​There are few things more absurd than a Michelin-starred restaurant being declared dead by blog post. Not criticised, not reviewed harshly, not even quietly dismissed as “not what it once was,” but pronounced closed, like some sort of culinary obituary written by Chat GPT.

And yet this is precisely what happened recently to Lumière in Cheltenham, the husband-and-wife jewel that has just retained its Michelin star (again, because of course it has), and is very much open for business. Not merely open, but flourishing; confident, polished, and quietly at the top of its game.

So when the confusion began circulating on social media, we did what any sensible person would do. We booked lunch immediately. Not out of spite, exactly, though there may have been a dash of it, but because if someone is going to spread rumours about one of the Cotswolds’ finest dining rooms, the least we can do is turn up, eat magnificently, and report back. 

Lumière has now been operating for 17 years under husband-and-wife team Jon and Helen Howe, and it shows in the best possible way. It offers tasting menus in four, six or eight courses (£85, £130, £175). We went for six. Which is the sweet spot, really: enough to feel thoroughly indulged, not enough to require a nap in Montpellier Gardens afterwards with your belt undone and your soul drifting gently out of your body.

Jon is the artist in the kitchen, trained under some of the country’s finest Michelin-starred talent, but very much cooking in his own voice. Meanwhile, Helen leads the front of house with warmth and ease, alongside Restaurant Manager Matthew, and together they create that most elusive of experiences: service that feels attentive, personal, professional, but never stiff. There are white tablecloths, certainly, but no sense of intimidation. Nobody is whispering and nobody is judging your pronunciation of “velouté.” 

A lovely touch is the menu itself, presented on a tablet at the table, a legacy of going paperless after Covid. It sounds like the sort of thing that might ruin the romance. It doesn’t. In fact, it’s rather wonderful: each dish laid out like a chapter in a novel, complete with origins, technique and detail. Between courses I read like a crime novel on a Kindle, except the evidence was crab, asparagus and dangerously good sourdough.

The canapés arrived first. Creedy Carver duck doughnut with fig and lime; Cornish crab in a delicate waffle tart with peas and elderflower; and Stinking Bishop with pear and chive.

The duck doughnut was an outrageously good one-biter, crisp, rich, sweet, sharp. The sort of thing that makes you briefly consider asking if they do them by the dozen. The crab was all freshness and finesse you could wish for, and the Stinking Bishop was exactly as advertised: you could smell it before you ate it, which was no surprise. What was a surprise is that it may have been my favourite of the three.

Then came the sourdough. Not just bread, but an event. A 32-hour labour of obsession, with Wildfarmed flour and the sort of crust that makes a noise when you break it. Two butters followed: Ampersand cultured with Himalayan pink salt, and a chicken butter crowned with crisp skin, which sounds faintly outrageous until you taste it and realise it’s simply genius.

Soon after arrived the Cornish John Dory with fennel, St Austell mussels, cauliflower and vadouvan, the dish I would return for alone. 

Perfectly cooked fish is one of life’s great luxuries, so often promised, so rarely delivered, but this was immaculate. Lightly cured, delicately caramelised, and sitting in a sauce so good I momentarily forgot I was a respectable adult and began mopping it up with bread like a man who’d just survived a famine. Fortunately, I was then told that this was not only acceptable, but seemingly encouraged.  Alongside it we had a glass of Woodchester Valley Blanc de Blancs 2019, which felt like the perfect local nod: ripe, elegant, all lemon zest and creamy mousse. The sort of wine that you can't believe is made just down the road. 

Next came Wye Valley asparagus with morel, wild garlic, truffle and Jersey Royals, a plate that looked like it belonged in a gallery. I'm still a bit unsure how Jon made an asparagus spear look so glamorous. The morels, stuffed and roasted, were earthy and decadent; the truffle butter made everything feel faintly sinful; and the whole dish sang with that early-summer optimism that only asparagus season can bring.

