Tag: 5*****
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W Hong Kong: Reception on the Sixth Floor, Energy Through the Roof
Right, so here we are then, in Hong Kong, a city that is less a place and more a bloody organism. It doesn’t sleep, it doesn’t yawn, it doesn’t even pause to scratch itself. It just goes. Ceaselessly. A thrum, a vibration, a caffeinated whirring of humanity that makes New York look like it’s having…
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The Kensington, Cotham – A Local Worth Falling For (Even If It Let Me Down a Bit)
I love this place. There, I said it. I love this place. The Kensington in Cotham is the sort of pub you rarely find outside London these days — and even in London they’re being squeezed out faster than a pint in Soho on a Friday. It’s the holy grail of neighbourhood spots: a proper…
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Vivat Bacchus, Farringdon – A Lunch Upgrade Worth Logging Back Into Teams For
There’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
You 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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GoCar Barcelona: The Best Bloody Sightseeing Tour I’ve Ever Done
I’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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Ridgeview Wine Estate: Sticking it to the French, One Bubbly at a Time
There’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
Sometimes 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
So 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
The 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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Gohan Dubai – Japanese Joy with a Side of Marital Discord
It came to my attention—because everything comes to my attention, particularly if it relates to food or travel or the steady erosion of my sanity—that in the ritualistic nightly conversation of “Where shall we go for dinner?”, there exists a subtle, psychological warfare between myself and the current Mrs Travel Critic (aka my long-suffering wife…
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The Travel Critic 