A culinary masterclass from a master chef

Sweetbread, almond, pear

Back in December, a whole fortnight before Christmas, we ended up at the Gilbert Scott for my birthday meal, after a salutary lesson in just how far in advance you need to book for certain restaurants.

Not, I hasten to add, that The Gilbert Scott is in any way a culinary let down.

But within a few days, I’d suggested to The Other Half that we try to book well advance for his birthday, which fell this weekend just gone.

It paid off – thanks to very helpful staff – and we found ourselves with a reservation for lunch at Marcus, Marcus Wareing’s eponymous eatery at the Berkley Hotel in Knightsbridge.

Having quaffed a late-but-light breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast – as much to get the systems going as anything – we dressed and headed out into Saturday’s gloom.

To begin with, the bus was slow. Then, after getting to King’s Cross, the tannoy blared out the news that a signal failure had stalled all Piccadilly line trains – just as we’d found our way to the platform.

I’ll just say at this point: King’s Cross was always bad, but it now simply seems bigger and more crowded than ever, even if shiner and newer. It’s a nightmare to navigate around.

We thought about hopping onto the nearby Victoria line and changing – only to see that there are no stations where you can change to the Piccadilly.

We’d given ourselves more than enough time – more than recommended by Transport for London – but with less than half an hour left before we were due to take our seats, we hopped a cab and I rang the restaurant to let them know we would be a little late – which didn’t worry them in the least.

Eventually, we made it across London just 15 minutes beyond our appointed time, but nonetheless feeling slightly harried.

Anjou pigeon, celeriac, bean, blackberry

Moving through the tea room and into the restaurant provided almost instant tension relief.

At a comfortable spacious table, we started to unwind with the menus, a welcome glass of fizz and small, doughy balls with a Parmesan salty kick inside that really lengthened the taste experience.

Marcus is one of those establishments that uses very simple menu descriptions, but frankly, I don’t know why some people find it disconcerting: for me, it’s a nice way to highlight the key flavours and ingredients.

So, while The Other Half started with “sea bass, sweet potato, saffron, sorrel”, I opted for “veal sweetbread, almond, pear”.

Sweetbread is one of those hugely misunderstood cuts: yes, it can be testicles, but it can also be several other things – not least, thymus.

These were blissfully sweet and tender, with a texture that was not unreminiscent of foie gras, and with a gloriously caramelized top providing a wonderful contrast.

The pear came in at least two ways: two segments that, our waiter explained, had been given the sous vide treatment, which firmed them up at the same time as keeping them juicy. The cut edges had a filigree of black on it – a little like charcoal, I thought.

And indeed, that would work perfectly, given the wine I had.

We’d decided to rely on the sommelier for recommendations, and for this course, mine was a French white – Chardonnay ‘Vieilles vignes’, Seguela, Côtes Catalanes, 2013 – with a distinctly burnt toast taste that worked really well as a compliment to the sweetness of the meat and the pear.

There was also a pear crisp that was wafer thin and simply melted in the mouth, plus slivered almonds and a purée to add further textures.

It was divine.

For a main, The Other Half picked “venison, chestnut, cranberry, black pudding”, while I took on “Anjou pigeon, celeriac, bean, blackberry”.

Again, two very happy diners.

The pigeon was wonderful: superbly cooked, with a single leg roasted to the point of being sticky with it’s own juices, and served in a tiny bowl of bread sauce and with a water bowl alongside. There’s something almost divinely nefarious about sitting in a two-Michelin-starred restaurant and eating with your fingers.

Rhubarb, custard, thyme, ginger

The blackberries, I suspect, had also been in the sous vide for the same reason as the pear – intensified flavor and firmness – while the celeriac came in both tiny, sautéed dice and little roundels. The beans added yet more texture.

Wine this time was an earthy red – a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, ‘Clos des Brusquieres’ from the Rhône, 2010.

And then, of course, dessert.

Both of us, having seen Wareing himself present Masterchef: The Professionals late last year, were aware of his love for the dishes his grandmother cooked in his native Lancashire.

So on seeing a listing for “rhubarb, custard, thyme, ginger,” neither of us bothered with a second thought, given that the Yorkshire Triangle’s forced rhubarb season is just underway.

Not, of course, that this was any old rhubarb and custard.

The custard came as feather-light set discs, flavoured with vanilla and thyme.

