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The food highlights of 2007 were:

Best Restaurants

These are the best places we’ve eaten this year:

1. Hibiscus, London. Relocated from Ludlow to Mayfair, Claude and Clare Bosi’s Hibiscus still retains its essential characteristics and superlative food. Although we thought that it wasn’t quite as good as when in Ludlow, I’m sure that will improve as they settle into an urban context; they should certainly retain their two Michelin stars.
2. Fins, Fencebay. The fish restaurant that is run by the people who sell fish at the Glasgow Farmers Market. Superbly fresh, simply cooked, the fish that normally gets exported to France and Spain.
3. Driftwood, Cornwall. Consistently good food in a stunning setting on the south Cornwall coast.

Best Hotels

Places we have enjoyed staying in this year.

1. The Samling, Ambleside. Superbly comfortable small hotel overlooking Windermere. The breakfasts, served in the bedrooms, is particularly luxurious. The goats cheese ice cream was also excellent!
2. Driftwood, Cornwall. Really welcoming and comfortable hotel with a New England feel, sited on the south Cornwall cliffs.
3. Trigony House Hotel, Thornhill. An autumn highlight is this small Edwardian country house in the Dumfriesshire countryside, with comfortable rooms, good food and resident dog.

Best Breakfasts

1. The Samling. Nothing can beat a Samling breakfast, chosen from an extensive menu the night before (only marginally resisting the urge to tick all the menu items), served in the bedroom and eaten while looking out over Lake Windermere.
2. Tom’s Kitchen, London. Eggs benedict, say no more.

After our night out in Hibiscus, we needed some more food (well, not really, but…). So we wandered round the corner from our hotel to Tom’s Kitchen for breakfast.

Cherry Berry meusli with vanilla yoghurt

Eggs Benedict with grilled bacon
Beautiful, dark-yolked free range eggs

Three kinds of toast

Needless to say, we didn’t eat anything else until we after Preston later that evening!

We were unable to go to Claude and Claire Bosi’s Hibiscus in Ludlow this year - because they’d closed down in April and moved to Mayfair, opening on 24th October. So we booked ourselves in for a Wednesday night in mid-November, and took the train down to London for what we expected to be our culinary highlight of the year.

And it didn’t disappoint.

Although in an urban setting a few metres from Regent Street, the atmosphere in the new Hibiscus is similar to the old location in Ludlow’s Corve Street. The new restaurant has similar oak panelling, neutral colours and familiar glass plates and white crockery. The welcome is friendly, including from Claire Bosi who manages front of house efficiently.

But while the atmosphere is relaxing and welcoming, the food is the real star:

Cheese choux pastries

Amuse bouche: Hibiscus & elderberry soda

Cornish crab, avocado, apple jelly
Lamb sweetmeats (yes, testicles), tartare of oyster & sweetcorn
A strange combination of tastes, adventurous and not really to my taste!

Mortimer Forest venison, chocolate sauce, foie gras ice cream, cabbage puree, potato and chestnut gratin
The undoubted star of the meal - the venison was meltingly tender, and the potato and chestnut gratin was a gorgeous combination of creamy flavours.

Cheeses: 3 French, 2 English, eaten in a particular order from strong to creamy.

Pre-dessert: Granny smith jelly with lemon grass foam

Hazlenut mille feuille, butternut squash and pine nut ice cream, mango jelly
Apple tarte tatin, ginger and lentil ice cream

Coffee & petit fours

While both the service and the food were excellent, there were some (very minor) disappointments compared to our previous (5) times. The basket of three home-baked breads has been replaced with a basket of a single sourdough; there was no home-made chutney with the cheese; no madeleines with the petit fours. But these were really minor, and I hope that Hibiscus gets it’s two Michelin Stars back in it’s new location.

I was in Cannes this week at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, held in the conference centre next to the beach.

While the daytime was all work (honestly), I used the evenings to explore Cannes, walking along La Croisette promenade, climbing up through Le Suquet to the Tour Castres, eating wonderful fresh seafood - the best was Astoux & Brun near the Vieux Port.

Antibes is only a 15 minute train ride from Cannes, so I went for an explore there one evening. It was nice to sit outside a cafe drinking beer on a November evening. Can’t do that in Glasgow. And again, I was able to discover a good small restaurant which served really good fish.

In Driftwood, all is calm and ordered under the watchful eye of the owners, Paul and Fiona. Tresanton, Olga Polizzi’s flagship country house hotel in St Mawes, provides more of a contrast.

On the surface, things are similar between the two hotels - both share a holiday-defining view over the stunning south Cornish coast. Tresanton is set on the top of the cliffs in St Mawes, overlooking the St Anthony lighthouse on the headland opposite.

The building is on several levels, and we entered the empty lower-level bar to be briefly greeted by the bartender who then hurried back to her computerised till to complete the task she was working on when we came in. When she had finished, she turned round and asked the question that would reappear regularly until we were sat at our table: “inside or outside?”. Tresanton has an outside terrace, heated by no fewer than five patio heaters. I’m sure it is gorgeous on a balmy summer’s evening, but on a slightly chilly September evening…

But to the main event, the food. The menu was a simple list of ingredients:

Foie gras and chicken liver with chutney and toasted brioche.

Sea bass, saffron, crab and tomato risotto.

Chocolate and hazlenut torte, clotted cream, blackberries.

As we both fancied the same menu, we were easily able to compare.

The foie gras/chicken liver pate was good, but both it and the chutney appeared to be bought in rather than made in-house. We were chatting over the starter, but sensed that the waiting staff kept checking to see if we had finished. At one point we overheard them asking the kitchen to hold the main course, this was less than 20 minutes after we had sat down.

Consequently, the main course was slightly burnt round the edges. The sea bass, although overdone, was a good piece of fish, but the saffron, crab and tomato risotto was watery and tasteless. Had the timing continued, we would have been back on the street by 8.30pm. We asked for a break before the dessert.

Dessert was good, a nice balance of hazelnut and chocolate, although ice cream would have matched better than clotted cream.

We followed with coffee and petit fours in the lounge (we were beginning to get cold in the dining room as all the doors were open to the terrace), but the lounge was like a mausoleum.

Overall, Tresanton was not a good experience, although we both enjoyed the analysis! The atmosphere was cold and the waiting staff seemed to be driven by the computerised ordering system. The meal cost £1/head more than Driftwood, certainly Driftwood is streets ahead in food quality and service.