Enjoying a day out with family and friends can be so much fun, especially when food is involved. However, trying to find nice restaurant option or some fun experiences can prove to be tricky. There’s so many options. Whether you’re situated in London or at the very northerly point in Scotland, here are some fantastic food options for next day out. Alongside some new releases that may tickle your fancy.

Academy of Cheese partnered with Paxton and Whitfield, London – £195

The Academy of Cheese class

The Academy of Cheese have paired up with Paxton and Whitfield to offer a Level One Cheese Training Programme.

If you want to expand your knowledge and know your Gruyere from your Gorgonzola, this is the perfect experience for you. Or it could be a great present for a cheese enthusiast. During the day you’ll learn about the history of cheesemaking, followed by the class and a guide to tasting and selecting the right cheese for you. They are offering five dates from July to November, so make sure you keep some dates free.

Paxton and Whitfield 

The Avenue Cookery School, London – £125

The Avenue Cooking school

Gather your friends and enjoy this sushi making and cocktail shaking class! Focused on driving your senses wild, this is a delicious and fun way to spend your evening.

You start the evening with a sushi demonstration, and then get stuck into the appetising journey of making your own sushi rolls. Alongside this, you have access to bottomless wine, just to make the experience even more heavenly.

After delving into a sushi feast, you get to take on making your own cocktails, Japanese style. Clink clink.

The Avenue Cookery School 

Borough Kitchen cooking classes, London – £115

The Borough Kitchen cooking class

Borough Kitchen are offering their time to teach you how to incorporate nutritional and colourful food into your diet. A cooking class inspired by mindful eating and healthy cooking. With a variety of dates, spotted around London, this isn’t a deal you should miss out on.

Dishes from spiced beetroot and coconut soup to salmon and chia seed cakes will make your experience tasty as well as informative. You’ll engage with well experienced instructors, and keeping the class small allows them to be attentive and ensure you are getting the most from your experience.

Borough Kitchen- mindful eating

The Borough Kitchen cooking class

A quick and easy pasta dish may be our go to meal for a night we can’t be bothered to cook. But there is so much more to pasta, especially when its home made. This experience will teach you everything you need to know to create delicious tortellini. Flour, eggs, a fork, and this hands-on class and you’ll be everyone’s favourite dinner host.

Spread over three hours, you will get to create the dough, roll the sheets, and fill the pasta. As well as learning the best ways to pair pasta with a delightful sauce. No need to stress if you have dietary requirements, this class can be adapted to your preference.

Borough Kitchen – pasta class

Virgin experiences Chocolate making, Shoreditch – £52

Virgin Experiences Chocolate class

Do you want to be taught by some of the best chocolatiers in the business? Virgin Experiences are offering a Luxury Chocolate Making Workshop.

This chocolate making session will have you making your own chocolate martini, infusing, and decorating mini cream truffles and creating a giant flavoured chocolate button. All to be specially packaged to take home. This fun yet luxurious workshop if the perfect day out for a group of friends or a couple. A glass of bubbles on arrival and leaving with a giant chocolate button, refined to your liking, what more could you want?

Virgin experiences 

Read more: 6 reasons you should be eating dark chocolate

The most northerly Fish & Chips, Shetland

Frankie’s fish & chips

Established in 2008, Frankie’s Fish & Chips holds the title for being the most northerly fish & chips shop in the UK.

With their seafood landing daily to their local market, don’t miss out on the fresh and high-quality fish. They have a family friendly environment ready to welcome everyone. Some of their staff have been with them since the opening, supporting the restaurant through 15 years of hard work. 

Frankie’s fish & chips

London Bridge to home UK’s first sake brewery/bar, London Bridge

KANPAI brewery/bar

KANPAI, meaning cheers in Japanese, is UK’s first sake brewery, who focus on traditional Japanese brewing techniques.

Since having a bar in Peckham since 2016, they are now making a big move to a new premises in London Bridge. It will offer a modern taproom bar with 10 distinct sake draft taps, as well as seasonal Japanese cocktails and sprits.

