Wunderbar! Others copy German Christmas Markets, but Munich leaves imitators far behind

German Christmas markets are ubiquitous across England these days. It seems that every town has the same collection of wooden sheds, selling a suspiciously similar range of holiday products, with the same Glühwein stands and giant, wheel-shaped grills cooking bratwurst. Some towns … Birmingham is one excellent example … go the whole hog on their stage sets, with towering Christmas pyramids (Weihnachtspyramide), pop-up buildings shaped like Alpine chalets and market-specific collectors' mugs just like the ones on the continent.

So just how different would Christmas markets in Germany be? The 24th Annual Northwestern Girls’ Trip made it our mission to find out. (And to find the best wine bars in beer-sodden Munich.)

While the English take on the German tradition is authentic in many ways, it misses the local, small, community feel we encountered in Bavaria. While there were shops at every market, our Munich experiences seemed to be less about the shopping and much more about locals meeting up and hanging out over a drink. Music was a much bigger deal than at English offerings, and there was far more diversity across Munich’s different markets than anything I’d seen back home. Most of Munich's markets don't really hit their stride until after dark, and many don't even open until mid-afternoon. 

You’ll find abundant write-ups of Munich’s markets with a web search. Here’s mine to add to the well-deserved attention. If you want to do Christmas markets in Germany, it’s hard to imagine anyplace else with this much variety in a very compact area. We managed to time our visit with a blizzard that dumped 18 inches of snow on the city in less than 48 hours. All public transport other than the U-bahn (underground) shut down and walking quickly became perilous as snow turned to packed ice. We persevered and managed to fit all of this in with precarious slipping and sliding from Line 6 stations. Despite copious Glühwein, nobody fell over ... though there were some frantic near misses.

The Christkindlmarkt in Marienplatz square is the starting point for all tourists and, unsurprisingly, this is where you'll find the greatest array of Christmas ornaments. There's a magnificent range of glimmering blown glass options here, including those smaller gap-fillers it can often be hard to find. I was also delighted to find an enormous stand entirely dedicated to the straw ornaments so beloved of the Danes, but with more ornate designs than any I'd seen in Copenhagen. If you're looking for nativity sets, you'll find those clustered in the street leading off the square, opposite the clock tower. Tourists gather here to listen and watch the glockenspiel play at 11 am and noon; even better is if you get lucky enough to hear a live choir from the balcony of the town hall after dark.

There's plenty of food and drink at all of the markets, of course, but this one benefits from being next to the Ratskeller München, in the basement of the town hall, a wonderland of Bavarian decor and dirndl-wearing waitresses serving up traditional fare. If you need to sit down and get warm, have a meal here. The Hofbrau House, with similar decor but a more boisterous atmosphere and live traditional music, is a few blocks away. Note that in the latter you'll be expected to follow local norm and find a spot at communal tables. The appropriate etiquette is to say hello and goodbye, even if you don't speak or share a language. But you'll probably start chatting over your mugs.

If I were in town with children I'd make a beeline to the Christmas Village in the Kaiserhof of the Residenz (top photo), where the back quarter of this square inside the sprawling palace is dedicated to animated tableaux and photo ops. You haven't truly experienced Christmas until you've witnessed an audio-animatronic moose belting out a jaunty version of O, Tannenbaum to his friend the wild boar. This market also had the most diverse mix of shops, from clothes and artisan work to speciality food items. This is where we found our favourite lebkuchen stand (the ones filled with apricot jam are exquisite) and a wonderful range of kids slippers in Bavarian boiled wool, shaped into animals or jaunty elven looks. They had adult sizes, too, and it's only the fact that I have two perfectly good pairs of slippers at home that kept me from snapping up a fabulous version with long, upcurled toes like a medieval jester.

Speaking of the Middle Ages, just a few blocks over from the Residenz you'll find the Medieval
Christmas Market in Wittelsbacher Platz. Sadly, we hit this one between meals but I suspect it would have been my pick for best dining opportunities, with a broad range of sweet and savoury treats. The theming is fantastic, with plenty of people in costume and gothic-inspired market stalls that really do make it feel like you've tipped up in a 14th century town square. All of the shopping opportunities here fit into the theme: this is the place for you if you're looking for dragons, crystals, medieval cosplay clothing, repro weapons or anything in the goth world. The Medieval Market also has a more various array of entertainment on its stage, including period dancers and knights in shining armour, who start up earlier than many of the other markets. Another good one for kids.

If you'd rather be a dancing queen, head for the Pink Christmas Market, set up to celebrate Munich's LGBTQ community and now pretty much everyone's top "must visit" pick. This is less a market and more an outdoor disco with a Glühwein stand running down one entire side of the square. The rainbow glass mugs were the ones we chose to keep across all the markets. There are a handful of quirky shops (star sight: a collection of hunky mermen Christmas ornaments) but the focus of attention is the gloriously camp DJ in his central booth spinning a mix of club classics, German techno pop and dance versions of Christmas pop tunes. Serious fun beneath an aurora of pink light. 

And after you dance yourself to exhaustion there you can stumble into one of the numerous modern, ethnic restaurants nearby. We made a fortunate choice with Jack Glockenbach which, contrary to the expectations set by its name, serves up delicate and flavourful Vietnamese. 

If you want to go artsy and find some proper one-of-a-kind gifts, head to the Schwabing Christmas Market just above the Münchener Freiheit u-bahn station. There are jewellery stands galore. Wood turners. Fabric artists. Glass blowers. Painters. Potters. Plus an entertainment space next to an avenue of food and drink. We thought this was our best tasting Glühwein of the weekend, but that might have been because we were there at the height of the blizzard, when we were slowly being both chilled and soaked to the bone as steady, heavy flakes melted on impact. A fantastic blues band was also raising the temperature. Schwabing was probably the furthest away from my vision of a traditional market, yet the one with the crowd that seemed most resolutely local. 

And what about those wine bars? When you don't want your grapes mulled with spices, a local friend with fabulous taste recommended two:

Frank Weinbar is right outside of the Residenz Christmas market, has a deep list of local wines (and international), a cool vibe and a fantastic sense of humour. The wine-related sayings painted on their windows are worth walking by, even if you don't go in. (Hangovers are temporary, drunk stories are forever.) It's in places like this that you can discover that not only are German whites wildly under-rated, but they do some exceptional light reds. Try the Spatburgunder under the tutelage of the staff here. 

