Glutton’s PARADISE

Be a greedy devil in Tasmania, where they eat wallabies for breakfast, says David J Constable

swing of its origins. Food planted, grown, picked, plucked, caught, foraged and uprooted from the sea and soil – then whacked on a plate. And it’s all at its very best and most fruitful in Tassie.

Heavens, they can eat. I had everything except koala. Kangaroo, possum, oxtail, crayfish, oysters from Bruny Island, Tasmanian lobster and abalone, roast wallaby- tail broth, even a wallaby breakfast burrito from the Hobart Farm Gate Market – a hangover cure to rival the British fry-up.

Tassies rarely talk about anything other than food. When they do, it’s wine, whisky or coffee. They’re constantly sloshed, punching above their weight in the liquor stakes with smashing wine to rival that of Barossa, and a café society nipping at the heels of Melbourne’s. Moorilla Estate and Josef Chromy Wines have cellars considered to be among the best in the southern hemisphere, and Stefano Lubiana is regarded as the premier producer of fizz. There’s Moo Brew and Apple Shed cider, and Bill Lark’s, the first licensed distillery on the island since 1839 – and the best single malt east of the Isle of Skye.

At the Huon Agricultural Show, I met the farming children who’ve replaced teddy bears with living, breathing (shitting) llamas, and watched a wood-chopping competition between hurly-burly men with Kevin Keegan haircuts. There’s culture too, and it’s more than just Paul Hogan in a cork hat. The Hobart highlight is MONA, David Walsh’s absurd and brilliant museum of sex, death and rat’s-nest installations. It’s like a junkie’s stream of consciousness. The Saatchi Gallery on smack.

At Villa Howden I slept on the shores of North West Bay, and at the Henry Jones Art Hotel I stared out over views across Hobart harbour. When the hotel opened in 2004, there were complaints of bleeding from the walls. It turned out to be seeping jam from its past as a conserves factory. In Tasmania, food is everywhere.

BOOK IT Etihad Airways (etihad.com/en) flies daily to Sydney from London Heathrow, via Abu Dhabi, from £755. Onward connections to Hobart are available via Virgin Australia (virginaustralia.com/uk/en), from £55. Double at Villa

Howden (villahowden.com.au), from £205; and at the Henry Jones Art Hotel (thehenryjones.com), from £175.

FOOD SPECIAL

Iwas determined not to like Australia, least of all Tasmania, the arse-end dangly bit hanging off the southern tip. I’ve always seen the country as that place squeezed onto the bottom-right corner of the map, filled with things that want to kill you. It’s why we dispatched criminals

there. And what was once where convicts were sent to be forgotten is now all sexy blondes with better tans than us, people who surf and drink chardonnay and fight crocodiles.

But then I went there, and I started eating. I had one week in Tasmania – plenty of time to discover the historic ports, the national parks and gardens, and to conquer Mount Wellington. But all I did was fill my pie hole. If it wasn’t for a pre-booked flight to the mainland, I would still be there, on an endless gluttonous jaunt around the Apple Isle.

Australia is confused about its food. They have no national cuisine, nothing to call their own. What you define as Aussie tucker depends on whether you consider Down Under to be a country that’s 200 or 70,000 years old. What they’re crystal-clear on, though, is that everything served is from within a boomerang

TOP, INSIDE THE APPLE SHED. ABOVE, A SIGN FOR

A LOCAL DELICACY AT HOBART’S FARM GATE MARKET. BELOW, THE

HENRY JONES ART HOTEL

LEFT, CRADLE MOUNTAIN IN

TASMANIA. ABOVE &

RIGHT, THE APPLE SHED

MUSEUM, CIDER HOUSE

& CAFE

T A T L E R M A Y 2 0 1 5 00

Not since 2001 – when Jonathan Meades, then restaurant critic for The Times, made a rustic bistro called La Tupina an international superstar by

naming it his favourite table – has Bordeaux generated so much sybaritic buzz. It is, all of a sudden, France’s most delectable new gastro-destination. The reason? Joël Robuchon, the most Michelin-starred chef in the world, has opened a proper restaurant here (as opposed to the upmarket counter-service places he’s done everywhere from New York to Hong Kong) at La Grande Maison, a gorgeous new hotel opened by Bordeaux wine magnate Bernard Magrez. Overnight, it’s become the toughest reservation in town.

