drink

This palatial hacienda dating to 1616 is wonderfully maintained as a restaurant that feels like the prototype setting for a noirish telenovela, where sleek-haired businessmen and heirs negotiate their fortunes and the future of the country over hours consumed with cigars and tequila. San Angel Inn is a destination for upper-crust locals attracted to its unabashedly old-school approach to food, cocktails and service. Everyone here swears by the stately margarita service or a frosty martini, the kind that conjures images of Prohibition-era afternoons spent betting on the races in Tijuana. The menu feels like a journey over the greatest hits of classic Mexican fine dining: oysters, snails, escamoles and fideo seco with foie gras beckon as starters. Taco service is family style, in orders of three to eight, of rib-eye prime, arrachera, shrimp, lengua, duck, chicharrón and so on. Mains are Falstaffian, from lengua de res a la veracruzana to chateaubriand bouquetiere. The wine list leans heavily Mexican, followed by Spanish, Argentine, American and Chilean — just as it should be for this hemisphere.

A study found the cheapest city in the world for a beer – and unsurprisingly it’s not the UK. According to experts at Magnet Kitchens, it’s somewhere in Europe

Beer enthusiasts, rejoice! A study has revealed the location of the cheapest pint on the planet.

Unfortunately for Brits, the most affordable city in the UK for a brew was Nottingham, coming in at 99th place – where a pint could cost you a reasonable £1.63. But across the Channel, it’s a whole different ball game.

Italy, Germany and Spain were identified as having the lowest prices for a bottle of beer, according to the boffins at Magnet Kitchens. The study examined 190 cities using crowdsourced data from Numbeo on the price of a bottle of beer in cities worldwide in 2024.

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The top 10 was dominated by Germany, with Wandsbek in the north of the country being the tenth best-value – with a bottle costing party-goers a remarkably low 74p. Nuremberg, Bielefeld and Bremen were tied at a penny less, while Zaragoza, in the northeast of Spain and known as the ‘city of beer’, offered an enticing 72p pint, reports the Express.

Four more German cities came in joint-second, with 71p bottles in Wuppertal, Bochum, Bochum-Hordel and Dresden. However, it was a seaside city in the south of Italy that took the top spot – where drinkers can enjoy a beer for as little as 65p.

According to Numbeo, beer in Taranto is a staggering 11.5 times cheaper than the world’s priciest – found in Darwin, Australia (£7.48). It was the only Italian city to make the top 10, while the next highest-ranking Italian town was Messina, a port city in the northeast of Sicily, which came in 51st.

OPINION

Taranto also secured a spot in the top 10 for the world’s cheapest bottle of wine, ranking seventh with a price tag of just £3.87 – outdone only by Rome, where you can nab a bottle for a mere £2.80.

An impressive 20 German cities made it into the top 50 for beer, while eight locations in the country also featured in the top 30 for wine lovers – including Bochum, where a bottle will cost you a modest £4.29.

Zaragoza turned out to be more than twice as cheap as the priciest Spanish city, Cordoba, which charges £1.57 for a bottle of beer.

In total, 18 Spanish cities made the cut in the top 50, with Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria coming in second at 77p – narrowly missing out on a spot in the global top 10.

‘Edible means it won’t kill you – it doesn’t mean it tastes good. This, however, does taste good,” says chef Carla Lamont as she snips off a piece of orpine, a native sedum, in her herb garden. It’s crisp and juicy like a granny smith but tastes more like cucumber. “It’s said to ward off strange people and lightning strikes; but I like strange people.”

We’re on a three-hectare (seven-acre) coastal croft on the Hebridean island of Mull. Armed with scissors, Carla is giving me a kitchen garden tour and culinary masterclass – she was a quarter-finalist in Masterchef: The Professionals a few years back. Sweet cicely can be swapped for star anise, she tells me. Lemon verbena she uses in scallop ceviche.

Mull map

She points out a barberry bush whose small, sour berries, a Middle Eastern staple, she adds to jewelled rice, and a myrtle bush which, I learn, is different from the bog myrtle growing wild on the croft that, when the leaves are crushed, smells gloriously aromatic with hints of eucalyptus. Bog myrtle also protects your woollens from moths, wards off midges – and is a key ingredient in one of her cocktails.

“I had never grown anything before I came here. I was in a kitchen in the city and herbs came dried in a tub. Now, if I haven’t heard of something, I give it a go or thrust it at Jonny and say ‘Greenhouse.’”

Carla and Jonny, her husband, are part of a new wave of crofter chefs or field-to-fork farmers spreading across Scotland. Crofting is, essentially, small-scale subsistence farming, the crofter traditionally rearing a few animals and growing vegetables on the smallholding, and maintaining a job or two on the side.

Now, just as the architect-designed, off-grid bothy is a world away from the bare-bones huts that once gave shepherds shelter, the croft has been reinvented. Our back-to-the-land yearnings, fuelled by programmes such as This Farming Life and Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild, have turned crofting into a modern rural fantasy.

The new generation of crofters still juggle jobs, but today, that usually involves tourism rather than working for the local laird. For Jonny and Carla, it’s a restaurant called Ninth Wave and a cute cabin, the Sea Shanty (sleeps two from £800 a week).

They met 30 years ago when Carla, from Canada, answered an ad for a chef on the neighbouring island of Iona. Jonny’s nickname, Carla smiles, is “the lobster man”. Every day, he hikes two miles cross-country to his small boat, the Sonsie, returning with the catch that Carla cooks in the restaurant. They also cure, smoke and brine seafood and meat on Bruach Mhor croft. When Jonny’s not fishing, he’s working the land.

They grow about 80% of the fruit and vegetables for the restaurant in their kitchen garden, everything from cardoons to wasabi, and forage for wild herbs on the croft. They’ve counted more than 150 seasonal greens, herbs and edible flowers growing wild here. Bumping up the dirt track for lunch, the hedgerow is billowing with fluffy meadowsweet. “I’ll be harvesting it later for panna cotta,” Carla tells me.

“People don’t realise you can eat so many flowers.” The pots of blowsy blooms by the door, it turns out, are also on the menu. “Marigolds are edible and so are dahlias. You can eat the flowers and the tubers. The Mexicans used them as their main starch crop hundreds of years ago. They’re wonderful roasted; like a cross between a potato and a jerusalem artichoke.”

The restaurant was once the barn or bothy, with a dirt floor and tin roof, attached to their one-bedroom cottage. And while the produce for the menu might mainly be locally grown, reared or caught, the inspiration for Carla’s dishes comes from her travels. At the end of each season, the couple head off on food adventures, grazing their way through Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.

For lunch I’m tucking into a Mexican-inspired dish: Jonny’s lobster teetering on garden-grown roasted corn salsa, a creamy Yucatan avocado and hoja santo soup, laced with lemon verbena and Vietnamese coriander. “It’s not fine dining,” she shrugs, “it’s street food presented nicely.”

At the other end of the island, another restaurant on a croft is also making waves as much for its architectural wow factor as its pasture-to-plate menus. Jeanette Cutlack moved to Mull from Brighton in 2008 and ran a pop-up restaurant for 10 years in her home. Her dream, however, was to restore the abandoned croft and ruined barn down the lane.

