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You say macaroni, I say Squacquerone. Ciao to one of Italy’s best kept secrets

One of the delights of our recent trip to Bologna was emerging from our apartment one Sunday morning in search of coffee to find a buzzing organic market on our doorstep. Just 12 hours earlier the Piazza Aldrovandi  had been swarming with carousing students; now it was celebrating the equally vibrant food culture of the Emilia Romagna region.

On a dairy stall we encountered a tub of Squacquerone. Surely this was the tangy soft cheese layered with prosciutto di parma and arugula (rocket) on the piadina flatbread we had snacked on in the Quadrilatero gastronomic quarter? A purchase and post-coffee tasting confirmed it.

Squacquerone di Romagna is a wobblier more spreadable version of the Lombard soft cheese stracchino, matured for a maximum four days, often less. 

It has PDO status, exclusively produced in a well defined area between the Ravenna, Cesena, Rimini, Bologna and Ferrara provinces, and between 64 Porrettana trunk road and Po river. Four cattle breeds, including Frisona Italiana (Friesian) provide the rich milk, the native lactic enzymes joined by natural whey starter, veal rennet and salt. Result: the final product, shaped by the molds, it is poured into, is slightly sourish from brining, but also delicately herbaceous. 

Under my radar till Bologna and I’m now trying to source it in the UK. Perhaps like the Lambrusco wine that accompanies it som well, it doesn’t travel well.

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How Vilnius paints the town pink, while I try to scrub beetroot out of my chinos

Summer – time for chilled soup? Not same old Gazpacho or Vichyssoise, mind. Both of which I can at least pronounce. Unlike Šaltibarščiai, Lithuania’s legendary ‘Pink Soup’, whose annual festival drew a record 176,000 visitors to the capital Vilnius the other weekend. I wish I could have joined them. Maybe next year. Meanwhile I’m making my own. Simple recipe later.

Basically it’s a Borsch, the bright hue coming from its beetroot base. Other Baltic and Slavic states boast their own takes on such a refreshing chilled potage. The Poles call it Barszcz or Chlodnik, the Russians Svekolnik (the Ukrainians don’t).

Borscht, the hot variety I conjure up through the year, benefits from a rich meat stock, whereas Šaltibarščiai folds diced beetroot, spring onions and cucumber into Kefir, that fermented milk drInk created by lactic acid bacteria and yeasts that thrive at room temperature. Yes, it’s probiotic and good for your gut.

Ever since I witnessed the great Jonathan Meades – in one of his Magnetic North BBC documentaries – visit the Hill of 100,000 Crosses in the north of Lithuania, a  pilgrimage site and symbol of resistance against Russian occupation. I’ve been hooked on its history. The country’s pagan heritage, too. Known as “Europe’s last pagan kingdom,” Lithuania was the last nation in Europe to officially convert to Christianity in 1387.

Surprisingly Vilnius offers a riot of ‘wedding cake’ Baroque churches, which every late May play second fiddle to a mass of folk in bright pink costume slurping ice-cold soup

This year around 35,000 visitors from abroad were able to participate in the Pink Parade held on water, the signature costume competition, a giant four-storey tall pink slide, and culinary interpretations spread throughout the city. The sheer scale was reflected in 355 mapped locations offering šaltibarščiai-themed food, activities and events, culminating in the Best Pink Soup Costume Contest. The ‘traditional egg topping’ is on my garb bucket list.

Food trucks stationed around the White Bridge epicentre of the Pink Soup Festiavl used more than 4 tonnes of kefir, which was the main ingredient for almost 6.5 tonnes of šaltibarščiai devoured across the weekend. 

Nearly 16,000 people dressed in pink took part in the 10.5 km IKI Pink Soup Walking Competition across the city alongside more than 600 pets. Later, participants exchanged their steps for almost 50,000 fruits, and other ingredients used to make Lithuania’s iconic cold soup, including 4,000 cucumbers, 2,000 beets, and 4,000 bundles of dill.

• The 2027 edition of Vilnius Pink Soup Fest, the fifth, will take place on May 28–30, returning to its traditional last-weekend-of-May slot, and symbolising the beginning of summer season in Lithuania.

How to make Lithuanian Šaltibarščiai

first of all I consulted my Baltic food bible, Amber and Rye (Murdoch Books, £25) by Zuza Zak.She refines the recipe by creating an add-on fermented beetroot elixir, which I might use another time but had no patience to wait the five days it would take to bubble up. So here’s a simpler take on this classic dish that I Googled…

It supposedly serves four, but is ample for six. Spoiler alert: be careful with your colourful beet dicing. I splattered my chinos.

Ingredients

1kg kefir

200g beets, boiled or marinated

200g fresh cucumbers

six spring onions chopped

a pinch of fresh dill

2 eggs

salt, to taste

For serving

400g potatoes, boiled

dill, chopped, to taste

Method

Finely chop the vegetables and dill. Mix them all in a large bowl. Pour the kefir over the vegetables, flavour with salt according to taste, mix and let stand for several minutes (the longer the mixed vegetables stand, the tastier it will turn out).

Pour the soup into bowls, cut the boiled egg in pieces into the bowls. The cold soup is served with dill-speckled hot boiled potatoes on the side.

 

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Bella Bologna is pasta and mortadella centrale… yet a whole lot more

It was the unlikeliest bonding in cinema history. Danny de Vito and Arnold Schwarzenegger teaming up as Twins in the 1988 movie. It ought to have been boloney, but retains an easily digestible charm. Unlike the US sausage of that name that is a pallid, industrial copy of true Bologna sausage – the sacred Mortadella.

Bologna, of course, is Mortadella Centrale, Italy’s food capital. Inside the trattoria, Drogheria della Rosa, it appears I am  in the realm of Hollywood legends, too. Read the clippings. Drogheria devotee Arnie’s tip-off led to dinner visits from Danny and later Francis Ford Coppola.

But this converted pharmacy is no obvious celeb haunt. Indeed founder Emanuele Addone (above) takes centre stage. His “You’ll enjoy this  Montepulciano d’Abruzzo with your osso buco and vitello tonnato” is an offer we can’t refuse. Still, this is a benign Godfather. The whole experience radiates warmth. Under Emanuele’s twinkly but watchful eye service for our dinner is super-efficient. It all belies the cluttered, offbeat setting, featuring shelves of the original apothecary’s bottles.

It’s the pasta rolling show
I confront a local vegan

The menu feels a step away from the rigid Cucina Bolognese template that dominates around the Piazza Maggiore and deep into the heart of the city’s gastronomic quarter, the Quadrilatero. 

Not that you’re likely to be disappointed by the pasta on offer in most places. It’s a spectator sport to see the sheets being rolled out in pasta shop windows. Just don’t expect spaghetti with your bolognese ragu. They are strict about pairings; it has to be fresh tagliatelle, which holds the sauce better. 

Lasagne at Trattoria da Me
Tortellini at the Drogheria

Even more seriously, there is specific legislation about the dimensions of each pasta type and we discovered tradition demands (mostly ignored) that the Emilia Romagne classic lasagne be only served on Sunday.

At the Drogheria my pasta course  was the archetypal Tortellini in Brodo, where hand-rolled tiny pasta parcels are simmered and served in a clear chicken and beef broth. The best fillings combine pork loin, prosciutto, mortadella, and Parmesan. 

