Travel Archives - Page 6 of 6

Aarhus – city of sliding penguins, rainbows and Iron age sacrifice

If you call a harbourside housing complex Isbjerget, ‘The Iceberg’, you must expect penguins to take advantage of its steeply sloping rooftops. Sliding, somersaulting, eventually discovering super powers to rocket into the grey waters off Aarhus.

The place is strong in architecture, the final frontier being the redundant dockland of Denmark’s vibrant second city. So on our weekend break we’d trekked down to the tip of the rapidly developing Aaarhus Ø quarter and were struck by the angular singularity of Isbjerget, completed in 2013. So were the creatives of the French film studio 11h45, who based their 2017 penguin-centric animation around it, as if were a real hunk of ice cap. Have a look, enjoy.

2107 was Aarhus’ turn to be European City of Culture. Standard bearer from that perception-altering year has to be the ARoS Contemporary Art Museum, whose Your Rainbow Panorama – a 150-metre-long circular walkway, designed by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson – dominates the skyscape. An unrivalled 360 degree view of the city is filtered through various coloured glass panels. It adds an unearthly glow to the brutalist concrete clock tower of Arne Jacobsen’s City Hall.

The rest of the world class collection, with the likes of Andy Warhol and Grayson Perry, is equally rewarding and well set out. If time is short head for Ron Mueck’s five-metre-tall sculpture of a crouching boy, first exhibited at our own Millennium Dome in 2000. Oh, and you can play table tennis among the installations in the basement.

Afterwards we wandered up the hill to the city’s free-to-enter Botanical Gardens with butterfly-thronged tropical houses. From here there are further thrilling views across Aarhus.

Panoramic viewpoints in the city proper include the rooftop terrace and skywalk at the city’s premier department store, Saaling on the Söndergarde. Just take the lift and stairs to the top floor and enjoy reasonably priced wines and cocktails while taking in the whole dock area, redeveloped or working.

Access is less frequent to the spired tower of the Domkirke, but it boasts another splendid view. The vast red brick expanse of this Cathedral dominates the main square, Store Torv. Originally built in Romanesque style in 1201, three centuries later it was given a Gothic makeover at which time it gained its magnificent Bernt Notke altarpiece, the font and frescoes. It’s dedicated to the patron saint of sailors, St Clemens appropriately enough with the waterfront just yards away.

Our base, the budget hotel, Cabinn, was nearby, handy for the Latin Quarter. The oldest part of the city offers a maze of streets and concealed courtyards to explore, half-timbered, flower-bedecked. It’s laidback by day and fun after dusk when the bars and cafes are rammed.

Designer shopping seems to be centred around the picturesque Graven, where you can also get your Nordic coffee fix at La Cabra, but our favourite thoroughfare was the Mejlgade, home to our Aarhus ‘local’, Mig og Ølsnedkeren, a craft beer mecca.

The Latin Quarter hosts a couple of hip but eye-wateringly expensive Michelin-starred restaurants, Gastromé and Domestic. We dined handsomely at a more casual New Nordic spot, Langhoff og Juul in Guldsmedgade.

Even more on-trend was Pondus, a bistro spawned by Substans, arguably the city’s best Michelin joint and relocating to the resurgent waterside. Pondus’s set menu was deceptively simple and classy compared with rival establishments along the dining-focused Aarhus Canal.

We visited two food halls too – Aarhus Central Food Market (tip: go for the award-winning Hungry Dane Burgers) and, much jollier, Aarhus Street Food, a more recent arrival, inevitably based in recycled shipping containers. Our visit to the latter coincided with the city’s annual Royal Run, offering a range of sweaty challenges up to 10K. Participants thronged the 30 or stalls in the hall just behind the bus station on Ny Banegaardsgade.

We fought shy of ordering one unique local delicacy, curry dumplings, from ‘Grandma’s House’, settling instead for banh-mi and bao buns, washed down with local micro brews from the Ølfred bar.

To sample a retail produce market with fish, cheese and organic veg head down to Ingerslevs Boulevard in trendy Frederiksbjerg, south of the station. The open air market is open Wednesday and Saturday 8am-2pm. On the way back where better than a hoppy refresher on trendy Jægergårdsgade at the Mikkeler Bar – an outpost of the globally famous Copenhagen gypsy brewers.

Elsewhere there is so much quirkiness to celebrate. We loved the Dome of Visions on the waterftront Inge Lehmanns Gade. It arrived from Copenhagen seven years ago as a sustainable timber round house, comprised of 588 curved beams with 186 different shapes. Inside it’s a lush greenhouse, hosting a cafe which looks across the harbour at the still working shipping docks. Next door among gardens is a mushroom farm based on spent coffee grounds.

You suspect this whole waterfront site will eventually be developed commercially, bridging the gap between Aaarhus Ø and Dokk1, a monumental events space/library that opened in 2015. It too has its own special Danish eccentricities. Its artwork centrepiece is a 3 ton bronze pipe bell, The Gong, which new parents can ring remotely from the University Hospital maternity ward when a child is born, while the ceiling of the underground car park features a large art installation known as Magic Mushrooms, a downscaled model of an imaginary city turned upside down. Cap that, capital Copenhagen.

A day trip out to the ‘Killing Fields’

All eye-catching but our day had been dominated by an out-of-town homage not on everyone’s bucket list… back into prehistory. Just a bus ride away 30 minutes south, inside another remarkable (Seventies) building, grass roofed and hunkered into the landscape – the Moesgaard Museum.

Awaiting us there ‘Grauballe Man’. Dug from the Jutland bogs in 1952, the body eerily preserved by peat since the third century BC, the throat slashed, suggesting he might have been a human sacrifice.

The photographs burn into your mind; to see this leathery-tanned Iron Age icon in the flesh, so to speak, is among the most moving experiences on the planet. And blessedly for a while we had the room where he is exhibited to ourselves to mouth the opening lines of Seamus Heaney’s great poem: ‘As if he had been poured in tar, he lies on a pillow of turf and seems to weep the black river of himself.”

The rest of the Moesgaard is a thrilling, interactive journey into Danish, Scandinavian and European history and culture, Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age and onwards – a treasure house of artefacts but also pandering to the inner kid with some thundering, plundering Viking recreations.

Fact file

Neil Sowerby flew to Aarhus with SAS Scandinavian Airlines, which runs a regular service most of the year from Manchester Airport. For full tourist information visit www.visitaarhus.com and www.visitdenmark.com. An AarhusCard gives unlimited travel, plus free or discounted entry to many of the city’s headline attractions, and costs Dkr 329 (£40) for 24 hours to Dkr 749 (£90) for 120 hours. Cards can be purchased at the bus station and most attractions. The main tourist centre can be found at Dokk1, where you can use free online touch screens for information and ideas.

8 September 2021/by Neil Sowerby

Travel

Pädaste Manor – our Estonian idyll among the misty marshes

When revolutionaries ambushed and assassinated the Baron of Pädaste, Imperial Hunting Master to Tsar Nicholas II, in 1919 it froze in time the manor house that was his summer home. History, often bloody history, now passed it by.

Axel von Buxhoeveden’s heartbroken widow, the Siemens heiress Charlotte, left to live in Germany, never to return, and as a turbulent century saw Estonia crushed by war and Soviet domination, medieval Pädaste Manor sank slowly into decay. Destined, it seemed, to be submerged in the marshes of Muhu island. Trees took root in its lofty halls.

But like the sleeping beauty in the fairytale it has been magically reawakened as a hotel, mirroring the Baltic state itself shaking off the years of repression, rediscovering its roots.

If the beautiful heart of capital Tallinn has turned into a kind of tourist toytown, seducing the cruise ship parties (the stag and hen hordes have thankfully moved on), then Muhu and the other islands out to the west seem the keepers of Estonia’s rebellious pagan flame against a backdrop of the brooding Baltic Sea.

We arrived to stay at Pädaste Manor, now a five-star luxury hideaway like no other, a couple of weeks before the great celebration of the White Nights, 19 hours of daylight demanding much tree-hugging and vodka swilling. It hits you that Christianity was late coming to these northerly parts.

Wild boar and moose roam the woods of Muhu, along with the huntsmen who track them. Rare butterflies flit among the juniper trees, even rarer orchids carpet the woodland clearings. Half of Estonia is forest, a valuable source of mushrooms and herbs. A wild larder just waiting to be foraged. A landscape with much to tell.

One man who has listened is Martin Breuer. A quarter of a century ago the erudite Dutchman had a vision for Pädaste. It has taken a lot of sweat and toil to realise it, along with a welcome cash injection from the European Union.

The result is captivating. We arrived late. A journey from capital Tallinn that had promised to take little over two hours on blissfully quiet roads had been extended by our foolishly not taking the pre-booked lane on the Virtsu quayside.

We missed the boat and looked like missing lunch, but Kuivastu where the next ferry dropped us is just 10 minutes from Pädaste and the Manor kitchen stayed open to accommodate us. Our first taste of the Manor’s take on ‘Nordic Islands’ cuisine.

Nordic Islands’ cuisine – venison tartare with Muhu Island’s ‘bottarga’ (cured fish roe)

Think good game and fish, wild greens, birch sap, all palate-tinglingly pure. The hotel’s ground floor Alexander Restaurant has regularly been voted Estonia’s best and goes from strength to strength under current Chef de Cuisine Diogo Caetano. This elegant room with high ceilings opens into a spectacular winter garden and offers sweeping views over the park with its ancient trees.

More casual but also impressive was the simpler fare at the Pädaste Yacht Club on the Sea House Terrace down by the marshes. A good start. So too, our suite, which sported a terrific bathroom, with a free-standing tub, and a balcony overlooking woodland.

