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Duck Confit with Pommes Sarladaises
Duck Confit with Pommes Sarladaises Duck legs cured overnight in salt, thyme and garlic, cooked slowly in their own fat until the meat is completely tender, then crisped in a dry pan until the [...]
Moules Marinières
Moules Marinières White wine, shallots, garlic, butter and parsley. Live mussels, the widest pan you own, a tight lid, four minutes at the highest heat. The broth that forms in the pot is [...]
Gratin Dauphinois
Gratin Dauphinois Thinly sliced Maris Piper potatoes baked slowly in cream infused with garlic and nutmeg, with a Gruyère crust on top that the purists of Grenoble would disallow and everyone else will [...]
A Proper Chocolate Mousse
A Proper Chocolate Mousse Four ingredients, the right technique and an overnight rest. Dark chocolate loosened by egg yolks, lifted by whipped egg whites, deepened by a splash of cognac. The classic French [...]
Whole Roasted Sea Bass
Whole Roasted Sea Bass Two sea bass on a Provençal bed of cherry tomatoes, olives, capers and garlic, roasted in a hot oven until the skin blisters and the cooking liquor beneath the [...]
Profiteroles with Dark Chocolate Sauce
Profiteroles with Dark Chocolate Sauce Choux puffs filled with crème pâtissière, piled on a plate, with dark chocolate sauce poured warm at the table in front of everyone. Three components, none of them [...]
Beef Bourguignon
Beef Bourguignon The great Burgundian beef braise: chuck beef in a whole bottle of Pinot Noir, with lardons, pearl onions and mushrooms each cooked separately so every element arrives at the table at [...]
Roasted Tomato Soup
Roasted Tomato Soup Made in late August or September, when tomatoes have been warm and ripe and worth it. Roasted until collapsed and caramelised, blended to a rustic consistency with the roasted garlic [...]
Pea and Mint Risotto
Pea & Mint Risotto The spring answer to the Risotto alla Milanese: the same five stages, the same unhurried attention, but bright green and fresh where the Milanese is golden and deep. Where [...]
Banana Bread Recipe with Muscovado and Walnuts
Banana Bread The house version: very overripe bananas, muscovado sugar, toasted walnuts, a low oven and the self-restraint not to cut it until the next day. Made entirely from what is already going [...]
A Reliable Victoria Sponge
A Reliable Victoria Sponge Cake Recipe The creaming method, equal weights, a proper five minutes given to the butter and sugar, and enough good jam and softly whipped cream inside to make the [...]
A Good Fish Pie
A Good Fish Pie The classic trio — white fish, smoked haddock and prawns — in a sauce built from the poaching milk, under a butter-and-cream mash. The kind of pie you make [...]
Godinton House and Gardens, Kent
Godinton House and Gardens, Kent A Jacobean house in the Ashford countryside, built around a fourteenth-century great hall, owned by the same family for four hundred and fifty-five years, and surrounded by a [...]
A Proper Lemon Tart
A Proper Lemon Tart Pâte sablée, a sharp lemon curd enriched with a little cream, and a thin caramelised crust on top that cracks under the spoon. Three distinct textures, one tart, and [...]
Brown Butter Madeleines
Brown Butter Madeleines Brown butter, lemon zest, a batter that rests overnight in the fridge, and a thermal shock in a very hot oven that produces the distinctive hump. Made properly, they are [...]
Goodnestone Park Gardens
Goodnestone Park Gardens, Kent A privately owned garden in a quiet Kent village, seven miles from Canterbury, where Jane Austen came to visit and began writing Pride and Prejudice. The family who own [...]
Walmer Castle and Gardens, Kent
Walmer Castle and Gardens, Kent A Tudor artillery fort built to defend England from invasion by France, never put to that particular use, gradually converted over three centuries into an elegant seaside residence for some [...]
Emmetts Garden, Kent. Bluebells, Tulips and Autumn Colour
Emmetts Garden, Kent A plantsman's hillside garden near Sevenoaks, on one of the highest points in Kent, with views over the unspoilt Weald and a seasonal programme that changes more dramatically than almost [...]
Penshurst Place and Gardens
Penshurst Place and Gardens, Kent A fortified medieval manor built by a Lord Mayor of London in 1341, acquired by Henry VIII as a convenient base for courting Anne Boleyn a few miles [...]
Ightham Mote, Kent
Ightham Mote, Kent A moated medieval manor in a hidden Kentish valley, pronounced "item," looking inward rather than outward, and containing, among other things, the only Grade I listed dog kennel in the [...]
Knole, Kent
Knole, Kent One of the five largest houses in England, a thousand-acre medieval deer park within walking distance of a commuter town, four hundred years in the same family's hands, and the childhood [...]
Chartwell, Kent
Chartwell House in Kent Winston Churchill bought a crumbling Victorian house in a Kentish valley without telling his wife, spent more than twice the purchase price fixing it, nearly sold it three times, [...]
Scotney Castle, Kent
Scotney Castle, Kent In the 1830s a man stood on a Kentish hillside, looked down at a damp and crumbling medieval castle in the valley below, and made a decision that most people would not [...]
Leeds Castle, Kent
Leeds Castle, Kent It has been called the loveliest castle in the world so many times that the phrase has rather lost its purchase. Forget the marketing line. What Leeds Castle actually is, when you [...]
Hever Castle and Gardens
Hever Castle and Gardens, Kent A double-moated medieval castle in the Kentish Weald, childhood home of Anne Boleyn, scene of a royal courtship that changed the course of English history, and, thanks to [...]
Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Kent
Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Kent A Saxon pig farm became an Elizabethan mansion, then a prison for three thousand French sailors, then a ruin full of sardine tins and rusty bedsteads — and then [...]