Make your mind up about the legend behind its creation. After a battle the gods Jupiter and Venus retired to a country inn between Bologna and Modena (where balsamic vinegar comes from). The innkeeper spied on the goddess of love through a keyhole. All he could see was her navel. In his infatuation, he sculpted a pasta replica.

Bring your own food to Osteria Sole
A classic piadina

Confession, I prefer the larger Tortelloni encasing perhaps spinach or pumpkin. The Montepulciano, by the way, was an inspired accompaniment at just 25 euros.

Earlier in the day, whisked in by the monorail from the airport, we had undergone everyone’ds Bologna wine initiation – a visit to the Osteria del Sole in the Quadrilatero. The selling point of this 15th century tavern haven on the Vicolo del Ranocchi is good affordable vino to wash down food you can bring in without charge. It certainly hides its light sotto un moggio (under a bushel); twice we had walked past. Saturday lunchtime, so it was heaving.

To share we took the Emila Romagna region’s favourite flatbread, piadina, packed with prosciutto di parma, the soft cheese squacquerone and arugula (rocket), and sank tumblers of local Lambrusco and Pignoletto, each lightly frizzante.

Sunny abundance of the Erbe
But cuttlefish cast their shadow

Around the corner you’ll find the Mercato di Mezzo (the Middle Market), which dates back to the Middle Ages and was transformed into the city’s first covered market after Italian Unification. These days it operates as an eating-in exhibition space.

I much preferred the less touristy Mercato delle Erbe along the Via Ugo Bassi, which lives up to the greenery in its name. Altro is its own collection of eateries, the pick of which is Banco 32, a vibrant seafood bar attached to that rare Bologna animal (sic) a fishmonger. 

Banco 32 – great spot for fish
Sicilian-inspired gilthead fish rolls

Still Bologna’s best known food stores are in the Quadrilatero and charcuterie and cheese rule the roost. Swanky Tamburini, with its own cafe, is the most high profile, but Salumeria Simoni is certainly the mortadella mecca, even hosting its own food tours to explain the superiority of mortadella tradizione.

Ham array at Tamburini
Cheese feast in the Mercato delle Erbe

Yes, even the Italians can pass off sub-standard, Spamlike versions. At its best it lives up to the 16th century version documented by Bartolomeo Scappi, personal chef to Pope Pius V, and writer of groundbreaking cookbook Opera. His mortadella method involved finely chopping lean pork and fat with two knives rather than grinding, and seasoning subtly with spices to create a delicate, cooked sausage, wrapped in caul. Pale pink, it should be laced with bright gleaming spots of fat.

No wonder one of the nicknames for Bologna is La Grassa (The Fat). The others are La Rossa, for both its communist leanings and terracotta red rooftops, and La Dotta or The Learned because the city’s university is the oldest in the Western world.

Porticoes are ubiquitous
The Piazza San Stefano

The need to house the students led to the expansion of residential space and so the construction of the 40km of porticoes in the city centre alone. It rained on and off during or stay, so were were more than grateful for these distinctive covered walkways.

The are particularly attractive around the angular Piazzo Santo Stefano, home to my number one must-see in Bologna – the labyrinthine complex of medieval churches, cloisters and crypts named after that saint. It originally consisted of seven churches. Four remain and they are the very definition of ‘hallowed spot”. It’s such a contrast contrast to the monumental Cattedrale di San Pietro and Basicilica di San Petronio. In Pilate’s Courtyard, see if you can spot in its alcove the 16th century ‘Crowing Rooster of St Peter’.

You have to earn the right to …
… reach the Santuario

Once you’ve got the taste for porticoes, it’s worth making the pilgrimage to the 18th century Santuario della Madonna di San Luca, a pink Baroque basilica on a hill top 10km south west of the city. It is a fair walk out before you test your calves ascending the world’s longest portico – 3.8km uphill all the way under 660 Unesco-protected arches. If you’re not up to it, there is a little tourist train. You’ll be met by a grand view across the city to the distant Apennines. 

Our reward for our own strenuous  efforts was a late Sunday lunch back in town at the Trattoria da Me. Michelin-mentioned, with a new generation in the kitchen, its food is decidedly more contemporary, but it still honours lasagne as a Sabbath special. So that was our starter and its light layers and textures were a revelation.

The cool Trattoria da Me
Even cooler – Forno Brisa

En route from Santuario, we had stopped off for an IPA at another beacon of new wave Bologna. Self-styled ‘independent and rebel bakery’ Forno Brisa, has five outlets, offering their own sourdough, cutting edge coffee and a very un-Bolognalike vibe. Ditto Il Punto, the city’s best birra artigianali pub. Excellent craft pours in a heavy rock ambience, five minutes walk from the Trattoria da Me. You have to venture further out to sample the wood-aged wild ales and sours at the Ca’ del Brado taproom.

Ragu and Draft operate at street level
Worship cocktais at Le Stanze

We were staying on the fringe of the beautiful Piazza Aldrovandi, just beyond the night-time hubbub of this cluster of al fresco bars and street food. Buzziest spot, another crack in the bulwark of trad Bologna, the Ragū & Draft kiosk, combining the city’s signature meat sauce in buns or on tagliatelle with draught cocktails. Walk north from here up the Via Giuseppe Petroni and in 10 minutes you’ll experience a very different cocktail setting. At aperitivo hour where better to sip your negroni than  Le Stanze, inside the vaulted former chapel of the Palazzo Bentivoglio? Pull up a bar stool against a backdrop of faded 17th frescoes.

Unmissable Cinema Modernissimo
A homage to movie greats

In complete contrast is the bar of the art house Cinema Modernissmo. Originally  it was an underground theatre of a medieval palace that was demolished in the early 20th century. The cinema it became finally closed in 2007, but with the backing of Martin Scorsese reopened three years ago and it is a glorious city centre bolthole. After exploring a free exhibition on the great French director Agnes Varda we each sipped a sbagliatio. One plus of viewing a film (a portion of which are in English with Italian subtitles) are the food boxes, which could include tortellini – naturally.

The two towers
Neptune in the Piazza Maggiore main square

Step outside onto the Via Rizzoli and turn your head right. Ahead of you lie the Asinelli and Garisenda towers, currently closed to the public, but enduring symbols of this city full of surprises. 

La Grassa, La Rossa, La Dotta, Las Sorpresa.

 

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My Italian food trail – the ancient Umbrian ‘pea’ Roveja

Pottage is a lovely word, summoning up a comfort dish to ward off the bleak  February chill. Maybe one caveat re this perennial thick stew comes from the Danish proverb: “One ill weed mars a whole pot of pottage.” Reassuringly, winter is not conducive to foraging, so usual suspects spinach, carrots and courgettes have been chosen to flesh out this Pottage of Roveja. Plus a Swiss-Italian buckwheat ribbon pasta called Pizzoccheri, which I first encountered last year on a visit to the Poschiavo Valley.

As I open my 250g pack of Roveja, an ancient pea variety, cultivated almost exclusively and on a tiny scale in the Umbrian mountains, south of Perugia, I am struck by its lentilness in the round. Dark green to brown, it fits that legume bill, but will need a lot longer soaking – 24 hours and more. Is it the ancestor of the modern pea or a separate species? The jury’s out. I just know that simmering if for a few hours produces a beguiling, earthy stock for the soup/stew.