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With the help of an old university friend, Edward Farleigh-Dastmalchi, who founded London-based architects Fardaa, she began work. Croft 3 is now a destination restaurant, the old steading converted into a pared-back, cathedral-style dining space, open to the rafters with bare plaster walls and vast windows framing sea views; the project won a prestigious Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland award. Diners eat the simple, field-to-fork menus at long communal tables cut from a single Douglas fir. Starters such as crab arancini and lemon mayonnaise are served alongside spicy haggis, cornbread and salsa verde. Haggis is Jeanette’s speciality and she also runs haggis-making workshops.

Now that the land has been cleared, the 20-hectare croft is starting to bear fruit. Jeanette has planted a nectarine tree and kiwi vine. In a polytunnel, she and her family grow salad and herbs while a small flock of Hebridean sheep grazes the hill that is part of the land. Last September, hogget was on the menu for the first time. What they don’t grow or rear themselves, they source from neighbouring crofts and fishers.

Mull once lagged behind the Hebrides’ culinary powerhouse, Skye, but it’s starting to emerge from its shadow. A food and drink trail around the island highlights a growing number of artisan producers as well as gourmet pit stops such as pop-up turned permanent fixture Ar Bòrd (our table). Iain and Joyce Hetherington have converted their front room into a restaurant showcasing the local produce – from creel-caught shellfish landed at Croig on the island’s north coast, to organic vegetables grown by Carol Guidicelli on her croft at Langamull, near Croig, along with their in-house smoked venison. On the tiny community-owned island of Ulva, meanwhile, a short boat ride away, the Boathouse, recently revamped by Banjo Beale, winner of a TV interior design show, has become one of the hottest lunch spots, with diners crammed around picnic tables devouring plates of briny langoustine and crab claws on the water’s edge.

And then there is the well established but ever-evolving award-winning Sgriob-ruadh farm, where they produce Isle of Mull cheese, just a few minutes’ drive from Tobermory’s pastel-painted waterfront. The Reade family arrived on the island with five cows in the 1980s and rebuilt a rundown dairy operation, starting cheese production a few years later. The farm’s Glass Barn cafe is a fabulous, foliage-festooned space where you can sample signature cheese and charcuterie platters or a bowl of homemade soup and a cheese scone before taking the far from run-of-the-mill tour.

Our small tour group meets the US cheese-maker Troy by the pig pen. After hearing a potted family history, we move on to the milking parlour where he weaves in science and Willy Wonka-style invention. The milk, he explains, is pumped to the cheese-making shed next door via an underground tank. The warm milk, fresh from the cows’ udders, heats the water used by the cafe. Walking us through the cheese-making process, we head underground to the vast cheese cellar, meet newborn calves and piglets and learn about innovative sustainable farming initiatives.

The leftover whey from the cheesemaking was once used to feed the pigs – until they found a better use for it. In the farmyard a smart new micro-distillery uses the whey to make gin and “whey-ski” – possibly a pun too far, a barrel-aged spirit. The tour ends with a tasting. The gin has a surprisingly distinctive creaminess, the whey-ski is pure fire water.

“It’s not sweet like a bourbon,” Troy says as he pours another dram. “It’s more like an Irish whiskey.” I knock it back, thinking that’s the thing about Mull: for outside-the-box thinking and wild culinary innovation, it’s leading the way.

Ninth Wave: four-course lunch £80 (not open for dinner). Croft 3: two-course menu £42, three courses £50. The Boathouse: half lobster £25, langoustines £18 (a la carte). Ar Bòrd: three-course set menu £55pp. Isle of Mull Cheese tour: £20

A Mandria di Murtoli, Corsica

A hamlet of restored rural buildings in the Ortolo valley in Corsica reopened in June as A Mandria di Murtoli. Guests can stay in a former sheepfold, stable or barn, or one of five rooms in the main house. Three of the smaller properties have private pools, all rooms have terraces and there is a big shared pool. The buildings have been refurbished by Corsican craftspeople in a minimalist Mediterranean style, using local materials.

The neighbouring farm has also been revived around a model of subsistence farming: raising livestock, market gardening and growing traditional crops. The restaurant serves Sardinian-influenced food made with the ingredients grown on the estate and sourced from other local farms. There are just 30 seats, some on a terrace with a fire pit under olive and orange trees.

The hamlet is part of the wider Domaine de Murtoli, which has three other places to eat – a traditional Corsican restaurant, a beachfront spot and the Michelin-starred La Table de la Ferme – and offers wine-tasting. It is about 9 miles north to Sartène, an ancient hill town, a few miles south to Erbaju beach, and a little further to the fortress town of Bonifacio.
Doubles from £229 B&B, amandriadimurtoli.com

Rastrello, Umbria, Italy

This boutique hotel is set in the renovated remains of a 500-year-old palazzo, surrounded by its own olive groves (which are hand-raked at harvest time; rastrello means rake in Italian). The palazzo is in the medieval village of Panicale, above Lake Trasimeno. This summer, the hotel opened a new garden annex, increasing the rooms from nine to 16, plus a dipping pool and wellness area. Rooms have wooden floors, stone walls and beams; some have lake views and balconies.

The restaurant, Cucina & Giardino, serves the farm’s award-winning extra-virgin olive oil, ingredients from its organic vegetable gardens and surrounding producers, and Umbrian wines. It has a terrace overlooking the lake and its own cookbook, also featuring villagers’ recipes. Guests can take olive oil-tasting workshops and cooking classes, and go on truffle-hunting walks and wine-tasting tours. The homegrown produce is also used in the spa treatments, with scrubs made from olive oil and crushed olive stones mixed with herbs and citrus, and in herbal teas such as lavender, lemon balm and wildflowers.

Panicale has a grape festival in September. There is a 40-mile walking and cycling path around the lake, which is the fourth biggest in Italy, with cafe stops at waterfront towns such as Passignano. Perugia, the capital of Umbria, is about 35km away – it has an enormous chocolate festival in November.
Doubles from £240 B&B, rastrello.com

Sibbjäns, Gotland, Sweden

This small, family-run farm on the southern tip of Gotland opened a farm‑to-fork restaurant and hotel this summer. Guests stay in the 19th-century farmhouse, which has nine bedrooms, a library, a natural pool and a garden; there are simpler rooms in the adjacent farmstead. By next summer, there will be a sauna, outdoor gym and yoga barn. Visitors can help harvest tomatoes, learn about organic growing and composting, and meet the resident rabbits, chickens, pigs and sheep.

The restaurant serves a four-course set menu year-round and an additional a la carte menu in summer, featuring the farm’s own vegetables, meat and berries, plus local cheese and seafood. Dishes might include kohlrabi with lumpfish roe and a dill and butter sauce; grilled lamb with leeks, legumes and fresh garlic; and raspberries with emmer sponge cake and marigold ice-cream.