‘The restaurant scene in Bordeaux used to be so boring it drove you to drink,’ confides an expat Brit – one of the city’s top wine merchants – over lunch at Chez Dupont, a stylish bistro in the city’s Chartrons quartier. ‘As far as we were concerned, of course, that was a good thing.’

‘Bordeaux’s changed,’ agrees hotelier Jérôme Tourbier, who runs the charming Les Sources de Caudalie spa hotel with his wife, Alice, on the Château Smith Haut Lafitte wine estate just outside town. ‘The wine merchants used to prefer to entertain privately, and Bordeaux was a city where

what you drank always mattered much more than what you ate. Now people want to go out.’ Top of their list is Robuchon’s elegant new place. Although he signed off as a working chef in 2005 to become a culinary-consulting globetrotter, his touch is everywhere. He has staffed it with what he describes as ‘the best of my team’, notably Japanese chef Tomonori Danzaki, and he wanted it to be ‘warm and convivial’. So instead of a pompous maître d’ lording it over the place, there’s the gallant Jean-Paul Unzueta, who previously ran the dining room at La Metropole in Monte Carlo, meting out major charm as he carves the restaurant’s exquisite signature dishes at table: guinea hen with foie gras, salmon roasted with sarments (vine trimmings), a big veal chop.

Meanwhile, Paris’s capital-centric food geeks got a wake-up call last year when the hip if hideously named French food website Le Fooding tagged Miles, a bobo (‘bourgeois-bohème’) Bordeaux bistro, as one of the best new restaurants in France. Here, a cosmopolitan quartet of chefs – Israeli, Japanese, New Caledonian and Franco-Vietnamese – do intriguing dishes like swordfish with Madras curry jelly. The others not to miss? Le Petit Commerce for its simple but brilliant local seafood; Gravelier, for chef Yves Gravelier’s inventive Modern French cooking – trout with polenta in langoustine sauce, or crêpe soufflé with raspberries; and Dubern- Le D, a stylish new townhouse restaurant, for Scottish chef Daniel Gallacher’s sublime creations, such as Wagyu beef-and-oyster tartare. ]

B O R D E A U X ’ S G R A N D E B O U F F E

There is a new contender for the gastronomic capital of France, finds Alexander Lobrano

T O P TA B L E S

LA GRANDE MAISON lagrandemaison-bordeaux.com; 00 33 5 35 38 16 16

DUBERN-LE D dubern.fr;

00 33 5 56 79 07 70

CHEZ DUPONT chez-dupont.com;

00 33 5 56 81 49 59

GRAVELIER gravelier.fr;

00 33 5 56 48 17 15

MILES restaurantmiles.com; 00 33 5 56 81 18 24

LE PETIT COMMERCE no website;

00 33 5 56 79 76 58

LA GRANDE MAISON, FROM TOP: CHEF

TOMONORI DANZAKI & JOEL ROBUCHON; ITS

ROAST-LAMB DISH; ONE OF ITS HOTEL ROOMS

La Grande Maison

Caviar at La Grande Maison

The foyer at La Grande Maison

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FOOD SPECIAL

R umour on the Chilean grapevine whispers of a goldmine hidden in the Millahue Valley. They say just one man knew of its whereabouts. But the old sod went and died without telling anyone where it was.

‘Millahue means “place of gold” in the Mapuche language,’ confides Don Nano, a dapper huaso (a horseman from central Chile) decked out in the typical attire of broad-brimmed hat, tooled belt and long chaps. The leathery lines on his face bunch up as he smiles. ‘So it must be here somewhere.’