This new opening is dedicated to expanding its brewery, whilst being easily accessible for visitors. When in London, make sure to schedule in a unique sake experience, learning about the rich history of sake and tasting the delicious small plates that KANPAI has to offer. With the move expected to happen over summer 2023, don’t miss out from Wednesdays to Sundays on this artistic experience.

KANPAI 

French zero per cent wine brand Moderato makes UK debut, Club Soda tasting room – £20 entry

Moderato wine from Club Soda

Soon to be available in Club Soda’s Covent Garden tasting room, shop, and bar is Moderato’s line of alcohol-free wines. Red, white, Rose, and Sparking wines costing £10-£11. Moderato have created an all-natural, low sugar range of wines, perfect for summer sipping.

To perfectly compliment this beverage, is a July Wine Club. Every second Thursday of the month you can attend the Tasting Room (tickets needed) where you will be welcomed with complementary drinks and cheese throughout the night. You’ll get the opportunity to engage with the makers of the innovative drinks and immerse yourself in the world of no/low wine.

Moderato

Grab some food at the Ashmolean Museum rooftop restaurant, Oxford

The Ashmolean Museum rooftop restaurant

Take a day trip to the beautiful Oxford to visit the relaunch of the roof terrace restaurant in the Ashmolean Museum.

Opening from the 2 July, the rooftop restaurant has extended its opening hours until 6pm, allowing guests to relax and enjoy the sun. Whether you want to sip on a glass of rose or share a food platter with friends and family, this is the best way to enjoy the scenic view of Oxford. Located right in the centre, it’s very easily accessible.

Ashmolean Museum 

CafePod Half-Caff Brunch Blend, online – £4.20

CafePod coffee

CafePod, an independent coffee brand, specialise in Nespresso-compatible pods, varying in strengths and flavours. Their newest launch is the Half-Cuff Brunch Blend pod, a 50:50 blend of decaffeinated and a regular roasted coffee. Having a long day at work and going through three coffees may help. But drinking that much caffeine can have negative effects on our sleeping. This could be the perfect solution if you are looking to decrease your caffeine intake.

CafePod

The Wasabi Company, Yuzu Lemonade, online – £2.65 

The Wasabi Company Yuzu lemonade

We all love a summer refreshment, something to keep us hydrated whilst out and about. Why not try the new Yuzu Lemonade created by The Wasabi Company. A delicious drink with the perfect blend of being delicate yet enriching.

Made with four per cent yuzu juice from trees grown in Valencia, this fresh drink tastes like a cross between grapefruit and orange. As well as tasting delicious, this drink contains over 50 types of minerals, coming from Nagari. Nagari is the liquid left after salt has been precipitated and has huge health benefits when it comes to replenishing the body.

As well as being the ultimate drink for replenishment and rehydration, Yuzu lemonade comes in distinctive cardboard cans, so it’s great for the planet too! Being far more sustainable than other canned drinks, what a perfect drink for summer. 

The Wasabi Company

Ellie Mongey

Having a three month break from uni, where she’s studying marketing, Ellie can normally be found in a coffee shop, on the beach or spending all her money on food. 

The post July’s food news roundup – all the best finds appeared first on Silver Magazine.

And he’s got a point. Think of Scotland, and you probably think of haggis, kilts, the Loch Ness Monster, whisky… and yes, possibly shortbread. Even Sean Connery, probably. And in fairness, all of these things are really rather Scottish. But I went for a short break in Inverness recently and discovered there’s a whole lot more going on.

So what was I doing in Scotland?

I had a lovely invite to go and see a new hotel, the AC Marriott Inverness. Ordinarily it would be a bit of a stretch to entice me to travel so far for a hotel launch (I live in Sussex). But chuck in some whisky tasting, dolphin-spotting, and the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, and I’m your girl.

…chuck in some whisky tasting, dolphin-spotting, and the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, and I’m your girl.

