Now that the skiing season is over, many pistes turn themselves into golf courses, and many ski hotels become wonderful summer spas...

Watch this space.

William fforde

Editor, May 2010

There is no doubt that it’s been hurting everywhere: from stories of cars abandoned at the airport as Dubai’s property development bonanza bombed, through the demise of the British Airways European Traveller’s sandwich (they were really rather good, Mr Walsh) as European economies reeled, to the ‘restaurant closed’ signs in the streets of San Francisco.

But, hey, it can’t all be bad: give in to the crisis and we will only make it worse. Both sides of the Atlantic the R word is receding with hopes that it doesn’t become a ‘W’, and we must believe it. The sun still shines (most of the time!), the grass is green, the sky is blue and we continue to play golf. We may be rather more discerning about how much we are prepared to pay, but, even with reduced budgets, there’s still no reason why not occasionally to splurge. The good news is that, if we shop around, the cost of a splurge is not as high as it was.

Everyone needs a bit of pampering now and then. What matters even more than it did before is that, when we pay for it, we get good value. And this is measurable in more than just financial terms. You will read in these pages that the best designed course on the Costa del Sol is Sotogrande; it’s gone up for the autumn golf season, but even at €115 this is extremely good value for a course of this quality. And there’s a further dimension. 

Whatever the price we pay, it is essential that at the end we feel that we have got what we have paid for. This doesn’t just mean a (hopefully satisfactory) round of golf at an excellent venue, but also that we have received the standards of service to go with it. Sotogrande is well supported in this department - and at that discounted web price, so it should be. However, this is not the case with every course (even with the proportionately lower standards expected of less expensive courses).

Being from the other side of the pond, I was brought up in an environment of quality service: golf and country clubs the length and breadth of the land provide it in a way that most British clubs could never dream of – and, yes, membership dues to go with it (often costing more per month than a full year’s British sub). For well-managed quality there is little to beat the US model.

However, I was very pleasantly surprised by Dubai. The golf facilities in this emirate are as good as I have seen anywhere: nowhere outside the US have I seen a group of clubs where it is so consistently clear that the money has been spent and spent well. Good course designers and good clubhouse architects with 

budgets in scale with their impressive objectives. The green fees are higher, but they’re worth it.

But when it is all built and operating it’s not just the quality of the facilities, and number and ability of the staff operating them. There’s a further quality which is priceless: even if clubs have to cut the costs, please don’t cut the smile. In my experience Dubai delivers this in a way that the Italians (and in their own way the Irish) also do.

Much of the rest of Europe can learn a lot from this. The nicer the smile, the more we smile. The more we smile, the more we return. The more we return, the more we spend... 

Sincerely yours, 

R T Brown 

. 

Your flight announced, it’s briefly back to the reality of the terminal for the walk to the gate, where again smooth priority overtakes the airbridge queue for those turning right. 

Whisked to our seats in the stretched Jumbo, we enter another world, completely different to BA: it’s here that our conclusion that the choice of airline may ultimately be a matter of personal preference begins to emerge. Upper Class seats are undoubtedly superior in comfort and ‘sleepability’ than BA’s Club World seats, even though the BA product is newer. BA’s current First cabin has been around for a decade or so now, and this shows. Have no doubt, the new Club World seats are plenty comfortable enough, but Upper Class has the edge. And, without doubt, there is more space to sleep in, despite a slightly clumsy process of conversion from seat to bed. So, if the highest degree of comfort and space is your selection criterion, read no further: you are an Upper Class traveller…

The feel of the cabin? Completely different from First (where individual window sleeper seat ‘cabins’ face outwards, with couples together for centre-aisle cabins); less different from Club World (2-4-2 configuration running parallel to the cabin interior, allowing side-by-side couples in the centre). Upper Class window seats are all angled inwards, ranked in rows, almost as if in a beehive. Take the back seat of a cabin and the other seats feel relatively discreet, angled away from you, but the further forward your seat, the more you feel stared at by the ranks of seats aft of you on the other side of the plane (most notably on the upper deck: no seats in the middle here, but there are downstairs). Furthermore, although (as with First), couples can share a table to eat, there are no side-by-side seats. Again, ultimately it’s a matter of personal preference. Maybe the best solution for some would be BA for those flights where sleep is relatively optional, and Upper Class if it is more of a necessity. 

