November travels - Scotland and Northern Navarra
November, 2009 - Not such a busy month, travel wise, but a lot of work putting together the January issue of YES CHEF! Magazine.
06-Nov-09 - off to Glasgow by train for the Scottish Chefs' Conference and interviews with chefs around the city for a feature trying to establish the difference between the eating likes and dislikes of restaurant-goers in Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as a chat to Conference-organiser Willie Pike about the importance of the event for training young, up-and-coming chefs. You can read all about it in a future issue of the magazine. We stayed at the very pleasant Thistle Hotel on Cambridge Street, where the conference was being held, and attended the gala dinner on the night. The following day I caught the train for Milton Keynes via Crewe for a meeting the next day which was, as it happened, aborted, so I was able to stay overnight at the Jurys Inn (a room right next to the lift and an ice machine on every floor - very civilised) and get a mid-morning train the following day. There's a new(ish) Southern service direct from Milton Keynes to East Croydon, and if I change at Clapham Junction it's just two platforms for the direct Worthing train: no hauling across London by tube or taxi. And, yes, that's a fair amount of train travel but I actually prefer that: it's 6-7 hours in each direction between Worthing and Glasgow Central, but it means that I get 4-5 hours uninterrupted working time on the train from/to Euston which is extremely useful. My colleague Sue Prain flew up early on the morning of the Conference and back early the following morning - four airports in 24 hours - no thanks!
18-Nov-09 - an unexpected invitation to the far north of Navarra came through early in the month, and as I hadn't been on a 'proper' visit there since 2000 I jumped at it, especially when I learned that I would be the only person on the trip. They say that 'he travels fastest who travels alone', but the real advantage was that I was able to apologise in advance for my creaky joints and request that there would be no walking through vineyards, fermenting halls or barrel cellars. As a result I was able to squeeze in at east one extra visit each day, which was extremely useful. Unfortunately I had to fly from Heathrow Terminal 3 as no-one seems to fly from Gatwick to Bilbao any more, and a flight direct to Pamplona would have meant changing at (horror! Horror!) Madrid terminal 4, so there was no choice. Terminal 3 is possibly the most appalling human anthill of any airport in the UK but it does, at least have a Priority Pass lounge so I was able to secrete myself for an hour or so away from the madding crowds.
After that, everything was plain sailing, with a car to meet me at Bilbao and whisk me off to the Hotel Tres Reyes in Pamplona, which is very pleasant - I've stayed there before, but on this oaccasion I arrived at about 23:15 and, unfortunately, room service had finished and the restaurant was closed (in Spain? Yup) so I had to settle for a rather greasy plate of cold embutidos and a bottle of house red, which was disappointing, but the rest of the trip made up for it. I was hosted by Pilar García Granero and Jordi Vidal of the Consejo Regulador, and later by Conchi Biurrun, who I have known for many years and who is the manager of the Asociación Bodegas de Navarra. Indeed, she took me to dinner at a VERY trendy restaurant called Enekorri: long and thin with floor-to-ceiling wine-racks, and full of very trendy thirty-somethings with dangerously-expensive haircuts. We ate well and dined well into the night. The wines and visits which were part of the trip are covered in the January issue of JOHN RADFORD'S WINEWIRE, which is out in the first week of January, 2010.
06-Nov-09 - off to Glasgow by train for the Scottish Chefs' Conference and interviews with chefs around the city for a feature trying to establish the difference between the eating likes and dislikes of restaurant-goers in Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as a chat to Conference-organiser Willie Pike about the importance of the event for training young, up-and-coming chefs. You can read all about it in a future issue of the magazine. We stayed at the very pleasant Thistle Hotel on Cambridge Street, where the conference was being held, and attended the gala dinner on the night. The following day I caught the train for Milton Keynes via Crewe for a meeting the next day which was, as it happened, aborted, so I was able to stay overnight at the Jurys Inn (a room right next to the lift and an ice machine on every floor - very civilised) and get a mid-morning train the following day. There's a new(ish) Southern service direct from Milton Keynes to East Croydon, and if I change at Clapham Junction it's just two platforms for the direct Worthing train: no hauling across London by tube or taxi. And, yes, that's a fair amount of train travel but I actually prefer that: it's 6-7 hours in each direction between Worthing and Glasgow Central, but it means that I get 4-5 hours uninterrupted working time on the train from/to Euston which is extremely useful. My colleague Sue Prain flew up early on the morning of the Conference and back early the following morning - four airports in 24 hours - no thanks!
18-Nov-09 - an unexpected invitation to the far north of Navarra came through early in the month, and as I hadn't been on a 'proper' visit there since 2000 I jumped at it, especially when I learned that I would be the only person on the trip. They say that 'he travels fastest who travels alone', but the real advantage was that I was able to apologise in advance for my creaky joints and request that there would be no walking through vineyards, fermenting halls or barrel cellars. As a result I was able to squeeze in at east one extra visit each day, which was extremely useful. Unfortunately I had to fly from Heathrow Terminal 3 as no-one seems to fly from Gatwick to Bilbao any more, and a flight direct to Pamplona would have meant changing at (horror! Horror!) Madrid terminal 4, so there was no choice. Terminal 3 is possibly the most appalling human anthill of any airport in the UK but it does, at least have a Priority Pass lounge so I was able to secrete myself for an hour or so away from the madding crowds.
After that, everything was plain sailing, with a car to meet me at Bilbao and whisk me off to the Hotel Tres Reyes in Pamplona, which is very pleasant - I've stayed there before, but on this oaccasion I arrived at about 23:15 and, unfortunately, room service had finished and the restaurant was closed (in Spain? Yup) so I had to settle for a rather greasy plate of cold embutidos and a bottle of house red, which was disappointing, but the rest of the trip made up for it. I was hosted by Pilar García Granero and Jordi Vidal of the Consejo Regulador, and later by Conchi Biurrun, who I have known for many years and who is the manager of the Asociación Bodegas de Navarra. Indeed, she took me to dinner at a VERY trendy restaurant called Enekorri: long and thin with floor-to-ceiling wine-racks, and full of very trendy thirty-somethings with dangerously-expensive haircuts. We ate well and dined well into the night. The wines and visits which were part of the trip are covered in the January issue of JOHN RADFORD'S WINEWIRE, which is out in the first week of January, 2010.
posted by John Radford at
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