Tom Kerridge's Hand and Flowers lives up to its lofty reputation

The Hand and Flowers has been on our culinary bucket list for a long time. We’ve long been fans of chef and owner Tom Kerridge. Marlow’s not that far. We’ve had plenty of special occasions to celebrate. But we’d never quite managed to combine the necessary advance planning (three months, at least) with an open slot in the diary. Finally, the stars aligned. We marked Mr. Bencard’s 60th birthday with a long, magnificent lunch that rivalled our best-ever meal at Clare Smyth’s Core.

This is, of course, a very different kind of place. The Hand and Flowers may hold two Michelin stars, but it’s still a pub in a charming small town along a mostly rural stretch of the Thames—not a temple of modern design patronised by the capital’s great, good and glamorous. Different in no way means inferior. If anything, the pub ethos only adds to the magic.

I’ve been lucky to dine at a generous number of Michelin-starred restaurants (see the index of reviews in the left column). They all serve exceptional food, and most start with luxury ingredients and gourmet concepts. It’s fancy from the first idea.

The Hand and Flowers starts from a different place: wholesome, traditional British comfort food. Like classic Italian cooking, it builds on a foundation of simple ingredients—beef, duck, pastry, potato—in deceptively straightforward preparations, executed to an insanely high standard.

Take the amuse bouche, for example. A bite-sized sausage roll with a side of spiced mayo. The stuff of a hundred summer picnics, a familiar taste guaranteed to put a smile of both recollection and anticipation on your face. Here, the familiar is transformed into something almost unrecognisable. The meat is so smooth and perfectly spiced, the pastry so flaky, the mayo such an exquisite complement that it’s hardly still a humble sausage roll. And yet it envelops you in the warm emotional blanket of comfort food.

That’s the one-two punch that makes this place special: the nostalgic hug of the familiar, delivered with the dazzling artistry of fine dining.

We started with dishes we might easily choose at our local: pork and mushroom terrine for me, duck liver parfait for the birthday boy. I was seriously tempted by the parfait, too, but had duck lined up for my main course and wanted to mix things up. As with the sausage roll, both starters took the familiar and elevated them into the gourmet stratosphere. My terrine was an explosion of umami, balanced by the sharp tang of minuscule dill pickles and pickled onions. 

But Piers’ parfait was the clear winner. Neither of us has ever tasted that combination of rich flavour and light texture before—so smooth it had the consistency of top-quality gelato, but at room temperature. A chat with the staff—and a helpful browse through the Hand and Flowers cookbook—revealed that even with a week at the Gascony Cooking School and the ability to make our own foie gras, we’d never come close. The processes, steps and specialist equipment used to put that perfect quenelle on the plate were nothing short of wizardry.

The main course had its own amuse bouche in the form of a spectacular bottle of wine. We let the sommelier guide us, and he delivered something worthy of the occasion: Habla No. 30 from a small vineyard in Trujillo, in the Extremadura region of Spain. If I had to limit myself to just one red wine for the rest of my life, this might be it. It’s full of fruit (the producer says tropical; I tasted dark berry) but balanced with black pepper and herb. That balance is its magic. It has the punch of flavour I love in bold Malbecs or Cab Sauvs, but with a delicacy and lightness that nods to my husband’s preference for elegant French Pinot Noirs. A perfect compromise.

A memorable wine deserves memorable food. And out it came.

I had the Devon duck breast and cherry “pie” with duck liver, marmalade sauce and crispy duck fat potatoes. The “pie” was actually a slice of roulade, styled like a Wellington: crisp pastry, a blanket of duxelles and liver wrapped around perfectly pink duck breast. My only quibble—there wasn’t much cherry on the palate, and the sauce could have used a bit more fruitiness to balance the tang of the liver. But that’s a small note. I loved every bite. The crispy duck fat potatoes showed exactly why Tom Kerridge is famous for his triple-cooked chips. Outstanding.

And yet I only ate one, giving the rest to my husband—not just because it was his birthday, but because his main came with mash, which he didn’t fancy. We’d been served each other’s favourites, so we swapped. Not that he needed anything extra to elevate the perfection of his 30-day dry-aged fillet of beef with potato-buttermilk waffle, crème fraîche and chive butter, and sauce bordelaise. We are highly competent cooks, confident with meat. We go to a top-quality butcher. We have great pans. And yet we’ve never managed a steak like this. A hot, crispy, flavourful bark on the outside. Extremely rare within. Sauce as smooth as silk sliding over a baby’s stomach. We might get close on the steak with more butter and higher heat. The sauce? That’s another realm. As for the potato-buttermilk waffle—in a world of deep-fried delights, it’s near the top.

Despite generous portions and plentiful bread, I heroically found room for dessert: a malted nougat delice, essentially a thin slice of wicked indulgence with cocoa, ale, smoked toffee and hop ice cream. I confess to being unsophisticated on the chocolate front—I usually prefer milk to gourmet dark—but this grown-up version turned my head. The ale, smoke and hops added sharpness and bitterness that lifted the whole thing far above the average chocoholic hit.

Piers, meanwhile, went for the cheese board. I was far too full to help, but he marched bravely up that hill, tackling a generous selection of English classics (including my beloved Baron Bigod) and French sophistication. I was particularly impressed with the accompaniments: not just ordinary biscuits, but hand-made crunchy sheets topped with seeds and nuts, a date bread salad, and yet another perfect little sausage roll. All washed down with a tawny port.

I’ve not always nailed the birthday brief for my husband, but this one brought him to his culinary happyplace and pushed all the right buttons.

There is a set lunch: three courses for £65, or two for £55. With a specialty soda or a pint of beer, you could walk away for under £100 per person. But it was a milestone birthday, and our eyes inevitably drifted to the most tempting items on the menu. We didn’t hold back. This is what we save for, and it was worth every penny.

Where else can you find comfort food turned into pure magic?