No two rooms are the same at Pädaste, either in the art-filled Manor House itself or in the Carriage House in the grounds – a consequence of the quirky, organic feel to the place Martin has been determined to maintain. Even the sauna, in a separate cottage brings a smiling, homely feel to state of the art facilities.

The position helps, convenient yet remote feeling. We soon ventured beyond the gate and into a piece of unspoiled Muhu. Despite, or perhaps because of the unseasonal heat, mist cloaked the distant creek. After lunch and a beer we took our books out to the loungers on a little jetty and drifted off to the sound of birdsong and bee hum.

If shacking up in a lost domain is your thing, then there’s no need to venture out. We took the hire car for a morning’s spin around Muhu, which is really just a staging post en route for Estonia’s largest island, Saaremaa.

Our favourite spot was Koguva fishing village, a lovingly preserved gaggle of farmhouses. There’s a museum of island life with staff in traditional costume and an art gallery but really it’s just an idyllic maze of lanes to wander around. It helps that it’s mostly inhabited by locals whose families have been here for generations.

This feels like the true Estonia, rather than Tallinn Old Town. Strikingly beautiful, yes, but just a mite plastic. Pädaste’s park and shoreline form part of a nature protection zone which is well known for its biodiversity. The shoreline is a stopover location for migratory geese, cranes, ducks and swans. Three breeding couples of the rare and majestic sea eagle nest nearby, the nightingale takes centre stage in the evenings of early June.

The park is home to owls, woodpeckers, squirrels and bats. Deer, wild boar and moose inhabit the surrounding forest. They occasionally can be seen crossing into the park, specially during cold winters.

Alas, the hotel is closed during the winter months, shuttered against the ice. Ready to reawaken when the abundant spring flowers are again in bloom and the lucky visitors return. Nowhere I know is quite like it.

Fact file

Pädaste Manor – a Small Luxury Resort & Spa, Pädaste Mõis, Muhu Island, 94716 Estonia. +372 45 48 800. A member of Relais & Chateaux. Doubles from 280 euros (Carriage House) and 387 euros (Manor House). Junior suite from 459 euros, including breakfast with the Grand Suite at 965 euros. The hotel can arrange a private limousine transfer for the two hour journey from Tallinn or you can book car hire via the hotel website to get a discounted rate and complimentary upgrade depending on availability. Finnair has regular flights from Manchester to Helsink with connections to Tallinn.

To celebrate the hotel’s 25th birthday this profile of Pädaste is extracted from a travel piece of mine on Estonia, first published in Manchester Confidential.

23 August 2021/by Neil Sowerby

Beer, Food, Restaurants, Travel

Saluting Jöro and the Fat Cat on Sheffield’s paradise Island

Summer 2021 marks two milestones in the post-industrial bubble that is Kelham Island. Cutting edge restaurant Jöro has expanded beyond its upcycled shipping container base to open a four-room boutique hotel nearby, complete with chef’s table, while the homely pub at the heart of this buzzing urban community is celebrating 40 years of just being The Fat Cat.

A maverick umbilical cord links that almost bucolic cask beer mecca, whose in-house brewery spawned the iconic Pale Rider ale, to the sleek steel (well it is Sheffield) Krynkl complex where chef Luke French has transformed the city’s culinary expectations over the past four years. It reached No.34 in the Estrella Damm National Restaurant Awards (announced on August 16).

Post lockdown it seemed a good time to visit both pioneering venues. So a tram from the station (after a Thornbridge Jaipur refresher, naturally at the Sheffield Tap on Platform 1B), then across the busy Shalesmoor roundabout to a suddenly hushed warren of backstreets to establish the respective locations.

*Only disappointment of a dazzling day, the Kelham Island Tavern had been forced to shut*

A detour might have been in order, too, to the Kelham Island Tavern, arguably the city’s best craft beer pub venue but – sign of the times – there was a Covid-closure note on the door. Still the pre-amble ramble did allow me to soak in the atmosphere of a district that defines industrial heritage and cool renewal…

Renewal, of course, means creatives clustering in shiny new build apartments or brick-heavy warehouse conversions with a casual bar/dining scene springing up to service the influx. And occasionally big hitters show up such as Mana in Ancoats, Brat in Shoreditch or Casamia on the Bristol waterfront. Sheffield has its own contender…

JÖRO

One slight tremor as I entered the penumbral interior, the normal 50 covers reduced as a Covd-safe measure. Would the widening horizons of Luke French and his wife and business director, Stacey Sherwood-French impact on the core operation? Not jut th hotel project but also street food spin-offs. Fear not this was an outstanding £65 eight course lunch that ate up three joyful hours. I’m not sure I’m a fan of the building, shaped from 29 shipping containers but I am of a serving staff that included one who had a sake qualification (thanks for the New Mountain Junmai recommendation) and another who knew his way round the new Spanish wine frontiers of Ribeira Sacra and Sierra de Gredos.

Chef Luke has previously expressed his desire to “find something similar to L’Enclume or The Black Swan at Oldstead, somewhere rural we can forage in and with a smallholding to grow our own ingredients.” For the moment he’s as urban as it gets, albeit with some amazing rural suppliers. Just a Michelin Bib for the moment but the food I encountered across my tasting menu surely deserve a star. Manchester’s own Mana deserves a second, but that’s a whole other matter.

Jöro Highlights? Virtually everything, from an early introduction to Chawanmushi, a savoury Japanese custard here flavoured with smoked eel, a tiny tranche of which also featured alongside salmon roe and pancetta. Wortley wagyu rump in a tartare with celeriac and mustard was less groundbreaking but equally wonderful. I should have asked about the Wortley provenance (it’s the fabled beef of Japan but reared in South Yorkshire’s grasslands); I didn’t make the same mistake with Doncaster peas. “You’ll taste them and know why,” was the enigmatic response. Their yoking with mint and lamb fat yielded more detailed exegesis. The key to the dish was ‘lamb garum’ where lamb mince and koji had been given 10 weeks in a water bath to create a fermented base for this incredible dish. For more on garum read my recent article.

What I really loved about the whole experience was a straightforward punch of flavours, whether a pure tranche of Cornish cod on a bed of smoked haddock and creme fraiche sauce or among the desserts the stand-out strawberries with lemon verbena and organic yoghurt. You get the dedication to our own raw materials filtered through an appropriated Japanese and Norse (hence the name) sensibility.

Stays and JÖRO Packages can be booked online via this link.

THE FAT CAT

Neither of my two destinations is on the island proper, man-made in the 13th by diverting water from the River Don to power medieval mills. So a distant seed sown for the Industrial Revolution proper, the catalyst for which in Sheffield was the opening of John Crowley’s Iron Foundry in 1829, tapping into river power abundant coal and iron ore.

If you want to get the full story visit the Kelham Island Museum, which was created 40 years ago. You can see it prize exhibition for free because the only Bessemer steel converter still in existence stands in front. This egg-shaped black hulk quickly revolutionised 19th century steel production.

Thirsty work, the industry in its heyday and pubs like The Alma just down the street of that name existed to slake those forge-driven thirsts. Then came the long slow decline of the Steel City. From the Seventies onwards recession and dereliction battered Kelham.

It took a brave man to acquire the Alma, change its name to the ironic Fat Cat and start brewing his own exceptional beer in the yard.

That was the grand plan of Dave Wickett, the new co-owner. The pub introduced Sheffield to a cavalcade of guest beers and by 1990 when Dave took sole control he created his own Kelha Island Brewery in the beer garden. The pub survived flooding in 2007; the level is charted on the exterior alongside that of the The Great Sheffield Flood of 1864. It survived Dave’s early death and is still brewing in premises across the street.

In 2004 their flagship beer Pale Rider was voted Supreme Champion Beer of Britain at The Great British Beer Festival. It has hardly been off the hand pull ever since, though a recent month’s hiatus perturbed devotees.

Matthew Curtis, in his highly recommended new survey, Modern British Beer (CAMRA Books, £15.99) descrIbes Pale Rider thus: “There was some malt character in the flavour, soft and candy-floss sweet, but only fleetingly. This allowed a crescendo of hop to build with notes of candied orange peel to the fore, but they were restrained throughout with a balanced bittersweet finish forming at the end of this orchestral flourish.

A touch flowery but a good summary of my ‘aperitif’ experience before lunch over at Jöro. Old meets new in one memorable Kelham Island afternoon.

17 August 2021/by Neil Sowerby

Drink, Travel

Some rum spots I’ve been in… now bring on its Manchester festival

Hard to credit now but back in December 2019 Saint Lucia was the last foreign country I visited – before Covid turned the world upside down. There I consolidated my passion for rum. It will be consummated once again on Saturday, August 28 when Manchester Rum Festival makes its belated return. Among the many treasures to taste will be Saint Lucia’s own Chairman’s Reserve, Four Square from Barbados, Montanya from Colorado and our own Diablesse, all of which have been staging posts on my rum journey, which began among the sugar cane plantations of the Caribbean.

ST LUCIA

The two hour west coast road trip north from Soufriere to Castries is a clifftop, hairpin bend rollercoaster ride, requiring strong nerves at the wheel (taxi recommended). En route, the views are fabulous, the fishing villages of Anse La Raye and Canaries worth a quirky stop-off, our only regret we hadn’t time to detour to picturesque Marigot Bay.

Inland consolation, a ‘Rhythm of Rum’ tour of St Lucia Distillers. The island no longer produces commercial quantities of sugar cane, importing molasses from Guyana or Barbados and this is the only producer left but the quality is high from the core brand Chairman’s Reserve upwards. At the end of the hourlong tour you get to sample their 20 or so products and access discounts on purchases at the Rhum Shoppe.

