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Nuevo Gerardo: The Lunch That Ruins All Others
Read full review: Nuevo Gerardo: The Lunch That Ruins All OthersThere is nothing quite as opulent as a long lunch. Dinners are all well and good, but lunch—proper lunch—now that’s the real indulgence. The kind that stretches into the afternoon, where the wine keeps flowing, the conversation sparkles, and the food, ideally, makes you wonder why you’d ever eat anywhere else. Nuevo Gerardo is exactly…
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La Casa Del Abuelo: Prawns, Beers, and a Slice of Old Madrid
Read full review: La Casa Del Abuelo: Prawns, Beers, and a Slice of Old MadridMadrid is a marvel. A proper capital city with all the grandeur and energy, but without the relentless tackiness that afflicts so many of its European counterparts. Sure, there are tourist traps, but even they seem to have retained some dignity, a bit of authenticity. And nowhere captures the soul of the city better than…
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Roisa Hostal Boutique: A Stay on the Set of a Horror Film (With Bonus Trip Hazards!)
Read full review: Roisa Hostal Boutique: A Stay on the Set of a Horror Film (With Bonus Trip Hazards!)Well, how I’m here to write this review is beyond me. I spent three nights in what can only be described as a crossover between a low-budget horror film and a construction project that’s seemingly given up the will to live. I’ve stayed in some questionable hotels in my time, but never on an actual…
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Pabblo: Dinner with a Side of Spectacle
Read full review: Pabblo: Dinner with a Side of SpectacleGoing out for dinner with friends should be an occasion. It isn’t always. Sometimes it’s just another meal—food arrives, you eat, you leave, and if you’re lucky, you remember what you had. But a truly great restaurant needs more than just good food. There are four main considerations when choosing where to eat. First, the…
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The Ivy, Bath – Posh Breakfast Done Right
Read full review: The Ivy, Bath – Posh Breakfast Done RightAs I’ve written before, I’ve long held the view that the posher the location, the worse the breakfast. It’s a complex dilemma: do you opt for somewhere warm and welcoming, where the service is lovely but there’s a real risk of unnecessary garnish on your fried eggs? Or do you brave a hard plastic seat…
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Pintxo, Bath – A Tapas Bar Doing What Tapas Bars Should
Read full review: Pintxo, Bath – A Tapas Bar Doing What Tapas Bars ShouldI don’t like restaurants where you can’t book. I also don’t like restaurants where you can’t get a booking. If I had to choose, I’d go with the former—provided there’s a nice bar where you can wait, a team who haven’t forgotten about you, and no passive-aggressive clipboard wielder telling you they “might be able…
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Apex Hotel, Bath – A Decent Stay, If the Price is Right
Read full review: Apex Hotel, Bath – A Decent Stay, If the Price is RightI’ve never got on with local councils. I know they’re strapped for cash, but they seem to exist solely to make parking more expensive and planning applications impossible. And nowhere is this more evident than in Bath, a city of breathtaking Georgian beauty marred by the occasional concrete monstrosity that some council planning department inexplicably…
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Grano, Bristol – A Little Italian Gem That Gets It Right
Read full review: Grano, Bristol – A Little Italian Gem That Gets It RightThe challenge for a small, local restaurant is that it has to be good. That might sound obvious, but it’s the brutal truth. A big chain can chug along, slinging out plates of reheated mediocrity because there’s always another lost tourist or lazy diner willing to settle. But the independents? They live and die by…
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The Alan: Where Manchester’s Cool Feels Warm
Read full review: The Alan: Where Manchester’s Cool Feels WarmManchester, they say, is trendy. Far too trendy for me, of course, which is a word I’ve now used twice and which, in itself, demonstrates how deeply untrendy I am. “Trendy” is surely not the word du jour. Nor, I suspect, is “cool,” which I’ve just used to underline how hopelessly adrift I am from…
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The Scarlet: Where Magic Never Fades
Read full review: The Scarlet: Where Magic Never FadesTo anyone who read my recent review of the Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi, where I warned against the dangers of revisiting a beloved destination, feel free to ignore that advice. I’m about to completely contradict myself, because here I am, back at The Scarlet in Cornwall for what feels like the hundredth time. And thank…
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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.
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