There's a video of our experience on TikTok. If you scroll there, find me as BencardsBites.

Russell-Cotes is an Edwardian treasure trove on Bournemouth’s striking seafront

Bournemouth, on England’s Dorset coast, is more likely to conjure visions of buckets, spades and fish and chips than high culture. But there’s a museum amongst the coastal amusements that deserves the attention of any ardent sightseer. The Russell-Cotes Gallery and Museum is, like the Wallace Collection in London and the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan, one of those wonderful treasure houses built and filled by 19th-century collectors who then gave the whole place to the public.

While people have lived on this pleasant bit of the southern English coast for most of human history, Bournemouth didn’t hit the big time until the 19th century, when the new railways made this one of the easiest stretches of sandy beach and attractive coastline to reach from London. The entrepreneur Merton Russell-Cotes took advantage of this trend, building the Royal Bath Hotel to cater to the richest and most famous visitors. As Bournemouth thrived, so did he and his wife Annie.

Eventually, they had the money to become significant collectors of art, furniture and decorative objects, Which they originally used to furnish their elegant hotel. With the hotel’s reputation established and team running at peak efficiency, they were also able to travel widely, including a long trip to Japan. That country, only opened to the west for a few decades, had become wildly fashionable. Gilbert and Sullivan were taking London by storm with The Mikado, the Impressionists were finding inspiration in Japanese prints, and opera fans would soon be weeping over Madame Butterfly. The treasures Merton and Annie acquired in Japan form an impressive collection within the house, which was partially built just to give them proper display space. But this is only the tip of the iceberg.

They named the house East Cliff Hall, and it was finished in 1901 as a birthday gift from Merton to Annie. It was one of the last Victorian villas ever built in England, boasting all the modern conveniences of electricity and plumbing. It stands as a curious hybrid of historicist decoration and cutting-edge domestic technology, befitting a couple with one foot in tradition and another boldly embracing the modern world.

Each room is a masterpiece of Edwardian design, strongly influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement. There is beautiful woodwork, opulent wallpaper, delicate stained glass and colourful murals, many bringing the natural world inside. The life-sized peacocks painted around the cornice of the dining room, strutting on their gold leaf background, are particularly impressive. The swallows in the stained glass windows are so lifelike it’s as if they’re flying into the room.

In true Edwardian style, there are wonderfully eccentric touches. Stars and moons are scattered across the ceiling of the main hall, giving an otherwise traditional room a sense of magic. There’s a whole room turned into a mini-museum honouring an actor friend of the family’s, and a lavish Oriental room straight out of Arabian Nights. You wouldn’t be surprised to encounter the ghost of Oscar Wilde puffing on a hookah. While Japan gets top billing, the couple collected from across the globe, and you’ll find objects from Egypt, Australasia, and beyond tucked throughout the house.

Best of all are the bedrooms, with broad bay windows and slim, wrap-around balconies overlooking the sea. These days the view is slightly less spectacular because of modern developments on the waterfront, but it’s still magnificent. There’s a chaise longue in Annie’s room where you’re invited to recline and contemplate the view.

Merton and Annie’s collections quickly outgrew the ability of the house to showcase them, so the builders returned to add a series of museum-style gallery rooms onto one side. These are elegant, top-lit spaces, and today display mostly paintings and a bit of sculpture. There are no immediately recognisable masterpieces here, though you’ll probably know Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Venus Verticordia when you come face-to-face with her. The painting was controversial in its day for its sensuality, and seems a fitting centrepiece for a house so steeped in fin-de-siècle flamboyance. The lack of big names doesn’t matter. The exoticism and love of history that runs through the house come to life in canvases of historical and biblical scenes. Landscapes from local artists show the Jurassic Coast at its best. There are some spectacular portraits of that optimistic generation that kicked off the century—before the First World War crushed the joy out of everyone.

There’s a smaller display space at the back for rotating exhibitions, free with entry. At the moment the focus is on May Morris, a woman who worked for and contributed mightily to the output of her father, William. I never knew. For anyone fond of discovering stories of women who deserve to be better known, this alone is worth the trip.

Despite its opulence, if you ignore the gallery rooms the Russell-Cotes house isn’t that big. Many modern homes would exceed the handful of bedrooms upstairs, though the location and views would make it quite an expensive one indeed. Strangely for a house of this era, you’ll see no service wing, no staff rooms and no kitchens. Merton and Annie didn’t bother, since they owned the hotel across the garden and could call on its staff for anything they needed. It must have been a good life.

The couple had three children who survived into adulthood, but they didn’t inherit the house. Merton had been mayor of Bournemouth and was perhaps the promoter most responsible for putting the town on the map for A-listers. In 1909, he was knighted for his services to the arts and to the town. He loved the place so much he wanted his house to become a resource for future generations. 

Locals clearly still adore Merton and Annie’s house today. It’s staffed by enthusiastic volunteers, one of whom was giving an impromptu luncheon concert on the piano in the great hall as we visited. The entrance is through a modern addition tastefully tucked into the western side of the building; locals clearly come to use the café and enjoy the gardens, both of which don’t require an admission fee.

The garden is neither large nor exceptional, but it’s extremely pretty. One feels the terraced borders of traditional English perennials would have delighted Gertrude Jekyll (and were probably inspired by her). A line of trees between the house and hotel—still there, but no longer under family ownership—blocks the view of modern seaside development. Instead, your eyes are forced southeast, where the only things beyond the garden gates are steep embankments of wildflowers and grasses, plunging down to the beach. Just across the water you can see the western tip of the Isle of Wight, with its iconic Needles rising from the churning waves. On a return visit I’ll make more time to sit here and watercolour.

The gilded age at the turn of the 20th century saw many injustices, forced inhumane working conditions and fostered shocking gaps between rich and poor. And yet it was also an age of enormous generosity, when philanthropists like the Russell-Coteses felt a need to give back for their good fortune. This treasure house has beautified Bournemouth for more than a century, and looks set to do so for many years to come. Thank you, Merton and Annie, for paying some of your good fortune forward.

