facttime

Of all the countries I've visited, Mexico is the one that tops my list of places I'd love to return to. When I spent two weeks there in 2015 , the food was one of the highlights of the trip, from the street food in Mexico City (and elsewhere) to tasting menus and cooking classes in Oaxaca . It's no surprise, then, that I was muy emocionada  to hear about the opening of Santiago Lastra's KOL restaurant in Marylebone almost a year ago. Lockdown and not managing to book far enough in advance meant that I was only able to visit with my parents a couple of weeks ago, but it was well worth the wait. The restaurant is located on Seymour Street, a couple of blocks north of Oxford Street and near Marble Arch. The main dining room, with an open prep kitchen at its centre, is large and relaxed with décor in earth tones and some rather lovely mid-century furniture. I was also fond of the salt armadillo, a more fun cousin of a salt pig. As for the menu, in the evening you can choo...

UPDATE (April 2022). Unfortunately, this location of Kapihan has now closed permanently. But they are planning to reopen soon in Vauxhall. Two of the recurring themes in my London coffee shop write-ups during this year-and-a-half of COVID have been: the power of coffee shops to connect people amid the loneliness of lockdown, and the ability of coffee shops to transport you and allow you to experience a taste of other places and cultures even when travelling is impossible or, at least, much harder than it once was. Both of these rang true at Kapihan , a Filipino coffee shop and bakery close to Battersea Park, which I visited again at the weekend. I say 'visited again' because it was the third time I've been: the first for a very quick espresso to go when I was running late for a meeting and the second when I forgot to check the bank holiday opening hours after a trip to Nostos  and found Kapihan closed. The third time was the charm on Sunday, even if the heavens opened just ...

This is the last of my posts about my recent holiday in Malta , rounding up my overall experience: my itinerary and how it worked out, where I stayed, what I did and how I travelled around. You can also read my other Malta posts here: Valletta city guide ; day trips from Valletta ; and four days on Gozo . And there are even  more photos over on my Flickr . Days 1–5: Valletta I based myself in Malta's capital, Valletta, as I knew that it would be easy to travel around the small island by bus to some of the many other places I wanted to visit. I stayed five nights at the Coleridge Hotel , a boutique hotel in the heart of the historic city centre. Day 1 . I landed at Malta International Airport at around 2 pm and despite a lengthy queue at passport control and a quicker one for COVID documentation checks on leaving the baggage hall, I reached Valletta's City Gate by bus just before 3:30. After checking into my hotel, I spent the afternoon exploring Valletta and getting my bearing...

This is the third of four posts about my recent trip to Malta. You can read the other instalments here: Valletta city guide ; day trips from Valletta ; and  how to spend nine days in Malta . Gozo, known locally as Għawdex, is the second-largest island of the Maltese archipelago, lying just north of the island of Malta and about 50 miles south of Sicily. Second-largest doesn't mean much when it comes to Maltese islands, and it has an area of 26 square miles and a population of about 33,000 (although there's a lot of variation). Its name comes from the medieval Aragonese word for 'joy', which is very appropriate given how much joy its beautiful cliffs, cobalt waters and geological features brought me. I spent four days on the island after my time in Valletta; read on to find out what I did. THINGS TO DO Victoria . Also known as Rabat, its local name, Victoria is Gozo's capital and it's also roughly in the middle of the island, which means most roads (and bus route...