As we ride between electric-green vines sewn across the perky hills of Viña Vik, it seems pretty obvious where this ‘place of gold’ is lurking. Blinding in the bright summer sun, a gold ring shimmers on a hilltop ahead. This gleaming disc and the vines below belong to Alexander Vik, a Norwegian entrepreneur cum hotelier. Viña is his first Chilean hotel, but it joins three stonkingly chic big sisters over in Uruguay: Playa, Bahía and Estancia Vik. His newest place and its golden roof is just the (exceptionally shiny) cherry atop a cake with aspirations to be the tastiest in Chile. In wine-speak, this means he’s gunning to bottle the country’s first 100-point wine – which in layman’s terms means the tippity-top, good-as-it-gets, knock-your-socks-off blend.

Chaps discarded, I reemploy my own two legs to trot towards the winery, the handiwork of Chilean architect Smiljan Radic (the guy behind last summer’s Serpentine Pavilion). Its entrance is flooded like a lake and scattered with boulders – terribly pretty, but practical too; the water helps cool the barrels below. The vineyard is big – like, airport big – but produces just one blend: a happy concoction of Chile’s national grape, carmenère, along with cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot and syrah.

The hotel itself is a meteorite-meets-art-gallery of a building where each room is designed by a different artist. Mine is like a Japanese boudoir, with paper blinds and straw mats. Others have hessian walls and cactus-wood furniture, or hyperrealistic paintings of Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot. Out by the pool, the staff look as though they’re about to canter off to play a few chukkas – dressed in head-to-toe white, they bounce between the terrifically smart Chilean guests, topping up glasses here, shaking up sundowners there. The view is stop-in-your-tracks stunning – the pool stretches straight out into nothingness, letting the eye drop down to a lagoon below, which lights up oily blue as the sun slinks away behind the hills.

Supper summons and chef Rodrigo Acuña himself delivers mushroom soup with blue cheese, and Wagyu

steak with risotto, courgettes and bacon. Then it’s scrumptious red berries drowning in crema inglesa, all washed down with that glorious Vik wine.

As I wind my way back down the track between the vines, saying goodbye to the hotel, to the magical Millahue mountains, to the wine, I remember about the hidden gold. Next time, I must try and look for that mine, and not get so distracted by the art or the views. Or the wine. BOOK IT Rainbow Tours (rainbowtours.co.uk) offers two nights at Viña Vik from £980 a person, full board, including activities and transfers from Santiago. Air France/KLM flies daily to Santiago from 18 UK airports, via Paris or Amsterdam, from £592.

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F E E L I N G C H I L EIs it an art gallery? Is is a meteorite? Is it a vineyard? Yes, Viña Vik is all of these and more, says Gabriel O’Rorke

The entrance to Viña Vik’s winery

A hack through Viña Vik’s vineyard. Left, Gabriel O’Rorke

The Millahue Valley, Chile

ABOVE, VINES AT VINA VIK. BELOW, THE HOTEL, WITH ITS ‘GOLDEN’

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00 T A T L E R M A Y 2 0 1 5

HIGH FIVE

M A RTADespite its setting in a rather spartan hotel lobby, this is one of New York’s hottest cheap-eats tickets. Burgers already under his belt with his Shake Shack empire, Danny Meyer has turned to Roman-style pizza. Baked in a wood oven over embers, which gives an incredible, almost cracker-like crispness, these pizzas are ace. Martha Washington Hotel, 29 East 29th Street, Flatiron (marta manhattan.com; 001 212 651 3800).

MO R A N D IThis Italian newbie, above, may look simple and rustic, but it rocks. Owner Keith McNally, of Balthazar and Minetta Tavern fame, gets the food exactly right – hand-rolled spaghetti with lemon and parmesan; meatballs with pine nuts and raisins – and the crowd is white-hot. The Clooneys have put their heads round the door and Cameron Diaz, above right, practically lives here. 211 Waverly Place, West Village (morandiny.com; 001 212 627 7575). ]

D I RT Y F R E N C HArt’s on the menu too at Dirty French, left, the newest opening from the can-do-no-wrong triumvirate of Rich Torrisi, Mario Carbone and Jeff Zalaznick, where a Julian Schnabel tricolour hangs above the bar and the walls are so crammed with pictures you wonder how the cleaners get between them to dust. The menu includes a £45 poultry feast – roast chicken in two servings – and a masterful 30-day dry-aged duck à l’orange. Heaving with Lower East Side hipsters, DF is loud, expensive and kind of fabulous.180 Ludlow Street, Lower East Side (dirtyfrench.com; 00 1 212 254 3000).