Or take advice from the team over at Weinhaus Neuner, over on the other side of the Marienplatz. The quality of the wine and the staff is the same, but the vibe is very different. They say they're the oldest wine bar in Munich and it certainly feels it, with architecture that makes it seem more like you're drinking in the crypt of a medieval church than a modern establishment. They also have a well-known restaurant and, had we been more organised, we would have booked. This is not a place you just pop into for a meal; they were reserved solid for weeks to come. And yet the wine bar was almost empty on a Saturday afternoon, a warm and quiet secret hidden from the crowds slipping across the pavements outside. 

This is just a short list of the markets on offer. I suspect you could spend weeks exploring. But if you're looking for a place that delivers a big holiday punch, with loads of variety, in an easy-to-cover area, Munich is for you.

Ten stories that give us a better Napoleonic experience than Ridley Scott’s new bomb

My hopes were high for Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, and they were comprehensively crushed. I can turn a blind eye to tampering with history if it produces a great story. For a compelling epic that brings past ages to life I can forgive oddities in casting, inaccuracies in set design or the occasional bit of wooden dialogue. But the end product needs to be a tale that sweeps me back in time and gives me emotional insight into the characters. 

No such storytelling happens here.

By attempting to cover 28 years of intricate politics, almost constant war and one of the most complex romances in history, Scott gave himself a monumental challenge. He answered it with 157 minutes of vignettes that I suspect only made sense when you know the story already. If you do know it, sadly, you can only be irritated by how badly it’s told.

The film did, however, get me thinking about Napoleonic storytelling. Who’s managed to breathe the greatest life into this controversial character and the world he created? Here’s my personal shortlist of stories on big and small screen, and on the page. And because this is my list, there’s a lot more focus on stories driven by character development, passion, or the non-military aspects of Napoleon’s career. (My husband wouldn’t contemplate this exercise without the film Waterloo and the Sharpe TV series.) Most of my choices, interestingly, don’t feature Napoleon as the protagonist but tell his story through the eyes or the adventures of others.

By choosing to focus on shorter time periods, or on the impact his actions have on others, these all do a much better job of spinning a tale than Scott’s misfire.

DÉSIRÉÉ, 1954 FILM

The scope of Scott’s film was problematic, but this classic shows it can be done. This story covers almost the exact same timeline and plot points as Scott’s attempt, but far better. The story is seen through the eyes of Napoleon’s first fiancée, abandoned for more helpful alliances in his climb to power. She remained in court circles, however, because her sister had married Napoleon’s brother Joseph, and she married the French general who would go on to become king of Sweden. Using the third party observer trick delivers some poignant insight into Napoleon’s political machinations and Josephine’s inability to bear a child. This is the kind of Saturday afternoon TV film fare I used to lap up with my history-loving grandfather. I suspect this is one of the first seeds that planted my lifelong love of looking at history through the eyes of women who were there but don’t take the headlines in the history books. The film is strong on relationships and all the battles are background events, so won’t appeal to some. Marlon Brando is a bluff, practical Napoleon and Jean Simmons an admirable heroine. Skip Ridley Scott’s attempt and watch this on YouTube (the full film is available) instead.

THE ETHAN GAGE ADVENTURES, BOOKS BY WILLIAM DIETRICH

Indiana Jones re-imagined in the Napoleonic Era. Gage is a wise-cracking American scholar, gambler and sharpshooter who ends up returning time and again to work for Napoleon despite a problematic relationship. His adventures are driven by Napoleon’s interest in history, foreign cultures and the occult, meaning Gage is often on the trail of some legendary object said to have powers that will solidify the Emperor’s position. These are entertaining romps that are also fabulously well-researched, and probably the best take I’ve seen on the can’t-live-with-or-without roller coaster that was Napoleon and Josephine’s relationship. 

MONSIEUR N., 2003 FILM

Antoine de Cannes exploration of Napoleon’s life on St. Helena is fascinating. Most people focus on either his climb or the defeat at Waterloo; here we have an extraordinary ego having to confront failure and consider what went wrong. Richard E Grant gives one of his best performances as Napoleon’s jailor, delivering scenes in both French and English as required. And there’s a plot twist at the end which, though highly implausible, is such a great story you will wish it were true.

NAPOLEON’S LAST ISLAND, BOOK BY THOMAS KENEALLY

The Balcombe family features heavily in Monsieur N., particularly daughter Betsy. The family patriarch was an East India Company official living on Saint Helena and the family became friends with the Emperor and his companions, providing a bit of warmth and understanding in contrast to the strict regime imposed by the military guards. This insightful and well-researched novel tells the story of Napoleon’s St. Helena years from Betsy’s perspective.

WAR AND PEACE, BBC MINISERIES 1972

There are many versions of this epic tale, including Tolstoy’s original book which I confess I’ve never been able to get through. Too much introspective angst for me. Both the BBC’s 2016 version and the 1956 film are lavish productions that delight the eye, but I prefer this classic from the days when the Beeb took adapting novels seriously. Anthony Hopkins leads a sprawling cast of tremendous stage actors who drive home all the emotional turmoil of a world turned upside down by Napoleon’s ambition.

NAPOLEON, A LIFE IN GARDENS AND SHADOWS, BOOK BY RUTH SCURR

Scurr looked at a world full of Napoleonic biographies by men who delved deep into battles and politics. She wanted to do something different, and felt there was plenty of unexplored territory. This biography takes the fascinating framing idea of the gardens in Napoleon’s life, from a small student’s plot when he was an outsider at his military academy through the grandeur of his imperial projects to his last stubborn attempt to control nature at St. Helena. Each is a starting point to dive into what really made the man tick, how he managed his most intimate relationships and what he wanted from the world beyond military victory. There’s a lot here on culture and philosophy, reminding us that Napoleon was a polymath and prodigious scholar, not just a charismatic general.

MASTER AND COMMANDER: FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD, 2003 FILM

Napoleon doesn’t appear in this one at all, but it’s his voracious European ambitions that drive the whole plot. Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany are on top form as best friends sailing the high seas. Lots of sea battles and action balanced with quiet moments of humanity and the fascinating team dynamics of keeping people sane and working together under the pressures of war. A much under-appreciated film. The film is a mash-up of a couple of Patrick O’Brian’s 20 Audrey-Maturin novels, which would come up in anyone’s list of the best historic novels set during the time period. I spent several years happily ploughing through them because of the number of reviews that compared O’Brian’s characterisation and observational skills to Jane Austen. Which leads us to…

PERSUASION, BOOK AND 1995 BBC FILM

This is my favourite Jane Austen novel and though there’ve been multiple adaptations the 1995 version with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root stands head and shoulders above the rest. This was Austen’s last complete novel, and both the main characters and their love story are more mature than in the other, more frequently-produced tales. Again, Napoleon makes no actual appearance here but the whole plot is driven by his actions. His wars provide the opportunity for opportunistic men to climb in the navy, and build fortunes with their percentage of captured prizes. The promising but poor young man who deserved no attention returns as a rich captain, now worthy of society’s consideration. Will his attentions go to young, fresh women as people expect, or does the love of his youth survive? Beautifully filmed in and around Bath, where the book is set.