With that, there was a sticky rhubarb smear, a quenelle of rhubarb ice cream, pieces of rhubarb (probably from the sous vide, because it was ‘cooked’ yet firm) with dots of foam and thyme, ribbons of stewed rhubarb and strings of ginger.

With the restaurant out of banyuls, I tried a digestif from Spain: a Moscatel Dorado, Bodegas César Florido, Jerez, which was full of prune sweetness and sunshine.

There were Tahiti vanilla and milk chocolate truffles and banana ganache with yuzu gel squares to complete the meal.

We that, we headed home, both sated and soothed.

People sometimes question whether fine dining is worth the lay out.

Truffles and ganache

I know I’ve said it before, but yes, it really does.

This was flawless cooking; not a single false note. Superb ingredients, with flavours that were robust yet combined with great subtlety, and all presented quite beautifully.

Having the wine selected for you by an expert really adds to the experience: when matched like this, it becomes even more an integral part of the meal than if you simply selected a single bottle to cover all courses.

Service was exemplary – friendly yet formal at the same time: the perfect way to illustrate this was that the junior sommelier happily agreed to give me a list of the wines we’d had, and did so in a beautifully hand-written list before we left.

And in the interests of completeness, the setting combines comfort and elegance.

This was a wonderful meal – and a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

Sophisticated dining – including some wurst

Delicate couscous and feta

If Germany provided plenty of hearty, down-to-earth dining experiences, it also provided two really top-notch fine-dining experiences.

But while the food was excellent, perhaps the most interesting aspect of those meals was that they illustrated that German culinary tradition, far from being something to sniff at, is well worth looking at.

For the first couple of days, adjusting to later starts, larger-than-usual breakfasts and then larger-than-usual lunches meant that we were not in the mood to try either of the hotel’s two restaurants.

Belle Epoque is the flashiest of the two, with Michelin-starred food that, as the name implies, has its roots in what Michel Roux Jr would call “The Classics” – or a certain type of French cuisine and approach – and which is open to non-residents.

There's no escaping Thomas Mann

Downstairs, and also used for breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea, is Holstein, the hotel restaurant for residents. And as that name suggests, it has a rather more local ethos.

During last year’s solo trip to Lübeck, one of the highlights – one of the core things I’d set out to do, indeed – was dinner at Schiffergesellschaft.

The centuries-old seaman’s guild is housed in a 1553 building that still serves as a restaurant.

There, I’d tried the iconic labskaus, a seaman’s dish of pickled or corned beef, the meat mixed with onion and beetroot, and traditionally served with a fried egg on top and a plate of good old matjes herrings on the side.

A superb spargel soup

Schiffergesellschaft gets a mention in Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, and I was delighted to find that the Holstein has a large, black and white photograph on the wall of the man himself, taken outside the hotel in 1953.

But then the author considered Travemünde as something close to a paradise.

It too features in Mann’s first great novel, and even if worthy Lübeckers were mightly offended by his 1901 literary debut, there is plenty to suggest that their modern-day descendants appreciate the added value it lends the area – there is even a Buddenbrooks restaurant in a hotel just a couple of hundred metres from where we stayed.

But back to the pickled beef.

The first thing on the Holstein menu that caught my eye – a couple of days before we were first ready to dine there – was a labskaus.

How would an essentially modern and smart restaurant tackle such a dish?

Labskaus, deconstructed

I kept that question in mind until the first evening on which we’d actually left enough space for a three-course meal.

Before we get to that, let’s start by saying that, we waited, we were served with a selection of very nice breads, plus quark (a sort of German yogurt) and a lightly spiced relish, plus butter, and then with a small plate that was less an amuse bouche and more an hors d’oeuvres, involving very delicately prepared couscous and crumbled feta that was, if not very Germanic, then certainly very pleasant.

And of course, since The Other Half doesn't like cheese, I got his feta too.

But as a first course proper, both of us opted for the spargel soup.

The asparagus season enjoys cult status in Germany.

Known by a variety of nicknames, from ‘Königsgemüse’ (king’s vegetable) to ‘Frühlingswonne’ (springtime delight) and ‘Zartes Elfenbein’ (soft ivory), restaurants across the country add special asparagus menus, while little stalls set up on the streets to sell this seasonal glory.

While Germans prefer the white asparagus, the green that we’re more familiar with is not neglected.