Take a bite out of the Big Apple’s new hotspots. By Jeremy Wayne

T H E P O LO BA RBeside Ralph Lauren’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue is the new Polo Bar, his first fully fledged Manhattan restaurant (he already has ones in Chicago and Paris). With acres of wood panelling, handsome parquet floors and floor-to-ceiling equestrian art, this place takes clubbiness to a whole new level. Expect shrimp cocktail, steaks and the boss himself, right, doing the rounds. 1 East 55th Street, Midtown (ralphlauren.com; 001 212 207 8562)

LIT TLE PA R KAndrew Carmellini (Locanda Verde, the Dutch) gets the balance between style and comfort perfectly. Cherry-wood booths, taupe-upholstered banquettes and pale marble make for a very sexy space, above left, and the New American cooking sings. Zesty bigeye tuna with white-beech mushrooms and chillies is a winner; ditto beetroot tartare with smoked trout roe. With Hall and Oates on the turntable and a mellow vibe, this is a very chilled addition to Tribeca’s sometimes neurotic scene.85 West Broadway, Tribeca (littlepark.com; 001 212 220 4110).

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FOOD SPECIAL

RECIPE FOR PLEASUREWhisk yourself off to a ravishing hotel, learn how to become a chef extraordinaire,

return, throw a dinner party, become the most popular person you know. It’s that easy

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If you’re going to sharpen up your cooking skills, you might as well do it in a ravishing 15th-century palazzo. And if that palazzo happens to be owned by a charming Italian count and countess – the Conte and Contessa Brandolini d’Adda – then so much the better. This is Villa Casagrande in rural Veneto, the setting of Stirred, a new culinary course that focuses on traditional Venetian cooking with a modern spin – and all so relaxed and enjoyable it feels like a week-long house party with people you want to talk to and food you really want to eat.

Daily classes are all about local and seasonal, so it’s artichokes in April, cherries in May, mushrooms and truffles in the autumn. We were given rubber gloves to extract ink sacs from cuttlefish to make a black risotto. We stuffed our ravioli with hand-minced beef cheeks and cut the heads and feet off still-warm guinea fowl to make faraona con salsa peverada. Not for the squeamish.

Each morning session led to long alfresco feasts in the courtyard among old olive-oil barrels; afternoons were free for snoozing under giant oaks, strolling around the countryside or dipping in the pool. Between lessons, we were whisked off for tasting trips: cheese infused with raisin wine; champagne-quality Bisol prosecco. One morning we cruised down Venice’s Grand Canal by vaporetto to buy the day’s ingredients from the fabulous Rialto open-air market. Cook like a count; eat like a king. What could be better? Chris Caldicott BOOK IT Six nights, full board, including activities, £2,495 a person (stirredtravel.com).

It seemed like such a good idea at the time, but now you’ve got six people to feed (read ‘impress’) at the weekend. Blind panic. You want the sort of elegant yet unfussy food you imagine Sam Cam might whip up for a kitchen supper, and a frozen lamb tagine from Cook really won’t cut it. Stave off the panic by getting yourself to the Woodspeen cookery school, near Newbury. In a restored 19th-century farm building with state-of-the-art gear and views of deer-dotted Berkshire countryside, chef John Campbell shows you how to sprinkle a little stardust over your efforts. He’s been anointed by Michelin more than once (most recently at Coworth Park), but he’s changed gear at his new restaurant and cookery school. Yes, he’s mates with Heston and you’ll pick up zillions of fascinating gastro-science facts (such as cook a casserole at 90°C tops – the collagen in the meat turns to gelatin, so you get a tender stew with wrinkle-reducing powers), but he’s also planted a kitchen garden, shoots his own game and will teach you how to skin a fish like a pro. So he’ll share the secrets of cheffy swirls if you want, but you’re not here to produce fiddly ‘Argh! I wish I hadn’t started this!’ primped plates. Simply turn up, make three utterly delicious and impressive yet easy-peasy courses (smoked haddock risotto, perhaps, or buttermilk panna cotta), feast on the fruits of your labour and leave with a foolproof plan. Kate LauerBOOK IT Seasonal dinner-party course, £165 (thewoodspeen.com or visitengland.com).