VANITY FAIR, BOOK AND 2004 FILM

One of the best novels of all time, brought to glorious creative life in a lavish production that was the first to show off Reese Witherspoon’s brilliance behind as well as in front of the camera. Anti-heroine Becky Sharpe can be a tricky role to play: you should find her despicable, but also deeply compelling. The climax of all the action is the Battle of Waterloo, where some characters’ fates are made and others destroyed. And before that, we have the glorious spectacle of the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, from which so many officers rode directly to battlefield and death.

BILL AND TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, 1989 FILM

I bring Napoleon back as a main character for my last pick. Silly, juvenile, cast adrift from all reality and only a small part of the bigger film, this is still better Napoleonic story telling than Ridley Scott’s 2023 effort. Just in case you don’t know the plot: two high school dummies swot up for their history test thanks to a time machine; things go wrong and they end up bringing significant characters from history … including the Emperor of the French … back to the modern day. Napoleon cheating children at bowling is both more joyous, and a more searing character insight, than anything in Scott’s jumbled procession of vignettes. Watch it on YouTube. You’ll thank me.

Museums should take a page from Hockney’s book and embrace immersive spaces

I have been deeply sceptical of the new wave of “immersive experiences”  turning fine art into a light and sound extravaganza. It’s not the new media that bothers me as much as the fact that these are inevitably commercial endeavours, popping up in some urban space, rarely if ever associated with the cultural institutions that own the art they’re using as the backbone of their attraction. They also, ironically, tend to set up in big cities where people actually have access to original art, rather than in distant towns or rural places where cultural experience is rare. In a world of declining funding for the arts, where a distressing number of people never set foot in museums, these digital exhibitions feel like a dangerous diversion of cash and attention from our cultural institutions into some producer’s flourishing pension plan.

As a communications professional, however, it felt dangerous to ignore this increasingly popular evolution in storytelling. A show focused on David Hockney soothed some of my anxieties. Hockney has always been interested in incorporating new technologies into his work, from his Polaroid camera as a tool for collages in the ‘70s to his ravishingly beautiful iPad creations today. He works in vivid colours and likes to go large. Splashing a Hockney up on giant screens feels a very natural evolution. 

Most importantly, just as in the ABBA Voyage show I wrote about last, the living artist worked with a broader team to make this. David Hockney: Bigger and Closer (Not Smaller and Far Away) is a bona fide work within the artist’s creative CV, not a cash grab from some production company trying to exploit any artist with tea towel and fridge magnet popularity. Does that invalidate any production based on a dead artist? Not necesssarily. But it does sprinkle this one with the creative fairy dust of authenticity.

The experience is entirely entertaining, often educational and occasionally emotionally stirring. The last is down to the technology that has made these things so popular. At Lightroom, a venue in Kings’ Cross created for immersive video (from the folks behind the innovative Bridge Theatre), there are more than 1,400 speakers, 28 projectors and a digital canvas size of approximately 108 million pixels. Your average cinema screen is between two and four thousand. It’s like standing at the bottom of an enormous well, its sides looming more than two stories above you, being bathed by sound and light. The illusion is not only unbroken by the corners of the room, but projections carry onto the floor. When they combine gorgeous visuals with powerful music … for me, most notably, Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde with images from the set designs Hockney did for the opera … they’re tickling your tear ducts.

This isn’t a single story but a series of vignettes, some short as a pop song and others pushing towards eight minutes. It’s storytelling crafted for the age of short attention spans. The content plays out over an hour but doesn’t feel like it because of the quick pacing and Hockney’s enlightening narration. It runs on a continuous loop and though you’ll buy a ticket for specific entrance time that doesn’t deliver you into the room at an official start time. You’ll join in mid flow and, roughly an hour later, realise you’re seeing a repeat. You could, if you so desired, stretch out and watch everything again and again; the venue is deeply casual on timings and once you’re in, you’re in. 

This system, of course, radically simplifies staffing needs. Flip the switch, run the video on a continuous loop, scan entry tickets and keep an eye on the room to make sure everyone is OK. I doubt any fights would break out at an immersive art experience but you never know: competition for the benches in the centre of the room is quite fierce. Management concentrates the greatest number of employees behind the bar, where you’re free to buy drinks you can carry in to the room with you in plastic cups. (If you hang out in the bar upstairs, you can have a glass.)

I suspect each visitor will have his or her own favourites from the vignettes. After the opera segment … I had no idea Hockney had done so much stage design … I was most drawn to segments about his love of the English countryside. It’s not all painting; in one powerful section he’s rolled a wide-screen camera down a straight (probably Roman) road in his native Yorkshire. He captures the exact same stretch but in four times of year: verdant spring, sleepy summer, blazing autumn, snow-draped winter. One season projects on each wall, the four cameras moving in time. It’s magical. 

His house in Normandy, so familiar to anyone who saw the magnificent Arrival of Spring show at the Royal Academy two years ago, gets a new spin demonstrating to us how he actually creates his art. His iPad, Hockney explains, captures and remembers every stroke. So when he’s finished not only does he have a painting, but a video that shows the whole thing building with every dot, dash and squiggle. As someone who’s trying to do a little painting myself, this bit, and several other times the replays showed up, was fascinating.  I also enjoyed his reminiscences about LA, a town bathed in light and colour but almost unknown to painters when he moved there. The bit on different kinds of perspective was interesting but seemed to miss the general population mark; it was the one part that started to feel worthy and academic.

This is a child-friendly, stress-free and uncomplicated story. While the section on swimming pools throws up a few naked male bottoms, there’s no discussion of the free-wheeling sex and bohemian lifestyle that made Hockney an edgy rebel in his early days. (And made my mother squirm so much when she had to include him in art history lectures to 16-year-old girls in a convent school.) We may see some of those early paintings  here, but it’s all presented through the filter of the avuncular elder statesman of British Art who’s now best known for giving us pastoral idylls in Yorkshire. 