Matjes herring on onion

Back in 2009, when we were in Berlin in early June, we ordered spargel soup at the iconic Lutter & Wegner, but were disappointed with the overly salty result, which suggested that it had been hanging around for some time.

This time around, the result was quite simply superb, with a creamy base, slivers of perfectly cooked white asparagus, drops of delightful tarragon oil and a few croutons for added texture.

Next up for me at least was the labskaus – which turned out to be deconstructed.

There’s always a danger with this approach that it can look good but not actually achieve anything much for the palate.

Here, it proved a very enjoyable exercise in appreciating the tastes and textures of a mixed dish – I bet those sailors never thought their dish would assume the level of haute cuisine.

Wonderful blutwurst

The meat, combined with some beetroot, came in quenelles, with the fried egg replaced by a breaded quail’s egg atop onion and herbs, a roasted beet purée, homemade potato crisps, matjes and shredded gherkin.

I opted for the almost inevitable ice cream after – but was too stuffed to make much headway with that.

The Other Half, having opted for a rhubarb crumble after a beef dish, reported himself more than satisfied.

Our final night saw us decamp to Holstein yet again and this time, the hors d’oeuvres was an incredibly delicate matjes herring on top a sweet and gentle onion, very finely chopped, a hint of bitter herbs and a little tomato.

Zander, with beetroot and potatoes

Lovely – and ensured The Other Half didn’t leave the country without at least a taste of herring.

Again, we both opted for the same main course – blutwurst (black pudding).

Gloriously moist and tasty, it was complimented by a bitter salad and quince two ways – as small triangles of jelly and as a rather larger wedge of mousse.

A real joy, this.

For a main course, the Other Half opted for zander, a German fish that is often translated, rather meaninglessly, as ‘pike-perch’, which are two altogether different fishes.

But then there is no British alternative, although it was introduced to the Fens some time ago and is considered a pest – can I try to get rid of it by culinary methods, then?

While he enjoyed that, I dined on lachs (salmon), with new potatoes and white and green spargel, which was very nice if not earth-shattering.

For dessert, however, I picked apple three ways – a slice of feather-light strudel, a sorbet and calvados-infused brunoise on a crisp, all made with Holstein cox. Absolutely gorgeous.

Apple, three ways

On the matter of wines, we drank a German red with the first meal at Holstein: that was a first, and very nice it was too.

For the second meal, we opted for a white – a Grauburgunder: a 2012 Kabinet, trocken, Weingut Bimmerle from Baden, which was also extremely nice.

We left thinking that that was food we’d be more than happy to eat again.

What Holstein perfectly illustrates is that German cuisine is very far from being sausage and pickled cabbage.

It can be hearty and simple and comforting, but done like this, it can also be as sophisticated as anything that most of us are likely to eat anywhere.

When autumn leaves you hankering for comfort

Chard from the potager

The return from France was followed by several days of continued high temperatures (and high humidity), which managed to give the sense that summer was set to continue for a while.

In fact, one of the first things that we became aware of getting back to Blighty this year was just how much earlier the sun seems to set in the UK – party, of course, because of the hour difference, but it still left us feeling that the world was closing in rather suddenly.

However, at the end of last week the temperature had dropped too and, by the weekend, one could sense autumn on the wind. When that happens, food has to change.

The delivery, while I was away, of Tom Kerridge’s Proper Pub Food gave me a starting point, and the discovery within its pages, during my Saturday morning browse with coffee and notepad, of a dish involving chard, was enough to inspire.

In this case, it was pan-fried grey mullet on a bed of chard, with a butter sauce. Fortunately, since mullet isn’t always readily available, the recipe also mentions bass. I found some of that without any problem.

The sauce is made of two finely-chopped banana shallots, with white wine, white wine vinegar and water, all of which are measured accurately to 75ml each and then reduced to a glaze. It has cream stirred in and is then seasoned with lemon juice.

I suspect that there were shortcuts taken in the editing of the book. The picture shows a smooth sauce, but no mention is made of sieving it to remove the shallots. I chose to do so, since that made sense. There’s also a strange, contradictory instruction on the chard.

Okay, with an ounce of culinary experience you should be able to work around such things, but you still don’t expect such issues in a book that was hardly dirt cheap in the first place.

That said, the sauce was delicious, although you really do need to reduce it to a glaze at the first stage, which I didn’t quite manage (you fret that there’ll be nothing left).