It’s a debut in my kitchen for one of nature’s great survivors, brought back from near extinction after being spotted growing feral in a ditch. Imported from the Middle East in Neolithic times, Rovejab goes goes under varied names across Italy – notavly pisello selvatico or pisello dei campi o robiglio, roveggia, roveglia or corbello.  Its niche resurgence is down to being adopted in 2006 by the Slow Food Presidium, champions of small traditional producers.

They don’t come much more traditional than the good folk around Civita di Cascia  and Valnerina in the Sibillini Mountains.  All cultivating, weeding and harvesting is done by hand. Nutritional scientists laud it as a legume rich in fibre, proteins, phosphorus, potassium and vitamin B1, yet free from fats and gluten. 

Once it was a staple in the diet of herders and farmers. The beans are grown at altitudes between 600 and 1,200m, planted in March and harvested in the middle of the summer, to be dried out for all-year consumption. Harvesting is a laborious challenge. Combine harvesters can’t be used because the long stalks lie flat on the earth, so the plants must still be scythed manually. 

Besides soups, Roveja can make a fine side, flavoured with crisped guanciale and grated pecorino. Very Italian, then grains can also be ground into flour to make a polenta typically seasoned with anchovies, garlic and olive oil. 

I was happy with the pottage l made from the dried dried peas sourced from my favourite Italian supplier, the Ham and Cheese Company of Bermondsey.

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It’s a Zin! But what version of this enigmatic Californian red will turn up?

1976. Up in Dry Creek Valley, Zinfandel heartland of Sonoma County, Joel Peterson was picking for his first solo foray into crafting that stalwart Californian red. A lightning storm drenched the 29-year-old amateur winemaker as he hoisted 50lb tubs of grapes into his truck while two ravens harassed him from a nearby tree. And thereby hangs an epiphany. 

Let Zinfandel chronicler David Darlington take up the story in his Angels’ Visits (1991): “At the time Joel was reading Sir Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermuir, a gothic novel whose hero, Lord Ravenswood, falls off a bridge and drowns in quicksand while coming to the rescue of his sweetheart.

“Under the circumstances it seemed to Joel that such a plot might also describe the start of a small winery. As he drove away… the setting sun squeezed beneath the clouds, igniting the landscape a surreal orange and painting two rainbows on the charcoal sky. In Joel’s mind Sir Walter Scott receded and Native Americans appeared as he recalled an Indian legend wherein man is discovered in a pod, and is instructed in the arts of survival by a raven.”

Colonel Haraszthy – crocodile bait?
Zinfandel is so thin-skinned

Ravenswood – Gothic birth of an iconic producer

Joel Peterson is a great survivor himself. The gestation of his Ravenswood brand might sound fuelled by waccy backy – this was seventies California after all – but Joel’s ‘drug of choice’ was always a certain heady, tannic red made from the State’s bedrock grape. Zinfandel is a thin-skinned, small grape which means less skin-to-juice ratio, so potentially higher tannins. It is also  notorious for uneven ripening, so bunches have to be left on the vine to ripen fully. This leads to high sugar in the berries, which makes for high-alcohol wines. Hence a now discredited trend for late harvest Zins, dry and sweet.

Peterson never went down that route. 600 cases were made from that initial harvest. After which he became a gypsy winemaker around the area until he eventually could create a winery of his own. His pride and joy were the single vineyard Zins he made, lauded by the likes of Robert Parker. The plan was for small open top, redwood fermenters, hand punch downs, extended macerations, native yeast, gentle transfer, minimal processing and small French oak aging – all done by hand. European with a Californian twist.

But he admits in the book that their ‘Chateau Cash Flow’ was the generic Ravenswood Vintners Blend, the cheaper early release version. Launched in 1983, annual production neared one million cases, at one point, making it the world’s  bestselling red Zinfandel. You’d find it in Morrisons and Tesco, maybe still can.  Dwarfed, though, by the big guns who dug a gold mine in creating White Zinfandel Blush. But that’s a whole other story.

Ravenswood itself was engulfed by drinks behemoths. first Constellation Brands and then on to Gallo (California-based, it’s the largest wine producer by volume on the planet). Ravenswood then went into limbo and Peterson founded a new boutique winery, Once & Future, to recapture the magic of Zinfandel, and his son, Morgan Twain-Peterson, became a Master of Wine with his own highly regarded winery, Bedrock Wine Co.

Food-friendly Once & Future
Ridge Zins come under many labels

Serendipity that led me back to top-end Zinfandel

So is it a case of the Zinfandel Empire fights back? Ironically Gallo have resurrected Ravenswood as a fine Zinfandel with an initial annual production of 6,000 cases with Peterson as consultant. For his own project he remains an inveterate searcher out of off-the-radar old vine parcels. Hence the Wine Society bottle I’m about to sample. This latest example of their flagship ‘Exhibition’ range is the result of an abundant 2024 vintage leaving Peterson with more Zinfandel than usual. 

This bespoke blend lives up to its Society tasting notes: “With an average vine age of over 80 years, this full-flavoured, vibrant Zinfandel has a rich cherry, plum and blackberry perfume, bright acidity with rich soft tannins, and an evolving long finish. Made in small open top fermenters, and aged in about 10 per cent new oak the resulting wine has great balance and generosity.”

So quite a step up from the Vintners Blend. Beautifully balanced, it still weighs in at nearly 15 per cent ABV, but it wears the alcohol lightly. It proved a perfect accompaniment to a hot game pie. Serendipity? The special offer (£16) came into my e-mail box just the day after Angels’ Visits dropped through the letter box. I’d bought the book on a whim after it was extolled in the Substack of one of my favourite wine writers. Anyone who shares a podcast (Intoxicating History) with Tom Parker Bowles must be posh but Henry Jeffreys is a sharp and streetwise advocate of all things grape.

Joel Peterson in the vat
Paul Draper in the vineyard

Grape rivals – Ridge Vineyards versus Ravenswood

I was captivated by Angels’ Visits because it tells stories of individual, very individual, Californian winemakers who have championed the Big Zin since the Sixties… and their vastly contrasting wine styles.. Essentially, though, it centres on Peterson’s Ravenswood and arch rivals, in the Santa Cruz Mountains (main picture) south of San Francisco, Ridge Vineyards. Their Zinfandels under well-travelled philosopher winemaker Paul Ridge aimed for a Bordeaux-style elegance over power. Matching its signature wine, the Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon. Draper, who turns 90 in March, has long been Emeritus.but his cerebral approach remains under the hands-off ownership of a Japanese pharmaceutical giant.

Last year I tasted half a dozen Ridge wines at a Berkmann Cellars trade event in Manchester – Zinfandels from their Lytton Springs and Geyserville particularly captivating, if just a mite polite. Angels’ Visits author Darlington does stray into  Jungian parlance of Apollo versus Dionysus. I see where he is coming from. His historical research into how Zinfandel wound up in the Golden State is more plodding. The jury really is out on whether it is the same grape as  – or a close relative of – the similarly thick-skinned Primitivo of Puglia in Italy.