If you think art should be challenging, you’re going to hate art as an immersive experience. If you think it’s important to introduce art to children from their earliest years, you’re going to love it. I have rarely seen so many little people at an artistic event, and I’ve never seen them so beguiled. The camera shot of the day, if I’d had a telephoto lens, would have been a little girl leaning forward against the wall, arms spread out, face turned up and mouth open as if drinking in the cascading colours. Other visitors wouldn’t welcome children at a traditional art exhibition, the kids wouldn’t enjoy it and few parents would want to splash out the £15 - £25 needed to get them in. The rules of the game are different in this immersive world.

Ultimately, this all feels less like an art exhibition and more like a film about an artist. In the same way Charlton Heston’s scowling stroll The Agony and the Ecstasy once lit a fire in my young heart for Renaissance Italy, perhaps these immersive experiences will spark kids to want to go to a museum and see the real stuff. Because as entertaining as this was, it’s a sideline and not the real thing. While I found much to appreciate, this show didn’t soothe my worries that money is going to the wrong place, and that if we don’t fund proper culture we’ll lose it.

After my Hockney: Bigger and Closer experience my frustration has shifted away from the producers capturing the cash of cultural opportunity and towards the art museums that I feel are missing a trick. Science museums around the world were quick to install iMax cinemas when they came out. Now those in-house screens pull in families with a steady diet of space and nature documentaries. Installing experiential spaces similar to Lightroom’s facilities in the National Gallery, V&A or British Museum would put the revenues for this trend into the hands of people who need it more, and have the responsibility for preserving our heritage. If these display spaces were museum-based, after their digital experience visitors could spill into galleries to see the real thing rather than walking into the rather soulless re-development that is the new King’s Cross. And the museums would also have a flexible, dramatic space easily flipped for cash-generating private events. Sadly, I’m not aware of any museums jumping on this trend; everything in the immersive art world seems entirely commercial.

So … check them out, but if you’re lucky enough to live in a city with proper museums, then do yourself a favour and go see the real thing.

My misgivings about immersive art pushed me to the very end of the Hockney show’s run before I jumped in. If you want to see this, you’ll need to move fast. Bigger and Closer runs until 3 December, after which it cedes its projection room to an adventure to the moon narrated by Tom Hanks.

Reality may be over-rated. Abba Voyage suggests technology and creativity can do even better.

The next time I'm in a conversation with someone fretting over the death of creativity in the face of modern technology, I'll meet them with two words: Abba Voyage.

Much has been written about this blockbuster show in London's East End, which has been reliably selling out the 3,000 places in its arena (1,650 seats and 1,350 packed onto a dance floor) since it launched in May of 2022. It's as good as everyone says.

Show veterans talks about the stunning realism, and I have to join that chorus. These aren't just four avatars (here called ABBAtars) performing music. Everything has been calculated to reinforce the feel of a live show. Giant video screens offer close ups of the performers you're watching at a distance. A live band with backup singers adds to the rich musical soundscape and interacts with the digital stars. There are breaks for costume changes and pauses while each band member talks to you. Not only is it the real Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni-Frid coming up with and delivering the words, but they acknowledge with wry humour the technology that allows them to be here and look so good. 

They're in on the joke.

It's their personal involvement, I suspect, that hammers home the authenticity. They drove all the creative decisions. Spoke the words. Sang the songs. Wore the motion capture suits to ensure the movements were theirs. (Except for one dance routine that ... as fit as she's remained ... would have been well past the capabilities of the now 78-year-old Anna-Frid.) Could you deploy this technology to bring The Rat Pack, Prince or Maria Callas? Sure. But I suspect you'd never approach the authenticity that hands-on involvement brings here. 

In every way that matters, this is an ABBA concert. Which is something that a great many of their fans have never seen, given that the band broke up in 1982 and hasn't performed live together since. That's despite the fact that the Mamma Mia franchise has made them a greater phenomenon now than they were the first time around, especially in the States, where they were never that big in my youth. 

Another realistic touch is the inclusion of a few songs only superfans are likely to know (The Visitors, Eagle), and the latest stuff that's not been accepted into the canon yet (I Still Have Faith in You). That last one was very poignant, as was the final touch of the show which clearly counts as a spoiler. I won't blow it for you, but it's the icing on this very sweet and moreish cake.

Reviews have underplayed the incredible lighting design, which is worth a visit even if you're not a fan of the music. Those of you who go into raptures over Yayoi Kusamana's light installations need to get to this show, which is clearly influenced by that artist's work. In the arrangement most like her Infinity Mirror Rooms currently on at Tate Modern, strings of lights rise, fall and alternate colours in the open space before you, reflected to infinity on giant screens around you and behind the band. It's breathtaking. In other noteable pieces circular baffles drop from the ceiling to dip, sway and swirl with lights zipping around their edges. At other times strips of light zoom continuously around the whole arena. These effects make you part of the show, whether you're in the seats or shaking your stuff on the dance floor. 

At other times the lights combine with the high-resolution screens wrapping around the stage to create some staggering illusions, particularly one where the band, in Tron-style costumes, seems to be singing in outer space. The graphic design is so perfect that comets wink in and out as they cross behind the rings of a planet. It comes as no surprise to discover that the production comes from Industrial Light and Magic, the Star Wars people.  

It's all possible because the arena was purpose built, designed to accommodate the creative vision of the band for each song. And like a real concert, lights and video take over at points as the band retires to take a rest or change costumes. They're digitally generated so don't need to, obviously, but that's another small touch that adds to the reality. Another advantage of the digital production, of course, is that there's little need for a "backstage". Most of the arena's footprint is what you see, either in the entry concourse or the performance area. 

It is all, evidently, a bit like a giant flat-pack, designed to be quickly disassembled and moved somewhere else. Although with crowds streaming in, there seems little point to bother before their permission runs out and they're forced to give way to a housing development in 2026.

Given the enormous care with which this has all been crafted, I suspect there are plans for it to run and run. Three glaring omissions ... Take a Chance on Me, Super Trooper and Money, Money, Money ... suggest the ability to refresh the show so that returning fans get something a bit new, just like seeing a live act for a second time. Most professional reviewers have suggested those three numbers have been created and are sitting on the digital shelf just waiting for the point when ticket sales need an injection to be added in to an updated show.

A few additional logistics points:

• The arena has its own exit on the DLR, in between Canary Wharf and Stratford, called Pudding Mill. We backtracked through Stratford on the way home. Slightly longer but a better chance of a seat. 

• The prompt 7:45 start time with no warm up acts (now there's an improvement on a live concert!) and no intermission means that you're probably heading home before whatever is playing at the 02 lets out. We stayed up in town because we were worried about the commute home but we could have easily made it.