I had desperately wanted to travel up on the Caledonian Sleeper train, because I LOVE LOVE LOVE sleeper trains (like the Riviera Sleeper down to Cornwall)!

But the rotters wouldn’t cough up for a press ticket, and the price was just too ridiculously high – either for me or the client to pay. So I flew. A very efficient and pleasant flight from Gatwick to Inverness, thanks to Easyjet. Yah boo sucks to the Caledonian Sleeper.

Landing in bonnie Scotland at about 8.30pm, I leapt straight in a cab and headed for my host – the new AC Marriott Inverness.

The bar area at the hotel

First impressions of the hotel?

Most favourable – a huge open space for the bar, restaurant, and fireside area, which feels both grand and cosy at the same time. I could see people bustling around having food and drink. Great, I thought. Dump bags, freshen up, and have some dinner.

Unfortunately, whilst checking in, nobody thought to inform me that the kitchens close at 9pm – and it never occurred to me to ask. So by the time I came back down for dinner, access denied.

You all know what it’s like to be tired, and hungry, and just want to eat and drop. So you can imagine my reaction when the incredibly young-looking bar steward suggested I get some crisps from the snack counter in reception!

Fortunately, someone with a bit more hospitality experience recognised my imminent explosion and organised a delicious platter of meats and cheeses etc. Word to the wise though, dinner orders stop at 9pm.

Photo: Sam Harrington-Lowe

What about the hotel though?

Very happy with the hotel. First impressions count, and there’s a lovely buzz when you walk in. It feels light, and airy, but at the same time not that sort of airplane-hangar feel that some venues have. I think it’s the lower ceilings. It manages to convey a sense of intimacy, even though the floor space is pretty big.

My bedroom is great; clutter-free and gentle on the eye with muted tones. I was lucky enough to have a Superior Room, so I had a view over the River Ness, which I loved. As you’d expect from a new hotel, it’s clean and fresh, and I’ve got a coffee machine and a fridge, which always pleases me. Nice new bed stock – I slept like a log – and an excellent shower. These things are important.

Superior Room at the AC Marriott Inverness

The reason for my being at the hotel – along with other journalists and influencers from all over the UK and beyond – was to see its official grand unveiling, and party with them. Hence the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, who were playing at the launch do. So whilst I was there, there were a lot of ‘firsts’ going on around the hotel, and a feeling of growing excitement as the party night drew nearer.

Day 1 – Singleton Distillery visit and private dining

Meantime, we were treated to some local fun! I posted on my Facebook page something to the effect of ‘I’m at a whisky distillery in Scotland, what could possibly go wrong?’ which drew predictably hilarious responses.

Singleton Distillery – the tour and tasting. Photos: Sam Harrington-Lowe

But actually the visit to the Singleton Distillery in the Muir of Ord was more educational than libational. I learned an awful lot about the making of whisky, and had a fascinating tour of the works. But genuinely the most intriguing part for me was the tasting.

Did you know that three drops of water from a pipette can COMPLETELY alter what whisky does in your mouth?

Did you know that three drops of water from a pipette can COMPLETELY alter what whisky does in your mouth? I didn’t; I’m not really a whisky drinker. Having tasted a mouthful of the Singleton 12-year-old single malt and noted its fire – all front-of-mouth action, slightly tingling – we then added three drops of water to the whisky, and the difference was extraordinary. And I expect whisky aficionados will know all this, but this was a revelation to me. It transformed it. Much smoother, far less prickle.

And yes, we tasted all their single malts, and oh my word yes, I brought some home. Not that there’s much left now. Turns out I rather like decent Scotch.

The hotel really pulled out the stops for a wonderful evening, once we’d got back and changed. Kicking off with cocktails and canapes in the loungey fireside area, there followed a stupendous meal in a private room.