S T I R R E D, I TA LY

T H E WO O D S P E E N , B E R K S H I R E

Tagliatelle and porcini at Villa Casagrande

The foothills of the Dolomites, the setting of Stirred at Villa Casagrande

Berkshire, home to the Woodspeen, bottom right

ABOVE, RURAL VENETO. BELOW & BOTTOM,

INSIDE & OUTSIDE VILLA CASAGRANDE

T A T L E R M A Y 2 0 1 5 00

S O M E T H I N G ’ S C O O K I N G I N L A C U C I N A Three more Italian cooking courses to get excited about

this year. First up, the Michelin-starred Quattro Passi restaurant in Nerano, on the Amalfi Coast, is launching a

school presided over by Antonio Mellino. Expect traditional yumminess from the Campania region. Overnight-cooking package, from £280 per person (ristorantequattropassi.com).

Up in Tuscany, breezy-chic Monteverdi is launching five-day cooking academies. The next one, in November,

is led by Giancarla Bodoni, a whizz at the whole organic, farm-to-table thing, and will focus on rustic Tuscan

cooking – local pici pasta, say, or wild boar. From £6,500 per couple (monteverdituscany.com). Also in Tuscany is a new wine and spa weekend at the wine-estate hotel

Poggio Al Casone, including biking through the vineyards, drinking lots of lovely wine and learning to cook Tuscan-style for half a day (so not too taxing).

Four-day break, from £470 per person (winerist.com).

Raymond Blanc talks a lot. And waves his hands. And tells stories, endlessly. His newest cookery course, Maman Blanc, is all about what he learned from his own maman – rustic, regional-French home cooking – and he is full of stories.

The course starts with a walk (more of a jog – Raymond doesn’t so much walk as spring about, like a talkative terrier) through the extraordinary kitchen gardens of his flagship, Le Manoir. ‘Be loving with your potatoes!’ he shouts while rooting around in the earth. Evil rabbits are after his veg, he assures us darkly, as he plucks up muddy spuds and flings them in baskets before hurrying over to his kitchens.

Here begins the lesson. He demonstrates a cheese soufflé, all the while talking, talking, talking: about where he comes from (Comté, which has ‘the best milk and sausages

B E L M O N D L E M A N O I R AU X Q U AT ’ S A I S O N S , OX F O R D S H I R E

in the WORLD’), how his mother cooked (‘with a pressure cooker, ALWAYS’), about the importance of eating locally (‘I did not try a peach until I was TWELVE’). Watching him is like watching a magician – but then he has trained hundreds of chefs, some 30 of them now Michelin-starred themselves. He is also completely charming and full of brilliant advice, like laying cling film over pastry before rolling it out, and never using olive oil over high heat.

His soufflé emerges from the oven as a sky-high cloud of scrumptiousness. And then we cook rabbit – he helps us gently pan-fry it with tarragon and onions and vinegar. It’s utterly gorgeous. Raymond’s mother loved cooking rabbit, ‘but sometimes I’d see a tear rolling down her cheek’. There’s always a story. Francisca KellettBOOK IT One-day course, from £365 a person, with head-tutor Mark Peregrine (belmond.com/le-manoir-aux-quat-saisons-oxfordshire).

Monteverdi, Tuscany

Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons

ABOVE, BOUILLABAISSE &, BELOW, SHORTBREAD

& COOKIES AT BELMOND LE MANOIR AUX QUAT’SAISONS.

BELOW RIGHT, FRANCISCA KELLETT &

RAYMOND BLANC