The Lodge seen from across the Snake River

Caroline Davies doesn’t care for beaches or spas when she’s on summer holiday. Perhaps foolishly, she mentioned to LUX’s editorial team that she had a taste for adventure. Not long after, she found herself on a plane, headed for America’s wildest bear country. And she survived to tell the tale

“Got bear spray?”, the park warden asks.

My guide nods and gestures with his chin to me. I helpfully hold up a hairspray size can labelled “50 times stronger than mace”. It has a vivid warning photo of a man gushing blood from a bear sized bite in his forehead.

“Well alright then.” The park warden opens the gate and our 4×4 rumbles down the open track and into the woods.

Welcome to Idaho, America’s real life adventure playground. Unlike the well-visited Yosemite to the south west and Yellowstone to the north east, the wilds of Idaho are the well kept secret of those who like their nature without burger bars.

Reaching Idaho Falls, population 60,000, was no mean feat. A few hops across America on United Airline planes of ever decreasing sizes I buzzed over flat fields, deeper and deeper into the American heartland. Touching down, I had been met by Ian, the general manager of South Fork Lodge. Broad and affable with a sarcastic sense of humour, he is in town to pick up me, some groceries and to stop by the Sportsman Warehouse, a cavernous huntsman’s store on the outskirts. Under the gaze of your future targets – glass eyed moose heads and stuffed eagles hang from the soaring rafters – you can browse the racks of rifles and rails of hunting outfits.

“Camouflage isn’t a method of disguise here,” says Ian, catching me quizzically browsing a selection of camouflage bikinis. “It’s a fashion statement.”

We drive through the valleys of low growing potato bushes and dry farming plots of hay. The summer bush fires from neighbouring states have brought a haze to the city and valleys, blotting out the hills in a dense blue until you are almost upon them. After an hour, we begin to descend through the river worn valleys to the lodge. Curled around a lazy bend in the Snake River in Swan Valley, South Fork Lodge is located on 65 miles of dry fly fishing river, making it one of the fishing destinations of the North West.

Tucked away from the main road, past their fly fishing shop, the lodge’s cabins scatter their way across the gentle slope down to the river. Designed to fit with local architecture, the warmth of the honey coloured wood, grey stone chimneys and slate roofs blend with the burnish tones of the forests, the bubbling pebble colour of the river. The main lodge holds the suites, all with their own grey stone fireplace and private terrace looking out to the river. For a little more privacy or larger groups there is an eight person cabin complete with pool table and your own deck on the river. For families or smaller groups the vast double bedrooms with connecting doors give you more than enough space and come with a balcony or veranda. I dump my bags, hit the hot tub and curl up on the rocking chair outside with the wine and jerky from the welcome basket.

A double suite at South Fork Lodge

Inside, the lodge is decked with original art works by local artists, hung next to panoramic windows that look out on the landscapes and wildlife that inspired them. The relaxed restaurant, which spills out from the polished wood octagonal dining room on to the flagstone terrace, has recently had a shake up. The newly appointed chef was chosen for his menu of local flavours and produce, created with a twist. Rainbow trout sushi is popular, as is their lamb, and the hen of the woods, served with a reduced cherry dressing to add sweetness and balance to the slight bitterness of the mushrooms, is a flavoursome update on the traditional dish.

Over dinner, watching the few remaining boats sidle past, I meet a few of the lodge’s guide and the sous-chef. He is only a few rounds away from a place in the smoking finals in Memphis, I am told. I look blank, mind whirling with images of grizzled men manically smoking multiple Marlboros simultaneously in a Memphis shed, their eyes on a cigaretteshaped trophy.

“Meat smoking is big business around here,” explains Ian. “Ribs, chicken, all sorts of meat. Our guy came 3rd out of 2000 in the last competition.”