Dave Marsland, organiser of the Rum Festival, also happens to be UK brand ambassador for Chairman’s Reserve. His favourite of the range? “It would be Chairman’s Reserve Forgotten Cask. It’s smooth with plenty of the ex-American oak barrel flavours coming through, whether I drink it straight, with coconut water or as an Old Fashioned. Works fantastic with cigars too.”

My own? The real knockout is the Denros Strong Rum – 80% ABV, 160º proof. Well maybe not a tot on a school night.

BARBADOS

Rum’s heartland is the northern parishes. Historic plantations still dot the landscape in various states of desuetude. Movable wooden worker’s dwellings called chattel houses add to the sense of transience. The clue to where all the sugar cane fields once were are the windmills.

In 1846 the island had more than 500 – only Holland had a greater density – and the remaining mills, in whatever state, are all now under a preservation order. The Barbados National Trust maintain the Morgan Lewis Working Mill. in the parish of St Andrew’s. From December to April visitors can see cane ground into juice there.

Under 10 minutes away and much more enjoyably hands on is St Nicholas Abbey, the island’s best historic day out. One of only three Jacobean mansions left in the whole Americas, the gabled old house set among mahogany trees summons up the ghosts of those early plantation owners with its museum addressing the slave issue, while current owners the Warren family lovingly preserve the old rum-making methods in a boutique distillery they set up a decade ago.

So you get a steam-powered cane crush and a traditional pot still, using cane for the syrup that’s unique to the 400 acre estate, half of which is under sugar cultivation. The quest for a premium quality spirit was consolidated by enlisting the advice – and starter rums – of Richard Seale, owner of the island’s multi award-winning Foursquare distillery.

So the older rums (10 years) we tasted with Larry Warren after our tour originated at Foursquare before being barrel-aged at the Abbey, most of whose own rums still need to serve their time in oak. There’s no church connection, by the way; Abbey’s just a landowner’s affectation from way back.

COLORADO

The little town of Crested Butte is not as glamorous as Rockies mecca Telluride. Indeed the folksy mountain charm is it selling point alongside – for me – its rum distillery. Whoa! We a long way from sugar plantations, so why did Karen Hoskin decided to set up Montanya Distillers here on Main Street? It’s the pure mountain water apparently that is the key, the stuff that makes spring so special.

So the flowers were in full spate in the high meadows above Crested Butte 150 miles north of Telluride. Like its rival destination, this former coal mining town is divided into a ski resort village and the original settlement below, rescued by hippies in the Seventies and still not insufferably gentrified.

I loved its bookshops and coffee hang-outs, kids selling homemade lemonade on the streets and, above all Montanya, for its sustainable ethos and the quality of its acclaimed small batch product. Rum sounds an odd drink to be making in the mountains but owner Karen Hoskin believes the 9,000ft altitude helps the progress.

“Our non-GMO sugar cane comes from family farmers in Louisiana, who grow and mill for us,” she says. “ Our water comes from one of the purest spring and snowmelt charged aquifers in the USA. Our rums are made by hand, from scratch, in a very traditional way using alembic copper pot stills from Portugal.”

One bonus of booking a Montanya tour is you get a complimentary cocktail in the garden bar. Karen discovered her taste for rum in Goa – try her signature, spicy Maharaja. You may never leave.

NEARER HOME

South Manchester is the least exotic rum address I know, but then Cleo Farman has always taken the Odd route. That was the name of her pioneering NQ bar on Thomas Street. That spawned Odder and Oddest and then they all all faded away leaving ebullient Cleo with the kind of midlife crisis we’d all want when she decamped back to the Caribbean where she had once worked for Richard Branson on Neckar Island. Retrenchment meant nine months researching rum blends, out of which arose in early 2019 her own bespoke blends.

They bear the name Diablesse – inspired by a Caribbean folklore spook, La Diablesse, born human but turned demonic after a pact with the Devil. Makes for a striking bottle label. They say you should use a long spoon to sup with the Devil.

Diablesse Caribbean Rum (40% abv) is Cleo’s benchmark blend of three distinctive rums, serious stuff, while Diablesse Clementine Spiced Rum (42.3%) is a crowd-pleasing demerara rum from the Diamond Distillery, flavoured with clementine and a spice mix of spice mix of vanilla pod, ginger, cinnamon, cinnamon and clove.

Lovely glugger the latter, but it is the Caribbean Rum that really makes you sit up and pay attention. Some canny blending has gone into its creation with a major contribution to its complexity and smoothness coming from ageing in American bourbon barrels. No added sugar or caramel either.

Manchester Rum Festival 2021 will be going ahead on Saturday August 28, 12pm-7pm at new venue Mercure Manchester Piccadilly Hotel. Check out the full list of rums via this link. I suspect it may be a sell-out even after a handful of extra tickets were squeezed out. Priced £30 + booking fee, please check here.

17 August 2021/by Neil Sowerby

Food, Travel

Fallot’s Tarragon Mustard – how the seeds of my affection were sown

Cut the mustard, keen as mustard – it’s certainly a condiment that keeps upbeat. But so often, from rustic wholegrain to the most delicate of Dijons, it’s a disappointment. ie. they don’t cut the mustard. For all the artisan labels you’re mostly getting an industrial product. Not as bland as supermarket bread made from the Chorleywood process or all those international beers that delight in being Lite. Yet when you’ve tasted the real thing…

My Mustard Damascus Moment came in a small factory tucked away in downtown Beaune. I was in Burgundy’s epicentre to taste the wines (naturellement) but the true lipsmacking legacy was Edmond Fallot’s speciality Dijon mustards.

*A shady courtyard leads to the Fallot Mustard Works*

Dijon, 30 miles to the north, was the centre of medieval mustard making (must was often included) and was granted exclusive naming rights in the 17th century. The basic method is not complex – a combination of mustard seeds, white wine or wine vinegar, water and salt. A 1937 decree ruled that ‘Dijon mustard’ can be used as generic designation and has no link to a specific terroir.

Nor is there a stipulation about sticking to traditional methods. That’s what the Fallot family, unlike their rivals, have been doing in Beaune since 1840, today under the stewardship of Marc Désarménien, grandson of Edmond. They still go down the traditional route. Using antique millstones, they grind high quality brown mustard seeds mixed with verjuice, extracted from Burgundy grapes.

*May I interest you in a sample of our typically Burgundian moutarde de yuzu?*

After which they are at liberty to widen the palette. In their colourful tasting room/shop I worked my way through flavoured mustards that ranged from truffe de Bourgogne to cassis (blackcurrant), Espelette pepper to Madagascan green pepper, samples of which I brought home. There’s even a yuzu version (which I didn’t).

The one that won my heart, though, and remains the base for my Béarnaise and Poulet à L’Estragon is the Tarragon Mustard. Of all the flavours beyond the basic Fallot it is the easiest to source. It is made from black and brown mustard seeds blended with fresh tarragon leaves, giving it an extraordinary aroma and texture that also adds oomph when a powerful vinaigrette is called for.

The good news? You can buy a 310g jar for £6.50 at Harvey Nichols in-store or online. A good introduction to its joys is this simple Burgundian dish from Fallot’ own website:

A good introduction to its joys is this simple Burgundian dish from Fallot’s own website:

Chicken Fricassee with Fallot Dijon Tarragon Mustard

1 chicken (around 1kg)

30g flour

80g butter

100g small white onions

200ml chicken stock

fresh mixed herbs

100ml fresh cream

2 tbsp Fallot Dijon Tarragon Mustard

minced tarragon

salt and pepper.

Method:

Cut the chicken into pieces. Season and dust the pieces with flour. Brown them in a large casserole dish with hot butter. Add small white onions. Moisten with the chicken stock. Add mixed herbs. Bring to a boil. Cook for 35 minutes. Set aside chicken and onions in a dish. Keep them warm. Allow the sauce to reduce. Add cream and mustard. Bring to the boil. Season according to taste. Pour the sauce over chicken pieces and sprinkle with minced tarragon.

My wine recommendation is any affordable red Burgundy from Santenay or Marsannay.

*Mustard cultivation *is on the increase* in Burgundy*

A potted history of Mustard in Burgundy

Until the Second World War Burgundian woodland was where mustard was cultivated. Discarded ash from charcoal burning was rich in potash, perfect growing material. When the plants were mature the charcoal makers sold the strong and biting seeds on to the mustard manufacturers of Dijon and Beune.

Then the demand for charcoal waned, so those manufacturers were forced to look elsewhere in France, eventually outside to the United States and Canada. Recently, though, Burgundy Mustard Association, in which Fallot plays a major role, is giving new impetus to cultivation across the region again.

That has been boosted by the approval in 2009 of PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) status. So locally specific Moutarde à la Bourgogne can distance itself as a quality product, separate from the generic name Dijon Mustard. Think specific ‘West Country Cheddar’ as opposed to all those global takes on that cheese’s noble name. Tarragon mustard with Montgomery’s or Aged Keen’s. Must try.

3 August 2021/by Neil Sowerby

Food, Travel

Zucchini the road trip takes in Haute Provence, Mantua and the Mendips

Never known a courgette glut like it. Our raised beds are Zucchini Centrale this summer. One upside of a current disinclination to travel? There have been no transitions into the dreaded marrow. What the hell can you do with those? Answers in crayon on a hessian sack, please.