He does debunk the once accepted theory that it came from Hungary or Croatia  via the colourful founder of Buena Vista winery, California’s first, dating back to 1857. Colonel Agoston Haraszthy’s portrait still hangs in their Sonoma base. The grape was also, quite boringly, believed to have originally been a table grape in New England.

When Haraszthy went bust he hopped off to Nicaragua to make spirits from sugar and met a bizarre end. Over to Angels’ Visits again: “On July 6. 1869 he went to meet a business associate on the banks of a Nicaraguan river. He never returned. His footprints were found leading to a tree whose limbs reached across the river: 

one of th/e branches, broken off in the middle, was presumed to have snapped as Haraszthy tried to cross on it.

“A few days earlier at the same spot a crocodile  had killed a cow, and to this day Agoston Haraszthy is assumed to have followed the unlucky bovine into the jaws of oblivion.”

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A slice of my sweet, sweet sausage? You’ll be tasting a very Catalan dish

Christmas morning and my main present is an electric meat grinder with sausage-making attachments. It has me salivating, but there’s a bronze turkey to be roasted, Gran Reserva Rioja to be uncorked and, among other parlour games, The King’s Speech to be avoided, so road-testing my gadget just has to wait.

Not for long, mind. Before 2026 with its many scary portents clocks in I will have produced some exemplary Merguez sausages using natural casings and lamb shoulder bought locally and the finest Tunisian harissa to be sourced in the UK. 

A surprising triumph, but now I’ve now assembled the ingredients to tackle making a more divisive banger. Will I have the nerve to recreate a Catalan speciality I first tasted in Girona? The Botifarra Dolça is a sausage but not as we know it. First up, it is disconcertingly sweet. Down to the presence of sugar and cinnamon in the pork filling. Fittingly, it is offered to me with a slice of caramelised apple from a stall in the city’s El Mercat del Lleó. 

I had been expecting to sample the other, savoury, versions of this Catalan rival to Spain’s ubiquitous chorizo, differing primarily through the absence of pimenton. The basic Botifarra Blanca is a coarse textured, white sausage, seasoned with salt and pepper, sometimes enriched with egg, the Negra a blood sausage and the Botifarra de Perol contains offal. But I get the Dolça. It tastes like a combination of mince pie and pork pie. A Marmite moment? Maybe.

A pack of Botifarra Dolça
El Mercat del Lleó is great for carnivores

My sugar rush along the streets of Girona

As it turns out, it is the sweetest local speciality I encounter during  a morning’s sugar rush courtesy of my Girona Food Tour. It started with my introduction to the Xiuxo. It’s the Catalan cousin of the churro but more luscious – a deep-fried, sugar-coated, viennoiserie cylinder filled with crema catalana (custard). It dates back to the 1920s and the Casamoner bakery chain is a good place to sample it.

Across the Carrer de Santa Clara there’s further sweet temptation from the Rocambolesc Gelateria. Think an ice cream-led spin-off of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, harvesting the creativity of a three Michelin star pastry chef. 

Hugely popular, it launched over a decade ago at the time when founder Joan Roca and his elder brothers Jordi and Josep saw their En Celler San Roca twice named World’s Best Restaurant. Quite a contrast Rocambolesc’s cartoonish backdrop for a riotous assembly of toppings for their soft-serve ices. Despite the day-glo all ingredients are natural. The fun element ramps up with the popsicles, where 3D moulds are used to make fantastical creations. Who fancies a polo (popsicle), made from strawberries and rosewater and shaped like Jordi Roca’s nose?

Girona’s wonderful riverscape
Surreal ice cream shop

Origins of the Botifarra Dolça and what to do with it?

20th century Catalan writer Josep Pla ascribed the Botifarra Dolça’s origins to the medieval monasteries, which makes more sense than linking such a pork-based product to flavours associated with the Muslim Conquest (Girona is home to beautifully preserved Arab Baths). 

What we can be sure is there few cultures more inventive in their sausage production. In his magisterial Catalan Cuisine: Europe’s Last Great Culinary Secret (Grub Street, 1997) Colman Andrews identifies 17 officially recognised varieties. 

Traditionally they were made in farmhouses in the pig-slaughtering season before winter, now the commercial varieties are available all year round. 

The straight Bottifara is the one you find grilled with white beans or wild mushrooms, useful too as a stuffing. The sweet version offers more of a challenge, usually being served off-puttingly as dessert. When raw it is bright pink; when left to dry it is a pinkish grey. Grill them, fry them, combine with apple.

The Empordà wine region, north of Girona and inland from the Costa Brava, is particularly proud of its food specialities, awarding them the Productes de Empordà seal of approval. There alongside Palamos prawns, Pals rice, and the ricotta

cheese from Fonteta sits the sweet Botifarra.

The Dolça with caramelised apple
My mincer and Merguez ingredients

Will my Yorkshire Botifarra Dolça live up to such billing? Will I really get the taste? Will my dinner party guests, surprised by their sausage surprise dessert?

The recipe I’ve lifted from the ‘Provincial Guild of Charcuteros and Butchers of Girona’ uses 2.5ks of pork, 2kg (yes, 2kg) of white sugar, the rind of 2.5 l3mons, 25g of salt and and and 3g of cinnamon.

What is worrying me is this instruction: “This mixture must rest between seven and 15 days. If it were directly placed in the gut at the end it would explode due to the volume increase that occurs when the meat releases water and absorbs the sugar.” 

Watch this space!

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Hot lemons! Lonely Planet’s ready Med answer to those January blues

Baltic, Gothic, Brothers Grimm, Hanseatic League, pagan forests, schnapps and herring – I have increasingly bought into Jonathan Meades’ championing of what he called the Magnetic North in his 2008 BBC documentary with that title. This spring I’ll be off to Utrecht and Lübeck – and hopefully my beloved Berlin – to further consecrate my soul to Northern Europe.

Meades’ brilliant two-parter was a defiant debunking of our British obsession with its polar opposite, the Mediterranean: “The South; we all want to be there. It’s an ideal that draws us to it. It’s a mythical place …The south causes the North to suffer a collective delusion about itself, we deny our Northern-ness. We deny it to such an extent we’re unfamiliar with those countries which share our climate.”

Provencal markets are veg heaven
The fish displays are equally rich

His splenetic case against the Med was amplified when he included the full text in his selected essays, Pedro and Ricky Come Again (Unbound, £30). 

“To Britons today the south is exuberant vines, guiltless hedonism, excitable olives, the immemorial ruins of immemorial civilisations, primary-coloured emotions. It’s a promised land. We vertically tan in order to look southern – oranges do come from the south, from Valencia and Seville. And, of course, an orange patina covers up blue skin when you’re wearing next to nothing in snowbound Newcastle because you believe you’re still in Ibiza. Or wherever.

“British architects are forever going on about remaking run-down Pennine towns as Tuscan hill villages. Barnsley is really San Gimignano. Todmorden is uncannily akin to Pienza.”

Todmorden – not so Tuscan
Pienza living the dream

I take his ironic point as I consider this in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, my home town for 40 years (and never likely to match Pienza’s UNESCO World Heritage status). Still we have miraculously avoided snow bombs and 99mph winds to rock up on a January Monday morning that is undramatically penumbral and drenching. 

In front of me is The Mediterranean (£37.50 from any good bookshop or via this link), a siren call tempting me to Meades apostasy. A coffee table extravaganza whose 250 beautifully illustrated pages explore the “stories and secrets of the Mediterranean Coast”. 