Steamy morning views

The lodge holds rib evenings throughout the summer, but the next big event is in a few days time at a local music festival. Despite competition from across the valley, they always sell out. The morning arrives misty and fresh, condensation spotting my boots as I brush past the long grass on my way up to breakfast. Ovals of folded grass, like amateur crop circles, spot the fields; the only remaining sign of the deer that bedded down here the night before. After a large plate of sticky soft French toast with maple syrup I set off. We drive the short distance to Wyoming, past rock strewn drops, dense pines and a winding roadside queue for ‘the world famous square ice cream’ parlour. Stopping in a gravel lay-by we perch above the river to watch the rapids. The river courses through the bolder littered banks, hurling inflatable rafts up and over. Children shriek with excitement, bumping downstream. In summer the water is comparatively low, but the river swells in spring and has taken the lives of a few daring rafters with it. We turn back, pausing to watch the dam that feeds into the Snake River. Built in the 60s, the dam is partly responsible for the rich fishing in South Fork, pushing cooler, oxygenated water from the bottom of the river through and encouraging the creatures that feed the fish to multiply.

By the time we return to Idaho, the dew has dried. I am dropped at the bottom of a steep crag, the edge of a range of hills. Being British, they seem more like small mountains, rough and shrub strewn, thin grey wires bend up and across the peaks.

“T-bar or harness?” Ian asks. I hesitate. I’ve not zip wired before and my palms are already a little clammy. He laughs. I think he’s joking. Helmeted and trussed up in a harness, I clamber into an open air all terrain vehicle next to the driver, an octogenarian with a deep tan and a hearing aid. He beams at me, then starts the near vertical ascent.

“You’re up.” I step up to the small wooden platform, the last point before the slope disappears, becoming a flat rock face. I’m clipped in and edge forward, trying to absorb all of the instructions. “Don’t worry if you start going backwards, particularly when you reach the end, that’s normal. If you go upside down, keep your knees tight and give us a big wave. Ready?” I nod, walk off the edge and drop.

Eight wires later, and jumping off a cliff feels quite normal. I even go upside down while backwards willingly. Blood still pumping a little, but feet now back on the ground, I follow my nose firstly for a dip in the sulphur hot springs next door and then the pizza parlour for a Hawaiian and a jug of ice cold beer watching the sun creep down.

Heading out for a trout of two

I wake early to hit the river. Not early enough. The hard core crews have been and gone, setting off at six to catch the first fish of the day and watch the valley waking. Leave as the sun rises and you should catch deer, moose, perhaps even the odd bear, strolling to the water’s edge for a morning drink. Foolishly travelling without a hat, I drop by the lodge’s shop to pick up a floppy khaki number complete with draw string chin strap and a friendly-looking embroidered fish. Feeling the part, I saunter to the car park to meet my fishing guide, Dave.

Dave is a man of few and select words. He has the deep tan of a fly fisher that has spent every summer on the river, black reefer shorts bleached grey by the sun. As I approach he pushes his cap over his salt and pepper hair and I notice that the backs of his hands and knuckles are speckled with small cuts and scrapes, presumably from manly outdoor activities.

“Can you see ok in those sunglasses?” he asks.

My Jackie O style glasses have always served me well before, but as we push off down the river I realise quite how little I see. We bob under a bridge and I squint to spy the nymphs Dave points out stuck on the pillar, brushed by the waterline. Dave gamely hands me his, in a case labelled “welcome to the city”. They are rose tinted. “Not only clever, but they make the world look cheerier.” He says.

We drift downstream, resting up against gravel banks, wedging the boat among the rapids and fishing out. Focusing hard on casting and not catching Dave on my hook – a possible explanation for the cuts – you can almost forget to look up at the soaring canyon around you. Sandy coloured grass and 3ft tall bracken sweeps down the lower reaches of the reddish tinged rock formations, camouflaging the wildlife sheltering from the midday sun. Although you need keen eyes to spot a deer, birdlife is easier to notice, either tucked among the reeds or circling against the azure sky. The water bubbles past, so clean you can see the pebbles on the river bed.

“Gin clear.” says Dave, seeing me watch a failed catch as it slips away down river.