Soup has been one way to depopulate the veg rack. The Ethicurean Cookbook’s Roasted Courgette and Cobnut Soup is an old favourite even if the hazelnut’s folksy Kentish cousin is still a month or two away from ripening. As they will in that Mendip restaurant’s walled garden, which I so love. As I write I’m happy to substitute pistachios to sprinkle over the labneh I’ve been straining for 36 hours (soup recipe below).

Serendipity rules as the courgettes pile up. Italy’s a good way to go. Marcella Hazan, Giorgio Locatelli, the late Antonio Carluccio and our English Italophiles Jacob Kenedy, Alastair Little, Rachel Roddy, all offer ways of making the green watery cylinders they call zucchini up their game.

The heftier examples really require baking, so I profitably consult the unsung Queen of La Cucina, Anna del Conte (Milan-born, resident in England since 1949, now 96).

*Amaretti biscuits and ricotta are the stuffing for this Mantuan masterpiece*

From her Amaretto, Apple Cake and Artichokes: The Best of (1989) I pick Zucchini Ripiene alla Mantovano, which stuffs them with ricotta and amaretti in the method particular to Mantua (recipe below). It makes use of my store cupboard stash of amaretti biscuits, close to their use-by-date. They add a beguiling almondiness, as they do to another slightly sweet speciality of that Lombard city, pumpkin tortellini.

All this sustainable kitchen prep of my glut, though, lacks a little glamour. What the Romans call Il Fascino. The glory of growing your own courgettes is the access to their trumpet-like yellow flowers. All over Italy in season you can buy bags of them at markets. Not so in Britain. I once spotted an overpriced wilting trio of them at a farmer’s market in Marylebone. It reminded me of northern traders flogging a small bag of wild garlic for a couple of quid when nearby woods reeked of the forageable stuff. Zucchini flowers – you really have to grow your own.

*Leslie Forbes’ two Seventies volumes matched her illustrations with her own hand-written travelogue*

What to do with them? Not too many choices. Best to take the advice of a forgotten food writer, whose two most beautiful tomes – hand written, self illustrated, product of hands-on research – remain a fixture on the shelf of my all-time favourite cookbooks.

Leslie Forbes died in 2016 at the age of 63. By then the Canadian, originally an artist (she illustrated Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence), was most celebrated for the best-seller Bombay Ice and other literary thrillers. I couldn’t get on with them; my heart remained with A Table in Tuscany (1985) and A Table in Provence (1987). Seek them out second hand on Abe Books or the like.

*My original copies showing their age, well-thumbed and stained with tomato coulis and olive oil*

Both have recipes for courgette flowers… or more evocatively Fiori di Zucca or Fleurs des Courgettes. I’m not one for deep-frying the stuffed flowers, so I’ll pass on the zucchini fritters San Gimignano style, ‘au naturel’ or ham-stuffed, from the Tuscan book; instead try this Provencal treatment, which Leslie sourced from the Gleize family of Chateau Arnoux. I I substitute water for the chicken stock, use canned San Marzano tomatoes and am still waiting on my second batch of chervil to come through, so omitted.

FLEURS DE COURGETTES FARCIE SAUCE POMME D’AMOUR

400g can San Marzano tomatoes

grated zest one lemon (no white pith)

3-4 basil leaves, finely chopped

1 tbsp parsley, finely chopped

1 tbsp chervil, finely chopped

pinch of powered corlander

1 garlic clove, peeled & crushed

100 ml olive oil

salt and pepper

Stuffing

3 medium courgettes, finely chopped

6 tbsp olive oil

6 fresh basil leaves, in thin strips

6 fresh mint leaves, chopped

handful fresh parsley, finely chopped

2 small garlic cloves, peeled & finely chopped

salt and pepper

generous handful fine stale breadcrumbs

1 egg, beaten

250ml water

18 large courgette flowers (picked just before you need to use them if possible)

Method

Prepare sauce at least 12 hours before: crush tomatoes with a fork, and beat in the lemon zest, herbs, coriander, garlic & olive oil. Season well with salt and pepper. Do not refrigerate.

To make the stuffing, cook the courgettes in 2 tbsp of olive oil. When softened, remove from heat and mix with basil, mint, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper. Allow to cool and add the breadcrumbs and beaten egg.

Remove pistils from flowers, then put a spoonful of the stuffing into each flower, tuck in the ends & lay the flowers side by side in an oven proof dish. Pour over the water remaining olive oil, cover with foil & bake for 15 minutes in an oven preheated to 350°F/180°C/gas 4. To serve, spoon a little tomato coulis onto each plate and place three flowers on top.

ZUCCHINI RIPIENE CON RICOTTA E AMARETTI

4 medium courgettes, each about 15cm

sea salt

30g unsalted butter

1 shallot, very finely chopped

2tsp olive oil

2tsp fresh thyme

3 dry amaretti, finely crumbled

150 g fresh ricotta, drained

1 free range egg

50g grated parmesan

pinch grated nutmeg

freshly ground black pepper

dried breadcrumbs

Method

Wash the courgettes throughly and half lengthwise. Using a teaspoon, scoop out the flesh, without puncturing the skin: the aim is to get hollow, boat-shaped courgette halves. Salt them lightly and turn them upside down on a wooden board: the salt will draw out unwanted moisture and the courgette will be all the tastier for that. After half an hour, pat them dry. Keep the courgette pulp separate.

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F.

Melt half the butter with half the oil, add the shallot, salt it to stop it browning and fry it gently, with the lid on. When it is soft, raise the heat, add the chopped thyme and the courgette flesh, diced. Stir and then cook until fairly dry. Mix together the ricotta, the parmesan (minus one tablespoon), the egg, amaretti and the cooked courgette pulp. Add nutmeg and black pepper.

Smear the bottom of an oven dish, preferably metal, with the remaining oil and tuck in a single layer of courgette shells. Stuff each shell with the filling, sprinkle with dried breadcrumbs, mixed with parmesan, and dot with the remaining butter and drizzle with the rest of the olive oil.

Bake until a light golden crust has formed, checking after the first 40 minutes. Eat warm or at room temperature.

*The Ethicurean’s walled garden base at Wrington near Chew Magna is a remarkable foodie mecca*

MAKING A SUMMERY POTAGE FROM A WALLED GARDEN

Like the nature writer Richard Mabey, folk singer/nightingale devotee Sam Lee, Robert ‘Lost Words’ Macfarlane, there are some national treasures that speak for the real England and its glories. A world away from the nasty jingoism festering and now erupting in the wake of Brexit.

Whenever I get angry about this rampant intolerance and the way our Cabinet of Fools have handled the pandemic I return to the ultimate therapy – growing my own and cooking.

I am not alone in making that essential plot to table connection. A whole new generation of professional chef/growers is in the vanguard of championing our food heritage. In my own North these include Sam Buckley of Where The Light Gets In, Joseph Otway of Higher Ground/Cinderwood Market Garden and Alisdair Brooke-Taylor of the Moorcock at Norland.

And down in the Mendip Hills outside Bristol The Victorian Barley Wood Walled Garden provides inspirational, seasonal produce for the on-site Ethicurean, winner of Best Ethical Restaurant in the 2011 Observer Food Monthly Awards. We loved eating there, with accompanying tumblers of their home-made vermouth. Like Simon Baker, chef patron of the stalwart Gimbals Restaurant (like the Moorcock in my home territory of the Calder Valley), I am a huge fan of their The Ethicurean Cookbook (Ebury Press, £25). Highly recommended.

The Ethicurean stuff their courgette flowers with ewe’s curd and cobnuts, accompanying them with a wild fennel sorbet. They make the most of our native cobnuts, nearly extinct 30 years ago but making a comeback in likeminded restaurants. They feature in my final recipe, taken from The Ethicurean Cookbook. In season you can buy cobnuts mail order from Kent. My obliging Calderdale greengrocer Valley Veg have a supply on request.

*That exquisite Ethicurean courgette soup with labneh, toasted cobnuts and English mustard dressing*

ROASTED COURGETTE AND COBNUT SOUP WITH LABNEH AND GINGER TURMERIC AND MINT DRESSING

1kg small firm courgettes, sliced into 2cm pieces

rapeseed oil

500g onions finely sliced

250g carrots finely sliced

250g celery finely sliced

1tsp salt plus more for final seasoning

40g fresh cobnuts, chopped, thenlightly toasted

For the labneh:

500g Greek yoghurt

½tsp salt

1tbsp chopped marjoram

1tbsp chopped oregano

For the dressing:

85ml rapeseed oil

50ml cider vinegar

1tsp English mustard

½tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp ground turmeric

1tsp chopped mint

Method

Make the labneh a day in advance. Line a sieve with muslin and put the yoghurt in it, stirring in salt. Wrap into a bundle over a deep bowl to drain overnight. Next day discard the liquid. To make the dressing blend all the ingredients together.

Heat the oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6. Toss the courgettes with a little rapeseed oil, then spread on a roasting tin. Roast in oven for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, heat a film of rapeseed oil in a large saucepan and add onions carrots and celery; sweat for 10-15 minutes until tender. Stir so the veg doesn’t colour. Add roasted courgettes and sweat for 5 minutes longer. Add water to barely cover and bring to a simmer. Add salt and after five minutes blitz in a blender (in batches if necessary). If too thick for you, pas through a fine sieve to create a more velvety mouthfeel. Now season to taste, reheat gently and serve in bowls topped with a tablespoon of labneh, a scattering of chopped cobnuts and a drizzle of mustard dressing.

29 July 2021/by Neil Sowerby

Drink, Travel, Wine

Xinomavro and Thessaloniki – our epic Greek voyage of discovery

Wine dark sea. I’ve always loved that enigmatic go-to phrase of Homer. Hard to pin down its exact meaning until one sunset stroll along the vast esplanade of Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki. Nikis Avenue and its continuation doesn’t bother with fencing off the Thermaic Gulf. One stumble and you could plunge into Poseidon’s salty realm.