Pirates at the National Maritime Museum offer a half-full treasure chest

I was obsessed with pirates as a kid. Most likely thanks to my grandfather, who loved the old classics like Captain Bloodand Against All Flags, and would make a ceremony of watching them with me whenever one came on TV. That early spark was fanned into flame by annual visits to the fort in St. Augustine, Florida—basically a ready-made stage set for an Errol Flynn film. Pirates of the Caribbean was my firm favourite on Disney property decades before it became a film franchise. Buccaneer has been my go-to Halloween costume for as long as I can remember.

That fascination endured into adulthood. I seriously considered doing my master’s degree in history with a concentration on the Golden Age of Piracy, before the need for a steady income convinced me to chart a different course. But my interest—and my library on the topic—have remained and grown steady over the years. So you can imagine my delight when the UK’s National Maritime Museum in Greenwich announced a major exhibition on the subject.

Did it live up to my lofty expectations?

Not quite. For a piracy nerd deeply steeped in the topic, it was a bit disappointing. I didn’t really learn anything new, and I found the quantity of items on display a little underwhelming. But I’m very far from your average punter here. I suspect most visitors will find it an entertaining overview. The material on pirates in fiction is great fun, and the sections on piracy in the Far East and modern piracy may be new to many. I just wanted more—and had been hoping for a far larger exploration than what’s essentially a three-gallery show.

I definitely enjoyed the first part the most, which focuses on pirates in fiction. The key points here are that pirates have long fascinated us—especially since the Victorian era—and that we tend to create the pirates we need for our time. The Boys’ Own stories of the 19th century and the gentleman adventurers of Hollywood’s golden age bear little resemblance to Johnny Depp’s staggering, comic Jack Sparrow, or to the same-sex love stories now imagined for Anne Bonny and Mary Read, or Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet. (There’s no evidence for either pairing, but they fit the current zeitgeist.) I particularly appreciated the detailed look at Captain Pugwash, not part of my American childhood and thus mostly new to me. I also loved a case full of haute couture inspired by tricorn-topped adventurers.

It’s a shame we didn’t get to see more video from The Pirates of Penzance or the swashbuckling films of the ’50s and ’60s. The latter are only represented by a few clips flashing by on a wall.

The middle section tackles what’s come to be known as the Golden Age of Piracy. This is the source material for the fairy tale: mostly poor white European men seizing opportunities otherwise impossible for their social class, operating largely in the Caribbean (though a few have cracking good stories in the Indian Ocean), and mostly confined to the brief window between 1650 and 1730. The mythologising started early. Captain Johnson published his A General History of the Pyrates in 1724, a compendium of dramatic, often salacious biographies. It was an immediate bestseller and remains, along with a similar book by the writer Exquemelin, “the Bible” of pirate lore. There’s an original copy in the exhibition.

There’s a visually lush recreation of a captain’s cabin that helps you understand the details of a pirate’s working life, an impressive row of weapons and flags, and a painful-looking cage that drives home how bad things got when the law caught up. But I was surprised there wasn’t more—particularly on personalities.

We’re missing my favourite pirate of all time: Henry Avery. Supposedly so persuasive, he convinced his crew to get in one boat while he and the treasure got in another, setting off for the coast of Ireland where they would divide the spoils. He disappeared with the loot. Most of his men were picked up, tried and executed. Avery is one of the great mysteries of history—rumoured to have reinvented himself as an English squire. One of the works of historical fiction I’d like to write is about his children discovering the truth, and how that unravels their lives.

We also don’t get nearly enough of Henry Morgan, the man who went from pirate to governor and conducted one of the most thrilling attacks against the Spanish of all time. There were a few panels on famous names, but not nearly enough for my taste. I would also have liked much more on pirate lifestyle. I might have missed it, but I didn’t see anything on the rise of Port Royal as a pirate capital—surely a model of what now lies underwater thanks to an earthquake would have been in order.

There are no model ships in this section, and little overall on pirate sailing technique or why they favoured certain vessels. Given the number of pirate-themed video games in the world, it’s a missed opportunity not to include an interactive game to demonstrate strategies for attacking much larger prey … perhaps sponsored by one of the game makers.

I found the final section on global piracy the most interesting—both because the territory was less familiar and because there was simply more to look at. There’s a particularly impressive ship model, a gorgeous table centrepiece celebrating victory over sea bandits, and lots of dramatic 19th-century paintings. That century seems to offer a much stronger visual record. This section explores the Barbary Corsairs, who were a thorn in European sides for centuries. (The curators resisted linking the historic trend to today’s migration patterns across the Mediterranean. I think that could have been fascinating, but dangerous.)

Forget another tired instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. I want to see a film about Zheng Yi Sao, the Chinese pirate queen who built a fleet of 1,800 ships and 80,000 men to terrorise Asian seas. She was so successful, the Chinese government had to buy her off—including a pardon—which allowed her to retire and become one of the early leaders of Macau’s gambling industry.

The exhibition ends with a digital heat map showing where modern piracy occurs today—a sobering reminder that real pirates are still out there, and they’re not lovable rogues.

The curators of this show faced challenges well beyond walking the proverbial plank. This is a topic for which there simply isn’t that much surviving material. Pirates didn’t leave a lot behind, and even the most dedicated fans have a limit to the number of battered cutlasses they can examine with interest. Enhancing the record with models and digital interaction takes cash, and doing too much of it risks intellectual snobs accusing the show of drifting from education to entertainment. Plus, with a topic like this, you know you’ll be flooded with children. Balancing fun for them with real depth for adults—and confronting the unsavoury realities of pirate life—is a tough brief.

While I might have wanted more, the National Maritime Museum does a solid job of working within those parameters to create something both entertaining and informative. X marks the spot—if you can to Greenwich before the show closes on 4 January 2026.

