What To Book Around The UK This Season
THE CABINS:
Cabü, Kent
For Soho Farmhouse vibes without the membership, Cabü is the new staycation brand to know. There are two sites across the UK and Ireland: Cabü by the Lakes in County Cavan and Cabü by the Sea by St Mary’s Bay in Kent. The latter is 30 minutes from Folkestone, with all the luxuries of a boutique hotel: an indoor/outdoor ‘Sitooterie’ with an open kitchen, fire pit and games; an outdoor swimming pool with striped parasols and umbrellas (open from March); an outdoor spa with hot tubs, a sauna and treatment cabins; and a lifestyle shop with organic food and drink. Self-catering cabins are modern and cosy, with fully stocked kitchens, en-suites and living areas where you can watch TV or cosy up beside the wood burner. Guests can borrow bikes to explore the coastal path and nearby beach.
Visit Holidays.Cabu.co.uk
THE PUB REFURB:
The White Horse, West Sussex
This small country pub was recently transformed into a restaurant with rooms. Set in the small village of Graffham in the South Downs National Park, the property has beautiful views and numerous walking routes to explore. Chef Grant Jones (ex-Le Gavroche) brings plenty of French influences to dishes made with local produce – all the venison, for example, is sourced through the Sussex Woods Deer Management Scheme. Diners can tuck into dishes like pork terrine with caramelised apple purée and hazelnut salad; wild seabass with Jerusalem artichokes and lobster beignet; and chocolate brownies with chocolate crisp, passionfruit purée and salted caramel ice-cream. Sussex-based interior designer Anna Hewitson has put her feminine stamp on the light-filled dining room and six en-suite rooms upstairs. Home comforts include fluffy robes, Dyson hairdryers and Bramley toiletries.
Visit WhiteHorseGraffham.com
THE FINE DINING SPOT:
Cardinal, Edinburgh
Last year, Tomás Gormley became the youngest chef in Scotland to win a Michelin star (for Edinburgh restaurant Heron). Last week, he opened a solo venture in the city to showcase modern Scottish dining. Cardinal is a 24-cover restaurant in Stockbridge offering a 13-course tasting menu in the evening or a shorter lunch menu. There’s an emphasis on fermenting and pickling, as well as ingredients cooked over flames on Cardinal’s bespoke wood-fired barbecue. Menu highlights include crab with miso and nori; fried chicken with waffles, crème fraîche and caviar; and wild seabass with vin jaune and white asparagus. There’s also a natural-led wine list and a short cocktail menu.
Visit Cardinal.Scot
THE SEASIDE RESTAURANT:
Colina, Margate
Just a short walk from the beach, Fort Road Hotel is an 1820s boarding house that was refurbished a couple of years ago by Matthew Slotover (co-founder of Frieze). Now one of Kent’s chicest hotels, the property has 14 rooms up top and a new 35-cover restaurant on the ground floor. Colina – meaning ‘hill’ in Spanish – serves classic southern European dishes made with local ingredients and seafood caught in Kent waters. Inspired by head chef Luis Freitas’s Portuguese heritage, dishes include crispy cod bites, cheese croquettes with smoked paprika aioli, pork belly with peperonata, and generous-sized squid burgers. After dinner, hit the hotel’s cool basement bar, lined with artwork by Tracey Emin and offering classic cocktails, then head back for breakfast in the morning, when eggs and soldiers, sausage sandwiches and shakshuka are on offer.
Visit FortRoadHotel.com
THE FUN HOTEL:
Social Hub Glasgow
We were excited to hear Amsterdam-based company The Social Hub has opened a huge outpost in Merchant City, Glasgow. The property includes numerous coworking and event spaces, restaurants, bars (including one of the city’s largest rooftop bars) and gyms. Guests can stay in affordably priced rooms (from just £105pn), from standard doubles to studios with kitchenettes. Locals can become members to use the coworking spaces, or just pop in for coffee, juices and food from the spacious ‘workcafé’ with its green-tiled bar and communal seating areas.