• The arena opens at 6 and promises a range of dining options. Don't believe them. It's one food stand with carb-heavy fast food options and no place to sit. We should have gone a bit earlier and headed over to the collection of street food vendors next door, where I suspect we would have gotten a much nicer dinner.

• They sell re-fillable water bottles for a much higher price than the regular plastic ones. Unless you're desperate to get a branded bottle, skip this. There are no obvious refill points, other than standing in the always-long bar and food stand queues, and once the show starts it's so compelling and goes so fast you're not going to want to leave for a refill anyway.

• The standing room dance floor was PACKED. If you don't like crowds, this is not the way to go. They all looked like they were having a blast but it definitely wasn't for me. 
  

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If ABBA is your thing, don't miss my review of the mad and wonderful ABBA Museum in Stockholm. Quite possibly good enough to plan a whole trip around.

These two London spots will please vegan and omnivore alike; as long as they don’t mind spice

I hate people who politicise food. Vegan twenty-somethings who climb onto their soapboxes to tell me what not to eat are often urbanites who display a shocking ignorance of seasonality and the realities of food production. The hypocrisy of one such, haranguing me on the evils of “stealing” honey from bees while entirely ignoring the crisis of falling pollinator populations and the fact that honey production helps redress the balance, provoked rage. Yet I’m equally angry at those who, decrying all “woke” causes, will order an enormous sirloin just to “really irritate the damned vegans.” Or load up on cheap meat at a discount store without thinking about its production.

Food deserves respect. Whether you are a carnivore, a vegan, or somewhere in between. That slice of bacon on your plate took the same levels of care and attention as the tomato, and the manner and location of its production can make a vast difference to its environmental impact. I honour anyone who does the hard graft to feed me. If anything, I am slightly in awe of vegan cooks, who … in my culinary frame of reference … have to cook with one hand metaphorically tied behind their back. 

It’s from that perspective that I can recommend both Mildred’s and Vantra in London’s West End. Both are strictly vegan, but the flavours coming out of the kitchen keep you focused on the joys on your plate rather than a contemplation of what’s missing. There is no sense of sacrifice or abstinence, and no need to hit Burger King on the way home to fill a stomach left empty by salad. Which is, I sheepishly admit, what I was expecting as I braced myself for my first vegan encounter.

This introduction was at Mildred’s, an excellent gateway experience to vegan dining. It’s a bright, buzzy, modern cafe on St. Martin’s Lane, full of people of all ages indistinguishable from any other set of restaurant patrons in Covent Garden. Another foolish pre-conception crushed. There were no heavily tattooed, uncomfortably pierced, Birkenstock-wearing anarchists in sight. There was a lot of moreish food hitting tables.

Tempting starters include a wild mushroom tortelloni, not far off of what I’d make at home, where I’d always default to a cream or a brown butter and sage sauce it’s done here with a “caramelised leek cream” that, by some kitchen wizardry I can’t comprehend tasted as good as anything to come out of a cow. On future visits I’m curious to try their takes on whipped feta and loaded nachos. My one experimental purchase of vegan cheese was frightening, but the dairy alternatives here were delicious.

My main was called “bokkeumpab”, a twist on the Korean fried rice classic but with spicy tofu. Exquisite. Though that still didn’t keep me from envying my friend’s fried “chick’n” burger, another foray into spice and tofu that delivered all the comfort and sloppy, multi-layered joy you want from a burger. If you think about it, chicken and tofu are both relatively tasteless proteins that come into their own when a chef pairs them with something that gives them flavour. It’s actually no wonder they’re interchangeable. Maybe someday we’ll say “it tastes like tofu” instead of “it tastes like chicken” as the ubiquitous descriptor.

Mildred’s desserts astonished me most. As an accomplished cook in the Sicilian tradition I’m no stranger to oil instead of butter and vegetables as stars. But to create a proper desert without egg or dairy products seemed impossible. I was wrong.

Mildred’s carrot cake could compete with any “normal” version, and some might even find the lighter, fluffier icing here to be more to their taste. I missed the slight sharpness and silky density of the cream cheese, but didn’t mind the alternative. The tiramisu was better than many I’ve had in Italian restaurants, with a great balance between the coffee, the chocolate, and whatever the creamy stuff was. But the triumph was undoubtably a chocolate ganache cake that was as dense, moist, sharp and sweet as the best examples you’ve had anywhere.

I could take most carnivores I know to Mildred’s and be confident they could find something across all three courses to satisfy their hunger. Vantra is not quite as easy a fit. Located in a basement on Wardour Street just off Leicester Square, its menu celebrates raw food, steaming and fermented food, all of which left me wishing we could continue a few hundred metres on to the heart of Chinatown. But with a friend to navigate the menu (the same one who introduced me to Mildred’s), we found some safe territory that was also delicious.

The standout here are their small plates that remind me of pintxos. Soya skewers with peanut sauce were indistinguishable from a good chicken sate. A mushroom skewer with ginger and black bean sauce billed as “lamb” had a taste profile remarkably like the Japanese smoked eel called unagi. It was the star dish of the night.

Before my two vegan dining experiences I was irritated by the appropriation of non-vegan words. Why are chicken, cheese, sausage, and burger used on a menu? Why not call it what it is? Now I understand that first it’s an expectation setting thing: we don’t have the vocabulary for the vegan concoctions, so we use the word that’s closest to give people some idea of what they’re ordering. Second is because it seems like the majority of descriptors on the menu would be tofu.

Mains at Vantra have much less variety than Mildred’s and are almost exclusively southeast Asian. If you’re up for a curry, they serve up delicious options. We tried some ice creams (obviously made from something other than egg and cream) in several varieties that were both strong on flavour and a good counter to the fiery curry that came before.

Overall I preferred Mildred’s. No matter how you dress it up, Vantra’s is still in a dark, pokey basement. That lowbrow environment doesn’t bring down the prices, however: £6.90 for those starters, barely two mouthfuls each, is a princely fee no matter how impressive the tofu transformation is. We were also served lukewarm beer and wine throughout the evening, which I assume was a one-off but is a large red flag. Vantra’s biggest advantage may be that it doesn’t take reservations and is a relatively niche cuisine in very busy part of town. So it might be an option when you can’t get in anywhere decent around Leicester Square.

These two restaurants have opened my eyes to the reality of vegan cuisine, something far different from the virtue-signalling deprivation I had imagined. Hosting a vegan dinner party is now on my list of New Year’s Resolutions for 2024. I still have one significant issue with the category, however.