A rugby fan's first football game: average sport, impressive fans

My cousins are the sporty side of the family. They travel to championships and competitions the way my side sought out museums and history. My cousin acquires team-branded sportswear the way I hunt down regional food specialities for the larder.

Thus while my focus for this trip to Milan was introducing them to the Sforza Castle and the rooftop of the Duomo, their advance planning was all about snagging tickets to take me to an important Inter Milan game on the Sunday. Plus a shopping spree at the Inter store on Saturday to kit the whole family out appropriately.

Athletic spectacles are not, as regular readers will know, entirely alien to me. As a St. Louisan, baseball is my birthright; I’ve seen Cardinals games in multiple cities — including London. Rugby features prominently in the Bencard social calendar, with at least five England internationals in our diary each year and a strong track record of following the team to foreign fields. At the end of this summer, we’ll be attending three Women’s Rugby World Cup games as the tournament plays out across England.

But I’d never been to a football match.

To be honest, I had never been tempted. As a rugby fan whose only exposure to football comes via television news — which is often as much about player antics, tacky wives and hooligan fans as it is about actual gameplay — the prospects weren’t promising. I approached the game with three primary prejudices:

1. Compared to rugby, football is slow and boring, with little action.

2. Football players are badly behaved prima donnas, collapsing dramatically at the lightest touch.

3. Football fans are thugs. The atmosphere is potentially dangerous, alcohol is banned in stadiums, and opposing fans have to be kept apart for safety.

That was not a recipe for enjoyment. But this was Italy, my cousin's sons were very excited, I had three large men to protect me, and I’m up for anything once. So why not?

Surprises from the Start
I was pleasantly surprised. The game was moderately interesting — still boring compared to rugby, but watchable, with some genuinely exciting moments. More importantly, there was no sign of bad behaviour. Though opposing fans are kept in separate sections, I saw no unpleasantness before, during or after the match. The crowd included far more women and children than I expected, and — contrary to what I’d heard — alcohol was available. In fact, as in American stadiums, vendors walked the aisles, passing drinks to your seat.

This may be down to practicality. The rows at Milan’s San Siro stadium are steeply raked, and the seats don’t flip up. Navigating past people already seated requires the balance of a mountain goat and a physique slimmer than mine. Only true desperation could tempt you to move once settled.

Though the original 1926 stadium has been updated — most recently in the 1990s — it’s not exactly comfortable. There are very few lifts and no escalators, so get ready to climb. The vertiginous elevation means everyone has a good view, but the lack of handrails makes descent fairly terrifying. One wrong move and you feel you could launch yourself like an Olympic diver onto the pitch below.

The Real Entertainment: The Fans
Any discomfort was worth it just to witness the show the fans put on. I’ve never attended a sporting event where the audience sustains such constant, passionate involvement. While most stadiums erupt during moments of opportunity or crisis, here the crowd is engaged from start to finish.

There are rituals to respond to each player’s name as the team is announced. Fan conductors on booming drums lead chants and songs, which the rest of the crowd bellows in unison. Supporters’ clubs from across northern Italy bring enormous banners and flags, waving them throughout. I couldn’t help but think of the group rituals of the Catholic mass and the precision of Renaissance flag drill teams — distilled into modern sport.

The game itself didn’t shift many of my prejudices. Though we got two goals from each team, at least 70 of the 90 minutes seemed to consist of men passing a ball back and forth with little effort toward scoring. The players certainly lived up to my image of them as delicate flowers. I confess to indulging in a few wicked fantasies of how they’d fare if three rugby players tackled them properly.

But my assumptions about the fans were totally overturned. Though the two sides were physically separated, there was no aggression. Everyone was cheerful, polite, and respectful. I was particularly surprised by how many families with children were there. In a country where queuing barely exists, fans at San Siro were as orderly as the English..

Food and Public Transport beat the British Experience

While the event food lacked the variety we enjoy at Twickenham — vendors span the world with British hog roasts, African barbecue, Eastern Mediterranean wraps and Asian salads — San Siro more than made up for that in quality. Here. you're pretty much limited to panini. Truck after truck of them, wrapping around the stadium. We weren’t expecting much, but it was late and we knew restaurants would be closed by the time we got back to the hotel.

What we got was a sandwich worthy of a proper restaurant: succulent chicken breast, grilled peppers and onions, some kind of piquant sauce, all tucked into crusty bread engineered to absorb and amplify the flavour of the juices. Perfection.

Even more impressive than the sandwich? The return journey on Milan's metro.

Anyone who stereotypes modern Italians as disorganised should experience Milan’s public transport during a major event. Turnstiles control entry to the station, with electronic screens above counting down the seconds until the next group is let in. Once the gates open, the screens display the number of people allowed in the next wave, counting down as passengers pass through. Once they reach their limit, the timers for the next intake return.

The result? No dangerous crushes. Once inside the station, the is kept at manageable levels; unlike the truly frightening crushes I've encountered at Twickenham or after an event at the 02. Milanese football fans outside at least know how long they’ll be waiting. It’s orderly, efficient and surprisingly calm. London could learn a lesson. And we could use one of those panini trucks at Twickers.

Find a video about my experience here on TikTok 

A bit of culture and a lot of convivial dining dominate a return to Milan

I didn’t expect to be back in Milan just six months after entertaining you (hopefully) with our last adventure here. But my family from Los Angeles was starting a 10-day Italian holiday in the city. I hadn’t seen most of them in five years, so I couldn’t miss the chance and this was the most efficient place for us to meet up.

I had two days on my own before they arrived, then two days to show them around. They’re moderate sightseers but—unsurprisingly, given the cumulative total of Italian DNA in our bloodstreams—like to catch up over a dining table. So our adventures included a bit of culture, a lot of food, and a football match I’ll describe in my next article. 

