Marianna Hunt

You could say the British were to blame. The dramatic rise and subsequent fall of Beaujolais has its roots in the early 1970s, when Sunday Times wine correspondent Allan Hall laid down a challenge for his readers. The first to go to Beaujolais, in eastern France, and bring him back a bottle of that year’s just-pressed wine (known as Beaujolais nouveau) would win a bottle of champagne.  Readers rose to the challenge, enlisting cars, trucks, private jets and even parachutes and an elephant as they rushed to be first. The Beaujolais Run became an annual institution, and local vignerons frantically planted new vines to meet demand.

Burn the formal white tablecloths and fling open the kitchen doors. The latest craze in restaurant culture is open-fire cooking – where chefs sweat it out over roaring flames in full view of their customers. And the simple, raw nature of this method of food preparation seems to have set diners’ imaginations alight.  ‘Cooking outside over flames is primal and in our DNA as human beings,’ says Andrew Clarke, co-founder of Acme Fire Cult – one such restaurant in Dalston, north London. ‘The smell of woodsmoke and animal fats hitting the hot coals stirs up something deep inside.’ For Tomos Parry, chef and co-owner of Brat – another open-fire restaurant – the flavour that can be achieved from this style of cooking adds an extra dimension to most dishes.

Even Michelin-starred chefs, it seems, aren’t immune from the cost-of-living crisis. In a bid to make fine dining more affordable, Jason Atherton has cut prices across the board at Pollen Street Social, his flagship Mayfair restaurant (the three-course set lunch now costs £49.50 – down from £75 – and wines start from £7.50 a glass). At two Michelin-starred Kitchen Table on Charlotte Street, the cost of a 20-course set menu has come down by a third (from £300 to £200).  But even before we all started squeezing our belts, there were options for enjoying high-end food at not-so-high prices – if you knew where and when to go. Follow our guide to the best-value Michelin-starred meals around the UK.

The days when ‘barbecue’ meant a lukewarm beer, bun and burger are long gone.  We’re putting more effort than ever into our outdoor dining – from whipping up zingy marinades with ingredients you’d barely heard of five years ago to diligently waiting for that perfect halloumi char.  All this extra effort on the food front surely warrants some attention to your drinks choices, too. Here are the ten best wines to whip out for a summer barbecue – and the foods to pair with them.  A Growers Touch Durif 2020 Wickhams, £12.20 (or £10.

Nairobi is blossoming. With its vibrant art world, nascent farm-to-fork restaurant scene and unique hotels, east Africa’s biggest city is increasingly on the radar of international travellers. ‘We’re definitely seeing people wanting to stay longer in Nairobi,’ says Rose Hipwood of the Luxury Safari Company. ‘It’s absolutely a cosmopolitan city now. Rather than flying in and flying straight out on safari, people are wanting to extend their stays and see what restaurants, bars and museums there are.’ The country's safari offering is developing, too. Away from the crowds of the Maasai Mara, lesser-known hotspots are finding a following – devoid of people but brimming with nature.

Whether it's train fares, energy bills or the supermarket shop, prices are rising and belts are tightening. But if you’re desperate to get away from it all, it’s still possible to have a break on a budget – however many people you’re taking with you. From cosy couples’ cabins to beach houses big enough for two families, and from Scotland to Sussex, these seven boltholes offer spring getaways with plenty of wow factor – and all cost no more than £50 per person per night. For couples  Tahuna Bothies, Aberdeenshire Sleeps: 2-4Price: From £100 a night (£50 each for two people)  [Lee Fowlies] These wooden huts on a corner of Scottish coast are a stargazer’s dream.

My mum yelped. The kayak bucked back and forth as we both mouthed: ‘Dolphins!’ The pair zigzagged around us while we tried to paddle after them. Afterwards, we were paddling back towards land for a busy afternoon of exploring coffee shops and wine bars when a penguin bobbed its head up from the water. In moments like these it's hard to believe you're in a city – but there was Cape Town spread out on the shore ahead of us. The taxi driver who met us at the airport had summed it up: ‘In Cape Town, you can do everything.’ There’s nature in spades (from antelope to whales), incredible food, culture, world-class wine and, according to our kayak guide, ‘some of the best hiking and biking trails in the world’.