The Costa Brava is classic Med
Ischia is one of my favourite islands

At my elbow I have a “beaker full of the Warm South”, a glass of Xinomavro red from near Thessaloniki – one of the Lonely Planet’s top seven off-the-beaten-track destinations in this new publication. Here is my own verdict on Greece’s second city , praised by Lonely Planet for its “bar hopping culture and gastronomy rivalling any in the Med.” 

The Vieux Port in Marseille
Thessaloniki after dark

The other cities in focus include marvellous Med melting pots that have higher profiles – Marseille (where the contradictory Meades himself now lives) and Napoli. My digital report on the city of Maradona, Margherita and Vesuvius has vanished into the ether, but for me offshore Ischia (and its wonderful lemons – main picture) was the kind of island surprise that features heavily in this book. Which bizarrely neglects this setting for The Talented Mr Ripley – shame on them.

Taking the plunge in Cefalu, Sicily
…and on Ischia

So what exactly is Lonely Planet celebrating?

Not all the obvious over-touristed destinations and when it does feature them it is keen to stray off the beaten track, enlisting a cast of local chefs, architects, curators and craftspeople – to “share their secrets” of 30 different cities. The  scope is ambitious, so surface scraping is inevitable, but it had this much-travelled reviewer jotting down a bucket list. Put me down for an abundance of lemons, olives and wine.

Who knows? In 2026 or 2027 I might find myself in another of the ‘magnificent seven’, Brač off the coast of Croatia. relaxing by the Adriatic on the stunning Zlatni Rat beach, or hiking to Vidova Gora, the highest point in the Adriatic islands. If city breaks aren’t your focusThe Mediterranean also suggest 15 weekend-long road trip itineraries.

In these difficult times globally it is good to be reminded of the wonders of intelligent, independent travelling. When the Med has so much to offer who needs the hassle of Trump’s hostile American borders? I for one won’t be renewing my Esta any time soon.

• All the images are my own (apart from Thessaloniki), not from the book

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East Neuk is unique – that’s why I’m dreaming of a Fife Christmas

Always, always, ‘Next Christmas we’re going to celebrate beyond the confines of home, that’s the plan.” And always we dust off the tree, have a heritage turkey (or goose) delivered to the door and I somehow defy frazzling in a long kitchen stint, where I inevitably overcook the roasties… etcetera.

A family commitment for the ages, it won’t be any different this year. Toasts will be raised to missing friends and a special one to Captain Smidge, the gourmet chihuahua, who left us in June 2023. We finally scattered his ashes on his favourite stretch of path above the Colden Valley on my wife’s birthday last summer (Champagne was involved). 

He was always a Christmas dog (yet not just for Christmas). For various festive therapy reasons he suffered being dressed up as Santa or an elf, but we placated  him with chunks of his favourite partridge or pheasant. One Boxing Day on our head-clearing amble to Hebden Bridge a daft whippet off the leash bundled him into the canal. He enjoyed drying off in the pub and being made much of by strangers. He made friends easily.

Which brings us to the East Neuk of Fife. Smidge never made it there. It was made for him. Our stay on that stretch of the Scottish coast was to be the perfect dog-friendly travel writing assignment. Then 10 days before, his 16-year-old heart gave out. We went ahead with our glamping booking outside beautiful Crail with his beautiful ghost by our side over four blazing June days. 

It enabled us to make the most of the Fife Coastal Path, but we wished he could have scuttled by our side. Our favourite spot (main picture, above) was the tip of Ruby Bay – home to the impossibly romantic legend of naked bather Lady Janet Anstruther. Full story to follow!

There’s still much of the 117 mile path to tackle. Now that’s an incentive to return. 

A December up there will inevitably be different. The latest plan, is to celebrate Christmas 2026 in a sea view cottage I’ve got my eye on. In Crail, jewel in this necklace of colourful fishing villages strung along the North Sea coast below St Andrew’s. King James II of Scotland described them as “a fringe of gold on a beggar’s mantle”.

Ideally there would be a log fire… and a couple of local lobsters and South African Chenin Blanc in the fridge. And, of course, the Captain’s spirit will be vividly with us. Ghost of Christmas Always Present (without the costume, I promise, Smidgey). 

Just 10 miles separates Elie (closest town to Ruby Bay) in the south to Crail in the north with buses every hour if you want to walk some of the loveliest stretches of the Coastal Path without doubling back on yourself. Let me introduce you to Crail, Cellardyke and Anstruther, St Monans and Elie/Earlsferry…

A quest for the wholly Crail

This is golfing country. The two courses at the tip of Fife Ness belonging to the Crail Golfing Society, seventh oldest club in the world. It was founded in 1786 by 11 solid citizens in the Crail Golf Hotel, still there on High Street, offering a fine example of the town’s predominant 17th century architectural style, crow-stepped gables, often whitewashed. These, pantiled roofs and mature tree-lined avenues lend a very continental feel to the place. Given a royal charter by Robert the Bruce in 1310, Crail was an important medieval trading post, despatching cargoes of coal, textiles and salted herring to the Low Countries. 

Gaze up at the weathervane above Crail Tolbooth’s Dutch tower and instead of the customary cockerel you’ll find the shape of a ‘Crail capon’. These were haddock smoked traditionally in a chimney ‘lum’. There’s an auld Scot expression “lang may yer lum reek” (long may your chimney burn), wishing you long life. 

Wander down to the sheltered harbour along cobbled streets, taking in the colourful courtyard of Crail Pottery. Or approach via Castle Walk, which gives you the best photo opportunity. At weekends in season Reilly Shellfish Shack will sell you freshly landed and cooked crab and lobster.

Crail Harbour
Goodbye Crail en route to Anstruther

Ancient Cellardyke and newbie Anstruther

A storm at the end of the19th century trashed atmospheric Cellardyke’s own harbour, so the herring fleet shifted down to adjacent Anstruther (pronounced Anster). Today the bobbing boats are mostly pleasure craft and there are two terrific tourist magnets. The Scottish Fishing Museum is a hugely informative portal into a life at sea that even today is fraught with peril  We took coffee in its smart cafe as we awaited our morning Sea Safari with Isle of May Boat Trips.  

From £30 a head you get a one hour 15 minute seaborne circuit of this National Nature Reserve, six miles out in the Firth of Forth, with informed commentary from the skipper. The craft, a rigid inflatable, holds 12 and hits some impressive speeds to add a thrill element, but the real reason to visit May is the wildlife. It has a history involving monks, vikings, smugglers and a lighthouse built by Robert Louis Stevenson’s dad, but all play second fiddle when, as we did, you come upon basking seals, a cormorant colony and cliffs teeming with guillemots, terns, razorbills and the uncommon black-backed gull. 

Star of the show, though, has to be the puffin (one collective name an ‘improbabilty’). These colourful, comical birds arrive on the Isle in April and depart by the end of summer; we caught them at their zenith, surfing the choppy waves then upturning into the deep in search of sand eels and the like. In the distance a real bonus – a minke whale briefly cresting the waves.