Here’s a roundup of what we got up to. If you’re planning a trip to Milan, do consider this in partnership with my articles from December 2024. (Sforza Castle, which I revisited, was covered here.)

The Museo Poldi Pezzoli

Unlike the Certosa di Pavia, which I explored on my first solo day, this museum is right in the heart of tourist Milan—just a few hundred yards from La Scala opera house. Yet as far as visitor numbers go, it’s just as far off the beaten track.  I never shared a room with more than three other people as I wandered through this exceptional museum, very similar in size and mood to London’s Wallace Collection.

Like Sir Richard Wallace, Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli was an aristocratic 19th-century collector who, having no children, donated his urban mansion and its collections to the nation. The Milanese palazzo houses a quirky and exquisite collection of treasures: late medieval and Renaissance art from Milanese masters, a Baroque room overflowing with porcelain and decorative arts, a couple of very famous Botticellis, an eye-popping collection of pre-19th-century clocks and pocket watches, jewellery, striking portraits, and an armoury.

My star sight, however, was the studiolo: Poldi Pezzoli’s personal study, and reportedly his favourite room—where he chose to be moved before he died. It’s a glorious combination of frescoes, gilding, stained glass, and sculpture, pushing 19th-century Gothic Revival to its limits in anticipation of the Italian Liberty style. A sumptuous jewel box of a room, and worth the price of admission alone.

The Duomo Roof Walk
This is about as solidly “on” the beaten track as you can get—probably second only to Leonardo’s Last Supper on the must-do list for Milan. There’s a reason for that: it is magnificent.

I’m on record saying the inside of the cathedral is a disappointment; its exterior is what’s worth your time. And there’s no better way to appreciate the splendour of the medieval stonework than to get up on the roof and see it close up.

You can walk up or pay a bit extra to take the lift, then do a circuit around the whole building, with a final climb up another set of steps along the front façade to reach the spine of the cathedral. It’s fascinating to compare the original statuary and decorative elements to newer replacements (easily spotted by their lighter colour), and to marvel at the level of detail. Much of this work would have been invisible to those on the ground, yet every fold of a robe, line of a cheek, or vein of a leaf is carved in loving detail—for the glory of God.

Even if you take the lift up, most tickets assume you’ll walk down. If you have a walking stick or mobility issues, you can talk the guards into letting you ride down as well.

Sunday Like Locals
My cousin’s wife has her own cousins in Milan, so we all came together for an extended family Sunday. We started with Mass at Santa Maria del Carmine. This is a church that, in Milan, is unremarkable and barely makes the guidebooks, yet would be a headline attraction in many other cities.

It has Renaissance bones, a Baroque altar lined with impressive life-sized silver reliquary busts, and a variety of side chapels ranging from original Renaissance to baroque to Gothic Revival. As a Catholic, I find attending Mass in a foreign country an interesting way to dip into local culture. The ritual is familiar, but the language foreign—you’re participating like a native, yet still an outsider.

The church sits in the heart of Milan’s posh Brera neighbourhood, which hosts an excellent Sunday market—mostly antiques with a few crafts. After Mass, we took a pleasant passeggiata through lively but not overcrowded streets, eventually circling back to almost exactly where we’d started.

Convivium Ristorante, just across the square from the church, was our lunch spot. Its eclectic East-meets-West design (including some enormous Buddha heads) contrasts with its resolutely Milanese menu. The staff filled our nine-person table with shared starters before we tucked into individual mains. The food was excellent, but secondary to the atmosphere—an ideal Sunday afternoon of familial connection, lingering until the place closed for its afternoon break.

Eating in the Galleria
Even more than the previous meal, this was about the experience rather than the food. You’re going to pay a premium—probably 20% to 40% more than elsewhere—for the same dishes you’d get across town, but you’re buying the privilege of sitting in one of the most iconic architectural spaces in Europe. 

Don’t bother with any of these restaurants unless you’re sitting outside with a view. Neoclassical buildings rise around you under a sparkling glass arcade, while the world promenades by on inlaid marble streets inspired by Ancient Rome.

We ate at Salotto, near the Piazza della Scala exit. I suspect all the restaurants here are similar: cheerful staff fluent in English, decent antipasti, weak spritzes, slightly soggy pizza—but no pressure to leave once you’re settled. That’s what you’re paying for, so linger. See and be seen.

Meat Feast
Il Mannarino is a top-quality butcher with an attached restaurant just south of Centrale Station (Via Carlo Tenca 12). Vegetarians need not apply. Culinary heretics who prefer their meat well-done should also stay home. But if you revere beef and pork, this is the place for you.

You order at the counter, take a seat, and wait for the magic. The family had just arrived after an epic trek from LA and were far too tired to make decisions, so we told the staff: just bring us nice things. A procession of delights followed. Highlights included rare bistecca fiorentina, meatballs, and Puglian bombetta—little meat rolls of pork shoulder and caciocavallo cheese wrapped in prosciutto and fried crisp.

Wine isn’t available by the glass—the smallest unit is a carafe. Sensible, really. This food deserves multiple glasses of red. 

Antica Trattoria della Pesa
Worth booking. Worth taking a taxi. This classic Milanese restaurant claims to be one of the city’s oldest in continuous operation. Today, its Porta Garibaldi neighbourhood has been transformed by cutting-edge redevelopment. This is where you’ll find the Bosco Verticale, high-rises planted with vertical forests and visible from the train station.

The restaurant itself is a holdover from when this was a gritty industrial area near one of Milan’s main gates. They set up the kitchen where the best produce first arrived in town. Their menu is firmly rooted in traditional Lombard cuisine, serving ossobuco and risotto alla Milanese on par with Trattoria all’Antica in the Solari district. (I would have returned there, but it was too far from our hotel. This was a worthy substitute.)