We fish until the sun begins to set, turning the river from blue to copper. As we pull in to the bank and our camp for the evening, a fire is crackling, the beers are chilling and the red wine is breathing in the last of the day’s heat. Ian and his fiancée Haley are at the stove, cooking steaks that fill an entire pan. After a competitive game of horse shoes, someone suggests clay pigeon shooting. Ian mocks me up a makeshift set of headphones – folded tissue paper tucked into a bandana – and gives me a quick tutorial. With no machine to fire the clays, Ian throws them out like a Frisbee. As night falls, we tuck ourselves into the sturdy wooden picnic table to eat platefuls of tender meat and buttery vegetables by torch and candle light. By dessert, a sizzling hot berry crumble, we are all sitting around the glowing embers of the fire, draining the last of the bottles of wine. After a heated discussion with Dave about which really was the greatest Rolling Stones record, I pad into the tall white tent and clamber into my cot.

We wake to a hearty breakfast and a cold dip in the river for the brave. The camp packed up, we jump into the waiting boat and skim back upstream to meet our transport back to the lodge; three glossy steeds, two red and one white. We amble our way gently on a path that takes us through the undergrowth, the trees and finally out of the canyon into field upon field of chest high corn.

Lodge dining with views of the river and beyond

Back in the ranch there is a buzz. It is the last night of the music festival and it seems everyone is going. The “Young Dubliners” are headlining, an Irish folk band. The park in Victor town centre is rammed, barely an inch of grass between picnic rugs strewn with plates full of ribs, burgers and noodles as people balance bendy plastic pint glasses on the grassy mounds. South Fork’s stand queue winds around the stall; they are nearly out. We grab some of the last rack of ribs and manoeuvre our way to the front. The band starts up, authentic Irish accents, violins and guitars and the audience stands to its feet, jumping around in fake jigs, beer splashing the ground.

My final day at South Fork and I go east to Jackson Hole, Wyoming with my trekking guide, Bob. We stop just outside the centre for a big breakfast at Nora’s and necessities for our walk. I loiter outside the store, admiring the number of different states on the number plates. Jackson Hole is a well known spot for nature tourists and adventure holidays are big business, especially when the adventure feels real. We buckle up in the 4×4 and Bob hands me a bag with the bear spray.

“Just in case, always best.” He says as I scrutinise the directions for use. We head towards the mountains.

Summer may be short but it’s extremely lush

A boutique ski resort in Winter and outdoor activities centre in summer, Jackson Hole is one of the wealthiest regions of America. “The billionaires are buying out the millionaires.” Bob says as we drive past the airport, sleek private jets lining the runway.

The slopes, now devoid of snow, still run a cable car throughout the summer, offering one of the best ways to see the Tetons. We clamber onboard, joined by a group of five T-shirted men in their twenties wearing three-foot backpacks; paragliders. “We have seats left if you want them.” one says to the rest of the car. I smile, but Bob turns to see if anyone is taking them up on the offer. They are serious.

We follow them up to the peak and watch as they piece together their equipment on the slope. Those with passengers strap them in tightly and point their instructions; run down the mountainside and don’t stop until told or the mountain ends. The first one catches a gust, untangles his parachute and runs, full pelt, off the edge. For a moment he is still, feet just off the ground, parachute hovering above him, then the force of the wind takes him up and off, smoothly gliding. Mesmerised, we watch them each as they follow one another, circling like a bird of prey before curving out of sight behind the mountain. When we reach the bottom, I follow them to their landing spot, watching them bump down.

One of Wyoming’s largest national parks, Grand Teton National Park spans around 31,000 acres, including peaks of Teton range, lakes and forges. Driving past the entrance, we zigzag our way through the trees, as I keep an unnecessarily close watch for wildlife. We are pulled over by an officious looking ranger, tight lipped and severe.

“You sure you guys want to head down this way?” he asks. “There are a lot of grizzlies around and they’re hungry and grouchy. Where you walking?”

“Death Canyon.” Says Bob unflinchingly

Our ranger sucks his teeth. “You sure you wouldn’t rather go to Jenny Lake?” Jenny Lake does sound preferable, but after jumping off cliffs, learning the difference between a Rainbow and a cutthroat trout and wearing a floppy khaki hat without shame, I’m fairly committed to following South Fork’s expertise. We soldier on.