*Sunset over the Thermaic Gulf viewed from our Thessaloniki hotel room*

The home of the Gods, Mount Olympus, is a distant silhouette to the south west; the wine of the Gods undoubtedly springs from Naoussa, 75 mountainous miles north. Thessaloniki gave us so much but the taste for Xinomavro may be the most lasting legacy. Along with the view from our seafront hotel, but more of that later.

Xinomavro (pronounced ksee-NOH-mavro) is a red grape found all over Northern and Central Greece. Traditionally it’s challenging, tannic with high acidity, often compared with Italy’s Barolo grape, Nebbiolo. We were recommended it to accompany a herby lamb stew in Thessaloniki’s hip former Jewish quarter, Valaoritou.

We were immediately smitten, but that introduction didn’t yell Barolo. Back in Manchester, we unearthed a bottle that did – a Markowitis Xinomavro from 1999 on the list at the wonderful erst, Ancoats. That substantial bottle age delivered an enticing scent of violets and truffles. It tasted waxy, slightly nutty, the tannins having smoothed out without compromising the essential acidity. Very like a mature Barolo or Barbaresco. The wine is no longer available at erst but another seasoned vintage can be found at Wine & Wallop, Knutsford.

Since then I’ve deluged myself with various Xinomavros from Naoussa and the three other appellations across Macedonia. Earlier this year The Wine Society offered a toothsome special introductory case of six for a while and still offer a varied selection. I’d recommend as an introduction two contrasting bottles from the doyen of Xinomavro winemakers, Apostolos Thymiopoulos. His Jeune Vignes 2019 (£11.50) is all accessible bright red fruit and herbs, while from older grapes the Xinomavro Naoussa 2018 (£14.50) is more structured but with delicious ripeness. Almost a feel of Pinot Noir in there.

Note: you have to make a one-off modest payment to join the Society for life (membership numbers and sales have swelled dramatically during lockdowns). If you’d just like to try the 2018 without committing it’s available too at Majestic Wine.

There’s also an accessible £9.50 introduction in M&S’s new ‘Found’ range, where Thymiopoulos has blended 70% Xin with 30% Mandalaria grapes from distant Santorini.

*Xinomavro grapes ready to harvest and the legendary Apostolos Thymiopoulos*

If Xinomvavro is still under the radar with the wine-buying public – still too much in thrall to the mixed blessings of Malbec – it’s certainly a wine trade favourite. The great Tim Atkin MW raves about it in his blogs and in the engagingly maverick Noble Rot: Wines From Another Galaxy (Quadrille, £30) co-authors Dan Keeling and Mark Andrew pin its appeal down perfectly: “To think of it just as a Barolo-alike is to do it a disservice. Notes of dried herbs, tomato and olive unfurl with age, which contemporary vignerons balance by emphasising the primary fruit characters and taming its jagged tannins.”

There is a chance modern techniques could subdue the wildness of the grape. Over-oaking i happening. That’s not the case with the best example from Thymiopoulos, his award-winning Rapsani Terra Petra 2018 (Wine Society, £22), where sweetly fruited Xinomavro is blended with indigenous Krassato and Stavroto to add extra richness. It comes from a warmer climate, long-neglected vineyard on the slopes of Olympus. Told you it was the wine of the Gods.

*These are real icons melding Greek Orthodox religiosity and the tourist buck*

THESSALONIKI

Let’s now banish the Gods and return to Greece’s culinary capital and its liveliest city. It has ancient roots and by the late 19th century was perhaps the most multicultural city in Europe with an Ottoman heritage co-existing with Greek Orthodox, the large Jewish population a catalyst for its prosperity. An essential guide to Thessaloniki’s turbulent history is Salonica City of Ghosts by Mark Mazower (Harper pb £14.99).

Yet today’s city, with a population of 800,000, is shaped by the 20th Century – or to be more specific one particular day, August 18, 2014. Over several hours the Great Fire wiped out that rich past, destroying 9.500 houses and leaving 70,000 homeless. So the city centre you see today with its elegant French style boulevards is the result of the rebuild.

*Expect no concessions to visitor squeamishness on city market stalls*

A few significant remnants survive – the old city walls high above in the old town, alongside the tranquil Vladaton Monastery, the atmospheric churches of St Demetrios and Aghia Sofia, the Byzantine Thermal Baths – but essentially it is a city to stroll around and relish the essence of modern Greekness, the bars, markets and old-fashioned shops. It’s all a bit cluttered.

The Jewish Museum in Agiou MIna Street traces the rich culture of the community, which was wiped out when 60,000 were deported to the camps by the Nazis . Valaoritou, once home to the fabric shops of working class Jews, is the coolest place to be after dark as clubs and bars slowly restore its disused buildings.

The esplanade, which passes the White Tower, a 15th-century curiosity that is famous throughout Greece, is a spacious boon to cyclists and pedestrians. New public sculptures, including the much-photographed Umbrellas opposite Anthokomiki Park, are witty and attractive. Almost every month there’s a different festival – food, music, jazz, films, wine. There are book fairs and an LGBT Pride parade in June. The Greek word most associated with Thessaloniki is “xalara” which means “laid-back” or “cool” and you really feel it as you begin to explore.

*The White Tower is visible from seafront rooms at Daios Luxury Living*

We had the perfect base, Daios Luxury Living, at Nikis 59, along from the White Tower. Our fifth floor room with balcony looked down onto the seafront with exhilarating views over the Gulf, with epic sunsets and then a glorious pale moon. It was so tempting to stay put with a glass of Assyrtiko (my favourite Greek white, but that’s another story) but beer called!

At the nearby Hoppy Pub owner George Alexakis, perhaps Greece’s foremost craft beer fanatic, holds court, discussing the merits of Magic Rock and the ascendancy of Cloudwater. He and fellow pioneers even brew their own beer; the Flamingo Road Trip IPA was delicious.

On his recommendation we ate at a new, acclaimed Cretan restaurant called Charoupi. The name means ‘carob’, that chocolate-like pod some see as a superfood and is certainly a symbol for Crete. Charoupi’s menu reflects the rustic food of the island (bone-in rabbit stew, goat cheeses), but it was a carob-driven dish that astonished – a pie made not with white flour, but with carob flour and topped with black and white sesame seeds and carob honey. Alas, not a Xinomavro on the wine list.

Getting there:

It’s a two hour flight with jet2.com from Manchester. We combined Thessaloniki with staying as guest of the highly recommended Eagle Villas resort two hours south in Halkidiki, near the gateway to Mount Athos. We could see the Holy Mountain, mantled in cloud far down the coastline. Iconic is an over-used term (and obviously real icons are everywhere here) but apt for the sealed-off realm of 20 Orthodox monasteries, clustering in its shadow.

For a thousand years the barriers have been up. Present yourself for one of the strictly controlled three-day permits at the basement border post in the nearest town, Orianopoulis, and you might well fail to convince them of your suitability. It’s simpler for a woman. You’re absolutely forbidden entry into this 300 sq km male-only dominion, home to some 2,000 monks and stunning treasures.

We enjoyed a vicarious peek at the clifftop monastic fastnesses from a catamaran we hired, picnicking on board, surrounded by a school of playful dolphins. Feeling gloriously heathen.

18 July 2021/by Neil Sowerby

Beer, Travel

Denver, America’s capital of craft beer and legal highs

I am eating one of those banh mi Vietnamese baguettes, with a dip of pho broth on the side. The spice goes surprisingly well with a Denver Pale Ale from Hogshead brewery – a neighbourhood homage to English cask beer. Soundtrack is the Black Keys in glam stomp mode; staff serving sushi, pizza and Venezuelan arepas shimmy along to it. In the distance Denver’s soaring skyline shimmers.

The ‘Mile High City’ apparently gets 300 days of sunshine a year and today is living up to the boast. My vantage point is the rooftop terrace of collective eaterie Avanti F&B, a two level shipping container with half a dozen global food vendors plus bars dispensing a riot of delicious, eclectic beers.

*The panorama across the city from the Avanti Food Hall is stunning*

Naturally, for this is Denver, US capital of craft brewing, home to more than 100 breweries, and to the annual Great American Beer Festival (virtual in 20121, due to return in 2022).

After my banh mi it’s all I can do not to order another pint, a Diebolt Chin Chin de Diable Belgian Golden Strong Ale perhaps or a wild-fermented Crooked Stave Hop Savant, both local riffs on artisan hoppiness.

Heaven knows I’m thirsty enough after rambling around Denver’s hip and hilly Highlands district with its roster of fine eating places and bars – the likes of Roots Down, Linger, The Ale House, William & Graham and the veteran Beat Writers’ hang-out, My Brother’s Bar (about all of which, later). Fine old houses, too, and a pleasing leafiness.

*The Ice House Building in historic Wynkoop Street*

This is a city for walking. Highlands is west of the South Platte River, easily reached via the pedestrian Millennium Bridge and the revived Riverfront parks from my base in LoDo (Lower Downtown). How they love these aspirational acronyms – RiNo, which I always took for ‘Republican In Name Only’, here means the River North Art District, an urban wasteland now on the up and a hub for the craft brewing and leftfield creativity that define contemporary Denver.

LoDo too is a story of resurgence, entire blocks of brick warehouses and stables left to rot rediscovered and turned into apartments, restaurants and the like without losing their soul. Blink and you could be in that old Rocky Mountains frontier town with a whole posse of mavericks passing through – Wyatt Earp, Butch Cassidy, Billy the Kid and Buffalo Bill (who is buried up on Lookout Mountain on the outskirts of town).