Where We Stayed
Continuing our loyalty to Club Accor—and collecting those all-important reward points— I tried out the Ibis Milano Centrale, near Centrale Station. While I prefer the Solari neighbourhood, with its Mercure and direct connection to Linate Airport, I was surprised to find I actually preferred this Ibis.

Technically, it’s  a lower-tier hotel than the Mercure, but the room décor was more cheerful, the lobby larger and more comfortable, with a proper bar and restaurant (unlike the Mercure’s pokey breakfast room). It’s also just a short walk to the stop for the Line 1 tram, which runs right past La Scala, the Galleria, and the Castle. I’m likely to book here again—despite its “budget” label, it was the better hotel.

The Certosa di Pavia rewards efforts to get off the beaten track in crowded Italy

The Certosa di Pavia is a perfect reminder that it’s still possible to see marvels in Italy without having to elbow your way through a crowd. You just need a bit of fortitude—and a willingness to stray from the usual tourist path. 

In central Milan, tickets to see Leonardo’s Last Supper sell out within 24 hours of coming online. The Duomo’s rooftop is impossible to access without booking well in advance, and the Castello Sforzesco is a magnet for dense, slow-moving tourist clusters. But just 25 miles south of the city centre lies the astonishing Certosa di Pavia. It’s every bit the masterpiece as those headliners in town, yet you’ll stroll right in—and likely have the place almost to yourself. It’s even free. Though good form suggests buying something from the monks’ shop, and a guided tour warrants a donation at the end.

“Certosa” is Italian for “Charterhouse,” the name used for Carthusian monasteries. This one was funded by the ruling Visconti family, dukes of Milan. When the last Visconti married into the Sforza line, the new dynasty took over the dukedom—and continued the sponsorship. The same people commissioning the blockbuster masterpieces of Renaissance Milan sent artists down here to decorate their private entry ticket to heaven. They spared no expense.

(Carthusians, by the way, have a long history of hosting lavish aristocratic patronage. Miraflores in northern Spain—with its royal tombs and perfume-making monks—is one of my favourite sites in that country.)

The complex, strategically located between Milan and Pavia—the first and second cities of the old Visconti-Sforza dukedom—is anchored by a glorious church. Its facade is encrusted with inlaid marble, detailed carvings, and Gothic pinnacles to rival any cathedral in Italy. Its architecture sits right at the junction of Gothic and Renaissance, managing to capture the best of both. A sequence of courtyards and cloisters surrounds the church. Some are open to the public; others can only be accessed on a monk-led tour. 

You know you’re in for something special from the moment you enter the gatehouse. Look up: frescoed Renaissance grotesques twirl overhead. Then emerge into a long rectangular courtyard, neoclassical façades embracing you, with the glittering jewel box of the church gleaming at the far end.

The church interior—and in fact the whole complex—has been much restored. It was shut down by Napoleon in 1796 and left mostly empty until the Italian government designated it a national monument 70 years later. You’d never know it had fallen into disrepair. Cross from the sunlit courtyard into the dusky interior and the first thing to catch your eye is the ceiling: alternating vaults painted in cerulean blue with golden stars and bold geometric patterns. The large, rectangular nave is spare, but the chapels along either side are brimming with masterpieces.

The floor plan is cruciform, but you’ll only get as far as the base of the cross before a towering wrought-iron screen blocks your way. The Carthusians were a cloistered order; they didn’t speak or interact with the public. Everything beyond the screen was for the monks—or their noble patrons. Today’s resident Cistercians are more outgoing. Several times a day, one of them will unlock the gate for a guided tour. The tour is in Italian, but you don’t need to understand it to join. (If your Italian is minimal, reading up in advance will help you appreciate what you’re seeing.)

What lies beyond the screen is even more extraordinary than what you have seen so far. 

In the arms of the cross-shaped plan you’ll find magnificent funerary monuments. One side holds the marble, recumbent figures of Ludovico “Il Moro” Sforza and his wife Beatrice d’Este. (Top photo.) History tells us he was never the same after her death—a grief that may have contributed to his disastrous invitation to French troops to help him defend his lands. That call for help kicked off a cycle of foreign invasions that kept Italy under outsider control for centuries. But Ludovico also bankrolled Da Vinci and sparked Milan’s greatest artistic flowering. Flawed though he was, his tomb is surrounded by artistic paradise: inlaid marble, frescoed walls, and stained glass of breathtaking quality. In the opposite chapel rests Gian Galeazzo Visconti, founder of the dynasty, in a far more flamboyant canopy tomb. Between the two, portals adorned with reliefs of noble faces lead to ornate sacristies bursting with gilded altars and woodwork marquetry. 

The choir and altar area at the head of the cross were redone in the late 16th century in full Baroque style: neoclassical temple elements, bronze statues in dynamic motion, and yet more exquisite marquetry. (Not quite as spectacular as the treasures at Santa Maria in Organo in Verona—but close.)

From the church, your guide leads you through the monks’ doorway into the first of two cloisters. This one offers a glorious view of the church’s rear façade. While the front blends Renaissance and late Gothic styles, the back leans hard into the Romanesque and Gothic. Stacked colonnades, soaring pinnacles reminiscent of Milan’s Duomo, and exuberant terracotta detailing are everywhere. You’ll also find a striking terracotta lavatorium, where the monks would wash before meals, and a frieze in the same style circling the cloister. If you’ve ever wondered where London’s Victorian architects got their ideas for all those fanciful red-brick embellishments—like those at the V&A—look no further. There are similar examples elsewhere in Italy, but none better than here.

The adjacent refectory may be more modest, but for those who couldn’t get tickets to see Leonardo’s Last Supper, Ottavio Semini’s version here offers a worthy consolation prize. While no match for Da Vinci’s genius, its setting—with original benches and tables still in place, and a pulpit projecting ten feet above the dining room floor—offers a more authentic sense of how these rooms were used. The refectory was a place of silent reflection, where monks ate without speaking while scripture was read aloud. Unlike Leonardo’s mural, now encased in a functional museum setting, this room retains its sense of sacred function. 