Thinking it’s best to be prepared, I ask Bob for some bear advice. “Well they used to say make yourself small, then they said make yourself big. Neither of those work particularly well though,” he says. “Probably the best advice is to run.”We park at the bottom of the trail. “Bears don’t like to be surprised so if you make a lot of noise that can scare them off.”

I talk non-stop up the mountain, jumping once at a chipmunk. Thin reddish trees flank the path, row after row, disappearing to fine lines in the distance. We pass a thick tree next to the path, freshly shredded by bears in search of food; they were here a few hours before us. The path ahead clears to one gnarled tree, its roots bursting out through the dusty ground, its branches framing the spectacular view; a deep blue lake, pine green forests, jagged mountain sides and tiny bays. Slightly out of breath from my constant conversation, I stand at the edge in silence, leaning against the tree, drinking it in.

Our final stop is Jackson Hole town centre, an idyllic scene with a wooden sidewalk lined with art galleries and boutiques. The highly manicured, lacquered stores gleam with wares of country living; furs, fishing, a bronze of an eagle. It is well equipped. As we ride out of town, we pass a row of tents with a handmade sign reading “Art Fair.”

“Now art,” says Bob, sighing. “That’s the thing that will wear you out.”

Caroline Davies travelled as a guest of Natural Retreats who provide luxury holidays in secluded locations of natural beauty in Europe and the USA. They have recently introduced Natural Retreats properties to buy Naturalretreats.com, South Fork Lodge

OVER THE PAST DECADE, MERCEDES-BENZ AMG MODELS HAVE BECOME A BYWORD FOR THE ULTIMATE COMBINATION OF POWER, LUXURY AND EXCITEMENT. Guy Fiorita SPENT A COUPLE OF DAYS AT AN EXCLUSIVE OWNERS’ EVENT, GETTING TO KNOW THESE THOROUGHBREDS OF THE ROAD – AND FALLING IN LOVE WITH THEM

I’m not a car fanatic, a speed freak or adrenaline junkie. I don’t particularly enjoy driving fast. When I learned to drive, I made a conscious effort at smoothness. The goal of any good driver, I thought, was to drive so that your passenger hardly noticed the movement. No sudden turns or slamming of brakes. Right?

“Wrong, all wrong,” comes a voice on a walkietalkie by my side. “You have to hit the brake much, much harder. Jam it as hard as you can and pull the steering wheel to the left.”

Sitting behind the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG, stopped in the middle of a racetrack, I had have obviously blown my first test. The voice is Former British Formula 3 and DTM racer Marco Engel, my team leader. I’ve just finished the first leg of the first day of training and I am already coming up short.

The racetrack is in Andalucia, Spain and I am here as part of an AMG Private Lounge event. My co-drivers are all AMG Mercedes owners. The chassis number on their cars qualified them to join the AMG Private Lounge, of which there are now more than 20,000 members. The thirty or so here with me are mostly from Germany and the UK but also from as far away as Brazil, the US and Lebanon. These are people who are serious enough about their cars and driving not only to have paid the price of an AMG but to have splashed out a few thousand extra to spend two days speeding around a racetrack having orders barked at them by professional race car drivers.

The Lounge event is taking place at the Ascari Race Resort. We were helicoptered in the day before from Marbella. From above, the track is a beautiful expanse of tarmac that twists its way through the rolling hills. This 5.4 kilometres track with a total of 26 total turns was once called “the most challenging race track in the world,” by some guy named Fernando Alonso and I get the feeling I’m soon going to find out why.

Earlier this morning we were divided into groups and now each is out on a section of the track being put through their paces by one of the instructors. AMG has brought along an impressive group of rock-star drivers like F1 and Le Mans racer Karl Wendlinger, endurance racer Roland Rehfeld and four-time Mercedes DTM champion Bernd Scheidner.

