Around Britain on a plate
Too often, it’s London that receives all the gastronomic plaudits, but the fine food, as well as the beauty, to be found on all sorts of different holidays around the UK is a cause for celebration – and for packing an overnight bag...
Gathering your own, Argyll
Ten miles down a single-track road, on the edge of Loch Awe, where the heavens roll down the Scottish hills to the water’s edge, we came to Ardanaiseig. At first it wasn’t awe-inspiring (with a small a) – the drive takes you to the back of the hotel – but this baronial sporting mansion came to life when we stepped inside, to be greeted by a row of wellies and walking sticks and coats, and in the library, a crackling log fire.
Owned by London antique-dealer Bennie Gray, the hotel is charmingly eclectic, and is decorated with antiques, sports memorabilia, paintings and even the odd voodoo doll. Each room has its own feel; ours, Ben Lui, had a touch of the Orient, though it took me a while to appreciate it – I was transfixed by the view of a roe deer strolling across the front lawn.
Accompanied by Alastair, a local gillie, we took a boat out on the loch and after an amusing couple of hours on the water, we were rewarded with some fine fish. Ardanaiseig’s renowned chef Gary Goldie was happy to add them to our menu that evening, so we enjoyed a lightly roasted trout fillet with artichoke, truffle shavings and hollandaise sauce. Other highlights were a velouté of parsnip with confit of guinea fowl leg, and a sublime saddle of venison with celeriac purée and caramelised vegetables. We rounded the night off with a malt whisky from the hotel’s fine collection and a game of snooker.
The evening´s venison was a precursor to our early morning activity: stalking a roe buck. It was a tense few hours as, followed by midges, we crept through the forests.
Sadly, we couldn't get a safe shot but it was a very special experience to see a deer through the rifle sights. Fresh air and excitement piqued my appetite, so we returned for kippers and eggs, before heading to the clay pigeon ground.
Later, I found a small graveyard; the first owners of the hotel had erected a headstone to mark the end of their time here. It read, 'Here is all we need.' My belly full of the fruits of loch and land, it was a sentiment I could understand.
Doubles at Ardanaiseig (01866 833333; ardanaiseig.com 
) from £58pp b&b. Half-day fishing with gillie £70 for two; day´s stalking £120pp. For more information on eating and drinking in Scotland, call 0845 225 5121 or see eatscotland.com .
Foodie towns, Belfast
"I compare Northern Ireland now to Spain after Franco's dictatorship. When democracy came, the Spanish were hungry to travel, to see and to taste." In her Iberian-Irish accent, Marta González de la Peña proved that in Belfast, you're never far from politics. A stallholder at St George's Market, she was explaining the significance of her jamon and chorizo among the farl breads, cheeses and scallops.
"During the Troubles, people here thought they were the centre of the universe because the world's attention was on them. Now they're looking outwards more – and the food culture is growing. People are ready for new things."
Things have changed in lots of ways. Obviously there have been huge political developments; Billie Scott, our charismatic cabbie-guide, pointed out evidence of this as he drove us round the notorious Shankill and Falls Roads areas. A balaclava-ed fighter did stare down at us from one wall, but, as Billie explained, most of the nastier murals have been replaced with historical tableaux.
"The murals are getting less defiant – it shows that people feel increasingly confident."
It is this atmosphere of greater political confidence that has made Belfast ripe for an emergent food culture. And while, in the streets, it did feel quiet compared to other UK cities, it was a different story behind closed doors. There was a buzz in the market; café culture had taken hold in the university quarter; and in restaurants, bars and pubs, business seemed brisk.
We made it through a crowd of frilly little girls fresh from their first communion to bag one of the last lunch tables at the Mourne Seafood Bar, where we rewarded ourselves with pots of mussels and local oysters; the fish is so fresh here that by lunchtime, the John Dory still hadn't arrived.
In the smart Roscoff, part of Paul Rankin's empire, we joined the conspiratorial hush of diners enjoying excellent meat dishes. And in the restaurant at the Malmaison hotel, we picked duck, smoked salmon and lamb from the proud-to-be-local menu.
But man cannot live on modern restaurant scenes alone. We wanted some good old-fashioned Irish craic, and in Belfast, there's one place for it: the Crown Liquor Saloon. This ornate 19th-century bar is filled with lacquer, mirrors and carvings; the only plain windows are at the front, replacements for the originals that blew out (the Europa hotel opposite is said to be the most bombed hotel in Europe). We settled in at one of the leather-seated booths. Next to the match-striking plaque was a service bell; one ring and we had a waitress, who returned with beers and plates of stew and champ (Ireland's oniony answer to bubble and squeak). The expansion of Belfast's culinary horizons can only be good. But keeping the old classics in the landscape is just as important.
Doubles at the Malmaison (0845 365 4247; malmaison.com ) from £150, room only. For information on visiting Ireland, call 0800 039 7000 or see discoverireland.com .
