The Foxhunter, Monmouthshire by Sally Shalam
If you've ever seen tables laden with puffballs at London's Borough Market, the chances are they were picked by Raoul Van Den Broucke, a Belgian who lives in Wales - a sort of Carluccio of the Wye Valley. He supplies The Foxhunter with wild mushrooms and salad greens, and offers guests foraging trips - a new twist to a gastronomic overnight.
Bea and I are booked in at this, a former stationmaster's house, now a gastro pub owned by chef Matt Tebbutt (via a dizzy list of London establishments, among others, Chez Bruce and the Oak Room in its Marco Pierre White heyday) and his wife Lisa.
Accommodation is in two nearby cottages, and breakfast is DIY. "The bacon's really nice," says Sam - the helpful girl I've spoken to on the phone - showing us to The Old Stable. There's been a mix-up - this cottage only has one bedroom - but there's a put-u-up Sam can make up while we have dinner. Phew.
Soon as she's gone, Bea and I shoot round our whitewashed stone abode like marbles on a bagatelle board. It's an open-plan, one-up one-down with sparse modern furnishings. A wooden staircase with open treads leads to a bedroom in the roof space with dormer windows. We like it.
There's time to browse a book of Dylan Thomas poems while Bea takes a bath, then we're trotting up the road to dinner.
"I've got a problem with this menu," says Bea. "I could order everything on it." That's quite a triumph, since she's doing India Knight's low-carb diet.
So no Cloudy Bay for us then, but dinner is supremely enjoyable. It's not really a pub - the furnishings, original paintings and odd chandelier are too smart - but the atmosphere is relaxed and the efficient staff have time for amusing chat. Food quality is unquestionable and we round off longhorn ribeye and venison with polenta rhubarb crumble - one of Tebbutt's contributions to the BBC's Great British Menu - and a cheese selection robust with Britishness.
In the morning we watch a deep pink sky through a row of three small windows - like a perfect triptych. Raoul arrives early bearing a box of golden Gallina and curly dark wood ear mushrooms for the restaurant.
We park in a lane and, ignoring views down the Wye valley, start to scour the hedgerow, stooping to pick, sniff and taste what initially look like weeds. They aren't though - as Raoul reveals: hairy bitter cress, pennywort, wild sorrel, which tastes acidic compared with wood sorrel. He shows us blueberry plants, wild strawberries, and where to find raspberries in autumn.
We fail to find oyster mushrooms in a gloriously pungent wood but observe funghi everywhere. We need far more time for his tales, such as where the earliest St George mushrooms come up. "Matt always gets the first ones," he says.
· 01873 881101, thefoxhunter.com. Cottages £125 per night, minimum two nights at weekends. Dinner, around £33 for three course, excluding drinks. A half-day wild food forage with Raoul costs from £60pp. Further information: visitwales.co.uk.
Teän, Scilly Isles
Plane, boat, train, helicopter - you'll need to take at least one of these if you want to sample Scillonian brill, St Martin's lobster and other delights at Teän restaurant, on St Martin's, which last month became the most far-flung restaurant in the UK to hold a Michelin star, the first ever on the Isles of Scilly, and one of only 15 awarded this year. Conveniently, the restaurant comes with a hotel attached, St Martin's, on the Isle.
· 01720 422090, stmartinshotel.co.uk. Dinner at Teän plus B&B from £150pp per night.
Monachyle, Perthshire
A remote location on the banks of Loch Voil in the Trossachs is not an obvious site of pilgrimage for the bon viveur but where else can you find a chic family owned hotel with a top chef, its own organic farm, plus a bakery and a scattering of local outlets - tea shop, bakery, fish and chips - so that if you venture off the 2,000-acre estate you can secure sustenance of a similar quality? Siblings Tom, Dick and Melanie Lewis own and run Monachyle Mhor, the Library Tearoom in Balquhidder, Ben Ledi Café and the Scotch Oven in Callander, where a programme of cookery demonstrations will start later this year.
· 01877 384 622, monachylemhor.com. Dinner, bed and breakfast from £187.
Cider trail, Somerset
In spring, your walk will be a mass of apple blossom, in autumn fragrant with fruit. Specialist walking company Foot Trails has a two-day, two-night vintage cider tour in the southern part of this orchard-laden county, which skirts the Somerset Levels and takes in the traditional orchards bordering the ancient Fosse Way. Your base is the Lord Poulett Arms (see Home, April 21 2007), taxi-able from Crewkerne railway station, and the main tasting is at Pass Vale Farm, the home of Burrow Hill cider, where not just traditional cider but apple brandy is made.
