Tag: 4****
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The Hobson by Adina, Cambridge: Old Bones, Modern Comfort
There’s something rather satisfying about taking an old building and giving it a new lease of life without completely stripping away its character. Take an old police station, spruce up the stonework, add underfloor heating and furnish the rooms with everything you need for a comfortable modern stay. And there you have it: The Hobson…
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Coppa Club, Sonning: Cool Without Trying Too Hard
There’s a fine line between somewhere being modern and cool and somewhere being so desperate to convince you it’s modern and cool that you want to leave immediately. Thankfully, Coppa Club in Sonning sits comfortably on the right side of that line. It’s stylish, contemporary and has a nice atmosphere, but without the sort of…
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Green Street Sandwiches, Bristol: A Case of Pork Envy
You know how much I love a new place that an influencer has decided to tell the internet about. You can generally guarantee it’s going to be one of two things: the best thing that has ever happened to mankind, or an unmitigated disaster involving a £19 plate of eggs and a queue that stretches…
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InterContinental Shenzhen: a hotel that somehow missed the memo
I discovered something genuinely unusual in Shenzhen. Something old. Not old old, obviously. This is Shenzhen, a city that has gone from fishing villages to gleaming metropolis in roughly the time it takes London to approve a planning application. Almost everything here is new, shiny, ambitious and faintly terrifying. And then there is the InterContinental…
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The Three Horseshoes in Batcombe – Where London Escapes to the Country
The Three Horseshoes in Batcombe is the sort of pub that makes you wonder whether someone has built a witness protection scheme for Londoners fleeing Zone 2. It’s deep in Somerset, but feels reassuringly insulated from too much actual Somerset. The locals are there, of course, but they seem carefully curated, like extras who’ve been…
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InterContinental Crete – A Supermodel Hotel
The InterContinental Crete arrives like a supermodel walking into a beach club. Heads turn. Conversations stop. Everyone notices. And for the first couple of days, you completely understand why. This is an exceptionally handsome hotel. It occupies a glorious position above the sea, with views so perfectly framed they look less like scenery and more…
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Maistrali – A Lesson in Human Behaviour (and Overcooked Chicken)
I always feel sorry for restaurants in resort towns. Imagine the predicament. Every evening a river of holidaymakers shuffles past your front door, peering at menus laminated sometime during the Ottoman Empire, trying to decide between five or six almost identical tavernas. The food is probably broadly the same, the prices broadly the same, and…
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Mercure Oxford Eastgate Hotel: A Properly Oxford Place to Stay
Some hotels just get where they are. You know the sort: they don’t try to be something else, or to reinvent the wheel, or to pretend Oxford is in Dubai. The Mercure Oxford Eastgate is one of those rare spots that understands its brief perfectly: be Oxford, stay Oxford, breathe Oxford. And it does. You…
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The Talkhouse: Thank God This Pub Still Exists
Thank God places like this still exist. Honestly. Before I’d even parked the car, I could feel my blood pressure dropping. A thatched roof straight out of an Enid Blyton daydream, crooked old beams that probably remember the Civil War, an open fire crackling away as though it’s been waiting centuries just to toast your…
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Queens Lane Coffee House – Probably Quite Old.
I love it when venues claim to be the biggest, the best, or my personal favourite the oldest. It’s such a gloriously unverifiable boast. No one’s really going to cross-reference parish records or trawl through 17th-century shipping manifests to check whether your “since 1654” claim is true. And even if they did, what are they…
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