Cookery courses, Isles of Scilly
"I first came here in 1982 – I fell in love with the place," says Toby Tobin-Dougan. It's easy to see why. In March, when I visited Toby's bakery on the island of St Martin's, the Isles of Scilly were a magical place to be. The meadows were alive with banks of bluebells and their white lookalikes, three-cornered leeks, below left, which bathe the islands in their distinctive allium aroma; and with ranks of daffodils and narcissi, which tumble down to white-sand beaches. All of which is a far cry from Soho, where Toby was a photographic printer before he packed it in 15 years ago.
"I came here with the intention of becoming a landscape photographer but I ran out of cash," he recalls. Spells working in hotels and the local fishing fleet followed as he struggled to establish himself. "I began baking because the quality of bread here was frankly awful," he says. So, armed with Elizabeth David's English Bread & Yeast Cookery, he taught himself a few recipes and started supplying local campsites and hotels.
Since then, business has flourished: he renovated a lobsterpot-maker's barn in 1999 for his bakery and, in 2002,
received the Best Food Retailer accolade in Radio 4's Food & Farming Awards.
His residential bread-making courses fill the downtime of off-season. Courses start on Wednesdays, with a helicopter flight from Penzance and dinner at the Sevenstones Inn, the island pub, which Toby also runs. Then follows three days of hands-on learning, in which guests can try everything from ciabatta and sourdough to pumpernickel, pizza and fancy pastries. My favourite was the soda bread, something I had baked from time to time at home with mixed results; here, under Toby's watchful eye, my efforts were rewarded with the kind of loaf I'd always tried to make: warm and inviting, with a good crumb and a crisp crust.
Sundays are free, which allows guests to sample the islands' many diversions, whether it's wandering among the stone cottages and quays of the capital, Hugh Town on St Mary's, or witnessing the wonders of Tresco Abbey Gardens, where the islands' balmy climate supports aloes, proteas and birds of paradise, all natives of the southern hemisphere. We visited Bryher, a windswept outpost that’s home to a mere 92 souls.
After a gentle circumnavigation, via Badplace Hill and Hell Bay in the rugged north and pretty Rushy Bay in the softer south, we enjoyed a pint of St Austell ale at one of the two tables in the island's tiny pub, Fraggle Rock. I mentioned to the landlord that Bryher seemed blessedly free of cars. "Oh, actually there's quite a few here now," he replied. "About ten."
Finally, Mondays see a helicopter flight back to Penzance and a return to the daily grind… or maybe not. Four of Toby’s former students have gone on to become bakers themselves. Who knows? You too might be inspired to follow Toby's life-changing example.
A six-day cookery holiday at St Martin's Bakery (01720 423444; cookingholidays.co.uk ) costs £745pp including flights, accommodation, meals and lessons. For more information on the Isles of Scilly, call 01720 422536 or see simplyscilly.co.uk .
Self-catering properties, Lincolnshire
The phrase 'self-catering' doesn't usually set my pulse racing. If you add in the word 'tent', I'm walking away already – a weekend holding an umbrella over some beans on a gas burner? No thanks. But after a weekend at Pettywood Farm in south Lincolnshire, I'm converted.
This working farm near Stamford (the backdrop to many a BBC costume drama) has 800 acres of fields and woods, with all the proper farm animals in place: cows, free-range Berkshire Breed pigs, and funny sheep that didn’t bleat but shouted like angry drunks. Our kids – Milo, six, and Ruby, two – found this hilarious and loved them straight away.
Thankfully, the tents here were of the posh variety: huge, with wooden floorboards, flushing loo and proper beds with duvets.
As for the self-catering, we eased ourselves into it with the lovely picnic of local produce I’d ordered in advance from the farm: farmhouse loaf, Lincolnshire Poacher cheese, Melton Mowbray pies and the farm's homemade chutney.
There was no gas or electricity, but lighting the candles and oil lamps was easy. The wood-fired stove proved more of a challenge. I nominated my husband Pete 'Master of Fire': he spent two hours boiling up our first pot of tea, but by the next morning he was an old hand. Using the farm's eggs – collected from the chicken coop by the children – locally reared bacon and Lincolnshire sausages, Pete made a world-class breakfast.
A drive south took us to Oakham, where we visited the monthly farmers' market. We tasted our way around before returning to the farm for a candlelit dinner of chicken roasted in the farm’s wood-fired oven.
It was great to be free from the telly: we cosied up in front of the fire, reading stories and talking with the kids about all the animals they'd seen.
Next morning, we watched the farm's owner, Richard, and his hired Antipodean help as they got stuck into shearing the shouting sheep with amazing speed and vigour. For our final lunch, we treated ourselves to some pub grub. Just down the road is a Michelin-starred pub, The Olive Branch. We enjoyed salmon terrine, whitebait and chargrilled halibut, finishing with the 'board of pub puds', which left us all reclining, glassy-eyed with contentment. There’s no doubt we’ll be back for more of this sort of self-catering.
Three nights for up to six people at Pettywood Farm (01420 80804; featherdown.co.uk ) from £195, plus £15 booking fee for reservations not made online.