Then, a palate cleanser; Lumière’s legendary take on a Tequila Slammer, which has been on the menu for 14 years and is still delivering theatre. Smoke billowed. Sorbet appeared. A lime sphere waited ominously, daring you not to nibble. It was playful, clever, and oddly nostalgic. Tequila is the drink I swore off after a house party at the age of seventeen and have never revisited. If it had always tasted like this, I'd have ended up as tequila connoisseur rather than emotionally scarred.

Up next came the “main event”, if such a concept exists on a tasting menu: Mount Grace Farm Kerry Hill hogget, with ewe’s curd, carrot, mint and Cobble Lane pancetta. 

This was serious cooking. Deeply savoury, beautifully judged, the lamb aged for complexity rather than youth. The loin was tender and caramelised, the belly transformed into something like hogget bacon and the sauce rich with roasted bones and intelligence. It was rustic ingredients treated with refined discipline and the sort of dish that reminds you why fine dining matters when it’s done properly.

The wine pairing was Pyramid Valley ‘Earth Smoke’ Pinot Noir 2022, and at £30 a glass it was the price that persuaded us to share a glass. Fortunately, it was superb.

Dessert was the first of the British strawberries: New Forest strawberry with duck egg custard, caramelised filo and sorrel. Bright, fresh, intricate, and beautifully balanced. Strawberries in several forms, frozen with liquid nitrogen, compressed, gelled, granita’d (all the technical wizardry I've never really understood). It tasted like the start of summer, centre court at Wimbledon, or, perhaps, like the first day you dare to leave the house without a jumper.

And that, really, is the magic of Lumière.

It is Michelin-starred dining that never forgets it is meant to be enjoyed. It is clever without being overly showy, luxurious without being pompous. Everything is about the food, yes, but it is also about the feeling. The welcome. The comfort. The sense that you are somewhere special without having to endure any of the stuff that sometimes comes with “somewhere special.”

Frankly, this is one of the standout dining experiences in the Cotswolds, and although we went in fully aware of the £130 six-course menu, we still left slightly surprised it wasn’t higher, which is perhaps the highest compliment you can give a restaurant in 2026 without sounding like a complete lunatic.

And Lumière, very happily, is not going anywhere.

​lumiererestaurant.co.uk

There are places in this world that do not simply host sport, but hold court. Cheltenham is one of them. And as we turn our collars up against the last sharp breaths of early spring, it is impossible not to feel that familiar tug on the chest with the quiet realisation that we must now wait a whole year for it all to happen again.

The 2027 Cheltenham Festival, running from Tuesday 16 to Friday 19 March, is already casting its long shadow across the Cotswolds. Four days that do not merely sit on the calendar, but arrive like an old friend: anticipated, celebrated, and never quite forgotten once they’ve gone.

This year, the 2026 Festival reminded us all why Cheltenham is spoken of in reverent tones. It was, without question, one of the finest in recent memory, a meeting where Cleeve Hill seemed to hum with pride as the Cotswolds training yards produced four glorious winners. The O’Neill team struck twice, with Johnnywho and Wilful delivering the sort of performances that live long in conversation and longer still in memory. Ben Pauling added further lustre with Meetmebythesea, while Kim Bailey and Mat Nicholls ensured the local tally was complete when White Noise played her own stirring tune up the famous hill.

And now, as quickly as we say goodbye to the 2026 festival, we start to look ahead to next year and the grandest stage in National Hunt racing, where dreams are tested by fences and forged in courage.

Champion Day is not simply a Tuesday. It is ignition. A day of energy, expectation, and the kind of electricity that can be felt in the chest. The roar as the first big race turns for home is a sound like no other, not noise, but a living thing, rolling down from the stands and rising into the March air. The Festival begins, properly and proudly, with the sense that anything can happen.

Wednesday, with its elegant traditions and unmistakable glamour, brings its own charm. There is always something rather wonderful about seeing the sport’s grit and grandeur framed by tailored coats, polished boots, and a certain Cotswolds sophistication. It is a day when racing and society meet as they always have done, beautifully, and with a glass raised to the occasion.

Then comes St Patrick’s Thursday, when the spirit of Ireland seems to sweep through Prestbury Park like a joyful tide. It is colour, song, laughter, and fierce sporting passion rolled into one. No other meeting welcomes the Emerald Isle with quite the same warmth, and no other crowd gives back so willingly in return.