The chard – our first from the potager – was nice, and still remarkably tender, given how long it had been growing. It’s cooked in water and butter and lemon juice.

The fish fillets are pan fried, having had the skin side lightly floured. That, I will say, is a superb way to cook fish – and very easy.

Kerridge says to put it in a little oil (I used olive oil), floured skin side down, and leave until you can see that it’s almost cooked through.

Then it really only does need a minute on the other side.

Sunday, however, was set aside for Cooking Without Any Book Anywhere Near (well, not open at any rate).

To start with, a piece of braising steak, bought from Matthew, was trimmed and cut into large pieces, joined in a bowl by a diced carrot, a chunked onion and a chopped stick of celery, plus a couple of bay leaves, some peppercorns and (secret ingredient coming up) a good strip of orange peel.

That last item is very much a southern French influence, used in daubes.

A bottle of red wine went over it all and the bowl was covered in cling film and popped into the fridge over night.

The wine in question was a JP Chenet syrah shiraz (under a fiver from Ocado, so complying with Raymond Blanc’s assertion that you should never pay more for wine for the pot).

I picked it because that syrah that we’d had at La Balette was so smoky a taste that I thought the grape would go well with the beef.

Beef, cooked in a southern French style

Fast forward to Sunday morning.

Everything was drained, the wine reserved and the meat separated from the vegetables.

Each piece of beef was then patted dry individually – it’s the only way to do it if you’re going to get it dry enough to brown, but if the pieces are large, it’s hardly very onerous.

Next, a couple of carrots were peeled and cut into large slices, a large onion was diced, four cloves of garlic were peeled and smashed, and a couple of sticks of celery were sliced.

Shortly before we went away, Blanc had been demonstrating, on his new TV series, slow cooking. And to cook a piece of beef, he’d put it in the oven at 160˚C (fan) for four hours.

I’ve been using 150˚C for four to five hours, and it’s been just missing the completely melted point by a tiny amount. A case of: nearly there!

The basis for my 150˚C was that most books that deal seriously with slow cooking – “seriously” meaning more than pretending that 90 minutes or two hours is an example of the method – talk of a low or medium oven.

However, in this case, I preheated the oven to 160˚C.

And then some dripping was melted in a large sauté pan, and all the pieces of meat were browned before being popped into a Le Creuset casserole.

The onion and garlic went into the fat and was softened a little, before a dessert spoon of plain flour was sprinkled on top and stirred in. After a minute cooking, a ladle of the reserved wine was added and stirred carefully in, before another followed.

That too all went into the casserole, together with the other vegetables – three more bay leaves, another couple of strips of orange peel, plenty of black pepper and a shake of ground ginger. The aim was to add a hint of warmth, but not a discernible ginger flavour.

Mixed gently together, the rest of the reserved wine was added, a piece of foil placed over the dish with the lid on top, and then into the oven.

After four hours, it was essentially done. The meat was flaking, the wine had reduced and thickened and sweetened gloriously.

Since it was earlier than I’d intended, I added a little boiling water to thin the liquid and gave it another hour, with the heat reduced to 150˚C. I added some pitted black olives at this point.

After that, it was served with a helping of boiled basmati rice.

I was absolutely delighted with this: finally, I’d got the wine to a taste and consistency that you find if you eat such a dish in France.

The flavour that the orange gave the dish was wonderful. The meat was flaking and the vegetables were all cooked.

As a slight diversion: carrot is remarkable, in it’s ability to be cooked for hours without falling apart.

And reheated gently, it also served well for an easy Monday night supper.

Finally, it seems, I’ve sussed slow cooking. Next up will be something a bit more northern, with beer – and a similar cooking time. Perhaps it’s time for a Vlaamse Stoverij again? Autumn does have its advantages.

Holy simplicity

It was only a matter of weeks ago - though it might as well be light years and a few thousand miles - when I was sitting in a hotel in Manchester, chatting with an acquaintance one evening after work.

Discussing culinary matters - he's considerably more optimistic than me about the food movement's potential wide scale impact in the UK - he was musing on how, if you took just three such basic things as beer, bread and cheese, it was a perfect illustration of just what we have done to our food culture.

It was an observation that stuck. Take the idea of a traditional ploughman's lunch with a pint on the side: with good ingredients, it's a thing to be relished.

But think of how we've ditched our brewing heritage for the ease of cooking lager; think of Chorleywood bread and think of the rows and rows of plastic-suffocated cheese in supermarkets that are terrified to sell the real stuff because they fear the bacteria that is involved.