They have their work cut out for them with me. Back on the track I am finding that this Lounge is anything but relaxing. After my initial break and turn failure, we move onto a series of warm-up exercises including a combination of fast slalom, cornering technique, trail braking and handling parcours, skid pad and lead and follow training. At the end of each exercise we stop just long enough to switch cars between the AMG CLS 63, SLS, SLK and my soon-to-be favourite, the C63 AMG Black Series.

And off we go again. Around and around. I soon find I am pushing the limits, if not of the car then at least my own. I’ve been bitten. The faster I go, the faster I want to go. At one stage in the loop, we get to drag race against another driver. Each time I punch the gas a little harder and break a little later. I’m surprised by how much I want to win. I never do, except once when the other driver was penalised for stopping outside the box.

And it is not only the speed that’s got me. It’s the sound. The primitive, guttural rumble of an AMG is exhilarating. No wonder owners say it was one of the main factors in their decision to purchase one.

Later that day I get a chance to see how it should be done, this time as a passenger in a Pagani Huayra. Equipped with a Mercedes-AMG V12 engine that produces 720 horsepower, this brandnew Italian hypercar has a top speed in excess of 230 mph (370 km/h). By the time I get myself strapped into the passenger seat, my Italian driver is already giving me the thumbs-up. “Ready,” he says and something suddenly pushes me deep into my seatback and I find out what 0–60 miles per hour in just three seconds feels like. The rest of the lap is a jostling blur that proves once and for all that I knew nothing about real driving. There was nothing smooth about that, I say to myself as I walk away on wobbly legs.

Looking at the itinerary the next morning I thought that the “On Road Experience” and the  chance to take a leisurely drive through the Andalusian countryside at the wheel of a classic AMG would be more my pace, but my pace had obviously changed. Halfway through the drive, beautiful as it was, I found myself itching to get back on the track. Before I could however, I was taken off road in a Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG. The vehicle proved to have impressive power as we slogged our way over the muddy hills around the resort grounds but I was here for speed.

Which is exactly what I lacked as we lined up for the big event of the day, a team trail where all the times are added together and the lowest total time receives a prize. I really want this one, or at least I don’t want to let my team down. They’ve been so patient. So this time I really go for it, pushing myself faster and faster until I come skidding to a stop, dead centre in the box. Perfect. I look over to see that my time is just a few seconds worse than the slowest member of our team. Not bad for a non-speed freak. The proud moment is short lived. It appears I’d missed two gates and hit a cone along the way too. It all adds up to 15 seconds of penalty time and knocks my team out of any chance for a victory.

Fortunately everyone’s attention quickly turns to the last event of the day and the chance to run a few laps in a true race car, the SLS AMG GT3. The top-of-the-range of Mercedes-Benz cars, it is a strictly limited edition and so extreme you are not allowed to use it on the road. This was universally considered the highlight of the whole Lounge by my co-drivers. Personally I found the asbestos suit, the helmet with just an opening for the eyes and a driver’s cage that took a Houdini-like effort to get into, almost unbearably claustrophobic. On the track, the car’s raw power is scary and I am afraid it remains beyond my skill set. The experience, however, certainly gave me a new-found respect for race drivers.

I may not have come here much of a “car person,” but by the end of the three days, having driven, and heard, enough horse-power to propel a horde of Mongolians across the Steppe, something in me has changed. Now as the shuttle slowly winds its way back to Malaga airport, I sit leaning over the seatback in front of me like a restless child, watching the road ahead. “Are we there yet,” I ask the driver. “No, about another hour,” he answers. After my AMG Private Lounge experience, I’m confident that I could do it in half that time. And as I watch the olive groves move slowly past my window, one thing becomes perfectly clear, I’d sure love the chance to try.

mercedes-amg.com 

DARIUS SANAI’S Luxury travel views Where our Editor-in-Chief ponders culinary conundrums from his sojourns around the world

Not so long ago, to experience the best of the world’s cuisine, you had to travel to their origins. Interested in exploring Escoffier’s legacy? Fly to Paris, Burgundy or Lyon. Want to know what the greatest sashimi tastes like? Try the stalls at Tsukiji Market in Tokyo. To taste the best Shanghainese seafood, you’d need to be looking at the Yellow River.