*Union Station’s impressive facade is symbolic of the old city centre’s regeneration*

The railroad was mighty important for the development of the Wild West; one cherishable legacy in Denver is LoDo’s Union Station, a 1914 Beaux Arts masterpiece that only a few years ago was a shabby drifters’ haunt under threat of being torn down. Enter an urban conservationist called Dana Crawford, who energised its transformation into one of America’s coolest destinations, complete with its own 112 room Crawford Hotel named in her honour.

*The view of the Union Station Great Hall from my Crawford Hotel lodging*

I was lucky enough to stay there; walk out of my second floor room and I gazed down from the landing on its ornate centrepiece, the sweeping Great Hall. White and gilt, glistening chandeliers for when the light fades through its vast arched windows, it’s quite glorious.

Down in the lift, avoiding the temptations of the Cooper indoor cocktail terrace, and I was spoilt for choice by the array of food and drink outlets and boutique shopping, including a tiny branch of the city’s legendary Tattered Cover bookstore and Snooze, flagship of a renowned retro brunch chain (with cocktails and ancho chilli wheat beer shandies for when the smoothies pall). Next door Mercantile switches from daytime deli to casual fine dining each evening.

My main focus was on the Terminal Bar, in the converted ticket office which occupies a whole side of the ground floor. What’s not to like about 30 rotating regional beers on tap and a smart Colorado spirits list?

*The RINO district is the epicentre of Denver’s art culture*

Having got the taste, I left this heavenly haunt in quest of the catalyst of Denver’s craft beer revolution – The Wynkoop Brewpub on the street of that name. To get there it’s just a short walk across the station plaza, home to a growers-only farmer’s market every Saturday (Union Station even has its own beehives on the roof and a farm to table ethos governs much of the city’s eating habits).

Denver mayor now Colorado state senator John Hickenlooper founded the brewery/bar back in 1988, kickstarting the rebirth of the whole area. It has a real pub feel with pool, darts, telly sports and a hearty food menu.

It’s a must-visit destination, but the axis of brewing has shifted northwards to RiNo, a still edgy district that over the last decade has been colonised by artists, hipster nesters and cutting edge brewers. This transformation has now gone into overdrive, with the infrastructure still a work in progress as we discovered on our bumpy tuk tuk ride from Downtown.

*The Source, converted from an old brick foundry into a food market hall*

What we discovered was majorly exciting. The hub is The Source, an 1880s brick foundry complex that has been converted spectacularly into an artisan food market hall with an on site hotel created by New Belgium brewery, from Fort Collins. Their big rivals in that town, Odell also now have a presence in Denver. A sign of the times, though, in a very competitive market, Falling Rock Tap House, a pioneering US craft beer bar, closed it doors in June 2021.

*Ratio Brewery – I just missed a private gig there from Wilco*

A short walk away from The Source are several excellent brewery taps – Zach Rabun’s Mockery probably the best, its name a rebuttal of the constricting German Reinheitsgebot ‘pure beer’ rules, thus emphasising their own innovative brewing (Mukduk, a summery cucumber Berliner Weisse beer quite breathtaking); Great Divide next door, motto ‘bold characters’, is a bigger concern, a pioneer in the wake of Wynkoop with their Yeti Imperial Stout range almost a brand within their brand and their brewery tours a lively introduction to the brewing process’; and Ratio Beerworks with a delicious range to be sampled in their large, functional, dog-friendly taproom, an offbeat rock venue (the touring Wilco played a private set there while I was in town).

*Lining up the sours for me at the amazing Crooked Stave’s brewtap*

Still, the most exciting tasting was in Source’s industrial chic food hall itself, just past the unique combo of florists and butcher’s shop, at the Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project brewtap. Our server lined up 16 samples of the sour beers they specialise in – owner Chad Yakobson completed his master’s in Edinburgh in these complex ales fermented with wild yeast. Blueberries and cherries and barrel ageing all strove for attention with hardly a dud down the line, making for the most memorable beer moment of our visit.

*Black Sky featured Robinson’s Trooper on tap and their own beers were damn tasty*

All this proves how important beer tourism is to the town, which is scattered with breweries and their taps. Down in boho South Broadway I took in two which combine fermentation and heavy metal head-banging – TRVE with its occult dungeon trappings and Black Sky, whose bar – suddenly making me homesick – sports a Trooper beer banner in homage to the bitter curated by Bruce Dickinson for Robinson’s of Stockport. Booze loving bookworms have their own Fiction Beer Company, which I never got to, sampling brews inspired by literature from a bar created from stacked books. Anyone for Dreamer IPA, whose muse is the last line of Rudyard Kipling’s The Fairies’ Siege?

*The Blue Bear marks the spot where the Great American Beer Festival traditionally takes place*

But, of course, this is just the tip of the all-year-round ‘Aleberg’ that culminates in the Great American Beer Festival in the Convention Center on 14th Street – hard to miss because of the 40ft high blue bear leaning into it, a much-loved statue by a local artist, which is actually called ‘I See What You Mean’. Such a very Denver icon.

*Larimer Square is home to Rioja, arguably Denver’s finest resturant*

So if your idea of heaven strays beyond brewery visits…

Here are a few places to eat, perhaps buy a hat or even a stash of legal marijuana.

Rioja

A contender for best restaurant in a city devoted to casual dining, this Francophile project from Jasinki-Gruich is a terrific mix of stylish surroundings, slick service and some imaginative Mediterranean-inspired food. Fittingly it’s in pedestrianised Larimer Square, the swishest stretch of bars and restaurants in the city.

*I relished my rattlesnake and pheasant dog*

Biker Jim’s Gourmet Dogs

This purveyor of extreme fillings and biker diner vibes, is situated in edgier territory a 10 minute walk from Rioja. Alaskan Reindeer was the recommended dog of choice, but I decided Pheasant and Rattlesnake was the way to go with an El Diablo topping. Tastes of chicken naturally, not to be hissed at.

Civic Center EATS food trucks

Throughout the summer from Tuesday to Thursday, from 11am-2pm, it’s meals on wheels time in the rather grand public park sandwiched between the Capitol, the mInt and the rather wonderful Denver Art Museum. From a melting pot of global street food on offer I went Indian. My spinach paneer lacked genuine chilli eat, but it was lovely to sit out in the Denver sun with the lunchtime crowd.

*Civic Centre is a grand setting for food trucks*

Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox

I went up 20th Street to breathe in the atmosphere from Coors Field ballpark on a Colorado Rockies match night and maybe grab a beer from the Jagged Mountain brewtap (not a Coors, mind, poor, thin stuff from the world’s biggest brewing facility just outside Denver). I was diverted, though, to Ophelia’s Soapbox, a former bordello that wryly styles itself as a ‘gastro-brothel’ thanks to its boudoir-style decor across several levels, encompassing and eclectic mix of cocktails and mostly organic dishes, live music and a dancefloor.

Denver Central Market

A younger version of The Source – a gourmet food emporium with a community feel covering most bases and also a good place to lunch and, of course, drink craft beer, which we did. Lovely conversion of a bright and airy 1920s building, once a car showroom.

Linger

Another (more leftfield) conversion in the Highlands – the old Olinger’s mortuary transformed into a global small plate restaurant with a panoramic rooftop bar. The ‘O’ in the neon Olinger sign is extinguished at night; hence the laid-back name Linger.

William and Graham

Also in the Highlands classic Prohibition-style speakeasy the guise of a bookstore. A cosy escape, pull up a chair and order a Corn on the Macabre (Butter Washed Vida Mezcal, sweetcorn, blackened lime demerara and lime luice).

Rockmount

Famed the world over for its classic Western clothing range, notably the original snap button shirt, the original LoDo outfitters is a photo-cluttered shrine to all the celebs who have worn (or at least bought) the gear. I couldn’t resist slipping into the cannabis motif cowboy blouse sported by Willie Nelson in the picture.

*Legal marijuana is big business in the ‘Mile High City’*

Marijuana Dispensaries

Denver would be Spliffing Willie’s kinda town, Colorado his kinda state. If you are 21 or older, you can now legally possess 1oz of marijuana in Colorado. You can enjoy many types of concentrates and edibles during your visit, bought from an array of dispensaries with names like Potco and Sacred Seed. If you wish to research further visit the Colorado Pot Guide. And if you really want an initiation into the almighty Pot, visit the city’s International Church of Cannabis.

My Brother’s Bar

The Beat writers would have approved – cannabis was their drug of choice back in the Fifties and Sixties. Kerouac, Ginsberg and Co were regular moochers around Denver primarily because partner in crime Neal Cassidy was raised in the city. His faint legacy remains in My Brother’s on the edge of Highlands, a bar without a sign at 2376 15th St. Here you’ll find a framed letter Cassady sent to a friend from the Colorado Reformatory, where he was sent for car thieving. The ever hard-up Cassady wrote: “I believe I owe (My Brother’s) about 3 or 4 dollars. If you happen to be in that vicinity, please drop in and pay it, will you?” The beer range here is ace. I’d recommend the Odell IPA.

*Glamorous ski centre Telluride is six hours’ drive away from Denver in the Rockies*

FACT FILE

For full information about the state’s attractions visit Colorado Tourism Office. and for Denver check out this link. The self-guided Denver Beer Trail is a good way to get your beer bearings in the city. A version of this article, since amended post-pandemic, first appeared on Manchester Confidential.

