
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Sushi Saki, Barcelona – iPad Sushi and the Death of the Buffet
Read full review: Sushi Saki, Barcelona – iPad Sushi and the Death of the BuffetThere was a time, not so very long ago, when the words buffet and Japanese together in a sentence meant only one thing: a heroic bout of salmonella, followed by 48 hours writhing in a Barcelona Airbnb praying to the porcelain gods and whispering promises to never, ever, eat again. You remember the scene: a…
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GoCar Barcelona: The Best Bloody Sightseeing Tour I’ve Ever Done
Read full review: GoCar Barcelona: The Best Bloody Sightseeing Tour I’ve Ever DoneI’ve done sightseeing, mate. I’ve done sightseeing. I’ve tramped through the rain-slicked alleyways of Edinburgh on an open-top bus in December – a tour made infinitely worse by a so-called mate who thought it hilarious to lob my headphones off the top deck somewhere near Leith. So I sat, soaked to the sternum, freezing my…
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CiaoCiao, Barcelona – A Midnight Slice of Sanity
Read full review: CiaoCiao, Barcelona – A Midnight Slice of SanityThe great thing about arriving late into Spain — the only great thing about arriving late into Spain — is that the Spanish eat late. I have no idea why. I’ve asked them, often and earnestly, and they simply can’t tell me. They shrug, they gesture, they smoke, they look at me like I’ve asked…
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Ridgeview Wine Estate: Sticking it to the French, One Bubbly at a Time
Read full review: Ridgeview Wine Estate: Sticking it to the French, One Bubbly at a TimeThere’s nothing quite as satisfying as sticking one up the French. They are, objectively, better than us at a great many things — fashion, cooking, shrugging with devastating sarcasm, and grinding a nation’s aviation industry to a halt over a pension reform. But for the last two centuries, they’ve also cornered the market in sparkling…
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Ockenden Manor – A Glorious Collision of Tudor Timbers and Spa-Luxe Serenity
Read full review: Ockenden Manor – A Glorious Collision of Tudor Timbers and Spa-Luxe SerenitySometimes in life the stars align. Not often. Usually, they scatter chaotically in the night sky, like crumbs on a Travelodge carpet, marking the celestial randomness of broken kettles and joyless buffet sausages. But every so often, bang — alignment. Precision. Harmony. A moment of such elegant serendipity that you half expect Richard Curtis to…
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Prime by Pasture: A Burger Worth the Existential Guilt
Read full review: Prime by Pasture: A Burger Worth the Existential GuiltSo this was a little hello and goodbye sort of lunch. Hello to Prime, Pasture’s buzzy burger offshoot in Bristol. Goodbye to a wonderful colleague, though I won’t dwell on that part, mainly as there was a moment — as I was leaning in to the milkshake like a man doing something dirty in a…
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The Banyan Tree, Dubai – A Rare Case of Style and Substance
Read full review: The Banyan Tree, Dubai – A Rare Case of Style and SubstanceThe luxury hotel game is a tough one. It’s like trying to stay fashionable while married to someone who buys you trousers for Christmas from John Lewis. Keeping luxurious is no mean feat. Fashions and trends change faster than a Love Island contestant’s moral compass. And the second you so much as unlock your automatic…
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Fabulous food, stunning stays, honestly reviewed.
Paul Southgate is The Travel Critic—the kind of traveller who claims to love adventure, as long as it includes 24-hour room service and a spa.
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Paul Southgate: a patchwork of Hughs stitched together with fraying thread. The poor man’s Hugh Grant, all charm on a budget. The thinking woman’s Hugh Laurie, though thinking too hard might ruin the illusion. He’s got Hugh Jackman’s kindness, but not the abs, and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s enthusiasm for food, minus the ability to turn nettles into Michelin-starred soup. A wannabe Hugh Hefner—pipe dreams in a velvet dressing gown—but in reality, closer to Hugh Bonneville, bumbling through life with a comforting sort of dignity. A man of many Hughs, and yet…none of them.
The Travel Critic 