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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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‘Twas the Lunch Before Christmas – A Review of Goram & Vincent
Read full review: ‘Twas the Lunch Before Christmas – A Review of Goram & Vincent‘Twas the lunch before Christmas, and all through the place, The in-laws were smiling, all brimming with grace. Four days of their company, not just one night— So off to a restaurant to soften the plight. The Goram & Vincent, with its scenic display, A bridge in the distance—the Avon, they say. “Isn’t it lovely?”…
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Gigi Pizza, Bristol: A Slice of Cool in the Coolest of Cities
Read full review: Gigi Pizza, Bristol: A Slice of Cool in the Coolest of CitiesPizza. It’s no longer just food, is it? It’s a way of life. A cultural moment. Where once you’d pop out for “a pizza,” now you find yourself wading knee-deep in existential questions. What sort of pizza are we talking about here? Is it artisan? Sourdough? Neapolitan? Detroit-style? Vegan? Bristol, the city that could gentrify…
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A Christmas Miracle at The Granary Club
Read full review: A Christmas Miracle at The Granary ClubPicture the scene: it’s the office Christmas party. You know the type. The “celebration” where enthusiasm is proportionate to the amount of Pinot Grigio consumed, and nobody really wants to be there except Sandra from accounts (until she’s crying in the corner). The buffet is a fluorescent homage to beige, the wine a choice between…
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Review: Graft Graffiti Workshop, Bristol
Read full review: Review: Graft Graffiti Workshop, BristolLet’s face it. Corporate team-building activities are, more often than not, the stuff of nightmares. You know the drill: you’re lumped in with colleagues you actively avoid in the office, sent to a field in the middle of nowhere, and made to build a bridge out of twigs or solve a “problem” no one cares…
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From Downton to Downtown: The Andaz Experience
Read full review: From Downton to Downtown: The Andaz ExperienceWhen you’re nipping into London for a quick overnighter, location is everything. Schlepping across the capital like some 18th-century explorer, map in hand, is a waste of valuable time you could be spending doing literally anything else. So, you want a hotel near a major tube station—a station that’s basically a public transport Swiss Army…
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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 