30 June 2021/by Neil Sowerby

Food, Travel

Truffles aren’t to be trifled with – my transatlantic quest

One of my early lockdown treats, my alternative to baking banana bread and sourdough (or hoarding more loo rolls than my neighbours) was to order a small sample of English truffle from The Wiltshire Truffle Company, shaving the precious tuber into scrambled eggs, its heady aroma permeating the kitchen.

Since when I’ve moved onto more and more arcane foodie explorations – bottarga, colatura d’alici, mostarda di cremona, cottechino. There’s an Italian theme developing here, so if I want to resume my truffle fixation I should really hang on until next autumn when the white truffles of Alba in Piedmont make their seasonal bow.

Not that seasons are crucial in our global society. The Wiltshire suppliers don’t just confine themselves to Italy, France and the ‘full English’ they’ve done so much to promote. Their latest mail-out trumpets the arrival of Australian winter truffle, akin to Périgord truffles from South West France – “widely considered by leading chefs to be the best black truffles on the planet”. Big claims and you could compare these Aussie beauts with the company’s regular shipments of Italian summer truffles from hunters in the Tuscan and Umbrian hills. If your funds run to it. Truffles are wallet-busters. At auction the most prized varieties could cost you over £5,000 per kilo.

A local truffle trader on the streets of Alba

The most exciting and affordable way to encounter them is to visit Alba at peak Truffle Festival Time. OK, it hosts auctions flogging the most perfect specimens to connoisseurs and entrepreneurs across the world, but even the smallest cafes offer affordable menus showing their pride in the product. I know I’ve been there. And also, cutting out the middle men, I’ve trekked with hunters in the ancient forests as they unearth secret truffle patches with their specially trained dogs. Ditto in Oregon, USA, where I was invited to an altogether more academic Truffle Festival…

• There’s a documentary in cinemas, The Truffle Hunters, which is set around Alba and another UK online truffle merchant called TruffleHunter, which has a fine reputation. They’ll also sell you a professional standard truffle shaver. I’m wary of much that passes as truffle oil; truffle butter can be a better bet for a cheaper option to the real tuber.

But first, what exactly makes the white truffle so special?

Truffles are the fruiting body of a subterranean fungus usually found in close association with the roots of trees, their spores dispersed through fungivores (animals that eat fungi). Hence it was traditionally pigs that were trained to hunt these coveted delicacies. These days it’s more likely to be dogs. White truffles are more highly prized than the black. Growing symbiotically with oak, hazel, poplar and beech and fruiting in autumn, they can reach 12 cm diameter and 500g, though they are usually much smaller, between 30g and 110g. The flesh is pale cream or brown with white marbling which releases their powerful scents, not appreciated by everyone (let’s call it olefactory Marmite). There are an estimated 200,000 regular truffle gatherers in Italy, with the sector worth around €400 million a year.

Fresh truffles should be consumed more or less immediately although they will last for up to seven days in a domestic fridge.

Once upon a time in Alba

I’d never associated hedonism with tramping through thick forest undergrowth in the dusk. Peering to see if a lean setter-cross has found the ideal tree root to dig frantically under. I am not alone here in the heart of Alba truffle country in an October unseasonally warm. Around me 15 other paid-up ‘Hedonistic Hikers’, cameras at the ready, also await a tuber epiphany.

Our guides, trading under the name Hedonistic Hiking, are proud to include an authentic white truffle hunt in season as part of their ‘Jewels of Piedmont’ (Piemonte) walking tour. It’s not everyone’s idea of holiday heaven but it sets serious foodies salivating. Those who know what the fuss is all about when the autumn mists that give their name to the famous local grape variety, Nebbiolo vines coat the valleys of North West Italy’s Langhe region and the autumn wine harvest is nearly over. It’s now Truffle Time, all the way to Christmas.

The following day we’ll indulge in an early evening aperitivo and do the ‘passeggiata’, strolling around the truffle-scented squares and alleys of regional capital Alba, where the annual Truffle Fair is on to celebrate – and auction off – this lucrative delicacy.

Still for the moment, at the gourmet equivalent of the coalface, there’s work to be done.

*Truffle accessories aren’t strictly necessary*

Our truffle hunter, Marco Varaldo, expresses faith in his rookie hound, Laika, so new she doesn’t feature in his publicity material. Marco has a day job, but hunting for the lucrative truffles, with their intoxicating, almost aphrodisiac scent, is his passion.

The white variety, the ‘tartufo bianco’, rarer and more expensive than the black and found mostly famously in this corner of Italy, is revered the world over by gastronomes (and expensive restaurants). Admiration isn’t universal – their earthy assertiveness nauseates some sensitive palates. I’m not in that camp.

The white truffle can’t be artificially cultivated. This is part of its unique appeal. They are sought for in certain jealously guarded locations, hidden at the base of oak, beech and hazel trees. You train your dog to recognise the pungent aroma and then snuffle them out of the soil and leaf mould. It all seems a mite random as Laika zips and zig-zags around, scattering leaf mould, but then…

*The novice truffle hound comes up trumps*

I don’t know what the Piemontese for Eureka is, but it is time to yell it. The pooch apprentice has struck gold – ‘white gold’. Marco quickly straddles Laika, snatching a knobbly clay-covered lump from her jaws, pocketing it and rewarding the dog with a far less expensive treat. We clamber to see what the fuss is about. Marco delicately brushes the muck off the white truffle and we all commune with its pervasive perfume.

Over the next couple of hours we collect further specimens and, later, part of the haul, assiduously shaved over the local tajarin pasta, will be the centrepiece of our supper at a little local restaurant called Mange. When truffles are abundant, near the source, they can be a surprisingly democratic treat. Just a few slices elevate a local beef dish, below.

*Truffle heaven on a plate. It doesn’t get much better*

We were staying in La Morra, which follows the pattern of all the settlements in the Langhe, which recently attained World Heritage Status. They sit on a hilltop above the vines, dominated by a castle, a church, usually both, and offer ample opportunity to taste the wines that have made this corner of Piemonte famous – Dolcetto, Barbera, Barbaresco (in one small enclave) and, above all, Barolo.

One of of our walks, from our hotel, the Corte Gondina, to Barolo village itself, took in the family-run winery of GD Vajra at Vergne. I’ve been there before in the early summer to taste their excellent wines and, now the harvest complete, was welcomed back like an old family friend. Piemonte’s like this. It doesn’t feel like some calculating tourist honeypot. You meet it on its own terms. Just like the truffle.

*The Ponzi vineyards at the heart of Oregon’s wine country*

Oregon’s wine country is also home to truffles (and another festival)

The Willamette Valley, just south of Portland, is the epicentre of Oregon wine, notable for Pinot Noir that can arguably rival Burgundy’s silkiest reds. And where there’s great wine there’s usually a thriving food culture. Yet until I was invited to join the The Oregon Truffle Festival I had no idea the rolling hills around McMinnville are also home to both black and white varieties plus four Oregon natives. 2021 pandemic strictures meant it has gone virtual (you can pick up goodies via an online marketplace – truffle stout anyone?).

*Truffle hunting Oregon style and there’s a reward here*

All this is obviously off a normal tourist’s radar, but rolling Willamette Country’s wineries and fine restaurants aren’t. McMinnville makes a fine base for exploring. Stay in its red brick historic district, perhaps at the oddball Hotel Oregon, which has a rooftop bar and is decorated with relics of the building’s 115-year history and the town’s famous 1950 UFO sighting. You might also run into the ghost of a former resident, nicknamed John.

As in all the towns along the route, I grabbed a craft beer, this time at the convivial Golden Valley Brewery and Tap before sampling a festival special truffle vodka and local wine at the Elizabeth Chambers Cellars, one of many tasting rooms in the town.

You’ll probably find it more fun to drive out to one of the country wineries to do your sampling. It sounds boringly generic but Willamette Valley Vineyards offers exceptional quality. Wine and truffles – the perfect marriage either side of the pond.

*Truffle carpaccio – our festival reward*

29 June 2021/by Neil Sowerby

Beer, Travel

Weird and wonderful Portland Oregon

Was there ever a hotel as ace as the Ace? In my first visit to Portland, Oregon I revelled in its grungy quirks (even the vintage shower that didn’t work). With master mixologist Jeffrey Morgenthaler and definitive Stumptown Coffee on the premises and the legendary Powell’s City of Books two blocks away who could ask for a better base in this playful, radical city George Bush dubbed ‘Little Beirut’?

*Ace Hotel – could a Portland rival oust it from my affections?*

I swore this would always be my Portland lodging of choice. And the vow stuck – until six months later, stopping off on a San Francisco-Seattle road trip, I discovered Jupiter. Not via any space shuttle, simply by crossing the Burnside Bridge into a post-industrial quarter that’s on the up from a long way down. In this process the Jupiter Hotel and its in-house live music venue, the Doug Fir Lounge, have been a major catalyst, along with Portland’s top restaurant Le Pigeon next door and Burnside Brewing Co across the road. Good things come in clusters.

*The Jupiter was out of this world, especially the Doug Fir Lounge*

We had been asked when booking the Jupiter, a converted motel, whether we preferred a room on the Bar Side or the Chill Side; the former giving you an up-close share of party central until dawn, the latter offering a chance of some shut-eye. We chose Chill, taking advantage of an extremely comfortable bed in a compact but murally soothing environment.

Host to many top acts, the Doug Fir Lounge has regularly been named one of America’s premium gig venues – and there’s strong competition in Portland itself from the likes of Mississippi Studios and the Crystal Ballroom. Indeed the Jupiter’s leaflets claim 12 music venues within a mile radius (along with five distilleries within two miles and award-winning breweries four blocks) We just loved the timber-clad Doug Fir’s happy hour bar vibe, the raucous stand-up getting the party under way and then the fire pit bonhomie of the joint.