Visit TheSocialHub.co
THE MUSIC VENUE:
Co-Op Live, Manchester
Set to open next month, Co-Op Live will be an immersive music and entertainment venue on the Etihad Campus in central Manchester. Harry Styles is one of the investors, and a string of big names are set to perform there in the coming months, including Olivia Rodrigo, Kings of Leon and Niall Horan. One of the largest developments of its kind in the UK, the 23.5k-capacity arena will have the biggest floor space of any indoor venue in the country, with tiered seating to bring you closer to performers. Elsewhere on site, there will be 32 bars, restaurants and lounges, as well as a members-only VIP lounge, The Decibel Club.
Visit CoOpLive.com
THE CHEFS’ EVENT:
The Seaside Boarding House, Dorset
The Seaside Boarding House is a celebrated hotel, restaurant and bar overlooking the sweep of Lyme Bay in Dorset. Less than three hours from London, it’s a place to relax and recharge by the sea. The hotel has announced its 2024 calendar of guest chef residencies, welcoming some of the country’s top names to host suppers in the coming months. On Saturday 23rd March, Anna Tobias (Café Deco and 40 Maltby Street) will serve a seasonal menu comprising dressed crab with fennel and citrus salad, roast chicken with wild garlic mash, and rhubarb and apple pie with cold custard. Other confirmed chefs include Rochelle Canteen’s Hector Henderson (20th April), Quo Vadis’s Jeremy Lee (28th June) and Prawn on the Lawn’s Rick Toogood (23rd November).
Visit TheSeasideBoardingHouse.com
THE BISTRO:
Bavette, Leeds
Bavette is the latest project from Sandy Jarvis (The Culpeper in Shoreditch) and his husband, sommelier Clément Cousin. The bistro is all about relaxed dining, from long lunches through to informal dinners over a couple of glasses of wine. Expect classic French and modern European dishes, like comté croquettes and homemade pâté en croûte with cornichons, followed by starters of shellfish bisque with crab crostini, and pork belly rillons with frisée salad. Mains are designed to share, like Yorkshire beef with dauphinoise potatoes, or bavette à l'échalote with frites, béarnaise sauce and endives salad. Crowd-pleasing desserts include crème brûlée and Paris-Brest. Drinks wise, Clément has curated a selection of bottles from his family vineyard as well as other low-intervention wines, paying homage to the pair’s favourite European bistros.
Visit BavetteBistro.com
THE TREEHOUSES:
TreeDwellers, Cotswolds
TreeDwellers will be a treehouse hotel in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. Set to open in June, there will be seven properties hidden in 1,700 acres of ancient woodland in Cornbury Park. Each one is made from timber and glass, featuring a small kitchen, a living area with a woodburning stove, one or two en-suite bedrooms with freestanding baths, and an outdoor shower on a private terrace. Guests can tuck into a hamper of local treats on arrival, and stock up from the on-site shop. A concierge team will be on hand to book in-room treatments, plan yoga classes, recommend local restaurants and more. TreeDwellers will also be home to – wait for it – the UK’s first ‘forest megaphone’: a 9m wooden structure designed to enhance the sounds of the forest, so you can listen to birds and other woodland creatures.
Visit TreeDwellers.com
THE FAMILY ESCAPE:
Bert’s Kitchen Garden, Wales
Foodie campsite Bert’s Kitchen Garden is an eco-site on the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales. With its collection of wildflower meadow pitches, glamping safari tents and new shepherd’s huts, Bert’s is built around a central kitchen garden restaurant, where campers can tuck into fresh pastries, great coffee, wood-fired pizza and cocktails. The restaurant offers a changing menu of seasonal dishes, using ingredients grown, picked and cooked within metres of the kitchen, while local beef is served with a kitchen garden chimichurri, salad leaves are snipped to order for burgers and pizzas and rosemary is the garnish for a local G&T, made with Anglesey’s Jin Môr. Across the summer season, there are also supper clubs, food trucks and a beachside food festival.
Visit BertsKG.com
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