Gotland is a foodie hotspot whose specialities include saffron pancakes with dewberry jam, black truffles and purple asparagus, and juniper-flavoured ale. There is a food festival in late September and a truffle festival each November; microbreweries and a vineyard to visit; and more excellent restaurants such as Lilla Bjers, about 4 miles (7km) south of medieval Visby, the capital. The island has sandy beaches, sea stacks, ivy forests and more than 100 nature reserves.
Doubles from £210 B&B, dinner £62pp, sibbjans.se

Stone Barn, County Cork, Ireland

A restored farm building near Skibbereen in West Cork is now a small B&B with two double bedrooms and a converted wagon. The co-owner, Stuart Kearney, is from Northern Ireland but trained as a chef in Stockholm and serves Nordic‑influenced Irish food. Breakfast could be freshly baked bread and pastries, porridge with whiskey-soaked prunes, and home-smoked bacon with eggs laid by his own hens. Kearney cooks a seven-course tasting menu (every night except Wednesdays and Sundays) showcasing his own vegetables and produce from neighbours and local farmers. The menu changes daily but could include Skeaghanore duck breast or miso-cured cod.

The rooms also have a Scandi style; there is a cosy sitting room with a wood burner; and a hot tub. Guests can take walks along the Sheep’s Head Way, and Kearney can recommend cycling routes. Skibbereen, a 12-minute drive away, has pubs and restaurants, a Saturday market and Fields, which opened in 1935 and is said to be the best supermarket in Ireland. Just beyond is Lough Hyne, a salt-water lake – its bioluminescent algae can be seen on a night kayaking trip. Other day trip options include nearby fishing villages such as Baltimore, which has ferries to Sherkin Island and Cape Clear Island.
Doubles from £142 B&B, dinner £65pp, sawdays.co.uk

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Quinta Camarena, Alentejo, Portugal

Vera and Cam Camarena have turned a farmhouse in Cercal, a coastal town in Costa Vicentina, south-west Portugal, into an eco retreat. They have backgrounds in fashion (Vera, from Porto) and photography (Cam, from Los Angeles), and the restoration looks great: original features, calming colour schemes and locally made textiles and artworks. Food and wine is part of the package – the couple serve healthy brunches and dinners made with Alentejo produce, run cheese- and jam-making workshops and cooking classes, and organise visits to artisanal bakeries, wineries, organic farms and local markets. They also run a three-night sustainable food and wine retreat, and a “not so serious” surf, yoga and wine retreat.

The newest rooms are in the forest, a few minutes’ walk away from the communal areas, and are multilevel with terraces for sunset views. There are also rooms and apartments in the old country houses; the whole property sleeps 23 (no children under 12) and is pet-friendly.

There are gardens with vegetable plots; a pool, gym, yoga studio and sauna; and hiking trails. Cercal is a short walk away, and it is a 15-minute drive to surf beaches. Lisbon is two hours by car.
Doubles from £95 B&B, quintacamarena.com

Penrhiw Farm, Pembrokeshire

Chef Alan Latter was born and raised on Penrhiw Farm, near Goodwick in north Pembrokeshire, and, after years working in hotels and restaurants, he has returned to run the farm with his partner, Philip. The 17th-century farmhouse is now a four-bedroom B&B, and there is a glamping option in a converted horsebox.

Latter cooks a Welsh breakfast every morning, and offers a fixed two-course kitchen supper every other evening (May to September; on request, October to April). Ingredients are homegrown or locally sourced, including vegetables from the garden; eggs, milk and cheese from the 80-hectare (200-acre) organic farm; and Pembrokeshire meat and seafood.

The menu changes daily – perhaps hake fillet with a herb crust, crushed peas, runner beans, pommes anna and hollandaise sauce, followed by a vanilla Basque cheesecake with blood orange and rhubarb compote. There is a small selection of wines and Welsh beers, or guests are welcome to bring their own.

The rooms are furnished with furniture repurposed from the Dorchester hotel in London, and decorated with Welsh artworks, blankets and ceramics. The big sitting room has an open fire and lots of books, there are beautiful gardens and the farm is on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. Sustainable energy comes from an air-source heat pump, solar panels and a wind turbine.
Doubles from £115 B&B, dinner £28pp, penrhiwfarm.co.uk

In Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, travel writer Jan Morris described the city’s many faces and “ambivalence”, maintaining that, unlike most other Italian cities, it has “no unmistakable cuisine”. But I had come to Trieste to experience, if not a cuisine, then a culinary tradition which, to me at least, does seem unmistakable: the osmiza scene of the surrounding countryside.

An osmiza (or osmize in the plural) is a Slovene term for a smallholding that produces wine in the Karst Plateau, a steep rocky ridge scattered with pine and a patchwork of vineyards that overlooks the Adriatic Sea. Visiting osmize is a centuries-old tradition in which these homesteads open their doors to the public for a fleeting period each year. Guests order their food and wine at a till inside – where a simply tiled bar, often set into local stone, might boast family photos, halogen lights and a chalkboard menu – before heading outside to feast at long Oktoberfest-style tables and benches.

“On the Italian side of the border, we just serve cold food,” Jacob Zidarich tells us, as he places down plates of pickled courgette, house-cured salumi, local cow’s milk cheese and a homemade sausage with mustard and grated horseradish. “But in Slovenia, you find cooked food.”

I am sitting with my partner on the hot terrace at Zidarich’s family home, looking out over a glittering Adriatic. To accompany our food, Zidarich pours two glasses of liquid gold vitovska, a white wine indigenous to this corner of Friuli-Venezia-Giulia, the north-eastern Italian region that borders Slovenia, and which is home to the port city of Trieste.

To understand the tradition of visiting osmize is to grasp something of Trieste’s complex history and multifaceted cultural identity. The word derives from the Slovenian osem, meaning “eight”, a reference to a decree by 18th-century Holy Roman empress Maria Theresa that farmers in the Karst could sell their wares for eight consecutive days each year.

The result is an enduring tradition in which farmers only open for a short time each season, although almost all of them are now open for more than eight days a year. For this reason, no two osmiza-based itineraries are the same. Turn up at virtually any time of year and there will be osmize open – especially over the warmer months – all offering an affordable flavour of the Friulian countryside.

You’ll pay little more than €2-3 for a quarter-litre carafe of wine and €12-15 for an abundant platter of cold cuts, pickles and pillowy white bread. The tradition is particular to this tiny nook of Friuli, although as Zidarich indicated, it also exists – with differences – over the Slovenian border. Our focus is the Italian side where you can check which osmize are open (on the day of writing, there are 13) and at what time on the website osmize.com.

I base myself at the charming Hotel Albero Nascosto in the centre of Trieste for three nights and, with the intention of visiting as many of the osmize as possible, hire a car. I make it to four osmize, and realise quickly that Zidarich is something of an exception. Although his family had been making simple white and red wines for generations, it was his father, Benjamin, who transformed the farm into one of the most respected wine producers in the region. At other osmize we mostly drink wine from kegs. Some might describe these places as rustic, but even the table wines here have a clear style and moreish complexity to them.