From this cloister you move into a second, even larger one. At first glance it seems plain—until you realise what you’re looking at. The lawn at its centre is bigger than a football pitch. Terracotta decoration continues around the arcade. And instead of monastic cells, this cloister is lined with individual houses. Yes, houses. If you ever found yourself consigned to a cloistered life, this would be the place to do it. 

Each monk’s home had its own entrance foyer, sitting room with generous fireplace, a clever drop-leaf desk built into a bookcase, a bedroom filled with light from leaded windows, and a private L-shaped garden with a shaded loggia. It’s hardly full compensation for a life of isolation, but certainly a generous interpretation of the vow of poverty.

One corner of this cloister offers a view out to the monks’ vineyards—just one example of the work they performed when not in prayer.

The tour ends with a walk down a long hallway leading back to the main courtyard. Along the way: a small museum and the monks’ shop. The Cistercians continue monastic traditions of agriculture and healing, offering honey, beer, wine, and herbal remedies prepared in a beautifully preserved Renaissance pharmacy. Photography is strictly forbidden inside. Fortunately (for my wallet), I had no checked baggage allowance on my flight and couldn’t bring any liquids home.

Despite being within Italy’s largest metro area (Rome is technically the largest city, but Milan takes this broader category), the Certosa is surrounded by fields growing rice for the famous  risotto Milanese. There is a profound, rural quiet. To process everything you’ve seen, stop at the Gra-Car café just outside the gatehouse. Nestled in a garden of herbs and roses, it served up a giant Aperol Spritz—with included side-platter of olives, crisps, and nuts—for just €8. I could have lingered for hours, but didn’t want to gamble with my return logistics.

And therein lies one of the reasons this place is off the beaten track. While it’s not necissarily hard to get to, it does require some effort. 

There’s a station at Certosa di Pavia, but it’s a 20-minute walk from the monastery. Trains are infrequent, and reaching Milan’s Centrale station requires a transfer. I opted instead for a frequent, inexpensive (around €4 each way) direct train to Pavia.

Even as a seasoned European train traveller with passable Italian, I found the system challenging. Multiple train operators run from Centrale, it’s not obvious which one you want without asking, and queues at the ticket desks were long. Ticket machines refused to print, and the mobile app wouldn’t let me register. Eventually I managed to buy as a guest via the website, but downloading the QR code was far from intuitive. Once I had it, I still had to decipher which platform to use—since Pavia is a stop en route, not an end point. The trick: the departure main hall just outside the platform gates has a big, electronic board that shows destinations will all the stops along the way.

All this faffing meant I was an hour behind schedule. (Allow time to admire Milano Centrale while you’re there—it might be Europe’s most majestic train station.) Once in Pavia, I had lunch in the lovely Piazza della Vittoria, then hunted for the bus stop to the Certosa. Apple Maps was off be almost two blocks, and there was no signage to help me correct my error. Fearing I’d run out of time, I hailed a taxi. And, tired and uncertain of return logistics, I called the same driver to bring me back. My cheap train, bargain cocktail, and free admission were ultimately offset by €70 in cab fares. Oh—and the return train was half an hour late.

One more tip: the monks close for lunch. Check the website for exact opening times.

So, fair warning: getting off the beaten track demands patience, effort, and cash if you want to speed things up or cut down on the walking. But the reward is immense. You’ll have the time and space to reflect—without interruption—on spectacular treasures. In Lombardy, the Certosa di Pavia is the finest example. 

Spargel season adds variety to a comforting parade of German culinary classics

German food is comfort food. If you’re a fan of hearty meat dishes and stodgy carbohydrates cooked in tasty animal fats, this is heaven. Vegetable-haters are on safe ground: the occasional side salad or dollop of cabbage (pickled or fried) is usually the only thing standing between you and your meat and potatoes.

Late spring and early summer, however, bring a change of pace. It’s Spargelzeit—white asparagus season.

Germans are fanatically devoted to this vegetable. Unlike the English preference for thin, green spears, here the stalks are creamy in colour and the fatter the better. We noticed a clear difference in restaurant quality: the more upscale the establishment, the thicker and tastier (presumably fresher) the asparagus. Germans insist that the white variety has a milder, more delicate flavour. I’m sceptical, but then English asparagus is reckoned to be among the best in the world, so I’m already spoiled. I will admit that keeping it white by mounding earth around the stalks does maintain tenderness at a thickness where green asparagus would have gone woody.

Thus, Germans can plate up pale giants with a satisfying density that can easily stand in for meat. Spargel with boiled potatoes and hollandaise in season—or Käsespätzle, the Teutonic macaroni and cheese, year-round—are the only vegetarian dishes you can reliably expect to find on traditional menus.

Most decent restaurants will have a dedicated spargel menu during Spargelzeit, which runs from mid-April to the end of June. If they don’t, walk away. That’s a clear sign they aren’t sourcing locally or changing their menu with the seasons. (We cruised down the Rhine in the same season in 2022 and never saw a stalk on board—a telling sign of how industrialised and inauthentic cruise food can be.)

Unlike Italy, where food can change radically over the next mountain range, traditional German menus don’t vary much from place to place. Aside from a passion for currywurst (hot dog-like sausages dredged in curry-flavoured ketchup) in Berlin, a preference for heavily spiced Sauerbraten (roast beef in a vinegar-based sauce), the more frequent appearance of goulash, and a few distinctive local beers, we found little on this trip to differentiate Saxon cuisine from what we’ve eaten in Bavaria. If a distinctive Saxon cuisine exists, we needed more help to find it. That certainly didn’t diminish our enjoyment.