After a few nights of the very simplest suppers here in Collioure, I went complex: thinly sliced tomatoes and red onion, with salt, a drizzle of olive oil and some basil.

Clean and fresh and utterly satisfying.

To accompany, excellent bread, bought that morning and freshly baked as dawn turned the sky apricot over a mercury sea and the church called out to the most faithful.

There was charcuterie bought at the market on Sunday: a campagne with peppercorns, and a saussicon with figs; both with real depth of flavour, moistened by generous fat that creates a beautiful marbling, and the latter with the added pleasure of the nutty sweetness of the figs.

And of course, a bottle of seriously chilled rosé from the region.

There is a holy simplicity about such eating: you don't want to rush, it demands your time - and that investment is rewarded with something deeply satisfying.

But it is a simplicity that relies utterly on the quality of the ingredients. And here, the ingredients are good; very good indeed.

And when you have that, you don't need to spend hours in the kitchen or submerge inferior ingredients in heavily-spiced sauces to disguise their inadequacies on the flavour front, or sit in front of the telly to distract yourself from food that is merely fuel.

You sit. You eat. You make it the centrepiece of your evening. You are sociable. And you take part, with joy and relish - even if you are dining alone - in something that is timeless and one of the deepest and most profound rituals of human existence.

Lost in time in a city that still breathes

It's difficult to know what you expect of a place like Carcassonne: a sort of Disneyworld for grown-ups, cotton wooled for all time so that visitors can 'oooh' and 'ahhh' over eternally recreated scenes of medieval life?

That, of course, would mean that the old city itself had found itself in some sort of time vacuum at the end of the medieval era and stopped changing and developing.

But the truth is that La Cité didn't stop growing and developing, inside the walls, until very recently, as even a brief wander shows.

We didn't reach it on Monday night. Stage three of our journey had only concluded in mid evening and in gloomy weather. And the moment that I was able to sit down and remove my walking sandals and plasters, there was the evidence of what I knew had happened in the course of that yomp from station to hotel: I had three blisters.

There was only one thing to do - try some German engineering. I pulled out my Birkenstocks - a pair that has only been worn once - and decided to give them a shot.

I have notoriously difficult feet: small, but with a wide fitting, with hereditary hammer toes and bone spurs on my heels. Buying shoes is the nightmare of decades. Or rather, wearing shoes in is the nightmare. I carry plasters as a matter of routine.

Two years ago, in Potsdam in Germany, I finally found a pair of Birkenstocks that would fit. After getting used to toe posts, I have almost worn them into the ground. So this year, I managed to order more directly from the company, thus bypassing the apparent refusal of British importers to stock a European size 35.

On Monday night, even without plasters, I was able to stroll comfortably over the bridge that spans the Aude and into the town that surrounds the base of the plateau that La Cité stands on. When we found nowhere open for dinner, I was able to comfortably wander back to the hotel.

We're not great ones for eating in hotels, but there seemed little choice. As it happened, this was a very good restaurant indeed - hardly hampered by being on the fourth floor, with a panoramic view over the river to the walled city. As dark descended, we were able to watch it slowly light up while we ate.

And eat we did. Expecting more seasonal weather, it had occurred to me that we might not really want to try something as filling and wintery as a cassoulet on this trip. But nothing about Monday had made us feel such a thing and we both ordered this regional speciality.

As is the way with such things, there are probably as many different ways to make a cassoulet as there are people who have ever done so. Add to that the local rivalries and arguments about, for instance, whether a layer of bread crumbs should go on the top, and you have something where it's difficult to know exactly what an authentique version will be like.

It came in a lovely old earthenware dish, with sausage, confited duck legs and pork, swimming in unctuous fat, with masses of ivory haricots. Perfect food for hungry travellers.

It' a remarkably subtle dish - and an enormously comforting one too. Generally speaking, I 'cheat' on beans and use tinned ones, but this made me think that there might be a value to doing it the traditional way: presumably, they are much better able to soak up the flavours of the dish without falling apart.

The following morning dawned grey. We'd decided to set out straight for La Cité and have some form of breakfast there.

I opted for the Birkenstocks again, with t-shirt and shorts but jacket - it was far too humid to be so bulked up - and we set off. Within a short while, as we started an ascent up the side of the plateau, it was raining. Drizzle turned to something heavier. I had no umbrella either, since everything was geared to the camera that hung around my neck. I hate feeling cluttered.