And then, at last, Gold Cup Day. Friday. The closing act. The final hymn. A day that carries a particular weight because everyone knows what it represents. The Gold Cup is not merely a race, it is the summit and a race not to be missed.

Throughout it all, Cheltenham remains what it has always been: tradition wrapped in spectacle. Whether you are a racing purist studying every stride, or simply drawn by the atmosphere and occasion, the Festival offers something rare: four days where the world feels a little brighter, louder, and more alive. Add in the unrivalled hospitality; exquisite dining, impeccable service, and views that place you right at the heart of the drama, and it becomes more than an event. It becomes a memory in the making.

Tickets for Cheltenham Festival 2027 are on sale now. And if last year taught us anything, it is that Prestbury Park will once again have a fantastic story to tell.

Because in truth, when it comes to racing, nothing feels like Cheltenham.

ALL TICKETS & INFO HERE

A quarter of a century after Trigger Happy TV first unleashed its glorious chaos onto unsuspecting members of the public, the Cheltenham-born comedian is marking the milestone with a full-blown national celebration: a huge 100-date UK tour, honouring the hidden camera phenomenon that went on to sell to 80 countries and reshape modern comedy.

Before “viral” was a career path and before YouTube became the world’s stage, Joly was already out there creating the blueprint, armed with an absurdly large mobile phone, a suspicious number of squirrels, and a giant snail that somehow became national treasure status. His anarchic, intelligent style didn’t just define the early 2000s, it quietly set the tone for an entire generation of prank comedy and meme culture that followed.

The announcement comes hot on the heels of a major appearance at the Royal Albert Hall, where Joly hosted and performed at the Teenage Cancer Trust comedy night, curated by Robert Smith of The Cure. Sharing the bill with comedy royalty, he revived some of his best-loved characters to a rapturous response - proof, if any were needed, that the world still has an appetite for well-executed mischief.

Now, for the first time in decades, those characters are returning properly, live, in person, and with a few surprises. The Trigger Happy TV 25th Anniversary Tour promises behind-the-scenes stories, bloopers, unseen original footage and, perhaps most excitingly, brand-new material. Expect fresh tales of the Giant Snail’s painfully slow zebra-crossing journeys, Dom’s arrest while dressed as a KGB spy, and the long-running obsession with the elusive “grey squirrel.” And yes, the giant mobile phone will, inevitably, feature.

For Cheltenham, however, this isn’t just another tour date. It’s personal.

Joly has already been making waves locally with Dom Joly’s SpeakeaZy, his cult comedy night at the fiercely independent Steam & Whistle. Approaching its one-year residency this April, it has become something of a town secret, the sort of thing people mention in lowered voices, usually followed by: “You’ll never get a ticket.”

The Trigger Happy tour arrives at the Parabola Arts Centre on Saturday 5th December 2026, and with its intimate atmosphere and famously fine acoustics, it’s the perfect venue for two hours of nostalgia, new material, and utter comedic mayhem.

While the tour spans 100 dates nationwide, the Cheltenham show is shaping up to be the jewel in the crown, a homecoming in every sense, and arguably the most anticipated night of the entire run.

As Joly himself puts it:

"I can’t believe it’s been twenty-five years since I first started shouting into a giant mobile phone. Trigger Happy TV changed my life, and bringing these characters back for a massive anniversary tour is a total blast. Cheltenham is my home, and while the SpeakeaZy at the Steam & Whistle has been incredible, bringing the full Trigger Happy chaos to the Parabola is going to be a level up. I can't wait to share some brand-new mayhem with my hometown audience."

For all the info and tickets, please visit www.domjoly.tv

I’m going to start with a something that sounds like the conclusion of a midlife crisis.

The gym saved my life.

It didn’t, of course. Not literally. Nobody dragged me out of a burning building and handed me a protein shake. But in a quieter, more British way, the kind of way where nothing is ever said out loud until you’ve made a joke about it first, it has genuinely changed my life. And for someone who used to view gyms as fluorescent torture chambers filled with men admiring themselves from every possible angle, that is saying something.