Now, everything has changed. Now there’s no question about being inauthentic if you taste Tuscan food in Vegas, or sample Joel Rebouchon in London, or Nobu in, well, anywhere. The greatest ingredients, and the greatest chefs, are where they are.

Which makes Miami such an interesting conundrum. The only food the city can really, authentically claim as its own is Cuban, imported by the hordes fleeing Fidel Castro from the 1960s onwards. That, and the ubiquitous stone crab, served by the pile, a food to eat with fries and a big Sonoma Chardonnay and to grow fat on.

But Miami is also South Beach, host of America’s biggest annual food festival, home to some of the most glamorous restaurants and hotels in America outside Vegas; the place where Russian oligarchs and New York tycoons gather under the sun to talk art, women, wine and song on megayachts and in megaresidences.

And I was intrigued by what my megahotel in SoBe, the Fountainebleau, would have to offer. On the culinary side, that is. As a resort hotel, its offering is pretty evident to anyone arriving up its driveway crowded with limos and Lambos: about 10,000 rooms in various buildings, Art Deco and mock; a properly mega swimming pool which I estimated as around 60m curved end to end, which would have been perfect for lengths, had it not been overoccupied by smooching couples taking advantage of its uniform shallowness; a private shopping mall; a stretch of private beach with uniformed staff shifting sunloungers to the evermoving gaps in the afternoon sunlight as the sun set beneath the giant structures of the hotel itself.

The Fountainebleau is not short of celebrated options, with Hakkasan and Scarpetta operating there. Just to be different I chose to entertain my guests at the hotel’s nouveau-Japanese restaurant Blade, which registers there as one of the ‘casual’ dining options. ‘Casual’ meaning informal service and a lack of tablecloths, rather than low prices.

It was eye-opening. The straight sashimi and nigiri – yellowtail, sea bream toro – was as good as sashimi can be, flown in from Tsukiji as it is in any fine sushi restaurant. A mark of standards and craft, but nothing else.

It was the speciality rolls that would make or break Blade. These were ambitious: the Geisha, with yellowtail, ooba leaf, orange, asparagus wrapped in soy paper with a yuzu miso glaze. The Chateau with spicy snow crab, spring onions, cucumbers, and spicy tuna. The Dragon, with deep-fried shrimp, asparagus, avocado, barbecue eel, miso wasabi and aioli. And what about the Ronin: salmon, mozzarella, tomato, cilantro, Serrano ham, chilli, and crispy onion – about as derivative as you can get and still claim Japanese roots, sort of.

We tried all these rolls and more, and my conclusion on Blade reflects the conclusion on cuisine in general, which in turn reflects a contemporary worldview. They were on the whole beautifully made, with ingredients that had plainly been sourced from the very best possible sources, and hewn together by a chef who understood the intricacies of the human palate. I entertained at Blade every time I could during my sojurn; even ate there by myself once.

But the fact that I was eating at a soi-disant Japanese in a corner of the United States was irrelevant: this is the new food, inspired by everywhere, with certain splashes of somewhere more prominent than others, meticulously made, perfectly served. Just as the model in the corner was a mix of Chinese, Persian, Russian and German, from everywhere and nowhere, so was Blade’s food. Once that meant the worst: international cuisine. Now it is the trademark of a new contemporary quality.

Many hotels thrive these days by attaching luxury brand chefs’ names to their restaurants: these bring in visitors who otherwise would not be seen dining at a hotel restaurant, for fear of appearing like tourists. One of my favourite hotels in the world, though, has another take. The Parkhuus restaurant, in the Park Hyatt Zurich, is as cool, and spectacular in its internal architecture, and as imaginative in its menu, as any high-concept chef ’s: but the restaurant is entirely the hotel’s own.