There’s always part of me that dreads the start of a ski holiday. Not because of the skiing (I adore that), but because of the journey. As a child it meant 16 hours in the middle seat jammed between brother and sister as we argued over who felt most car-sick. Nowadays it means faffy transfers and days off eaten up by travel. This year, I decided to try something different: why not make the journey part of the holiday? Rather than undertaking a mammoth day’s travel, I would split it up with a break – a city break to be precise. Austria immediately sprang to mind. Excellent skiing – naturally – and smaller than France and Italy (with more cultural caché than Switzerland), so resorts are bunched close to great cities. I considered the options and settled on Salzburg.

Thousands of people have fled London for buzzy, creative Bristol in recent years. Among them: top chefs, bakers, brewers and baristas. ‘There’s a thriving community of young food entrepreneurs, many refugees from the viciously profit-driven London restaurant scene,’ says Xanthe Clay, chef, food writer and Bristolian. ‘They are taking advantage of lower rents and rates to cook what they want to cook – not what some venture capital backer demands.’ Those to watch include Jamie Randall and Olivia Barry – the chef team behind Adelina Yard, near Queen Square in the city centre – who bring experience working with the likes of Angela Hartnett.

If anyone knows how to do winter, it’s the Scandinavians. The concept of snuggling up with a steaming mug of something caffeinated and a buttery pastry is at the heart of their culture, from the Danish concept of hygge (cosiness – often involving sugar and carbs) to the Swedish ritual of fika (taking time for coffee and cake). Take a leaf out of their book and make a beeline for these five bakeries, which are sure to put a smile on your face this January.  Pophams Bakery, London Fields  Every Saturday, rain or shine, a jolly queue wiggles around the al fresco tables outside Pophams and into the street. London Fields is not short of places for coffee and pastries, but Pophams is a cut above the rest – and the queue shows it.

It’s every skier's holiday nightmare. You turn up to the slopes and, instead of fresh white powder, you’re greeted by a mass of sludge slowly liquefying into green-brown mud.  The Alps have had a torrid season, with higher-than-average temperatures and heavy rain forcing many resorts to close, sometimes within weeks of opening. For long stretches it was too warm even to operate snow cannons, which can magic up artificial snow but require low temperatures to work. While snowfall has picked up in time to save the season in some places, in Italy alone there are now 200 fewer ski resorts than in the 1980s.  But there are still some pockets that can offer a reliable season.

Back in 2000, not one Indian chef in the UK held a Michelin star. For many people, dinner at a curry house meant a formica table, plastic cutlery and warm salad garnishes on Brick Lane.  Two decades later, all that has changed. There are seven Michelin-starred Indian restaurants across London and haute cuisine curry houses are taking over swathes of Mayfair and other upmarket areas that were previously the domain of chic French bistros and Italian osterias.   So what’s behind the rise of the high-end Indian restaurant? And which are the dishes not to miss? We spoke to four top chefs at our favourite upmarket Indian eateries in the capital to find out.

When jazz music arrived on our shores in 1919, with the first British tour of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, it received a frosty welcome from many. Other performers tried to get the group kicked off theatre bills, and the tour ended abruptly – with the Original Dixielanders being chased to Southampton docks by a lord who had just found out the lead singer had been trying to seduce his daughter. Happily, in the subsequent 100 years or so, jazz has gone on to earn a firm place in our hearts and record collections. With the return of London Jazz Festival, which runs from today until 20 November, we hunted down the capital’s best jazz bars where you can dine and dance the night away.