All that fresh sea air and spume had unleashed the inner gannet in us, so after disembarking we piled into the award-winning Anstruther Fish Bar. The battered haddock and chips were as good as it gets – believe the hype. It’s not the only Premier League chippie in town but, as elsewhere, the tradition is under threat. Read Tom Lamont’s quite brilliant East Neuk-centric long read in The Guardian.

Traditional pubs may be struggling too and in truth this isn’t good cask beer territory, but the Fife Gold was in fine, foamy fettle in the secluded garden of The Dreel Tavern, which dates back to the 18th century. As does so much of Pittenweem, next stop on the trek, the last working harbour.

Pittenweem is a quirky delight

St Fillan had his own version of a phone torch. His left arm mysteriously lit up, allowing him  to accomplish his seventh century holy tasks in his cavern tucked into the rock face off Bruce’s Wynd, the steep descent to the harbour. You pay a quid for a key at the Pittenweem Chocolate Company or The Little Gallery on High Street. St Fillan’s Cave is a mite underwhelming like Father Ted’s Holy Stone of Clonrichert, but overall I liked the understated charm of Pittenweem, a great place to putter around. Life beyond fish and chips? Gentrification on the way? The smart harbour front Dory Bistro and Gallery is one of the Good Food Guide’s 100 Best Local Restaurants.

Or if you just fancy a picnic pick up some cheese from the St Andrews Cheese Company from their farm just outside the town. Their Anster cheese is handmade to a traditional recipe using unpasteurised milk from their Friesian Holstein cows.

Pittenweem’s colourful seafront
The cave inside and out

Salt of the earth on the way to St Monans

In the 1790S, salt was Scotland’s third-largest export, after wool and fish. Local coal heated the evaporation pans where sea water was boiled into sea salt. At the end of the mile and a half coastal walk from Pittenweem you encounter the St Monans Windmill, used to pump up the water. Almost ancient history now – the industry was abandoned in 1823. The settlement itself takes its name from a 9th century hermit who landed here and built a cell; later a Dominican monastery sprang up and, tucked into the cliffs above the waves, the Auld Kirk (1256) is among Scotland’s most ancient churches. We were keen to see the famous 18th-century model of a ship suspended from its ceiling, but the great door was locked.

Lobster al fresco…
…from the Smokehouse

The multi-coloured seafront of St Monans proper is very much of today, a perfect seaside retreat. A good place to chill with small plates, coffee and craft beer is the Giddy Gannet, but the real foodie draw is East Pier Smokehouse on the quayside, painted a vivid powder blue. To sit on its top deck terrace with the sea lapping behind you and a large whole lobster to yourself (great value at £50) is crustacean bliss. It comes in a cardboard box with proper chips or potato salad and implements to lever the tastiest bits from crevices. Chef patron James Robb smokes seafood Scandinavian-style in the downstairs kitchen and everything on the menu is desirable, down to the well-chosen wine and beer offering.

Ardross is full of foodie treats
Elie is beach heaven

Elie – here life really is a beach

What saves St Monans from the crowds is the lack of a beach. Ellie makes up for it with its sweeping demerara coloured strand that attracts the affluent weekenders up from Edinburgh. You can appreciate its vastness from the terrace of the excellent Ship Inn. More sheltered is Ruby Bay on the approach. This was where in the 1770s the beautiful Lady Janet Anstruther indulged in naked bathing from Lady’s Tower on the headland (nowadays a gaunt ruin). A bell-ringer paraded through town to warn ’no peeking’ at this wild swimming pioneer. 

‘Good walk spoiled’ and all that, the town and its extension Earlesferry draw in the golfing crowd to two acclaimed courses. My own personal magnets lie on the A917 coming in – all of them foodie, naturally.

First there’s the top quality Ardross Farm Shop (access also from the Coastal Path), then one of Scotland’s best seafood merchants, David Lowrie, on an industrial estate on the fringe of St Monans – it supplies Manchester’s wonderful new Bar Shrimp – and finally the food and culture complex called wryly Bowhouse.

Bowhouse is a vibrant stop-off
Futtles’ organic brew shop

Rising from flat fields, it resembles a gargantuan barn. The small food and drink businesses occupying spring into life mostly from Thursday onwards, though the impressive organic butchery is open from Tuesday. 

On the second weekend of each month Bowhouse hosts a popular market with traders streaming in from across Scotland, but it is also home to regulars such as the Baern Bakery, Scotland the Bread’s flours and much more. Central to the whole project is Futtle organic brewers They run a taproom, vinyl stall, bottle shop for artisan ciders and natural wine, alongside a catalogue of DJs and performers. They also brew unfiltered beer flavoured with foraged seaweed or yarrow and a green hop pale ale from “fresh, Fife-grown organic hops, which went from the bine into the beer on the same day.” Coolest kids on the Neuk? You got it.

Where to have our Christmas feast if the dream comes true

The best place in East Neuk has to be the Kinneuchar Inn, which recently came in at No.2 in the Good Food Guide’s Top 100 Pubs. This whitewashed 7th century hostelry lies a couple of miles north of Elie. Its logo references the local custom of curling on the frozen waters of nearby Loch Kilconquhar. A much better idea is to curl up in the Inn and enjoy chef patron James Ferguson immaculately sourced, daily changing menu. Seafood, as you’d expect, is a star attraction. They are closed  on Christmas Day but this year’s Christmas Eve menu offers the likes of Chargrilled Inshore Squid & Skordalia, Rotisserie Lamb Leg & Tzatziki or Baked Cod & Roast Red Peppers. Who needs turkey? Well, perhaps Captain Smidge might have preferred it.

For full tourism information on the area visit Welcome to Fife.

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My Italian Food Trail: Peposo (don’t stint on the peppercorns)

Scuse, my Peposo is inautentico. It’s the chopped San Marzanos that are the culprits in this. Tomatoes hadn’t made their arrival from the New World when this famous Florentine beef stew first sprang to prominence  in the 15th century, promoted by Renaissance man incarnate Filippo Brunelleschi. This and the tiled dome of the city’s Cathedral are his lasting legacies.

In a week’s cooking schedule that began with the daring spice fusion of two Gurdeep Loyal dishes this Peposo was earmarked as a bowlful of Italian authenticity. And, yes, as I was preparing it UNESCO designated the whole of Italian cuisine as an intangible cultural heritage. 

Such recognition is never likely to address the tangle of Asian Second Generation food strands found across Leicester-born Gurdeep’s two cookbooks. I reviewed the latest, last summer, but it was from his debut, Mother Tongue, that I yoked together Curry Leaf, Lemongrass and Aleppo Pepper Chicken and Sambhar Sweet Potato Hasselbacks with Red Leicester. Neither was what you would call a shy, retiring dish.

Still there seemed to be some distant affinity with the work-in-progress Peposo. The Tuscans are reticent about spicing, just as they eschew salt in their bread, and beloved pasta dish Cacio e Pepe is rather subtle with the the Pepe. Not so Peperoso. Some recipes recommend insane amounts of black peppercorns giving  a real kick to a dish of markedly few ingredients – olive oil, red wine, garlic, salt and stewing beef. Note, no onions or herbs.

Nothing but shin beef will do – discuss

A purchase of two kilos of Belted Galloway shin beef on the bone from Littlewoods of Heaton Chapel was a kind of cart before the horse inspiration. The roasted bones had contributed molten bone marrow – a freezer staple for lubricating home-made burgers in the future – and helped make  a goodly quantity of beef stock, too. The chopped up beef was perfect for the long stewing required for the Peposo. 