Next up is Verginella Dean, an osmiza bustling with both locals and visitors and known for its peerless view of the Gulf of Trieste. From here the city’s Piazza Unità d’Italia is just visible, as is the brutalist Temple of Monte Grisa (which we visit afterwards). From an outdoor bar with two wine taps, I order a quarter of malvasia for two of us and a mixed platter of pork cuts, triangles of salty cheese and sun-dried tomatoes “for one” (it could feed four).

Osmize aren’t so much a cuisine as a gastronomic tradition, but I might have put to Jan Morris that they are emblematic of a place that, although bureaucratically Italian, has strong Slovenian influences. Zidarich’s vineyards straddle the border with most of the land being in Italy, but Slovenian is the language spoken at home, as with all the farmers I met.

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“We don’t feel Italian here, we feel like we’re from Trieste,” says Theresa Sandalj, who owns a green coffee import business based in the city. The daughter of Trieste Slovenians, she tells me she grew up without any Italian traditions – “no lasagne, no ravioli” – and that when she met her Milanese husband she gave him a copy of Morris’s book “to explain what I was”.

Trieste, then, is at a crossroads between three great European cultures: Roman, Slavic and Austrian. But it doesn’t stop there – it’s a multi-faith, “inter-racial jumble”, as Morris had it, home to one of the largest synagogues in Europe alongside Greek and Serbian Orthodox churches. Its significant immigrant communities rub shoulders.

Besides osmize, there are plenty of reasons for hungry travellers to visit Trieste, from its quirky coffee culture complete with its own vocabulary (here an espresso is a nero, which could refer to a glass of red wine elsewhere in the region) to fresh fish and seafood at restaurants such as Trattoria Nerodiseppia and Le Barettine, which are both within spitting distance of the hotel.

We also loved Mimì e Cocotte, a centrally located seasonal restaurant that combines the humility of home-cooked food with a sense of occasion, and specialises in regional natural wines. With these we wash down courgette frittata and two plates of pasta – cacio e pepe, and cavatelli with tomatoes and stracciatella. Just outside Trieste, in the seaside village of Duino, Alla Dama Bianca has the fading charm of a 1970s hotspot. Here we eat razor clams and watch swans glide across the water as the sun sets.

Back in Trieste, on Via Giusto Muratti, we discover Pagna, an artisanal bakery and natural wine bar run by the Serbian pastry chef Pedja Kostic, who was drawn to Trieste from Belgrade via the US, by the wine scene. At Pagna I eat the almond croissant of my life: a perfect crisp pastry with a pillowy interior hugging not-too-much frangipane.

But it was for osmize that I came, where each one reflects the people behind it. At Šuc Erika, an osmiza in the middle of a farmyard, whose walls are adorned with a picture depicting ricotta production and felt-tip drawings by previous child guests, we order from a woman in a Metallica T-shirt. Afterwards, we sit under a pergola of ripening grapes. Rather magically, we are the only ones here, and sip our drinks (which, unusually, include a delicious cloudy beer brewed in-house) to a soundtrack of cattle lowing and stamping their hooves.

Unable to resist just one more before we leave, we head to Osmiza Boris in Medeazza, where Boris’s wife, Patricia, is behind the bar. She tells us about the salumi, wine vinegars, olive oil and honey they make on-site, while two teenage sons pad in and out of a courtyard in flip-flops. Boris was recommended to us by a waiter at La Dama Bianca as one of his favourites to visit before work, which gives you some indication of how widely enjoyed osmize are here – democratic and available to everybody, when they happen to be open.

The trip was provided by Promo Turismo FVG, the tourist board of Friuli-Venezia-Giulia. Doubles at Hotel Albero Nascosto from £120 B&B

Herring festival in The Hague

Despite its name, Flag Day (Vlaggetjesdag) in Scheveningen – a seaside resort close to The Hague – is actually more about fresh herring. Fishmongers bring in the first catch of the year in June, the hollandse nieuwe, and mark the start of the herring season with festivities, marching bands, wearing traditional costumes, and even an auction of the first vat of fish to raise money for charity. Don’t miss the chance to share a jenever (gin) with a Scheveninger, who will tell you how this year’s herring compares with last year’s.
Olivia

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Guardian Travel readers’ tips

Every week we ask our readers for recommendations from their travels. A selection of tips will be featured online and may appear in print. To enter the latest competition visit the readers’ tips homepage

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Flatbread heaven in Bosnia and Herzegovina

On the road from Sarajevo to Mostar, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is a small bakery in the town of Ostrožac called Pekara Centar. There, for less than a euro, you can enjoy lepinja with kajmak – a charred traditional flatbread made in a stone oven and filled with a rich, creamy spread from a local dairy. The bakery is on one of the most picturesque roads through the Neretva River canyon, making this delicious bite even more special.
AG

Catch of the day in Bavaria

In the beautiful surrounds of Chiemsee, southern Germany, my partner and I enjoyed a lunch of fresh fish at the family-run Chiemseefischerei Stephan, just west of the lake. With just a couple of options available on each daily menu, we didn’t have to faff around with a complicated order, and instead enjoyed the simplicity of the fish, rich potatoes, crisp salad and local Bavarian weissbier in the modern wood-panelled room. There was also Chiemsee sushi on the menu. I remember stepping out of the restaurant afterwards into the bright sunshine, hand in hand with my partner, mountains in the distance, and thinking: could life get any better?
Ellen

A mountainous feast in Kosovo

After scaling Kosovo’s highest peak, Gjeravica, Gacaferi Guest House provides delicious home-cooked food in an idyllic setting surrounded by mountains and shepherds herding flocks. Expect delicious byrek (savoury pastry), fergesë (Albanian red peppers and feta cheese), speca në ajkë (fermented peppers with yoghurt), and homemade cheese – all cooked over a wood fire and washed down with local rakia.
Ross Cameron

A brilliant kitchen garden in the Czech Republic

In the off-the-beaten-path Klatovy region of the Czech Republic’s south-west, I spent a few days driving around rolling countryside, climbing lookout towers and cooling off in rivers while looking out for kingfishers. The food scene was surprisingly excellent, with the highlight being Hospůdka U Štěpána, a fantastic restaurant near Sušice. A huge kitchen garden provides most of the produce, accompanying the wide range of different steaks from self-reared charolais beef. Fried courgette flowers followed by striploin in chimichurri sauce were some highlights in our August visit, along with the rustic vibe and more than fair price.
Enrico

My favourite pizza in Rome

Having tested a few pizza-piazza combinations in Rome, we enjoyed a pizza from Antico Forno Roscioli sitting on the kerb in Piazza Navona. It’s a 500-metre walk from the 19th-century bakery to the 15th-century public space (built atop the first-century Circus Agonalis). It’s the best pizza in Rome (in my humble view) and a relatively uncrowded and spectacular baroque spectacle of a square (oval?).
Daniel Becker

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Gourmet cycling in the Netherlands

We caught the train to Groningen in the Netherlands and spent five days cycling its extensive paths. Every night we indulged in a four-course, fine-dining experience. Ginger soup or fried polenta with wasabi, local beef or salmon tartare followed by organic Dutch cheeses, and a liquorice sorbet with blackberry creams. Perfect after a 30-mile cycle ride, and a constant source of conversation.
Sophie