Canapes, cocktails, and the private dining room. Photos: Sam Harrington-Lowe

AC Marriott’s Head of Commercial, John Farrelly, over from Amsterdam for the knees-up, had been kicked out as he was using it as his office! But what a cracking meal. A treat-filled, Scottish-inspired tasting menu, with perfect wine pairing, and an astonishing dessert (pictured far right in the top image).

Our menu for the night. Photo: Sam Harrington-Lowe

Day 2 – Dolphin spotting

I didn’t know you could go dolphin spotting in Scotland. But in the Moray Firth, sightings of bottlenose dolphins are common, which is exciting. The stretch that the Dolphin Spirit guys sail in is home to heaps of other wildlife too. There’s a lot to see, like seals, otters, and birdlife.

The guides on the boats are extremely knowledgeable about the flora and fauna in the area. And they can recognise different dolphins, affectionately giving them names. The experience we went on is called the Mischief Wildlife Experience, and the boat we went out on travels through Chanonry Point where dolphins are spotted.

Dophin Spotting on Mischief

It’s worth noting that dolphins are spotted on over 90% of Mischief trips, so if dolphin spotting is your thing, this is a jolly good bet.

We were also extremely lucky – the sun shone brilliantly for us. What a day to be out on the water. Dolphins were spotted, and lots of birds etc too. The Mischief, as you might expect from such a name, is a fast and fun ride (pictured). But if you wanted something more leisurely, there are cruises as well.

Party time

Back to the hotel, where everything was madness! Staging, lighting, food stations, hundreds of people all charging around setting up for the party ahead. The kitchen had very sensibly organised a little lunchbag of food for us in our room to keep us out of the way. I shook out my gladrags, leapt in the shower and tried to make myself presentable for the do.

Stepping out of the lift on the ground floor was like walking into a completely different place! I always love how magical it is when event experts do their thing, and transform spaces. There was a guy playing a grand piano and singing jazz numbers, people dressed up to the nines. Wine and drinks on tap – all the makings of a great start.

Just a tiny section of the party food

Once I’d circulated a bit and met some of the team, including the hotel general manager Dianna Bruce, I got properly stuck in. The food was heavenly – such an exciting smorgasbord, of exceptionally high quality. I’m not sure I’ve ever reached a point before where I have had enough seafood and serrano ham, but there you go. Thank you AC Marriott Inverness for finding my breaking point.

I’m not sure I’ve ever reached a point before where I have had enough seafood and serrano ham

Actually I will just talk about the head chef here, Ian MacKenzie, 42, who grew up in Inverness and has joined the AC Marriott. He’s headed ‘back home’ following a 15-year stint catering as private chef on tour with the likes of Lizzo, J-Lo, Elton John, Beyonce, Paul McCartney and Jayzee.

The demand for luxury food that he’s been used to meeting is clear from the standard of fare throughout the whole hotel. Whether it’s breakfast with its homemade baked bean, frittatas, and slabs of honeycomb, or the brunch options with classic hints of Scottish tradition throughout, the food at the hotel is exceptional. And I don’t say that lightly.

Time for a dance

After an enormous amount of food, and gallons of cocktails and wine had been consumed by the great and good of Inverness and beyond, the Red Hot Chilli Pipers hit the stage and piped up a storm. Yours truly, capering around at the front of the crowd, half-cut, predictably got picked out by the singer and brought up on stage to join in. In heels too. I’m just impressed with myself that I didn’t fall over. No I’m not showing you the photo.

The Red Hot Chilli Pipers kicking it. Photo: Sam Harrington-Lowe

But it was all over far too soon; I could have capered for Scotland for hours. The Pipers departed the stage to huge cheers, and, energised by the rousing noise, the party continued at a vastly increased decibel rate.

The next morning I woke up, tongue like Gandhi’s flipflop and so forth, and staggered into the shower. I had a chaotic morning and breakfast.