A sweeping open kitchen dominates the room; ceilings are high, as are windows; tables lack formal dressing, instead bedecked in contemporary architecture. The menu effortlessly combines the casual and the formal, the haute and the bas: you can simply choose ‘Chop, Wood Roasted, 400g’; or go for the Swiss ‘pike-perch fillet, pan fried, herb crust, herb salad, tomato jam’ accompanied by the wood-roasted seasonal vegetables. Both were sublime in their delicacy with the signature of the Parkhuus wood oven.

The menu at Parkhuus is brutally seasonal, in the best possible way: there are no signature dishes, only seasonal dishes, so if you go in autumn you would be crazy not to try the products of shoots in nearby Burgundy, for example. As befits one of the very best restaurants in the city that serves as the capital of Europe’s wealth management business, the wine cellar is breathtaking in its breadth, although I have recently favoured the local draft beer, served swiftly and ice-cool, its hoppy bitterness a welcome counterpoint to the slight caramel sweetness that arises in some of the woodroast dishes.

Parkhuus is an interesting room in that it runs counter to what I normally admire about restaurants. It is a big space, with big windows, and a view technically of nothing but the other side of a quiet Zurich street. Yet it feels sexy, alive, because of the lighting, the attitude, the décor, the service, the style. You feel this is a destination for locals, not because of the name of a chef above the door, but because of the sheer quality.

Around 1000 miles north of Zurich, on a very different kind of lake, is the Scottish Highland hotel of Cameron House. Cameron House is on Loch Lomond, a long lake that stretches like a finger into the Highlands, and you can’t quite imagine the barren beauty that unfolds before you as you stand on the lochside of the hotel, without having been there. On one of Scotland’s most famous lochs, this is the perfect location.

The hotel’s main restaurant has fine views over the water, but on my latest visit I stopped in on the Boat House, the more casual option, on the water’s edge. You feel as though you are floating on this untamed loch, and the casual atmosphere is enhanced by the engagingly informal staff – and the crowds, for this is a popular place.

The menu is created by the Loch Fyne people, they of seafood bars across the UK, and that guaranteed a level of quality: excellent selection of salmon of various smokes, mussels that were well cooked in white wine and parsley; spectacularly presented oysters. Good quality for a seafood lover, if nothing too ambitious, but the view of a snowstorm whitening the head of Ben Lomond across the water (this can happen at any time of year) was ambitious enough.

In the course of my annual travels I stay in quite a number of luxury hotels, and those that disappoint usually outnumber those that excel. So it is a delight when a hotel that was supposed to do nothing other than perform solidly, does so with flair and a panache of proper hotellerie, like a mid-division football team suddenly matching Barcelona at their own game.

That was my experience, shortly after Cameron House, with the Hilton Central in Glasgow. Hilton has been demeaned as a brand over the past years, the sometimes glorious towers of Hilton International now replaced by business lodges stamped with the brand. Some exceptions remain, for me in the U.S., and London’s Park Lane: but Glasgow’s Hilton is evidently in a category of its own. The service was not only attentive but intuitive; the rooms well-arranged, a sort of cookiecutter- plus, for road warriors who want to know where everything is but also have high standards. It was the food that surprised, a sequence of room services arriving swiftly and with pride, steaming hot, sea bass cooked a point, a perfectly herbed soup: the kinds of things you wish room service would do around the world, but it so rarely does. And with staff that took pride: they were neither overtrained, nor obsequious, nor over-aware, nor over-cool: just spot on. Hilton Glasgow, you outdo many of your more glamorous five-star rivals.

Back very much closer to home, I am delighted at the reopening, after a few months’ refurbishment, of my favourite part of one of my favourite restaurant/food shops, Villandry, in London’s NoHo. Villandry is part café, part food hall, part restaurant, and the latter two have just reopened, accompanied by a fine wine theme and a bank of those fine Enomatic machines at which you can taste fine wine by the small pour. Redecorated in exquisite taste by Claire Sheppard and her team, it retains that light, airiness so rare in central London venues, as well as fine ingredients cooked simply, whether for breakfast, lunch or a prix-fixe dinner. Bon appétit.

Darius Sanai is Editor-in-Chief of Condé Nast Contract Publishing