Jazz and open-air dining in rural France

We stumbled across the biodynamic vineyard La Guinguette du Domaine Gayrard in Virac, north-east of Toulouse, and found that not only did it produce some lovely wines but it also hosted a guinguette (open air dining from a simple menu with live music) during the summer months. We booked for dinner and were blown away. This gastronomic triumph was complimented by the most beautiful surroundings: we sat outside, looking over the vineyards as mellow jazz was played and the chef cooked our meal from a trailer. A truly unexpected gourmet experience.
Rachael

Honest hospitality in northern Italy

At Ca’Ordano in the hills of Monferrato, the tasting was simple but unforgettable. A glass of nebbiolo red wine came first with a simple plate of local salami and cheeses. Then, agnolotti pasta filled with roast beef, perfectly paired with a rich monferrato rosso. The visit was small-scale and personal, with no fuss or ceremony, just honest hospitality and food rooted in terroir – they’d hate me for calling it that, but it is what it is: a quiet, undiscovered corner of Piedmont with true flavours among the rolling hills.
Mariateresa Boffo

Winning tip: the old Crete ways are the best

In the hills west of Rethymno there is Atsipopoulo village, famous for Ta Souvlakia tou Gagani, a lovely restaurant sitting in a beautiful church courtyard. But a tiny restaurant called O Manolis, sitting in a less-illustrious location (the seating occupies empty parking spaces off the main street), embodies everything good about rural Crete. Deliciousness beyond description is produced in that restaurant and served with genuine Greek warmth. With no menu, Manolis serves whatever is harvested that day from his garden, declaring confidently it’s the greatest in Europe, or what he hunts and forages from the hills in the old Cretan way.
Rory Ferguson

In 1909, French journalist-turned-entrepreneur Pierre-Francois Lardet returned from a trip to Nicaragua determined to recreate a beverage he had tasted there.

Five years later, in August 1914, Banania was born.

The arrival of the chocolate-flavoured banana powder drink came just as France found itself at war.

The following year, its mascot – a Black soldier wearing a red fez – first appeared on an advertising poster.

During World War I, 200,000 African soldiers fought for France on the battlefields of Europe, Africa and Anatolia. They came from French colonies in West and Central Africa. Many were forcibly recruited.

The African soldier on the Banania poster resembled soldiers known as the Senegalese Tirailleurs (riflemen), who wore a signature red fez. This military corps, founded in 1857, was given its name because its first recruits came from Senegal.

The tirailleurs were famed for their bravery. They were first sent to serve in the colonial wars in West and Central Africa, before fighting in World War I (1914-18). During World War II (1939-45), they served in France, North Africa and the Middle East. At least 30,000 tirailleurs died during the First World War, while an estimated 8,000 died during the Second.

Banania’s tirailleur is smiling, sitting on the grass with a bowl of the powdered drink and a rifle by his side. His exaggerated smile and facial features resemble the racial stereotypes popular at the time and seen in advertisements for chocolate, soap and shoe polish.

The poster’s slogan, “Y’a bon”, meaning “C’est bon” (this is good) in the simplified French taught to colonial soldiers, furthered the racist caricature of the cheerful but simple African. The company referred to its mascot as “L’ami Y’a bon” – the Y’a bon friend.

Against the backdrop of World War I, Lardet’s Mascot tapped into a mood of patriotism and pride in French colonialism. But it also helped to encourage public acceptance of African soldiers fighting on French soil, explains Sandrine Lemaire, a historian and co-author of several books on French colonisation. Banania wasn’t alone. The French authorities also sought to use images highlighting the loyalty and military qualities of France’s African soldiers through propaganda, postcards and news articles.

“The tirailleur was an opportunistic advertising invention from Lardet … which made the consumption of Banania a quasi-patriotic act,” said Pap Ndiaye, a politician and historian, during a 2010 talk about Banania and colonial oppression.

Banania was promoted through children’s comics featuring the mascot. In one, he returns to his homeland from France, bringing two boxes of Banania to Africans dressed in loincloths. In an illustrated booklet published in 1933, he takes Banania to France before going to the West Indies, the Canary Islands and French colonial Indochina to set up banana plantations.

“In the 20s, 30s, 40s, Banania was everywhere. It had touchpoints in all domains – cinema, packaging, promotional items, notebooks,” said branding expert Jean Watin-Augouard in a 2014 documentary about Banania.

Meanwhile, between the late 1930s and the early 1950s, according to the sole book published about Banania’s history, the company tripled production. These were Banania’s golden years before Nesquik entered the market in the 1960s.

The mascot, which appeared in advertising, packaging and collectible items, such as toys, was popular throughout the 20th century because it reinforced French people’s pride in their colonial empire and their “subjects’” contribution to the war effort, says Etienne Achille, an associate professor of French and Francophone studies at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.

Shaken by decolonisation

But as the French colonies in Africa fought for and gained independence in the 1950s and early 1960s, Banania was also shaken by decolonisation.

Increasingly, Banania – with its slogan and stereotyped mascot – became shorthand for colonialism and racism. The tirailleur, in representing soldiers forced to fight for France, came to embody the injustice denounced by anti-colonial movements.

“I will tear up the Banania smiles from all the walls of France,” wrote Leopold Sedar Senghor, who became Senegal’s first president in 1960, in a 1948 poem dedicated to the tirailleurs.

A few years later, Martinique-born philosopher-psychiatrist Frantz Fanon made several references to “Y’a bon Banania” in his 1952 book Black Skin, White Masks, to denote how Black people in France are seen through the lens of racist tropes.

But, despite the criticisms, the mascot remained, albeit with updates.

In 1967, when advertising sold modern, aspirational lifestyles, it became simplified and geometric: a brown triangular face with cartoon eyes and a red rectangular hat on a yellow background. The slogan, however, was retired in 1977.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a cartoonish child’s face was introduced on some of the brand’s products, while others retained the mascot.

In 2004, after Banania was acquired by French company Nutrial under a holding company, Nutrimaine, a new mascot was unveiled: the “grandson” of the 1915 tirailleur, who, according to Nutrimaine, symbolised diversity and the successful integration of migrant communities into French society. But his stereotyped features weren’t so different from his predecessor’s, with his ecstatic smile, white teeth and red fez.

During the last decades of the 20th century, the French brand never regained its dominant position and continued to lose ground to competitors like Nesquik. It had struggled financially while becoming less popular among younger generations.

“They had to return to the golden era of the brand to save the company. There was only one way to do it: to go back to the emblem. Very few brands are so connected to their emblem,” explained Achille. “This rejuvenated version effectively plays on the idea of superposition. When you see it, you immediately think of the old tirailleur.”

The design also caught the attention of writers and activists at Grioo.com, an online platform for the French-speaking Black community in Europe and Africa. “Can we tolerate that in 2005 we are represented as our ancestors were 90 years ago?” Grioo asked its readers, launching an online petition against Banania.

‘Hurtful’ heritage

More than two decades later, the “grandson” still smiles on Banania boxes in supermarkets across France.