My chaos, not theirs, I should add – I tipped a glass of water into my phone charger blowing up the plug, and filling one of my trainers at the same time. Crushed a boiled egg being clumsy, and covered myself in yoke; dropped brown sauce in all the other condiments; and split the teabag in my cup, filling it with tea leaves. But I made it back to the airport, and on to the plane in one piece and flew home, mostly snoozing loudly with my earplugs in.

Thank you Inverness, and good night!

The useful stuff

AC Marriott Inverness website
Room prices vary throughout the year, but I found some starting around £120 per night (July ’23)
Largest hotel in Inverness with 191 rooms

Singleton Distillery website
The distillery is located in the beautiful Muir of Ord, a stone’s throw from the Highland capital of Inverness.
The ‘Experience’ is a 90-minute round trip, with a tasting, and there’s a bar, and a huge shop packed with a stunning collection of whiskies to buy.

The Dolphin Spirit website
Cruises start at £21 pp and take 75 mins. The speedy RIB trip on Mischief starts at £49 pp and is a couple of hours.

Sam Harrington-Lowe

Sam is Silver’s founder and editor-in-chief. She’s largely responsible for organising all the things, but still finds time to do the odd bit of writing. Not enough though. Send help.

The post A short break in Inverness is a feast for the senses appeared first on Silver Magazine.

A few days ago, the World Health Organisation declared that covid-19 no longer a global health emergency. However, despite there to be less of a safety need for staycations now, their popularity in the UK still rises. 

A study by YouGov found that when looking into 2023 travel, more than half of UK participants asked were planning to have a domestic trip this year.

The cost-of-living crisis may be an influence on this. Taking a staycation cuts out the cost of flights abroad. As airlines recoup profits lost over the pandemic with higher prices, holidays abroad become very expensive for many.

Encouraging people to stay within the UK will also provide a must-needed boost to the UK economy. 

So, other than affordability, why are people choosing a staycation over a holiday abroad?

Read more: Why you should travel in your 50s and 60s…

Why are staycations still so popular?

There are many reasons why staycations are so popular, with travel options being one of them. It is much easier and often cheaper to book train tickets in advance, and utilising public transport allows everyone to enjoy the relaxation of travel rather than someone being the designated driver. 

Another reason is the length it takes to travel. For most people, the time it takes to travel anywhere in the country is less than it would take to travel abroad. 

This allows you to maximise your holiday time. Going abroad can mean whole days are taken up travelling and arriving in the middle of the night. 

The UK remains popular 

The UK benefits from being comprised of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. There is a huge variety of landscape and culture to explore around the nation. 

Whether hiking holidays across mountains or valleys are your thing, or coastal visits with quaint villages appeal to you, the UK can cater for many holiday types.

Going south towards Cornwall provides stunning beaches, which on some days can even be mistaken for a tropical country. Similarly, Scotland has its share of breathtakingly stunning shores. 

Durdle Door beach, Dorset, England. Photo: Daniel Howe (via Pexels)

We all know the UK has an extensive history, and the abundance of museums and galleries is evidence of that. Wherever you decide to explore, you’ll be able to find out something new about the local history and art.

Are Brits ditching the sun and sea for somewhere closer to home?

Despite a rise in Brits staying closer to home, holidaying abroad is still the most popular choice. In 2021 61% of people were planning to go abroad within the next year according to ABTA. 

When it comes to holidaying abroad, some destinations are firm favourites. Spain remains a strong favourite for holidaymakers, with visitors being attracted by the weather, the beaches and the food. Roughly 18 million people visit each year, with places such as the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands most popular.  

The United States remains a common destination for Brits, with an estimated 5 million people visiting every year. Orlando in particular is a huge draw, with families travelling for the theme parks and family-friendly activities. 

Holidaying abroad is still as popular as ever, but the demand for staycation experiences has grown over the past few years. Since the pandemic and lockdowns more and more people have been discovering just how much the UK has to offer. 

Silver Lifestyle – time to get your silver on with our retreats and products

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The post Staycation vs vacation – the popularity of UK holidays appeared first on Silver Magazine.