Before Christmas, I spent a month in Australia for a wedding and to see family, and for a couple of weeks I stayed on Manly Beach. If you’ve never been, Manly is essentially a postcard with abs. Everyone there is not only in ludicrous shape, but also infuriatingly happy. It’s hard to know whether the happiness comes from the exercise, the ocean, or simply the fact that their vitamin D levels are not in a permanent state of British deficiency.

Naturally, I started comparing it to the UK, where we spend most of winter looking like damp laundry left out overnight.

A friend summed it up perfectly.

“If you had your shirt off for seven months of the year, you’d be in good shape too.”

He’s right. The British climate isn’t built for visible abdominal muscles. It’s built for jumpers, coats, and pretending we don’t mind the drizzle. You can’t blame the average man in Cotswolds for not maintaining beach body standards when the closest thing we get to a heatwave is a slightly warm day in June that causes panic-buying of fans.

But there was something else happening in Australia that I didn’t fully appreciate until later.

Every morning I was up at 6am, walking to my favourite coffee spot (Little Legends, which I recommend if you ever find yourself on the other side of the world needing caffeine and a sense of purpose). Then I’d walk along the beach.

And the place was alive.

Surfers were already in the water, runners were flying past, volleyball games were underway, and there were people like me, the coffee walkers, strolling around as if this was the most normal thing in the world. It felt like everyone had collectively agreed that mornings were not something to endure, but something to use.

One dad stood on the sand whistling his son in from the sea.

“This is every morning,” he said, shaking his head. “I just can’t get him out the water. He’s meant to be going to school.”

I remember thinking how wonderful that is. Imagine your biggest parenting battle being that your child is too committed to surfing at sunrise.

I also kept hearing a phrase: think of the 5–9 rather than the 9–5. In other words: don’t let life be swallowed by work. Make your mornings count. Build something for yourself before the day begins.

I loved it. I felt inspired. Almost unbearably optimistic.

“That’s it,” I thought. “When I get home I’m going to be a morning person. I’ll go for runs. Walk the dog. Enjoy the early hours. Become one of those annoyingly productive people who have already ‘done loads’ before breakfast.”

Then we landed back in the UK in early December.

It was raining at Heathrow when we arrived and I don't think it stopped until the end of January. The mornings were dark, cold and cheerless. Not the romantic sort of cold either, more the kind that feels personal. The sort of weather that makes you question every decision you’ve ever made, including your choice of country that you live in.

There was no 5–9am. There was only 5–9pm, which was equally unpleasant and consisted mostly of eating dinner and wondering why I felt tired all the time.

However, just before Christmas, a new gym opened in Bourton-on-the-Water. It’s called SOMA, and it was set up by two friends of mine. SOMA feels less like a traditional gym and more like a very well-designed place that happens to involve exercise. Think quietly stylish Scandinavian wood, greenery, soft lighting. There’s a subtle club-like feel, but without the ego or intimidation that often comes with it. It’s welcoming, well-priced, and refreshingly unpretentious.

Now, I have never really been a gym person bar a few courtesy visits when my cousin used to own one near Winchcombe. I’ve always kept myself fairly active. I play padel, I walk the dog, and I play cricket, although cricket is a slightly questionable form of exercise given that most of it involves standing still for three hours and then suddenly sprinting in blind panic because the ball has gone somewhere unexpected.

But a gym? Not for me. In my mind, gyms were full of people kissing their biceps in the mirror and taking selfies with captions like “No days off”. I assumed it was all ego, sweat and strange noises.

I was very wrong.

I joined. It may have been the free Stow Town coffee (some of the best in the Cotswolds by the way) for members that finally tipped me over the edge. I’d love to say it was purely about self-improvement, but I am still British enough to be motivated by caffeine and mild perks.

At first, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. The machines looked like medieval torture devices designed by someone with a personal vendetta against hamstrings. I stuck to the safe options: bike, rower, lat pulldowns, pretty much anything where I couldn’t embarrass myself too publicly.

But over time I realised something. The gym wasn’t just about exercise. It was about routine. It was about discipline. And, unexpectedly, it was about mental health.