It’s a stove-top, pan-off operation where the Chianti (a whole bottle for 800g of meat) evaporates and enriches it. Even richer with the two cans of quality tomatoes, which I stand by.

Two stalwart UK champions of Italian food, Jacob Kenedy (Bocca di Lupo) and the late, great Russell Norman (1965-2023) go big on tomatoes in their versions. I went with Russell’s because his Brutto: A (Simple) Florentine Cookbook (Ebury Press, £32) proved an invaluable companion during last year’s travel-writing expedition to to the city. In particular it introduced me to the challenging street food tripe, Lampredotto for Confidentials. And yes I am now a fan of that braised tripe from the cow’s fourth stomach, doused in salsa verde, on a bun.

You won’t find it on the menu of Norman’s Trattoria Brutto in London’s Smithfield, but Peposo’s usually an option. In the preamble to his recipe (included later) he describes it as “a dish of extremely deep flavours and comforting textures. But it’s not a preparation that can be rushed. You need at least four hours, preferably more, and – as with many Tuscan recipes – it is improved by leaving it overnight. I’d love to be able to say you can use an alternative cut if you can’t get hold of beef shin, but it really must be shin. And you must leave the fat on – do not be tempted to trim. Your butcher will always be able to provide shin, even if your supermarket can’t.

“Additionally, the wine element needs to be appropriately regional. Chianti or even a standard Sangiovese, will provide much better results than a cheap New World Merlot from a petrol station.’

I used Lidl’s standard Chianti Riserva, Corte Alle Mura. Fort £1.50 more they have a  Christmas special on, from the same 2019 vintage, Medici Riccardi for a couple of quid more.

Russell’s version is actually rather modest with its pepper input. As it melted together over the long stew I ground extra peppercorns (Kampot, of course) into it. The result was a tasty marvel, which I first served with Judion beans in a tomato and sage sauce, the next day with a creamy celeriac and apple mash. Accompanying it then, a Fontodi Chianti Riserva (a ste up from Lidl). Each time we scooped up the rich juices with slices of Todmorden-baked baguette Tuscan-style. In Florence they have a saying for it: ‘fare la scarpetta’, which translates as “to do the little shoe”

The spectacular Duomo
Vintage time in Prunetta

Brunelleschi and a Duomo built on peppery beef stew

The acknowledged birthplace of Peposo is in Impruneta on the Arno, 15 miles south of the centre of Florence, where the Chianti vineyards really start. At the end of September ‘Peposo Day’ is an important part of the town’s flamboyant Grape Festival with local cooks battling it out to produce the best version.

Why Impruneta? It’s all down to the terracotta industry that has been there since the  Middle Ages. Its furnaces baked the burnt-red roof tiles used in the construction of Florence’s Doumo. The workers exploited the front of the kilns to slow cook in orci (olive oil/grain jars)  poorer cuts of meat with pepper and wine for their daily repast. 

On his Impruneta visits the Duomo’s architect, Filippo Brunelleschi, became a  fan of this Peposo with its peppery kick and twigged how this slow food could become fast food for his work team high up in the scaffolding. 

It would save valuable minutes if they ate on the job rather than clambering down and back up each lunchtime, so he ordered the Peoposo to be transported by wagon to Florence in terracotta casseroles, then hauled up to scaffold canteens. Not sure if the abundant red wine also winched up was a good heath and safety idea…

A hands-on Russell Norman
Brunelleschi by his contemporary Masaccio

Peposo the Brutto way

Ingredients

100g lard (or butter if you’re afraid of lard)

800g beef shin, cut into small chunks

Flaky sea salt

1 bottle of Chianti or Sangiovese

2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced

2 tbsp black peppercorns

2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes

Black pepper

Sourdough bread, for serving

Method

Melt half the lard in a very large frying pan and sear the meat on all sides until nicely browned. Add a few pinches of salt during this process. You may need to fry in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan. If there is a dark residue at the bottom of the frying pan, deglaze with a splash of red wine. When all the shin is brown, transfer to a very large saucepan in which you have melted the remaining lard. Add the sliced garlic and the peppercorns, and stir for one minute. Now add the chopped tomatoes and the rest of the wine. Bring to the boil briefly, then reduce to a very low simmer.

For the next four hours, keep half an eye on your Peposo to make sure it’s not drying out too quickly. If it is, cover it, but the full bottle of wine should have been sufficient to keep it stew-like. After four hours, check the seasoning and adjust if necessary. The beef shin will have disintegrated somewhat and become stringy and soft. You can encourage this further with some hearty wooden-spoon action. If it hasn’t, leave it longer. Or you could let it cool and leave it covered overnight. Then give it another 30 minutes on a medium heat the next day.

Serve with hunks of sourdough or unsalted Tuscan bread.

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Hrishi Desai – what makes this great Cumbrian-based chef patron tick?

It was my first visit to the Farlam Hall hoterl near Brampton in Cumbria. For, of all things, a one-night-only 14-course dinner collab with Carlisle-based crime writer MW Craven. For it chef patron Hrisikesh Desai created dishes inspired by plot elements in the best-selling Washington Poe book series. Craven’s table-side commentary was illuminating, the whoe menu astonishingly playful and inventive.

You could see why, after just two years of Hrishi in situ, the accolades are building. In the recent Condé Nast Johansens Awards Farlam’s Cedar Tree was named UK Restaurant of the Year, while in the Top 50 Boutique Hotels list the Hall has just leapt 25 places to No.11, only five spots behind Lakes game changer Gilpin. That was Hrishi Desai’s previous Cumbrian billet, where he gained his first star for its SPICE restaurant. Cedar Tree’s was awarded within a year of his arrival.

Criminal playful, ‘a crow dish’
Sweet spaghetti alla vongole

To confirm Cedar Tree’s status, the globally influential La Liste Top 1000 Restaurants has ranked it among the UK’s best. Easy to see why on the evidence of our meal. I caught up with Indian-born, much-travelled Hrishi to quiz him on the success of his Cumbrian bolthole…

Hrishi, the whole ‘Murder Mystery and Michelin Stars’ event was sheer joy.  How important is that sense of playfulness in the kitchen?

“Playfulness in cooking is incredibly important to me. It brings something fresh and memorable to the dining experience — something a guest will truly never forget. It also gives us the freedom to bend the traditional rules of gastronomy and bring to life ideas that might otherwise seem too unusual to attempt.

“Take the ‘Spaghetti alla Vongole’ pudding, for example. Deliberately   designed to challenge expectations — sweet spaghetti, passion fruit cream, and a classic chocolate mousse re-imagined in the shapes of shells, conches, and clams. Or the ‘Severed Fingers’, a herb butter shaped like fingers. Serving something like that requires courage, but it also sparks curiosity and delight.

“At Farlam Hall, almost 54 per cent of our diners return, and a big part of that is their enjoyment of this playful approach to food. They appreciate that while we’re rooted in a classic country house style of cooking, we elevate it with global influences — spices from around the world, Japanese marination techniques, European fermentation skills, and more.

“We always aim to be different, but never at the expense of the fundamentals. No matter how playful the presentation or concept becomes, our core goal remains the same: solid, skilful cooking with real depth and craftsmanship on the plate.”

