Michael Saxon has looked after guests at some of the world’s finest hotels, from Europe to North America, the Caribbean, Hong Kong, China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and beyond. He talks to Douglas Blyde about his autobiography, ‘Chef’s Tales’.

Caroline Sargent is no skier but lured by the prospect of food, wine and cocktails to consume while others hurled themselves down snowy slopes to certain death, she enjoyed a winter’s break in the Arlberg region of Austria.

‘A lot of great inventions have come out of British sheds,’ chuckles Mr Singh cheerfully as he leads me literally up the garden path. Here, in a quiet back garden in an anonymous street in London’s West Ham is the shed where, back in 2008/9, Mr Singh first cooked up his weapons grade chilli sauce in any real quantity.

Smart service, smashing view, well-priced food and somewhere a bit different to go on the big night, Sauterelle actually gets my unbiased vote. On an evening where rip offs lurk around every corner and shabby service and bad food are shovelled out to a cornered and quiescent clientele, Sauterelle does the business and ‘laydeez’ get roses, chocolates and goody bags too. You gotta love that.

If like us you’re already dreading the big V-Day, you’ll be pleased to hear that we’ve taken the donkeywork out of planning your one chance to shine romantically. 

Ahead of Burn’s night on the 25th of January, Qin Xie was invited to a lunch time blind tasting of haggis and malt whisky at Boisdale of Belgravia.

It’s an impressive 100 years since Michelin first launched itself on the British public and in all that time it’s come a long way from a motorist’s guide to service stations with some helpful hints on car repair thrown in for good value.

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal is set to be one of 2011’s hottest new restaurants and after its original opening was delayed in December (thanks to the ‘mayhem’ of Christmas according to someone in the know) we are now only a matter of two weeks away from discovering whether Blumenthal’s first restaurant in London is Fat Duck or lame duck.

There’s a lot of talk about January detox but admit it, how many of you have already fallen off the bandwagon? And even if you’re still going strong, isn’t the best part of the detox the day when you get to retox? And there’s nothing so tempting as the guilty pleasure of chocolates so that’s why Qin Xie has brought you the ultimate guide to chocolate in the next few months.

The day would one day come, I knew, when I’d be confronted with pig carcass. And that day came to pass in rural Oxfordshire this winter, and I was armed with a handsaw. I’m not vegetarian so when Peaches, the 13-strong chain of gastropubs, invited me to a butchery session at their headquarters near Bicester I reckoned it was only honest to go.