The king of these stereotypical dishes is schnitzel. Veal—a by-product of Germany’s thriving dairy industry—is pounded thin, breaded, and pan-fried. There’s a wide variety. At cheaper places you might suspect the kitchen started with frozen, pre-breaded cutlets. But at the high end, you’ll find magically light offerings where the breading bubbles away from the meat, which is perfectly cooked to preserve its flavour without overdoing it. I suspect obscene amounts of butter are involved.

Pork in all its forms is celebrated across Germany. A roast knuckle with perfect crackling or slices served with sauce are the most typical. Dumplings are as common as potatoes. On this trip, I encountered pretzel dumplings for the first time—an exciting discovery. Their flavour profile is subtly different; if you like big, soft pretzels, this is a taste sensation. Flammkuchen—Germany’s answer to pizza—is done on a wafer-thin crispy crust with crème fraîche and is an excellent lunch option. And of course, sausages are ubiquitous.

In Saxony, wine is surprisingly prominent. There’s a thriving local trade along the Elbe around Dresden. Whites are crisp, bright, and easy to drink. While Müller-Thurgau and Riesling dominate, some of our favourite bottles were Bacchus—a grape widely grown in England. When drinking red, we enjoyed several Spätburgunder (Germany’s name for Pinot Noir): very light, low in tannins, with gentle berry notes. We sampled a range from a €3.50 grocery store Spätburgunder to a €46 celebratory Bacchus at Lutter & Wegner. Honestly, there wasn’t much differentiation by price. My only shopping regret is not bringing home a few cases of that Lidl red from Dresden.

On the beer front, two local varieties are worth trying. Leipzig does a distinctive brew called Gose, made with salt and coriander. We were glad to try it once, but returned to our favourites. More my style is Kölsch, the super-light lager brewed around Cologne. It’s served in small glasses, swapped out every time you finish, ensuring it’s always cold.
Restaurants Worth Seeking Out

Listed in order of preference, with the most memorable meal on top.

Nussbaumerin, Munich
Johanna Nussbaumer’s restaurant is a much-lauded local favourite in one of Munich’s poshest neighbourhoods. There are just 13 tables across two elegant rooms that feel more like an upscale home than a restaurant. Fitting, since this is the Austrian chef’s personal domain. She started cooking here in 2008 and a few years ago assembled a kitchen crew trusted enough to allow her to move front of house. Now she greets every guest and will stop by for a chat if you’re up for it. This was my perfect holiday meal. A salad of lightly poached asparagus and cured salmon is about to be revived at our place for a dinner party. Then came the perfect schnitzel—so delicate and flavourful I have no hope of recreating it. The apricot dumpling dessert, which I’d first encountered at Göttweig Abbey, finally lived up to its potential: gooey, substantial-yet-light, tart and sweet. I’d make the journey just for that. Johanna, sitting with us at the end of the evening, explained that the secret is home-made jam at the centre rather than a whole apricot and had the staff crack a jar for us to try it in its raw state. What an evening. 

Lutter & Wegner, Leipzig
I’d hoped to introduce Piers to this cornerstone of Berlin’s traditional food scene, but we were too busy there. Imagine my delight to discover a branch in Leipzig, in the shadow of St. Thomas Church, where Bach ran the music. It’s right next to the Bach museum—which we intended to visit, but a long lunch triumphed. An asparagus salad creatively mixed with strawberries, thyme and a well-balanced dressing overcame my aversion to fruit in savoury dishes. And here I discovered goulash served with dumplings—an innovation over rice or potatoes that deserves to spread.

Wirsthaus am Hühnerdieb, Aachen
This oddly named spot—"the tavern of the chicken thief"—benefits from being our first alfresco meal of the year, in a sunny square on just our second day. Even so, the spargel soup spiked with crisp bacon was one of the best asparagus dishes of the holiday, and Piers’ Flammkuchen was nearly perfect. Aachen is within Cologne’s Kölsch zone, and lunch here rivalled Charlemagne’s cathedral as the highlight of the day. The square, just down from the town’s picturesque Rathaus, is home to the Couven Museum. And the chicken thief? He’s an amusing statue caught red-handed: he meant to steal a hen but grabbed the cockerel, now crowing his impending doom.

Paulaner Restaurant, Dresden
The big Munich beer brands now run halls all over Germany. This Paulaner branch stood out for its location—right across from the Residenz Museum (collapse here when you can’t walk another step)—and its homey, historic interior. Classic beer halls are close cousins to Britain’s best pubs: dark woods, brass, smoked glass, historic bric-a-brac. This one served up perfect pork knuckle with crackling that shattered like glass. And, of course, my husband’s favourite beer.

Gasthaus & Gosebrauerei Bayerischer Bahnhof, Leipzig
In a valiant effort to be healthy after 14 days in Carb Central, I ordered a salad. This being Germany, it was Wurstsalat—a bit of lettuce buried under strips of what Americans would call Bologna. With a soft pretzel. Not healthy, but it tasted like a hundred childhood lunches, so full marks for nostalgia. The real draw here is the word Brauerei. This microbrewery has taken over Germany’s oldest train station. A great place to try Gose. It’s not unpleasant, but one was enough for us.

Pulverturm an der Frauenkirche, Dresden
It’s no surprise that the lowest-ranked restaurant is also the most touristy. A Bencard’s Bites guideline: the higher the tourist profile, the lower the authenticity. That said, it was fun and the food was good, even if it felt mass-produced. The setting—a sprawling cellar around the base of a medieval armoury tower—is dramatic. We came here after Easter mass and it felt celebratory. Piers loved the giant glasses of beer. I tried the Saxon-style Sauerbraten and found it unpleasantly spiced, full of Christmas notes like cinnamon and nutmeg. Very medieval. I didn’t try another to confirm the regional flavour. After that, I stuck with pork and veal.

The penalty for all this comfort food when I returned to my first post-holiday Weight Watcher’s meeting? Five pounds. Looking back over this copy, I’m probably lucky it wasn’t more. Germany is a treat, but two and a half weeks there makes me happy to return to a veg-heavy diet.