A global pandemic, a booming stock market giving way to painful economic shock, a technological revolution… there are many parallels to be drawn between the 1920s and the 2020s. But if you look very closely, you might find there is another thread linking the two eras: the rise of the speakeasy. These clandestine drinking holes rose to prominence during America’s Prohibition era (1920-33). Following the hardships of the first world war, speakeasies provided a sense of raucous escapism – where jazz music boomed and genders and races mixed freely.The same search for escapism (and nostalgia) is what draws drinkers to them today, says Marco Matesi, bar manager of Downstairs at The Dilly, one of London’s newest speakeasies.

When Thailand's tourist board mistakenly used a photo of West Beach on the Isle of Berneray in Scotland to promote the tropical paradise of Kai Bae Beach, it took a British expat with a keen eye to spot the error.  But perhaps the confusion shouldn't come as a surprise. With ivory dunes tumbling down to turquoise waters and the occasional chatter of a faraway pod of dolphins, the beaches of Uist, a collection of islands in the Outer Hebrides, could easily be mistaken for some of the most popular bays in the Seychelles or Caribbean. The only giveaways are the brisk breeze that nips your ears and the dearth of other visitors. The beaches here are regularly voted some of the most beautiful in the world.

There’s something quite delicious about a deadline. The prospect that if you don’t book now you might never get to try the dish of the moment is enough to pull in queues and queues of customers. But in most cases the attraction of a pop-up eatery is not solely hype. Some of these temporary dining rooms offer the chance to sample the oeuvres of up-and-coming chefs – often those at the cutting edge of cuisine but without the resources for a permanent gig yet. Others give seasoned chefs an opportunity to test new concepts outside the constraints of an established space. Plenty of pop-ups have popped up in London this year as rising costs and post-Covid uncertainty deter some chefs from opening permanent locations.

‘It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story,’ said Agatha Christie. More than 60 years later, the Queen of Crime’s words still hold true. The Big Apple is a constantly changing beast: an enigma that, just as you think you’ve cracked it, coils itself into a new form for you to get your head around once more. That is what makes it the ideal return city break. Each time you travel there’s a new restaurant, hotel or show to try. And with many launches delayed by Covid-19, this year has brought an even greater glut of openings – making it the perfect time to visit. So, whether it’s your first time in New York or your 100th, which of the latest additions are worth seeing?

London has one of the most distinctive skylines on the planet - and what better way to enjoy it than sipping a cool beer or cocktail? As we approach peak summer season, rooftop bars are popping up across the capital. Follow our picks of the top places for great atmosphere and a privileged bird’s eye perspective of the city.  Tattu, Denmark Street Tattu's Cherry Blossom Negroni Rise above the buzz of the West End with this latest addition to the WC2 food scene. A Chinese restaurant and bar with sweeping views of the city, Tattu challenges the view that London sets the nation's foodie trends; it first burst onto the scene in Manchester and Birmingham before opening in the Capital. The cocktails are as easy on the eye as they are on the tongue.

Imagine a holiday where you don’t need to arrive hours before departure…where there are no expensive taxis to inconvenient out-of-town locations or extra charges for daring to bring a medium-sized suitcase, and where the journey begins on time. All this is well within the realms of possibility – and has been for decades. Train travel is enjoying something of a revival. Although the travel time is longer on paper, you often find you win hours back, as the train takes you to/from a central location without a wait for your luggage and a bumpy transfer bus at the other end.   More often than not, the journey itself is an adventure. So what are you waiting for? Here are seven ideas for a rail-based escape.

Are fondant fancies passé? Can you make a vegan scotch egg? Does anyone actually like cucumber sandwiches? The announcement that anyone can organise a street party over the Queen’s Jubilee long weekend (2-5 June) has sparked as much debate as excitement, as neighbours start planning menus. It’s been ten years since the Queen’s last Jubilee (Diamond in 2012) and a lot has changed in Britain’s culinary scene since then. Follow our lowdown to ensure your street party spread is the talk of the block. Scottish smorgasbordWow the street with a fresh fish platter The Queen has a soft spot for Scotland (Balmoral is her favourite of all her castles).