Douglas Blyde

Douglas Blyde explores Jul's, the lavish new St James's restaurant marrying Aegean glamour with serious drinks credentials.

Edinburgh’s Lyla: a restaurant where seafood, acidity and exceptional wines meet in a dining experience of rare precision.

The long bonnet home: Douglas Blyde visits five country houses in one old Jaguar

Douglas Blyde falls down the rabbit hole at The Tudor Pass in Surrey, delighting in inventive British cooking and an adventurous wine list in the remarkably well-preserved 16th century setting.

Richard Gladwin’s The Black Horse brings the family’s field-to-fork philosophy back to Sussex, pairing a serious kitchen and thoughtful wine list with nearby Nutbourne vineyard. Douglas Blyde visits the Amberley inn to find a pub rooted in its local setting, but with ambitions beyond it.

For International Pinot Noir Day – and perfect, also, with grouse from the Glorious Twelfth onwards – Douglas Blyde asks why the world’s most seductive grape has become a promise its owners are frightened to test

Douglas Blyde visits The Windsor Brasserie at Fairmont Windsor Park, where ambitious food, an adventurous wine list and lively hospitality are helping the new dining destination carve out its place among Berkshire’s culinary heavyweights.

Champagne is still a mainstay of the restaurant scene, but producers are having to work harder and smarter to keep their place on the list.

Between visits to The Bodrum EDITION, Susona Bodrum, LXR Hotels & Resorts, and METT, Douglas Blyde dines at Ruins and Maçakızı and discovers a peninsula of ancient stone, ambitious cooking, old money and modern excess.

At the pioneering trade tasting he hosted at The Belvedere in Holland Park, the producers were conspicuous by their absence.