My husband is allergic to tomato and dislikes anything particularly spicy. Beyond sushi and the occasional mild Chinese take-away, he’s not much of a fan of any Asian food. Yet Indian and Southeast Asian seem to be the bedrock of vegan cooking. Mildred’s would have had limited options for him but Vantra impossible. Yet my experience at both has broadened my thinking about what’s possible. I’m browsing recipes to learn more about the curious alchemy that elevates vegetables to a different plane. When I think about the people who produce delicious food from such a restricted list of ingredients, my respect has only grown.

Smiling, happy people: National Gallery’s landmark Frans Hals exhibition is a recipe for happiness

The most fiendishly difficult question my mother set on her art history final exam was always the same: “if you could commission any artist from history to do your portrait, who would it be and why?” Answering it to her “A” standard took a good deal of self awareness, a solid understanding of your artist’s style and nuances, and plenty of proof points. I picked my answer at least a year before I took her class (I knew the question would come) and it’s never changed: Frans Hals.

No one in the history of art has captured the soul of jollity as well as Hals. Even his most serious sitters have the ghost of a smile, or the sceptical arch of an eyebrow. Their personality leaps off the page. And in a genre that often portrays women as meek, mild and decorative, Hals’ female sitters look like they get stuff done and don’t suffer fools. But they, and most of the men, also look like they’re up for a good time. You’d invite everyone Hals painted over for dinner. They’re successful, charismatic, fun and funny. And that’s how I’d like to be remembered to history.

So imagine my delight when I learned that London’s National Gallery would be hosting the first major retrospective of the Frans Hals’ work in my adult life. It was a joy only exceeded by getting inside the show itself, where big personalities leap out of more than 50 frames in a wondrous gathering pulled together from museums and private collections across the world. It’s like going to a party with all the most charismatic, joyful and welcoming kids at school.

You wouldn’t think this kind of merriment would come out of the Netherlands in the 17th century. Most of Hals’ contemporaries show us a tidy society where everyone keeps their nose to the grindstone making money but never showing off. Everyone is modest and wears black. These are people you’d invest with, but would you really want to have dinner with them? Hals’ contemporaries Rembrandt and Vermeer are more famous these days. Yet I walked through the Dutch galleries after I left Hals’ behind and the people depicted there seemed paler. Less interesting. Less alive.

Hals’ people are different. Take Isaac Massa, a rich grain merchant who chose to have himself painted with a medusa and a skull in the background. One represents envy, the other death, basically sending a message to his competition to get over their jealousy of his success; death will level them all. (You can’t see these images today; the painting, on loan from Chatsworth, was conserved for the show and they showed up in an infrared scan.) Then there’s William van Heythuysen, who looks impressively regal in his full length portrait but there’s still a ghost of a smile. Years later Hals captures a broader grin in a much smaller and more casual picture of the same man. Here, he’s tipping back on his chair like a naughty schoolboy. 

And then there’s Cunera van Baersdorp, who’s shown with a hand planted on her hip and a jaunty elbow pointed towards us. It’s a pose known as the Renaissance Elbow and is common for men. It’s almost never used for women. 

The exhibition has liberated her from a private collection to hang once again next to her husband, Michiel de Wael, who now lives in Cincinnati; one of several examples of marital portraits that have been re-united in this show. Cunera and Michiel ran a brewery together and her portrait tells us she was just as vital to its management as he was. They are a 17th century power couple. 

It’s not just Hals’ loose brushwork and rapid painting style thank make him seem modern. His people are us, in fancy dress.

And what dress he gives us!

Yes, the Dutch loved to wear black. But under Hals’ brush it’s not monochrome. He captures nuances of pattern, depth and sheen to give every costume multiple layers. Accenting embroidery glistens. Lace glimmers in spidery delicacy. You can practically hear the neck ruffs scrunch against chins. Get up close, and his brushwork is almost abstract. Back up, and it becomes a sharply realistic cap, bit of elaborate jewellery or fantastical sword hilt.

Hals’ people aren’t just showing off, however. He manages to capture a deep empathy in the eyes of his sitters. Years ago when I was going through breast cancer and had time to kill between appointments on Harley Street, I used to pop in to the Wallace Collection to sit in front of the Laughing Cavalier. There was something soothing in his eyes that calmed my nerves and renewed my energy. It was like having lunch with a supportive friend.

He’s come across town to join this gathering, of course. And he’s not the only one with kindness in his eyes. Few other painters can bring people to life like this, much less give their eyes so much empathy they feel like friends.

That this exhibition delivers more of what the Cavalier radiates is no surprise. My favourite discovery here, however, is that there’s a kindness comes from Hals himself. Though he painted the rich and powerful, the two most memorable images in the show are of outsiders he chose to imbue with deep humanity.

Malle Babbe is a woman who’d been put into an institution because of her mental illness. Two of Hals children were in the same place, so we can assume he had a deeper understanding than most of her situation. So Malle isn’t the butt of a joke, or some salutary warning, as she might be in other art of the period, but a poignant and very real old woman captured in a moment of joy. 

The face I’ll remember above the others, however, is the black boy in the Family group in a landscape on loan from the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. Though slavery was illegal on Dutch soil, it’s a fair guess that he’s not there as an equal with the rest of the family. Young black servants were a status symbol at this time and show up regularly in portraits, but they’re usually either painted as another accessory … like they’re jewellery or furniture … or showing off a gleeful grin that feels disturbingly false. This child looks directly out at us while the rest of the family is engaged with each other. They’re cheerful. The black boy is grave and thoughtful. Assigning pain or anger to him is doubtless laying modern interpretations on the subject, but there’s no question that Hals has dignified the otherness of the outsider with a compelling gaze that talks to us across the centuries.

This leaves us with an interesting question. Were all the people Hals painted really such amazing souls? Or is it Hals himself who’s simply channeling his own optimistic, vivacious energy into anyone he put on canvas? We’ll never know. Beyond details of marriages, children, where he lived and what he painted, scholars can tell us little about the man. But this show leaves no mystery as to why the great and the good of 17th century Holland wanted him to capture them for posterity. And it confirms the decision of my youth. If I’m to go down in history as a powerful, successful woman who’s also great fun and infused with kindness, I’ll need to resurrect Frans Hals to paint me.

Antiguo revels a new and more local side of San Sebastian

We covered a lot of ground on our girls’ trip to San Sebastián in November of 2017, so I felt I had a good grasp of the place. Switching neighbourhoods, however, can open up whole new horizons on a destination. That was our experience in Antiguo, on the opposite side of the bay from my 2017 base east of the trendy Gros neighbourhood. There were so many new things to explore in this area that I spent more than half of our visit in this less touristy part of town.