We missed the entrance recommended by the guide book we had with us, and carried on alongside the towering old walls, dodging puddles and getting very damp indeed, even though The Other Half was trying to cover us both with his brolly.

Eventually, we found the main entrance, with its little bridge over the old moat and then the short hop between the outer and inner walls and so to the city gate itself.

Heaving with tourists and with the rain now pouring down, we fled up a tiny side street and into the first cafe we came to, deciding to hide out the worst of the shower while we had coffee and croissants.

Having done that - and after I'd splashed €9 on a brolly - we started to wander, only for the rain to increase again a short while later. This time, we found a small bar and ordered Cokes, as The Police played in the background: an incongruous juxtaposition of place and music.

The weather was playing games. Every time it seemed to have lessened and we left cover, it came on again. There were limits to how much we wanted to look around the shops selling apparently endless souvenirs, including large amounts of toy knights (plus damsels, distressed or otherwise, dragons and siege engines) and assorted plastic swords, shields and helmets.

Finding ourselves drawn to a gateway in the inner walls, a gust of wind swirled up and attacked my brolly, reversing it and pretty much dealing it a death blow there and then.

We gave up and went in search of lunch in the first possible place. Moderate duck confit, with piles of fries and beer filled more time as well as stomachs. And then we decided that that was enough, and headed back down the hill.

At the bottom, with time to kill, we slumped into chairs under cover outside a delightfully Bohemian cafe and ordered beers, while a classical radio station played the sort of music that added to the soothing effect.

And while we sat, the sun came out.

Back at the hotel a short time later, the priority was soaking feet and a change into dry clothes. By then, it seemed as though the rain was holding off.

We made our way back over the Aude and, taking an easier road route that we'd finally spotted, re-entered La Cité in the sun.

Even the shops seemed nicer. I found one that sold proper, locally made earthenware pots for cassoulet, and then couldn't resist a real gourmet's shop that sold pastis mustard and Camargue salt. The woman in the shop knew a good customer when one appeared, and after sniffing assorted truffle products in near orgasmic fashion, a pot of truffle salt was added to the bag. Earlier, I'd picked a box of salt in a small shop down in the town, which the woman had only half joked was a 'grand cru' among salts. The lesson of that salt in Bordeaux had been learnt, but it was to occur again when we finally found a restaurant for dinner.

Before that, we found a bar with a garden and sat for a slow beer. Gardens in this walled city were a revelation: my expectation had simply been crowded streets, but not only had they made space for public spaces, there were plenty of gardens too, with some now being used as places to eat and drink.

The restaurant if Saint Jean, which catered for locals as well a tourists, also allowed us to sit out, right next to ramparts and towers, with only a hedge between our table and the moat.

The menu was short, but with obvious differences from the more 'tourist' eateries elsewhere within the walls.

For the first time this trip, we opted for a starter. The Other Half had eggs cocottes and I plumped for beef marrowbone on toast, having never eaten it before - well, with the exception of a tiny bit as a garnish on Bruno Loubet's hare royale last December.

It arrived as four pieces of bone on individual toasted slices of baguette. You break the 'seal' with your knife and push or pull it onto the toast; spread and garnish with the good salt that arrived with it.

This is nature's ready made pâté.
What can I say? It was utterly divine: sweet and yet light at the same time; gloriously fatty and messy. Heaven on a plate or a piece of toast. So much a dish of this meaty area - and another illustration of a philosophy of nose-to-tail eating.

I had a very nice piece of monkfish in orange to follow (indicative of the nears of Carcassonne to the coast) and finished with a raspberry tiramisu. Well, I say "finished", because our waiter charmingly brought us a shot glass each of a delightfully smooth brandy-based digestif, which had a lovely almond taste.

Our wine for the meal - recommended by the waiter - was a Borie de Maurel Minervois 2010, which was a jolly fine recommendation, being not at all expensive and very enjoyably fruity.

We ambled back through La Cité, enjoying the quietness, with most of the crowds having departed. Suddenly, you had a different sense of the place.

But although its main business is tourism, the walled city of Carcassonne is not a museum, but a living, breathing little city. And for all that there is a part of me that would rather like to see it devoid of (other) tourists, I am ultimately far happier that is lives like this - even if it does mean having to dodge endless children with pretending to be knights.