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As 2022 draws to a close, it's time for the 12th edition of my annual speciality coffee and food awards , where I share my favourite coffee shops and eateries from among all of those that I visited for the first time this year. Over the past few years, I've tweaked the geographical boundaries of some awards to reflect my travel schedule, which has changed somewhat as a result of COVID. Throughout the year, I visited some fantastic speciality coffee shops and ate some delicious food, so it was hard to pick my favourites. I was lucky enough to travel to  Kenya ,  Uganda  and  Bali  for work, drinking some excellent coffee at the farms and washing stations I visited. I also enjoyed city breaks in New York City (where the  coffee  and  food  were as good as always) and  Athens . And closer to home, I continued eating my way around London (most of my coverage is  on my Instagram ) and  Bristol . Read on to find out which places made...

There's something about Bristol. Although the long weekend I spent there recently was only the third time I've been in two decades, both of my previous visits made me fall for the place enough to seriously consider going to university there and moving there , respectively. With a population of around 470,000, Bristol feels like a proper city, with great food and culture, but parts of it still retain a relaxed, villagey feel and it has a fantastic alternative scene too. I've always blamed expensive rail fares and hotel rates for not travelling very much within the UK but with Bristol only being a 1h30 train ride from London, I really have no excuse for visiting so infrequently. Here's what I got up to on my recent city break. THINGS TO DO Exploring Bristol's history . The city centre is compact and easily explored on foot or by bike (watch out for the hills, though). I usually like to take a walking tour when I'm in a city I don't know that well, but as it wa...

I've known for some time that I was long overdue a return visit to Bristol, a city that I've loved each time I've been and yet, like many places in the UK, I don't get to often enough. In particular, the city's speciality coffee scene has changed a huge amount since I was last there (whisper it) a decade ago. A three-day trip over the Easter weekend wasn't enough time — when is it? — but the sunny weather was perfect for coffee-shop-hopping and I managed to visit 12 coffee spots. In the accompanying Google Map, my very favourite spots are marked in purple, and I've also included three more that I didn't visit this time but whose sister coffee shops (in Bristol or elsewhere) I've been to. Most cafés featured coffee from roasters based in Bristol and the south-west, and I was also blown away by the range and quality of baked goods and sweet treats on offer, from coconut curry pasties, to cinnamon pretzels and all kinds of doughnut. Go on an empty stoma...