*Le Pigeon – I’d cooked the recipes, would the real thing live up?*

The beer was better, though, at Burnside Brewing and we couldn’t resist taking in Le Pigeon, 30 seconds round the corner. I’ve been cooking from restless pioneer Gabe Rucker’s cookbook for several years and the bistro didn’t disappoint with dishes such as caraway crusted sweetbreads; foie gras thom kha; and truffled chicken, shrimp and grits, corn succotash, prawn-tarragon aioli. Top end prices, especially for wine, belie the casualness of the setting and make it a special occasion place.

*Legendary street food from Mong’s Khao Man Gai*

A more accessible and affordable bet for a Jupiter guest is three minutes’ walk away on S.E. Alkeny Street – a cafe outlet from street food champion Nong’s Khao Man Gai, whose original food cart is still serving its trademark poached chicken with rice downtown on the corner of SW 10th Avenue and SW Alder Street. Sunday Times restaurant critic Marina O’Loughlin is a big fan.

Street food ‘pods’ are scattered around a city devised on a grid system (hence NE, NW etc attached to some impossibly long streets to signify which district you are in). The corner of 28 South East Place and Division Street hosts the Tidbit Food Farm and Garden, a lovely place to refuel, global food carts circling the Scout Beer shack like covered wagons.

Bibimbap, sushi, roasted pepper tri-tip, Fillipino pork stew – it’s a dazzling Asian road trip. Alternatively, there’s Texas brisket or candied bacon burgers, waffle sandwiches and wood-fired pizza. I grabbed a picnic table, a Fresh Hop Simcoe brewed by the hyperactive beardies at Breakside and slurped the best bone stock rich ramen I’ve ever eaten from a truck called Hapa. The name describes the fusion of Japanese cooking techniques and Hawaiian recipes. For a full of Portland’s food cart locations visit this link.

*Extracto is in the forefront of the city’s vibrant coffee culture*

Though Seattle would claim the honour, sometimes you feel Portland invented coffee, too, it’s home to so many acclaimed roasteries. Stumptown is the place to start. It took on the city’s nickname (from its logging past) and for nearly two decades this roastery has set the standard by which rivals are judged. These are many to pick from nowadays. Take Extracto , a decade-old chain of two with its roastery at the original N.E. Killingsworth Street cafe/shop. From the Eleven of Spades house-blend through rare single-origin roasts to the elevation of latte decoration to an art form it hits all the right coffee buttons.

*The Simpsons doughnut homage at Voodoo*

With all this coffee, well, you’ve got to have a doughnut. Jupiter does a ‘The Magic is in the Hole’ certificate for guests, providing a ‘Voodoo Dozen’, a pink box of 13 from the city’s most hyped provider. Voodoo even run to a Homer Simpson tribute doughnut (creator Matt Groening is a Portlander and several of the cartoon’s characters are named after its streets – Ned Flanders, Milhouse and the like).

*But Blue Star has the edge in the Portland Doughnut Wars*

Locals insist Blue Star is the hipster doughnut of choice. I understand why when I scoff one of their lauded creations – a riot of intense chocolate, cream and brioche. The wonder of it is captured fully in a local website’s Deconstructing Blue Star’s Valrhona Donut. I’d checked out their Mississippi Avenue outlet en route for a Brewvana craft beer walking tour.

*April is our guide to the city’s amazing beer varieties*

This vibrant corner of town, once a no-go area now on the cusp of gentrification, has lots to offer – the aforementioned Mississippi Studios, a street food pod (naturally), a cannabis store and the amazing Paxton Gate offering stuffed animal collectibles – but its breweries are worth the trip alone. Our ‘Brewvana Mississippin’ tour guide April took us around three, Ecliptic, Stormbreaker and Hopworks Bike Bar and what our small party tasted along the way, especially at the latter, revealed why Portland contends with Denver for the title of US Capital of Beer. The three hour tour costs $69 and you do get to eat the pretzel necklace that brands you as an ale geek.

*Snack on this choc chip treat and get high*

Of course, the intoxicant of choice is not always malt and hop-driven. ‘Keep Portland Weird’ says the parking lot sign opposite Voodoo Doughnuts. Personal consumption of cannabis is legal in Oregon; still I resisted the temptation in its largest city to get high on a brownie infused with the stuff. They even sell ready-rolled joints in specialist dispensaries such as Nectar.

*Himalayan salt is the tangy new kid on the block at Mark Bitterman’s saline mecca*

Oh and salt is more than a footnote if you visit Mark Bitterman’s two sodium chloride-centred delis called The Meadow. Conveniently, one of them is up on resurgent North Mississippi Avenue next door to a Blue Star cafe. It was here I bought kala namak (Himalayan black salt) and a couple of Bitterman’s books – one on salt naturally, the other on cocktail bitters.

In it he name-checks another Portland legend, Jeffrey Morgenthaler, mixologist at Ace Hotel’s Clyde Common bistro and Pépé le Moko speakeasy. I couldn’t resist begging this cocktail high priest for one of his celebrated barrel-aged Negronis.

*Freaky fish in the brickwork – who said Portland was weird?*

Post Negroni (or three) for further weirdness walk up to 901 Salmon Street and gaze up at a whole salmon swimming through the corner of a brick building. It’s an 11ft long bronze sculpture called Transcendence, high above a seafood restaurant.

*I lived with this cat in my quirky Ace lodging*

The city hosts some of the most inventive street art around. Some of it had rubbed off in my room at the Ace, adorned by a giant cat image guarding my personal vinyl deck. Retro touches extended to a Heath Robinson-like steel shower in my standalone tub that I gave up on and recycled fabrics and furnishings I found charming if hardly luxurious. Downstairs, though, oozes sociable cool. Check in and you may never leave. Unless Jupiter is in your orbit, dude.

For something different to enliven your stay in this most civilised of American cities in bewildering times check out these five fun options:

1 Small is beautiful at Leprechaun Park

Mill Ends Park – total area 452.16 sq in – holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s smallest park. Known as Leprechaun Park, it fills a circular concrete hole, once meant to be the base for a lamp-post on Naito Parkway. Back in the 1940s a local journalist, whose office overlooked it, decided to plant flowers there and it was officially recognised as a city park on St Patrick’s Day 1976. PS Don’t aim to spend a whole day there.

2 Or if you fancy a more expansive green escape

The formal Japanese Garden has now added an extra 3.4 acres to its original 5.5, featuring ornamental cherry trees, ponds and tea house. The revamped Cultural Village has an authentic style medieval castle wall, which was built with traditional hand tools under the watchful eye of a 15th-generation Japanese master stone mason. It’s a place of tranquil contemplation all year round but must be spectacular in blossom season.

3 Portland’s Chinatown

Once dubbed ‘The Forbidden City of the West, it is now much diminished. The opium dens, brothels and kidnappings via the ‘Shanghai tunnels’ to the riverside are now gone, but the area retains a certain seediness. All the more surprising to stumble upon the gorgeous Su Lan Chinese Garden, which occupies a whole city block on NW Everett Street. Modelled after Ming Dynasty gardens and built by Chinese artisans from twin city Suzhou, it offers a microcosm of Chinese culture. Taste the tea, feel the harmony. A Portland must.

4 A good bookshop?

Look no further than one of America’s largest, offering used and new – Powell’s City of Books. On West Burnside Street around the corner from the Ace and boasting a spectacular wine and cookery section, I couldn’t resists its allure. After three Powell’s trips my Delta baggage allowance was in serious danger.

5 Wine? Head south to the Willamette Valley

Portland has its own urban wine scene, but the real deal is less than an hour away. Willamette is famous worldwide not for being Portland’s river but for being focus of the Oregon wine industry. Roam the hills around Newberg, Dundee and McMinnville 30 miles or so south of Portland. You’ll receive a warm welcome at any number of folksy family wineries. To plan an itinerary visit this link. We went upmarket to Ponzi, one of the pioneering wineries created by ‘escapees’ priced out of California and seeking a fresh terroir for the Holy Grail grape, Pinot Noir. That was 45 years ago and nowadays the luxurious tasting room and terrace overlooking the Chehalem Hills vineyards feels not a million miles from Napa. Accordingly, a single flight featuring a selection of current vintages costs $20 with cheese and charcuterie plates from $12. Worth splashing out for wine and setting. The winery has recently been bought by Bollinger.

Fact file

Factfile

Neil Sowerby stayed at The Jupiter Hotel, 800 East Burnside Street, Portland, OR 97214 and at the Ace Hotel, 1022 S.W. Stark Street, Portland, Oregon 97205.

The Covid pandemic has grounded most of the transatlantic air services, but as lockdown ends expect a resumption from the like of British Airways and Delta.

An essential guide to the area is Travel Portland. For further afield in the state go to Visit Oregon. To plan your American trip of a lifetime go to Visit USA.

21 June 2021/by Neil Sowerby

Aarhus – city of sliding penguins, rainbows and Iron age sacrifice

Pädaste Manor – our Estonian idyll among the misty marshes

Saluting Jöro and the Fat Cat on Sheffield’s paradise Island

Some rum spots I’ve been in… now bring on its Manchester festival

Fallot’s Tarragon Mustard – how the seeds of my affection were sown

Zucchini the road trip takes in Haute Provence, Mantua and the Mendips

Xinomavro and Thessaloniki – our epic Greek voyage of discovery

Denver, America’s capital of craft beer and legal highs

Truffles aren’t to be trifled with – my transatlantic quest

Weird and wonderful Portland Oregon

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