The Stile Bridge, Marden
The Stile Bridge, Marden A roadside pub in the Kent countryside that takes British produce on a journey — through South America, across Asia, seasoned with charcoal and listed in the Michelin Guide. [...]
Évian-les-Bains: The Spa Town That Bottled Its Own Legend
Évian-les-Bains: The Spa Town That Bottled Its Own Legend A small French town on the shore of Lake Geneva gave the world's most famous mineral water its name, built a Belle Époque resort [...]
San Sebastián: A Belle Époque by the Sea
San Sebastián: Biarritz's Belle Époque Sister An hour over the French border, the Spanish court built its own Biarritz on a perfect shell-shaped bay, then quietly out-cooked the world. San Sebastián has more Michelin stars [...]
Biarritz and the Basque Coast Around It
Biarritz, and the Basque Coast Around It An empress's seaside folly that became the most glamorous resort in France, then reinvented itself as the birthplace of European surfing. With the chocolate-and-cathedral city of Bayonne and [...]
The Fordwich Arms, in Fordwich
The Fordwich Arms A Michelin-starred pub in England's smallest town, beside the River Stour, two miles from Canterbury and a long way from anywhere ordinary. One of the finest restaurants in Kent. Possibly [...]
The Rocksalt, Folkestone
Rocksalt, Folkestone A restaurant cantilevered over a working harbour, clad in charred timber, serving the catch landed on the slipway below. It helped turn a faded seaside town into one of the most [...]
Stubbs in Ashford
Stubbs, Ashford A former roadside hotel transformed into something considerably more interesting: an oyster bar, a bistro and a steak restaurant that punches well above its postcode. The kind of place that makes [...]
The Sportsman, Seasalter
A Michelin-starred pub on the Kent coast that looks like nothing from the outside and tastes like everything you came for. One of the finest places to eat in England, and it knows better than [...]
Risotto alla Milanese
Risotto alla Milanese The original risotto: saffron-gold, Parmesan-rich, finished with cold butter off the heat until it flows like a slow wave. A Milanese apprentice allegedly invented it by accident in 1574. It [...]
Roast Lamb with Anchovy and Garlic
Roast Lamb with Anchovy and Garlic A gigot d'agneau in the French and Italian tradition: a leg of lamb studded deep with garlic and anchovy, rubbed all over with rosemary paste, started hot [...]
A Proper Shepherd’s Pie
Shepherd's Pie Not the mince version. A slow-braised lamb shoulder, pulled apart into its own dark, rosemary-scented juices, topped with butter-and-cream mash and finished with Parmesan until the crust is golden and crackling. [...]
Coq au Vin
Coq au Vin A Burgundian braise of chicken, lardons, pearl onions and mushrooms in red wine, with a cognac flambé that earns its place and a sauce worth every minute of the reduction. [...]
Crème Brûlée – Or “Creme Brulee” if you don’t have the accents.
Crème Brûlée Four ingredients, a bain-marie, the most satisfying sound in all of dessert cooking, and a dessert that has been argued over by three countries for three centuries. The French won the [...]
Sole Meunière
Sole Meunière The dish that changed Julia Child's life on a November afternoon in Rouen. Four ingredients, ten minutes, and brown butter doing everything it was designed to do. On 3 November 1948, [...]
French Onion Soup
French Onion Soup, my childhood favourite type. Soupe à l'oignon gratinée: the soup of the Paris market workers, the late-night revellers, and anyone who has ever needed something deeply restorative. The onions take [...]
Tarte Tatin
Tarte Tatin The great French accident: caramelised apples, a buttery shortcrust lid, and the moment you turn it out onto the plate. Made properly, it is one of the most satisfying things you [...]
Spaghetti alla Carbonara (Or: No, There Is No Cream)
Spaghetti alla Carbonara Five ingredients, no cream, and one narrow temperature window that separates silky from scrambled. Once you understand the technique, you will never go back to any other version. Let us [...]
Spaghetti Bolognese (Or: The Case for Doing It Properly)
Spaghetti Bolognese A ragù that is more meat than tomato, built slowly on a soffritto, given milk and white wine and a long, unhurried afternoon. And yes, we should talk about the spaghetti. [...]
Salted Caramel Chocolate Fondant – Editor’s choice
Salted Caramel Chocolate Fondant A proper one, with a frozen core of salted caramel buried in the centre, so it melts to a liquid pool the moment you break in. Make the caramel [...]
Pan-Seared Halibut with Brown Butter, Caper & Lemon – Editors Recipe
A weeknight dinner that tastes like a restaurant: a hard sear, a quick baste, and a sauce that takes about ninety seconds in the same pan. There is a particular kind of fish supper [...]
Feature town – Folkestone, by the sea
Folkestone, With Its Edges Showing Folkestone is not the neatest of Kent’s coastal towns, and it is better for it. There is sea air, Victorian promenade, serious public art, a harbour arm brought [...]
City Feature – Canterbury, Kent
Canterbury, Beyond the Cathedral Canterbury does not need much help being noticed. Its cathedral has done the heavy lifting for nearly a thousand years. But the better day is the one that gives [...]
Town feature – Ashford in Kent
Ashford, and Kent Beyond It It will never win a prettiest-town competition (Although it boasts plenty of charming spots!), and it is not trying to. But Ashford is among the best-placed towns in the [...]
City Feature – Turin, Italy’s quiet capital
Turin: The Quiet Capital Italy's first capital is also its most quietly elegant: a city of arcades and café marble, baroque squares and the Alps at the end of every street. Most travellers [...]
Tarragon Roast Chicken
Tarragon Roast Chicken A French turn on Simon Hopkinson's famous bird: herb butter, a hot oven, a glass of something dry in the juices, and almost no fuss. There is a kind [...]