For Achille, Banania’s marketing epitomises France’s lack of public debate about colonialism and postcolonial racism. “Only the complete imbrication of the colonial into popular culture can explain why Banania can continue to operate with impunity,” he said. “In other countries, this would not be possible.”

A spokesperson for Nutrimaine declined to provide comment for this article.

Awatif Bentahar, 37, grew up seeing Banania on supermarket shelves and drinking it on occasion. She says, “The company hasn’t understood how their heritage can actually be hurtful to a big part of the population.

“The French ‘children of immigrants’ see the painful history of colonisation and the struggle we are waging today to be respected in a society that cannot help but refer on a daily basis to our status of ‘different’ French.”

As a graphic designer and a French woman of Moroccan descent, Bentahar would like to see Banania evolve. As a personal project, she created alternative decolonised packaging, removing the mascot and drawing from previous designs to include playful eyes and a smile.

“I decided to try to rebrand Banania, not because I hate it, but because I actually like the idea of what it could be. Brands are part of our lives, whether we like it or not,” she wrote on her blog.

“This one happens to be part of my childhood, and I would love to see it being on the good side of history for a change.”

This article is part of “Ordinary items, extraordinary stories”, a series about the surprising stories behind well-known items. 

Read more from the series:

How the inventor of the bouncy castle saved lives

How a popular Peruvian soft drink went ‘toe-to-toe’ with Coca-Cola

How a drowning victim became a lifesaving icon

How a father’s love and a pandemic created a household name

How Nigerians reinvented an Italian tinned tomato brand

In the vast catalog of relationship science research, very little focuses on the second date — or at least beyond what it takes to land one.

There are ample studies about first dates and initial attraction, which are often conducted in speed dating-style experiments. On the opposite end of the spectrum, some researchers devote their entire careers to studying long-term relationship trajectories. But few delineations are made among the dates that make up the period between meet-cute and making it official.

Even under a pop-culture dating framework, which assigns some value to early dating milestones including the third date and the three-month mark, Date No. 2 falls to the wayside.

Yet the second date is psychologically significant, because it marks most daters’ first venture past “initial clearance,” said Bree Jenkins, a licensed marriage and family therapist and dating coach based in Los Angeles.

Instructions for a first date are clear: Introduce yourselves and decide whether you’re compatible. This “meet and greet,” as Jenkins called it, most often happens over coffee or drinks.

“The second date is different, because you have some level of psychological reassurance that the other person is interested,” Jenkins said. “So some of the anxiety comes down, and I think it’s a little bit easier for people to be more intentional about how they want to connect.”

The Times spoke with relationship scientists and dating coaches to determine what types of second-date activities might foster that early sense of connection, which ideally snowballs into successive dates.

Their insights distilled to the following criteria:

Keep it affordable

Money puts the pressure on, and the goal of a second date should be to take the pressure off.

Duana Welch, a dating and relationship coach and author of “Love Factually: 10 Proven Steps From I Wish to I Do,” said that when someone spends heavily on their date, “research shows that a lot of times, there’s a sexual expectation that’s implied or actually real.”

Such a dynamic can hinder daters’ ability to effectively gauge their compatibility, “so take that expectation away from it,” Welch said. “Do something that’s pretty simple and pretty low cost.”

In other words, don’t be stingy, she said, but focus on being generous with your time and compliments rather than with your money.

Get active, but don’t cut the conversation

General second-date advice suggests incorporating an activity as a divergence from the first date-style, sit-down conversation. Relationship scientists agreed but issued a caveat: Make sure you can still talk.

Paul Eastwick, a psychology professor at UC Davis specializing in the science of relationships, said that whereas in the past people might have interacted 10 or 20 times before they went on a first date, with the advent of online dating, “the archetype that people often have is, ‘I met you on the first date.’”

In that paradigm, a follow-up date is still ripe for introductory conversation, which can’t easily occur in many default second-date settings like a movie theater. Instead, Eastwick recommended a cooking class or immersive show — “something that permits interaction, but you’re also doing this third thing.”

Welch recommended a bike ride or museum stroll, as “people sometimes open up more where they don’t feel like they have to look right at each other.”

Lean into novelty

Lastly, the suggestion to try something new may seem like a cliché, but it’s also scientifically legitimate.

“Anytime that you have a novel experience, especially if it’s enjoyable, you’re going to release more dopamine,” Jenkins, the dating coach, said. “It gives people a way to connect and feel more positive emotion behind the connection.”

With all that in mind, here is a list of second-date ideas in L.A. that relationship experts can get behind.

Bar Benjamin’s cocktail program feels a little like alchemy: Seemingly disparate ingredients enter a drink, but the results can be liquid gold. White chocolate mingles with English peas, lemon, olive oil tequila and cream sherry, while in another potion there’s fermented-mushroom green tea with red curry, olive-leaf gin, coconut rum, cilantro, and lemongrass foam. At the upstairs follow-up to the Benjamin, one of 2024’s best new spots to grab a drink, the cocktails are taken far beyond the downstairs focus on martinis and classics.

Owners Ben Shenassafar, Kate Burr and Jared Meisler tapped Jason Lee (formerly of n/soto, Baroo) and Chad Austin (formerly of the Mulholland, Bootlegger Tiki) to steer the new venture, and they’ve injected the dimly lit space with equal parts creativity and technical prowess. They draw on L.A.’s cross-cultural landscape with ingredients like Parmesan-washed Oaxacan rum, Sichuan peppercorn-laced mezcal and miso-imbued rye. There’s taro in the clarified milk punch and everything-bagel seasoning in the Gibson, and there’s a selection of bar snacks and small plates — beef tartare, shrimp rolls, deviled eggs — to round it all out.

There are few countries in the world where Coca-Cola isn’t the most popular soft drink. But in Peru, that position is held by Inca Kola – an almost 100-year-old beverage deeply embedded in the national identity.

The yellow soda – meant to evoke the grandeur of the ancient Inca Empire and its reverence for gold – was the creation of Joseph Robinson Lindley. The British immigrant had set out from the coal mining town of Doncaster, England, for Peru in 1910 and soon after set up a drinks factory in a working-class district of the capital, Lima.

He started producing small-batch carbonated fruit drinks and gradually expanded. When Inca Kola was created in 1935, with its secret recipe of 13 herbs and aromatics, it was just a year ahead of Coca-Cola’s arrival in the country. Recognising the threat posed by the soft drink giant, which had launched in the US in 1886 and made inroads across Latin America, Lindley invested in the budding television advertising industry to promote Inca Kola.

Advertisement campaigns featuring Inca Kola bottles with their vaguely Indigenous motifs and slogans like “the flavour that unites us” appealed to Peru’s multiethnic society – and to its Inca roots.

It fostered a sense of national pride, explains Andres Macara-Chvili, a marketing professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. “Inca Kola was one of the first brands in Peru that connected with a sense of Peruanidad, or what it means to be Peruvian. It spoke to Peruvians about what we are – diverse,” he says.

But it wasn’t only the drink’s appeal to Peruvian identity or its unique flavour (described by some as tasting like bubblegum, by others as being similar to chamomile tea) that enhanced brand awareness. Amid the turmoil of a world war, Inca Kola would also come to prominence for another reason.

