Norway, Restaurants

Fine Dining at the North Pole: Gruvelageret

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During our visit to Spitsbergen last weekend, Gruvelageret Restaurant in Longyearbyen (the capital of Svalbard, Norway) invited me to try out their 4-course fine dining menu with wine pairing. I was joined by my wife, Ms B. The restaurant, whose name translates into mining warehouse, sits 30 metres up the hillside, no more than 200 metres direct distance from Coal Miners’ Cabins, where we were staying (0.5km by car), but – being cautious (everyone seemed to think: overly cautious) people, we took a cab anyway. At least in winter, polar bears occasionally stroll around in this northernmost human settlement on planet Earth, and we didn’t want to end up as polar bear picnic. Like most structures in town, the building doesn’t look like too much from the outside (even though the whole building has a beautiful history and a lot of love and hard work went into it), but as […]

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Norway, Restaurants

Ekeberg Restaurant, Oslo – our Review

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View from Oslo's Ekeberg Restaurant

Michelin Guide listed Ekebergrestauranten, ranking in the top 30 of 1,200 Oslo restaurants on Tripadvisor and regularly featured by gourmet publications as one of the best fine dining locations in town, invited us for dinner during our stopover in Oslo on our way to Spitsbergen last Friday evening. They offer innovative, at times adventurous, but not excessively experimental Scandinavian and European cuisine in very chic, spacious, bright dining rooms of a perfectly maintained 1920s functionalist (regularly erroneously labelled art-deco by reviewers) building. It is considered to be one of the finest of its kind in Europe. While being managed locally, they are part of Fursetgruppen, who own another 20 or so local restaurants, including the world-famous three Michelin starred Maaemo. On the ten-minute cab ride from the city centre with its magnificent opera house (40 minutes by train from the airport; the opera house is next to the station) up […]

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Cotswolds, London, Where to stay

Cotswold House Hotel and Spa, Chipping Campden – our Review

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We love the Cotswolds and had previously stayed at the Cotswold House Hotel and Spa’s sister hotel, the Noel Arms, just across the street (would also recommend!) and at least a dozen other places in the area. As a basecamp location for hiking tours, walks, or visits to the pretty gardens and other picturesque villages nearby, there is – in our view – no better place than Chipping Campden. And what could be better than staying at a fancy boutique hotel in a beautifully renovated grade-listed Regency building that used to house the Guild of Handicraft when the arts & crafts movement relocated to Campden some 200 years ago. Modern fittings and appliances have been added without any disturbance to the grandeur of the place. The splendid spiralling staircase features in many wedding photos.    The hotel stretches over a number of buildings, including an adjacent one directly on the […]

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Cotswolds, Restaurants

Fig, Chipping Campden – our Restaurant Review

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During our visit to the Cotswolds last weekend, Fig restaurant, focused on fine dining and British cuisine, invited me to try their three-course dinner menu. I was joined by Ms B, my wife. The restaurant is part of the lovely boutique hotel Cotswold House and Spa, owned by Bespoke Hotels group, and located in the main building, a splendid Regency mansion that used to be home to the local Guild of Handicraft. Read our review of the hotel here. The dining room has large windows towards the magnificent park-like gardens of the hotel and exudes an atmosphere of grandeur and elegance. The maître d’ led us to our table and after brief deliberation, Ms B opted for hand-picked crab, yuzu, cucumber, and avocado as a starter, roast fillet of turbot, fregola, peas, broad beans, clams and Marsala as her main, and caramelised spelt, milk jelly, coffee ice cream, and honeycomb […]

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Art and Culture, Fun, Germany

The Landshut Wedding – One of the Biggest Medieval Pageants in Europe

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MsB and I have just returned from our trip to Bavaria, where we visited the phenomenal Landshut Wedding, one of the biggest medieval pageants of Europe. The event is held every four years since 1903 in the Lower Bavarian town of Landshut (55,000 residents), only 45 minutes by train or car from Bavaria’s capital, Munich. It attracts close to one million visitors. Several thousand locals dress up every day for three weeks and re-enact the wedding between Hedwig, the Polish King’s daughter, and George “the Rich”, the son of the Duke of Bavaria, in 1475 A.D. This wedding was so outrageously pompous it continued to be talked about for centuries. 10,000 guests jubilated, celebrated, danced, and feasted for a full four days back then. 320 cows, 1,500 sheep, 1,300 lambs, 500 calves, and no less than 40,000 chickens met their maker during this long weekend. The fact that the marriage […]

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