Herdwicks
Wild mushrooms

Local produce is on every chef’s lips. Sometimes it’s lip service. From the evidence of our dinner, it is very important to you. What does Cumbria bring to the plate?

“Cumbria is blessed with some truly exceptional producers, and for us it feels completely natural to use their ingredients as much as possible. The region offers an extraordinary range of produce — Herdwick lamb, rare-breed pork, artisan cheeses, incredible dairy, heritage vegetables, and foraged ingredients that change with the seasons. 

“We’re also surrounded by farmers, growers and makers who are deeply committed to their craft, many of whom have skills passed down through generations. That depth of knowledge and care is part of what makes Cumbrian produce so special.

“I would also like to see our own kitchen garden reach its full potential, because we already use so much of what it produces. Being able to pair what we grow here with what our neighbouring producers craft — from honey and rapeseed oil to organic vegetables, game, cured meats and small-batch spirits — creates a uniquely Cumbrian identity on the plate.

“Ultimately, Cumbria’s natural beauty is reflected in the quality of its ingredients. The landscape shapes the flavour: clean air, rich pasture, rugged coastline and forests full of wild herbs and mushrooms. For us, cooking in Cumbria means tapping into this landscape and celebrating it. It’s not about paying lip service to ‘local produce’ — it’s about letting the region speak for itself through the food.”

Hearing all this, it seems you are really settled here. What are your ambitions for Farlam Hall and your own career?

“Farlam Hall means a great deal to me. It has taken a huge amount of hard work to restore it to its former glory, and we have no intention of stopping there. Karen and I believe that Farlam should stand as a beacon of classic British hospitality — one of the true ‘go-to’ destinations in the North West of England.

“We have ambitious plans for the future, and we hope that the financial climate will allow us to bring them to life. These include developing a cookery school, creating a dedicated treatment space for yoga, sound therapy and meditation, adding a few more rooms, and opening a second restaurant.

“For me personally, this feels like just the beginning. Farlam Hall is a long-term project that we want to keep growing, refining and elevating. The aim is not only to strengthen the hotel’s reputation, but also to continue evolving in our own career through creativity, innovation and a commitment to excellence, supporting the team and local community.” 

Which chefs have been your main influences? Your own Indian heritage is obviously important but the traces are restrained. Is that the aim?

“There are many chefs who have influenced me throughout my career. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet most of them — including the Roux family, Thomas Keller, Hywel Jones (whom I worked with for almost 12 years), Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay. I also draw a lot of inspiration from the new generation of British chefs such as Mark Birchall, Lisa Allen and Adam Smith, whose creativity constantly pushes boundaries. 

“Across Europe, chefs like Hélène Darroze, Anne-Sophie Pic, Olivier Roellinger, Björn Frantzén and Rasmus Kofoed have shaped my thinking through their subtlety, precision and ability to create deeply memorable dining experiences.

As for my Indian heritage, it is a big part of me. You’ll always find a gentle thread of Indian-Asian influence in my food, and that subtlety is very much intentional. What I don’t want is to be labelled as a chef creating Indian fine dining or ‘progressive Indian’cuisine — that’s not what I’m doing. Instead, I’m drawing on my roots in a way that complements the broader culinary style we aim for at Farlam Hall.”

Exploring Yucatan’s cooking methods
Mexican market inspiration

Just before our recent dinner at Farlam I saw that you had been away in Mexico on a 10 day Roux Brothers Scholarship trip, where he and fellow alumni accompanied Michel and Alain Roux. Can we expect that experience to impact on your menus?

“I found that Mexican food — and its culture — has a surprising amount in common with Indian cuisine. So travelling through the Yucatán and discovering those parallels in flavour wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it was incredibly inspiring. I brought back a range of Mexican chillies, and we’ve already started experimenting with them in the kitchen. I’m sure you’ll begin to see subtle touches of Mexico appearing in some of our dishes over the coming months.

“One of the biggest revelations for me was the Mexican mole (a dark stew). The depth and complexity of its flavours were extraordinary, and recreating it here will be a real challenge — but one I’m excited about. I think a refined version of mole could pair beautifully with game birds or robust, meaty fish. It’s definitely something we’ll be exploring further.

I have to ask. What are the big challenges ahead for hospitality with precious little positive support from government?

“This is a question that opens Pandora’s box for me, because it touches on something that genuinely frustrates many of us in hospitality. I appreciate that any government faces enormous pressures and competing priorities, and we do have to allow space for that. But at the same time, when respected business leaders across hospitality, farming, tourism and the wider supply chain are repeatedly warning that the sector is on its knees, it becomes difficult to understand why these voices aren’t being heard.

“Hospitality is one of the UK’s biggest employers. It supports local economies, revives rural communities, sustains farmers and independent producers, and brings millions of visitors to regions like Cumbria. Yet rising costs, staffing shortages, and an inflexible tax framework are putting businesses under impossible pressure. 

“When energy bills for small hotels resemble those of industrial facilities, when there is no cut in VAT rates for the sector, when recruitment rules don’t reflect the reality of rural workforces something is fundamentally out of sync with the real world.

What would you like to see done?

• A realistic VAT structure for hospitality – a lot to learn from some of our European neighbours or emerging power houses like India who have reduced the VAT to encourage growth. 

• Long-term relief or reform on business rates.

• Practical solutions to staffing shortages, especially in rural areas

• Support for British farmers and producers facing the same inflationary pressures we are

• Incentives for training, apprenticeships and skills development,

• Encouragement for sustainable, regionally focused food systems.

“These are not radical ideas — they are common sense. They protect jobs, strengthen local supply chains and ensure that Britain’s hospitality sector, one of the most culturally and economically important industries we have, doesn’t collapse under its own weight.”

Hrishi, now the main man
Lucknam Park where he was mentored

Who is Hrishikesh Desai?

Obviously, one of the UK’s outstanding creative chefs, now also overseeing a country house hotel, Farlam Hall, that is setting the bar higher and higher while retaining a dedication to homely hospitality rare among Relais & Chateaux establishments.

A key to his culinary is that Roux Scholarship award back in 2009. The most recent fruit was that educational expedition to Yucatán and Mexico City but the initial impetus from joining that elite culinary brotherhood was to launch him towards running his own kitchen.

He had been encouraged to enter by his then boss/mentor Hywel Jones at Lucknam Park. He had worked himself up from commis to head chef over a decade at this Michelin-starred exemplar outside Bath. 

He had arrived there from France, itself quite some distance from his birthplace, Poona in Maharashtra. In his late teens he had won a scholarship to study restaurant management at the Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon. It was in that most gastronomical of cities he found his true vocation – not fron of house but behind the stove.

He recalled: ’It sounds crazy to say but it all started with a crème brulée. ’I saw one being blowtorched and I was amazed by it. I think it was partly seeing that chefs got to use all of these cool gadgets but it also made me realise that if I wanted to fully understand this industry, I needed to cook. That was what made me want to become a chef.”

Fact file

Farlam Hall, Hallbankgate, Brampton, Cumbria, CA8 2NG. It is a 120 mile drive from Manchester via the M6 or there is a West Coast Mainline station at Carlisle, a 12 mile taxi drive away. Standard rooms start at £340 a night, deluxe at £465. Midweek rates are offered.

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