We’d spotted three points of interest across the water back in 2017: the beach, a former palace and a mountain top. I wandered around all three. 

Ondaretta Beach has the same golden sands, generous depth from shore to surf and easy shallows for paddling as does the beach closer to the old town. But these western sands are separated from that more touristy beach by a  jagged outcrop of rocks at all but low tide. Guidebooks say this side is always less crowded and more local, and what I saw validated that. We arrived on a warm, sunny Wednesday afternoon and I should have immediately changed into my bathing costume and headed for the beach. I didn't, and the rest of our free time there was blustery with cool winds and rain. So I can confirm that it's a wonderful beach for a long, barefoot stroll along the tide line but I never took a proper swim.

I'd skipped the swim in favour of exploring the gardens at Miramar Palace. Guidebooks warned that the property, now owned by the town, often closed for special events and the San Sebastian film festival was about to start. I suspected, and was proven right, that the place would soon be given over to movie types so I thought I should get in while I could.

Less traditional palace and more 19th century Bavarian hunting lodge (above), Miramar sits on a hill surrounded by parkland on the western curve of the bay. It is a major feature of the view when you're looking out from the old town. It was the summer HQ of Queen Regent Maria Christina, who's the person most responsible for turning San Sebastian from an insignificant fishing village to the fashionable 19th century resort that laid the foundations of today's city. The young Austrian princess came to Spain to marry her much older husband, then ended up running the place from his death in 1886 to her son's accession to the throne in 1902. (Alfonso XII was born six months after his father died.) Doctors had recommended sea bathing for her health, and she liked the idea of raising her son away from the pressures of Madrid, so the family descended upon this then-tiny place and built a summer home. 

Both the house and gardens are supposed to be "in the English style", though if you're from England you'll think they missed that brief. The garden is mostly lawns and trees, with a few flower beds mostly planted with bright annuals. Garden tourism isn't why you come up here, however. It's the views. Whether you go all the way up to the house and settle on comfortable benches taking in the sweep of land and sea, or clamber down to the bottom where a walkway juts out atop those rocks that separate the beaches, this is one of the best places from which to drink in the beauty of San Sebastian. Plenty of tourists were walking through, usually with local guides, but most of the people up here seemed to be locals lounging on the benches or stretched out on blankets on the lawns for a lazy afternoon in the sun. I settled down to a bit of sketching.

Besides Miramar, the other thing that dominates your view when you look west from the old town is Monte Igeldo. San Sebastian's magnificent La Concha bay is defined by hills. The broad, crescent shaped bay ends with pinnacles on each side, while a third sits in the middle of the water between them. This natural breakwater is what makes the beaches behind it so marvellously placid. Of the three waterfront peaks, Igeldo to the west is the highest. 

Developers poured in after the Queen Regent made this place her summer capital, and one of their early investments was the funicular railway up to Igeldo's peak. The experience today is the same you would have had when it opened in 1912: the same gracious station a the bottom, the same wooden cars climbing the hill and the same spectacular observation balconies up top. The €4.25 return ticket may be a bit more, proportionally, than our ancestors laid out, but it's still quite reasonable for an ascent to an impressive view. As a comparison, going to the top of the Eiffel Tower will cost you €28.30, London's Shard £32 and a return trip on the Alpine railway up the Gornergrat around €100. So Igeldo is a bit of a bargain, really.

Which is just as well, as there's nothing much up here besides the views. The historic amusement park much celebrated in local travel literature is a small handful of modest fairground rides. Granted, the amusements were already closed for the season when I walked around and therefore it was all a bit sad, but it was hard to imagine much improvement even with kids queuing up. It's less Copenhagen's Tivoli, more the travelling carnival that might turn up on your village common. There's a Mercure Hotel at the peak which is, sadly, a brutalist concrete bunker at odds with all the gorgeous Fin de siècle architecture below. We were originally going to stay here but it was sold out because of the film festival. Now that I've seen it I'm relieved we were in a livelier part of town. 

A pintxos bar takes pride of place, wrapping around the base of the hotel and taking all the windows and patio space with the best views. The pintxos were the least impressive I had on the trip. They make no effort, simply slapping a few basic ingredients on slices of baguette, but at least they don't jack the prices up to stupid levels because of the view. Settling in with a glass of wine and a few snacks to watch the bay below is definitely the highlight of the ride, even if the pintxos are sub par.

Down below, the Antiguo neighbourhood is a delight to stroll around. It's not touristy at all, rather packed with affluent-looking residents going about their days. The university district starts on its western edge, so there's also a young, lively feel about the place. There are plenty of comfortable bars with big display cases of pintxos, perhaps not as gourmet at the places in the old town but reeking with authenticity. And you're likely to the be only foreigner in the place. There's also a curiously high number of gorgeous bakeries full of tempting products, many using Basque flags to indicate which items, like the famous cheesecake, are regional specialties. Like its culinary doppelgänger Copenhagen, San Sebastian seems to have a way with pastry.

My favourite part of the neighbourhood was about five square blocks directly behind the beach, nestled up against the slope of Monte Igeldo. This was clearly once an area of urban mansions built in the early 20th century so people who mattered could be close to the Queen Regent. While many have been torn down and replaced with modern buildings, there are enough left to reward a walk up and down each street in the neighbourhood. Some have become offices of doctors and lawyers, some luxury hotels and a fair few still residences. The style of each is different. I saw traditional Spanish villas, half-timbered hunting lodges, new-classical townhouses worthy of Paris, art nouveau fantasies and miniature castles in tune with Disney. 

A long, narrow park stands between this area and the beach, dominated by a statue of the regal Maria Christina, who seems to be smugly saying "look, all of this is down to me".

Our favourite restaurant of our time in San Sebastian was just on the edge of this district, where it starts transitioning into offices and university buildings. El Bistro Ondarreta is, I am somewhat ashamed to admit, a French restaurant. I feel like I should eat local when I'm visiting a place, and certainly shouldn't prefer a foreign restaurant to the native cuisine. 

Blame chef Carlos, the instructor at our Basque cooking class, who said this was the best restaurant he knew near our hotel.  He was right. 

The chef patron hails from Cannes, cooked at several big names in San Sebastian and then opened this cozy place with only about 10 tables and room to eat at the bar. No fusion here, we are unapologetically back in France ... though heavily the French Mediterranean, so it's not that far from Spain. I had an absolutely perfect lobster spaghetti while my husband almost wept with joy at the pork tomahawk steak. While the Spanish are obsessed by pork, he'd hit a run of overcooked examples throughout the whole trip. Here, on the last night, in a French restaurant, was the dish that finally gave the pig the love it deserved. The lime tart was a light, tangy finisher.