· 01747 861851, foottrails.co.uk. Next departure May 30, £255pp half-board.
Mr Underhills, Shropshire
Ludlow of course needs no introduction as a gastro-grail, despite the departure of Shaun Hill from The Merchant House and the relocation to London of Hibiscus. It still has Michelin-starred restaurant with rooms, Mr Underhills, which sources most ingredients, except fish, from the Marches, but the whole town is also part of the Slow Food movement, encouraging and celebrating traditional production and cooking. Time a stay at Mr Underhills to coincide with Ludlow's Magnalonga, a six-mile summer walk around the Mortimer Forest with "food stops". This year's walk takes place on Sunday June 22.
· 01584 874431, mr-underhills.co.uk, from £140 B&B. slowfoodludlow.org.uk/magnalonga/.
Northcote Manor, Lancashire
Chef Nigel Haworth's northern shrine to nosh has something for everyone. For a start, guests booking overnight gourmet breaks now have a choice of 14 newly refurbished bedrooms in which to recover after a five- or eight-course tasting menu at this Michelin-starred restaurant. Then there is Obsession, the manor's winter festival of fine food and wine, which attracts seriously big culinary names, and is so popular tickets sell out within days of going on sale. For the truly hands-on though, there are Haworth's cookery classes, embracing his passion for regional cooking, kicking off with a Spring Season Cookery Day next month.
· 01254 240555, northcotemanor.com. One-night gourmet break, with champagne, canapes, five-course menu and breakfast for two, from £290. Spring Season Cookery Day, March 12, £60pp.
Food safari, Lake District
Once a tour guide in Africa, Annette Gibbons has dovetailed this experience with her considerable knowledge of food and devised short journeys of gluttonous discovery - meats, fish, cheese, butter, organic wheat and flour from artisan producers. March/April is the best time - when our traditional sheep breeds (as opposed to foreign imports) are lambing. Annette ferries safari-goers in her Chrysler, run on liquefied petroleum gas, and accommodation is at Boltongate Old Rectory, a B&B in the Northern Fells.
· 01900 881356, cumbriaonaplate.co.uk. Two nights' B&B, one-day tour, plus lunch on the second day, £295pp.
Nature's larder, Wales
The Centre for Alternative Technology might not be the sexiest of names, but what this place, in a beautiful setting in the valley of the river Dulas near Machynlleth, does is very cool indeed. A variety of short breaks are on offer, such as organic gardening, but the newest is Nature's Larder, a weekend course in July on which you will learn to identify, prepare and cook the plants around you. Accommodation at the centre is in sustainable self-catering houses or rooms above its vegetarian restaurant. The centre also runs the Quarry Cafe, a wholefood eaterie and shop in the town of Machynlleth (whose individual food outlets are the real thing; the butcher has even managed to save his own abattoir).
· 01654 705950, Cat.org.uk. From £180pp for the two-night, three-day Nature's Larder course, all-inclusive.
Seafood trail, Scotland
McKinlay Kidd's new mouthwatering five-night itinerary packs in scallop divers and fishermen, cookery demos and shoreside gorging surrounded by the stunning scenery of Argyll and Wester Ross. Start in the Kyles of Bute, west of Glasgow, at a traditional Victorian hotel serving whisky liqueurs (and a breakfast of champagne, scallops and bacon), then tour the Argyll coast before stopping in Wester Ross, where you spend the final morning with the fishermen gathering in their creels.
08707 606027, seescotlanddifferently.co.uk/holiday-ideas/19/itinerary-63. From £449pp B&B.
Cookery school, Worcestershire
Part of a working farm, the philosophy behind this residential cookery school is to link pasture with kitchen skills and appreciation of good food. Courses are varied - from "Aga Taster" days to sushi-mastering classes. Coming up is a two-day Bread and Baking course run by a master baker from Shipton Mill. Classes are held in a Dutch barn equipped with a "mini kitchen" for each student. Each student has an Aga, Rangemaster or Falcon cooker and fully-stocked fridge. Accommodation, in five en-suite bedrooms , is in the 700-year-old manor house just across a courtyard from the school.
· 01386 751600, eckingtonmanor.co.uk. One-night, two-day Bread and Baking, March 8-9, £390. Rooms £95pp B&B.