Finding opportunity in a wartime boycott

At the tail end of the 1890s, Japan had sent roughly 18,000 contract labourers to Peru. Most went to the country’s budding coastal sugar and cotton plantations. Upon arriving, they found themselves subjected to low wages, exploitative work schedules, and unsanitary and overcrowded living conditions, which led to deadly outbreaks of dysentery and typhus. Unable to afford passage back to Japan after they’d completed their four-year contracts, many of the Japanese labourers remained in Peru – moving to urban centres where they opened businesses, notably bodegas, or small grocery stores.

Denied access to loans from Peruvian banks, as their community grew in number and economic standing, they established their own savings and credit cooperatives.

“Among their community, money began to circulate, and with it they raised the capital to open small businesses,” explains Alejandro Valdez Tamashiro, a researcher of Japanese migration to Peru.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Japanese community emerged as a formidable merchant class. But with that came animosity.

By the mid-1930s, anti-Japanese sentiment had begun to fester. Nationalist politicians and xenophobic media accused the community of running a monopoly on the Peruvian economy, and, in the build-up to World War II, of espionage.

By the start of that war in 1939, Peru was home to the second-largest Japanese community in Latin America. The following year, one incident of racially motivated attacks and lootings against the community resulted in at least 10 deaths, six million dollars in damage and loss of property for more than 600 Japanese families.

Since its release, Inca Kola had been widely sold in the mainly Japanese-owned bodegas.

With the outbreak of war, its competitor, Coca-Cola, received a huge boost internationally. The US firm, which for years had used political connections to expand overseas, became a de facto envoy of US foreign policy, burnishing its image as a symbol of democracy and freedom.

The soda giant obtained lucrative military contracts guaranteeing that 95 percent of soft drinks stocked on US military bases were Coca-Cola products, essentially placing Coke at the centre of the US war effort. Coke featured in wartime posters while war photographers captured soldiers drinking from the glass bottles.

Back in Peru, in the wake of the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Coca-Cola halted distribution of its soda to Peru’s Japanese merchants, whose bodegas were by now one of the main suppliers of the US carbonated drink.

Recognising a brass tacks opportunity to boost sales, the Lindley family – already outselling a fledgling Coca-Cola domestically – doubled down as the main soft drink supplier to the spurned community. With Japanese-owned bodegas forming a sizeable distribution network across Lima, Inca Kola quickly stepped in to fill the shelf space left empty by Coca-Cola’s exit.

The wartime shift gave Inca Kola an even stronger foothold in the market and laid the groundwork for a lasting sense of loyalty between the Japanese-Peruvian community and the Inca Kola brand.

Hostility towards the community intensified during the war. Throughout the early 1940s, a deeply US-allied Peruvian government hosted a US military base along its coast, broke off diplomatic relations with Japan, shuttered Japanese institutions and initiated a government deportation programme against Japanese Peruvians.

Despite this, today more than 300,000 Peruvians claim Japanese ancestry, and the community’s imprint can be seen in many sectors, including in the country’s Asian-Peruvian fusion eateries, where Inca Kola is a mainstay on menus.

Taking on a giant – and then joining forces

Inca Kola would go on to narrowly outcompete Coca-Cola for decades. But by the late 1990s, the company was mired in debt after a decades-long effort to contain its main rival.

Following heavy losses, in 1999, the Lindleys sold a 50 percent stake of their company to Coca-Cola for an estimated $200m.

“You were the soft drink that went toe-to-toe with this giant international corporation, and then you sold out. At the time, it was unforgivable,” reflects Macara-Chvili. “Today, those feelings are not so intense. It’s in the past.”

Still, Coca-Cola, in recognising the soft drink’s regional value, allowed the Lindley Corporation to maintain domestic ownership of the brand and to retain bottling and distribution rights within Peru, where Inca Kola continues to connect with local identity. Unable to beat the brand outright, Coca-Cola sought a deal that allowed it to corner a market without displacing a local favourite.

Sitting outside a grocery store with two friends in Lima’s historic centre, Josel Luis Huamani, a 35-year-old tattoo artist, pours a large glass bottle of the golden soda into three cups.

“We’re just so accustomed to the flavour. We’ve been drinking it our whole lives,” he says.

“It’s tradition, just like the Inca,” declares 45-year-old food vendor Maria Sanchez over a late lunch of beef tripe stew at a lunch counter not far from Lima’s main square.

Dining with family and friends in the highland jungle region of Chanchamayo, Tsinaki Samaniego, 24, a member of the Ashaninka Indigenous group, sips the soft drink with her meal and says, “It’s like an old friend.”

This article is part of ‘Ordinary items, extraordinary stories’, a series about the surprising stories behind well-known items.

Read more from the series:

How the inventor of the bouncy castle saved lives

New guidance has warned that holidaymakers should avoid one drink at all costs while on holiday this summer

The summer holidays have arrived, and families are embarking on globe-trotting adventures for some well-deserved breaks. But there’s one beverage you ought to steer clear of during your getaway, as it may leave you feeling rather poorly.

Fresh advice is warning holidaymakers against consuming water directly from hotel bathroom taps. Brian Toward, chief executive of UK bathroom supplier Wholesale Domestic, reveals that countless tourists remain oblivious to the potential hazards of sipping tap water straight from hotel bathrooms.

Numerous accommodations feature antiquated plumbing networks that may deliver inferior water quality compared to what you’d expect back home. Some vintage establishments still even have lead piping throughout their structures.

“If you’re staying at a hotel, it’s a good idea to avoid drinking from the bathroom tap if you can,” advises Brian.

“It might be tempting, especially if there’s no other tap in the room, but it’s better to grab a few bottles of water during your stay, especially if the hotel is older and might still have old lead pipes.”

Despite potentially holidaying in destinations with pristine water supplies, Brian cautions that numerous hotels continue to depend on massive rooftop or loft water reservoirs to service guest bathrooms.

Although these containers are generally refilled regularly, they may present contamination dangers if maintenance standards slip.

Should the water within these reservoirs become stagnant, it risks collecting limescale deposits, harmful bacteria, and even fragments from the storage unit itself.

Brian further explained: “The less frequently the water in the tank is refreshed, the more likely it is to pick up some contaminants along the way and if hotels still have old pipes, stagnant water is more likely to absorb lead and other metals, making it even more risky.”

He also emphasised that simply boiling the water in a kettle isn’t a foolproof solution.

He stated: “A common belief is that boiling tap water makes it safe to drink, which is somewhat true, but it’s important to note that doing so does not entirely eliminate the risk of chemical contamination or debris.

“While boiling tap water for 15 minutes will remove trace amounts of chlorine, and studies have shown that it can also remove up to 90% of microplastics in the water, this will not help if your water has been contaminated by lead.”

July 17 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has announced that Coca-Cola has agreed to use cane sugar in its iconic drink instead of high-fructose corn syrup, though the Atlanta-based conglomerate has yet to confirm the move.

Trump, a known heavy consumer of Diet Coke, made the announcement on his Truth Social media platform on Wednesday.