We stayed at Letoh Letoh, a hotel with modern, industrial chic design inside a turn of the 20th century building. The location just a few hundred yards off the beach is excellent and there’s a spacious, modern car park about 10 minutes’ walk down the same road with discounted parking. The bed was comfortable, the room air conditioning powerful and the Juliet balcony gave us a pleasant view over the street below, but I wasn’t thrilled with the lack of public spaces. Instead of lobbies or lounges, the check in desk stands between a coffee bar and a pintxos bar and restaurant. Both were clearly popular with the locals. On our rainy day, when we didn’t feel like going out, we had to decide between the room with one not particularly comfortable chair or the very noisy bars. 

I really enjoyed this side of town, and would definitely choose it again. But I’d check out some of those intriguing boutique hotels in the streets with the historic mansions before I repeated a Letoh Letoh booking.

Kookin Donosti shows off Basque culture through the kitchen

There are lots of lovely things to see and do in San Sebastián (Donostia in Basque), but let’s be honest. This place is all about the food. It has the highest concentration of Michelin stars per head of population in Europe. Even if you’re not eating at any of those revered institutions, the commitment to fine food cascades down. In many bars the once-humble pintxo, originally just a snack on a skewer or tasty bits on a piece of bread, has become a miniature masterpiece. People come here from all over the world to learn to cook. Everyone is obsessed by food. The only place in Europe with a similar culinary vibe is Copenhagen.

So it’s no surprise that I’ve been wanting to bring my half-Danish, fully epicurean husband to this culinary capital since my first look at a proper array of pintxos. The exquisite care taken with these small plates was a direct equivalent to Danish Smørrebrød. I knew he’d be a fan.

We did, indeed, have great fun following a trail of pintxo bars through the old town, hitting several favourites from my last trip. But our best culinary experience was a day at cooking school.

We find that there are few things better for getting a proper local understanding of a place than learning about its cuisine. Not just eating it, but shopping for it, getting your hands on the raw ingredients, and actively preparing it with someone who has a deep understanding of the intersection between food and people. Kookin Donosti, and chef Carlos Hurtado, are proof points validating the theory. We’ve taken a lot of cooking courses in our travels, and this was definitely one of the best.

We started with a tour of the market. This is a place in transition and will soon be a much better experience. As its economy shifted away from fishing, San Sebastián let its local market wither, allowing the grand old market building to stand empty while a reduced collection of market stalls moved to an uninspiring  basement next door. Barcelona’s Boqueria it is not. But a renovation of the old market building is under way, with plans to move the existing vendors and bring in more food-related diversions, bringing San Sebastián on par with famous markets like the Boqueria, Torvehallerne in Copenhagen or Borough in London. Until then, the stalls here are more than sufficient to meet Carlos’ teaching needs.

First came a vendor of nothing but salted cod, a staple of Iberian cuisine and a driver of European economies for centuries. There’s an enormous variety of options here, and we learned about different levels of quality, and re-hydration techniques, as Carlos bought what we were going to need for our first course. Moving on to a fresh fish stall to buy the hake for course two, we had a long conversation about what fish was local, what came in from elsewhere, and how to judge quality of different species. He’d already procured the beef for course three, but we paused in front of a butcher’s stall to talk all things pig and cow.

Then it was off for a 10 minute stroll to the kitchen classroom, one of the best-equipped we’ve experienced. It was obviously purpose built, with plenty of room for individual workstations and good quality pots and hobs. Though knives were just Ikea basics, they’d been carefully maintained and had an excellent edge. We retired to a table a few feet from the demonstration area to eat each course together with other students; just four in total for our session on Basque classics. I loved the alternating back and forth between cooking and eating. At other classes we’ve cooked everything and sat down at the end for multiple courses at once. This set up seemed much more entertaining and built the appetite for each new dish, while Carlos cleaned our cooking areas as we ate. (Cooking while someone else cleans up for me is almost worth the price of admission.) The close proximity of the dining table means we could also watch demonstrations as we ate and drank. Admittedly, we did less cooking and more watching as the day progressed and the drinks poured, with Carlos doing all the work for the pudding but the orange peels we'd prepped earlier. 

Our Basque menu started by using the re-hydrated salt cod in a tortilla with onions and green peppers. I wouldn’t have thought of fish in an omelette, but this was fantastic. Carlos demonstrated the classic Spanish flipping technique (using a plate to take the omelette completely out of the pan and put the wet side back on the bottom), but the best tip here was simply making sure the pan is piping hot before the eggs go in, then turning down the heat. 

Next came hake in a green sauce. Lesson: it’s really not that time consuming to make a sauce that transforms your dish. (Though stripping the leaves off the parsley stems is a bit fiddly.) And that a handful of steamed clams scattered atop a fish dish can elevate it to the next level. IF you can find fat and juicy fresh clams, of course. Few of us have a fish market like San Sebastián’s at hand, even in its currently humble state. 

The main course was a simple but magnificent ribeye (above, with chef Carlos), a testament to the beauty of great ingredients cooked well. We were familiar with all be basics of cooking beef but it’s good to get some key reminders. Let your meat sit out for a minimum of two hours to come up to room temperature. Render that fat to imbue flavour. Don’t salt ‘til it’s done. A single, large piece, cooked and shared, is easier to keep moist and succulent than individual steaks. This course also gave me a fresh appreciation for piquillo peppers. They ARE different, and worth finding and buying in their jars, for a perfect accompaniment to beef. 

The most revelatory course for me, however, was dessert. Every European culture has recipes to use up stale bread. Here, hunks of stale brioche … hard to go wrong when starting with that … are caramelised in sugar then soaked in a combination of milk and cream that’s been infused with orange skins and cinnamon. I was blown away by how much flavour the liquid took on, and how such simple ingredients combined into an elegant whole. This one is going straight on the dinner party roster. (Though finding whole loaves of un-sliced brioche may prove challenging.)

All that great food was complemented by Carlos’ commentary, and by matching drinks for each course. Basque cider made its second appearance on our trip, and this time we got to try the elongated pouring technique ourselves. I’m still not a fan. 

Once again, we found that the company of our fellow students was part of the appeal. People enthusiastic enough about local cuisine to spend half a day getting their hands on it tend to be great company. 

Kookin Donosti would be the first thing I’d book on a return trip to San Sebastián. They do a pintxos class that’s calling my name. In fact, this is a town that’s screaming out for something like the week-long residential class we did in Gascony. Kookin is still a young company. If they expanded in that direction, it would be on our bucket list.