There’s something incredibly grounding about starting your day by doing something difficult on purpose. It clears your head. It resets your mood. And, strangely, it becomes addictive, not in a cult-like way, but in a “why do I feel better after this?” way.

SOMA talks a lot about community. Normally, when a business says that, it feels slightly twee. You imagine forced smiles and someone calling you “buddy” a bit too enthusiastically. But this is the opposite. It genuinely feels like a space built for its members, and in many ways, run by its members. People talk. People help. People encourage. Some have joined simply to meet others, which says a lot about modern life, and even more about the kind of environment SOMA has created.

The classes are brilliant (even though there was an ABBA-inspired spin class last week which sounds like double punishment),  the atmosphere is relaxed, and best of all nobody looks at you like an idiot if you don’t know how a machine works. Quite the opposite. Someone will show you, without judgement, without ego, and without making you feel like you’ve just asked how to tie your shoelaces.

It’s been three months now and I never thought I’d say it, but I’m a gym goer. Not quite a gym nerd yet, but I’m dangerously close. I’ve also become that person who bores others to death with talk of distances, times, weights and personal bests. For that, I can only apologise. I haven’t properly started posting it on social media, but I fear it’s only a matter of time.

The truth is, it has changed my life, physically, yes, but mentally even more so. It’s gave me energy and focus during the darkest months of the year, and a sense of momentum when everything outside is grey and dank.

You don’t need to be fit to join a gym. You don’t need to know what you’re doing. You just need to take the first step and start. And, if I’m honest, I suspect there are rather a lot of people, like myself, who quietly assumed the gym simply isn’t for them. People who picture it as a world of lycra, loud grunting, and unspoken rules that everyone else seems to understand but them. So they don’t go. Or they mean to go. Or they go once, feel slightly out of place, and decide it’s not their scene. Which is a shame, because the truth is far less intimidating than it looks from the outside. Nobody really knows what they’re doing at the beginning, and most people are too busy trying to remember their own routine to worry about yours. It is, in fact, one of the rare places where you are allowed, even encouraged, to start exactly where you are.

And what’s surprised me most is how much more it offers than just fitness. There is something quietly powerful about having somewhere to go and doing something for no reason other than it makes you feel better afterwards. It’s difficult to overstate what that does for your mental health. It doesn’t solve everything, of course, but it smooths the edges. It clears the fog a little. And in a world where it’s remarkably easy to overthink everything, there’s something rather grounding about simply lifting something heavy, putting it back down again, and realising, for an hour at least, that things are a bit more straightforward than they felt before you arrived. It turns out that “never too late” isn’t just a polite sentiment; it’s actually true.

And if you happen to live in the North Cotswolds, you could do a lot worse than starting at SOMA. You may not end up looking like a Manly Beach surfer. But you might end up feeling like one.

Because as we head into a British summer, when your shirt might come off roughly five times, and three of those will be accidental, feeling good in your own skin is probably the closest thing we have to the Manly Beach lifestyle.

And honestly, that’s more than enough.

www.somaclub.co.uk

There’s a new name to note for summer dining in the Cotswolds.

LARDON, a European-inspired small plates restaurant championing ingredient-led, wood-fired cooking, is set to open in early summer 2026 at Elkstone Studios, the beautifully curated destination nestled between Cirencester and Cheltenham.

Heading up the kitchen is Mikey Bain, formerly of Calcot Manor and Whatley Manor, bringing serious pedigree and a refined approach to bold, seasonal flavours. Leading front of house is Josh Newman, previously of No. 38 The Park (Lucky Onion Group), ensuring the service matches the ambition on the plate.

LARDON is the latest venture from the team behind two much-loved Cotswolds staples: KNEAD Bakery and Jesse Smith Butchers. Founders John & David Hawes and Kris Biggs are combining their passion for exceptional produce with a relaxed, modern dining experience rooted in European tradition.

Expect honest cooking, open fire, and plates designed for sharing — all set within one of the region’s most exciting lifestyle and hospitality developments.

For updates, follow @lardon_restaurant on Instagram or visit www.lardon-restaurant.com.