“I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so,” he said. “I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!”

High-fructose corn syrup is used as a sweetener in Coca-Cola in the United States. The move to cane sugar would align the U.S. product with Coca-Cola sold in other countries, including Mexico.

Coca-Cola has not confirmed that it is adopting cane sugar for its U.S. drinks.

In a statement, the company said: “We appreciate President Trump’s enthusiasm for our iconic Coca-Cola brand. More details on new innovative offerings within our Coca-Cola product range will be shared soon.”

This Morning star Ashley James has recalled a scary incident where she suspects her drink was spiked, which left her blacking out and meant she woke with no memory of her night.

Ashley James has recalled a scary incident where she suspected her drink was spiked and ended up blacked out. Detailing the experience, the This Morning star told Mirror: “There have been many occasions where I’ve wondered if I’ve been spiked. But we blame ourselves and think, ‘Maybe I was just drunk.’”

“I remember visiting my brother at university for a night out years ago. I had a total blackout, woke up in my brother’s room and I’d been sick – everywhere,” she said. Ashley continued: “That was a disproportionate reaction to what I drank that evening and I have no memory of the evening itself. It was terrifying.”

READ MORE: GMB’s Susanna Reid wows in ‘bright and summery’ red dress that’s £50 off at Debenhams

The mum-of-two added, “I was really young so I didn’t think about spiking or what I should do in that situation. Like so many others, I blamed myself or simply thought the drinks were stronger than I thought. Luckily, nothing worse has happened.”

In our exclusive chat, the DJ and presenter, 38, admitted she wants to better the world for her children; Alfie, four, and Ada, two, whose dad is partner Tommy Andrews – particularly after some of these terrifying experiences of her own.

“I’m outspoken, but the more you talk about things, the more you can fight for change. There are so many scary things out there, especially as a mother; the thought of my children experiencing things I have – whether it’s trolling or other issues – makes me nervous. The world’s a scary place now.”

On the topic of trolling, something celebrities are all too familiar with, she talks about her experiences on social media and gossip website, Tattle Life, which is now being shut down. The website allows users to post anonymously, but Ashley says the harassment she has encountered on it has made its way into her home life, too.

“People don’t realise that it’s not just gossiping and chatting, it’s much darker,” she says. “In my case, someone made a false allegation against me to social services, who came to my door. “I told them that, day or night, if they came to my door they’d only see loved children, so I wasn’t worried. But it does endanger people when their family is involved. It’s scary as it’s entering the real world.”

Ashley continues, “Social services are overstretched as it is, so there should be repercussions for wasting their time. Put bluntly, other children could die if social services’ attention is elsewhere because of these allegations. People need to be accountable. If they’re going to say it online, they should say it with their faces and names made public. They should be as accountable online as they are offline.”

Experiences like this have made Ashley ultra-aware when it comes to educating her children about the internet. “My son is amazing; he’s sweet, sensitive and kind and I never want the world to convince him that those aren’t worthy attributes for men. We definitely need more kind and compassionate boys and men in the world, so that’s what I want to teach him,” she says.

Earlier this year, Ashley took to social media after being told that Alfie may need extra help from the Special Educational Needs department when he begins school. Ashley says she’s trusting her gut.

“The school did a SEN report which didn’t specifically label him or say why he needs extra help, and to be honest, I don’t really mind. I think any parent would welcome extra support for their child. “My role as his mum is to guide him and to trust my instincts, to ensure that he can thrive in a school setting. So, I feel reassured.”

As we chat about creating a better world for her children, Ashley says she’s working with anti-spiking campaign CounterSpike and charity Spike Aware UK to get rid of drink spiking in the future.

Admitting she wants to get rid of the ‘victim blaming’ mentality, Ashley said: “We ask how much they’ve had to drink. Even as parents, especially with daughters, people find themselves saying, ‘You can’t go out like that.’ But you’re equating their outfit to their morals, or their safety.

“The problem – even if it’s well intended – is that it’s telling her that she’s responsible for bad things happening to her, rather than the person doing them,” says Ashley. That’s why she’s pleased that CounterSpike has developed SpikeStixx, which enables people to test their drinks. “It’s a way to reassure your mates they haven’t just drunk too much – to know for sure.

“More than anything, it will hopefully help stop people from doing it. Because, right now, statistics from CounterSpike show that 90% of spiking goes unreported.”

“One day, my son and daughter will be going out into this world without me. I would really like to think that things will improve, and they can do that without fear.”

Ashley is the official ambassador for the launch of CounterSpike’s campaign and its SpikeStixx, which are available to buy at counterspike.com

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Jenny Ryan, also known as the Vixen, competed against two contestants in the final round of ITV’s the Chase in an episode hosted by Bradley Walsh that aired yesterday

Some viewers were left confused over an answer that was accepted by host Bradley Walsh on an episode of The Chase that aired this week. It came during a team’s final showdown against Jenny Ryan on the ITV quiz show.

An episode that aired yesterday saw four contestants take on Jenny, 43, who is also known as the Vixen, in a series of general knowledge rounds. Only two of them, Nick and Laura, made it to the final round against her, though.

The contestants had amassed a prize fund of £3,000 by that point and the pair managed to get 14 correct answers in their last round. Jenny then faced her final questions and one of her answers caught the attention of viewers at home.

Early on in her final chase, Bradley, 65, asked: “What colour top indicates semi-skimmed milk on bottles?” After taking a moment over the question, Jenny responded: “Red and silver.” The host reacted to her answer: “I’ll accept.”

Some fans were confused over the decision, though, with them suggesting that the correct answer should have been green. They shared their thoughts on X, with one viewer writing on the platform: “Semi-skimmed milk tops are green.”

Another asked: “I thought semi-skimmed was green?!” Someone else commented amid discussion about the episode: “Weird he just accepted a wrong answer!” Whilst another person wrote in a post: “Semi-skimmed is green!”

It was however pointed out that glass and plastic containers differ in colour coding. Some fans noted that glass bottles for semi skimmed milk have foil caps featuring red and silver stripes, whilst plastic alternatives often have green tops.

Addressing the confusion, one person wrote on X this week: “Semi skimmed milk in glass bottles are red/silver striped. Poly containers it’s green.” Another said whilst the episode aired yesterday: “On bottles it’s red and silver stripes.”

It isn’t the first time that the question has prompted a reaction, with the episode having previously aired in 2022. At the time, it similarly was met with reaction from viewers over the accepted answer by host Bradley on the quiz show.

After answering the question, Jenny went on to get more correct answers in the final chase than the two remaining contestants, despite some pushbacks. Although they didn’t win the money, they received praise from the chaser.

Jenny, who had seven seconds to spare, told the team that they had “great answers” to a few “tricky questions”. She told them: “I think that shows that the total in the final chase doesn’t tell the whole story because you scored 14 with some great answers to some tricky questions.”

She added that as a result, she faced some challenging questions herself. Jenny said: “It meant that the equal set for me had some tricky ones in there that were gonna catch me out, but also some straightforward ones that I should have got.”

The Chase airs most weekdays on ITV and ITVX from 5pm.

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