For the rest, it was very much a score draw: overall, the Upper Class in-flight entertainment system and food were no better and no worse than that offered by BA in either cabin - acceptable, but not state-of-the-art and, at best, on a par with supermarket gastropub, respectively. The Upper Class asparagus risotto tasted good, but it failed on the texture front (isn’t risotto too ambitious for in-flight: an own goal, effectively?). Still, we loved the strawberry and cream roulade, even though its ‘wild berry coulis’ looked and tasted suspiciously identical to the ‘fruit compote’ served with the baked Sussex honey cheesecake. The wine list is the same each way: much though we enjoyed the Cortello 2008 from Estremadura in southern Portugal, BA’s wines in both cabins were superior. But then that would understate the flair of Virgin’s in-cabin bar, copious with (unbilled) Mumm Cordon Rouge throughout the flight, and the refreshing Red Hot Royale long cocktail celebrating the airline’s 25th anniversary.

And maybe this brings us to the nub: unless you are flying on points, BA’s First isn’t worth the expense. BA’s Club World and Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class both offer better value. Try them both, and your personal preferences will lean you towards one or the other. But, if we were pushed, we would have to concede that the personal touches of Upper Class make one wonder if perhaps it is everything that is Richard Branson that makes Virgin feel 25 years young…

Details: 

http://www.virginatlantic.com 

Upper Class: £2,793 

http://www.ba.com

First: £6,649; Club: £2,793 

Fare information based on an enquiry made on 9/8/2009 for a two week LHR-SFO return trip from 9th to 23rd December 2009, on lowest fare basis. 

The C+Golf team conducts its airline reviews on an independent basis and pays for all flights. 

Whilst nicely branded with the musical theme of the Aria Hotel (limited edition plates with cartoons of musicians included), once at the table it becomes even clearer that one is about to experience the personal creations of a chef whose talents are as artistic as they are technical.  Šašek has been in the business since he was 12 – a natural: his family ran a gourmet restaurant B&B at Pistina in southern Bohemia. Culinary studies, the experience of establishing sous chef reputations at five-star hotels in Prague (and then at the luxurious Ballynahinch Castle in Ireland) and he was ready to pick up the baton at Coda, where he has been Executive Chef since 2007. 

Particularly relevant to Coda has been Šašek’s experience with the celebrated chef Laurent Gras, former chef de cuisine of Alain Ducasse, developing an expertise in the French technique of cooking ‘sous vide’. This requires assembly of all the ingredients within a vacuum-sealed bag, and maintaining their integrity by heating them for an extended period at relatively low temperatures, sometimes well over 24 hours – this way, the molecular structure of the foods remains intact throughout the cooking process. A delicate and painstaking method, requiring specialist equipment, which delivers tender results full of flavour. Šašek carefully selects fresh and natural ingredients to delight the taste buds, even growing some of them at home or picking them wild (e.g. Dandelion Flower Sorbet, one of his many un-missable gelati).

The vibrant and ever changing menu offers guests international cuisine accompanied by an excellent selection of fine wines. “When creating dishes, I don’t like to limit myself to certain ingredients, food combinations, or regions, I rather try to use only what’s fresh, and what feels right at the time.” So seasonal produce, daily-caught seafood, farm-raised meats and game are showcased on the ever- changing dinner menu, with dishes such as Pan Seared Sea Scallops with a Vibrant Green Asparagus Emulsion, Confit of Pyrenees Lamb Fore Shank with Creamy Polenta, or Braised Rabbit Legs Laced in English Bacon. And there are plenty of Czech dishes as well: don’t miss Šašek’s duck dishes, e.g. Duck Leg confit served with potato gnocchi and sauerkraut.

The restaurant operates from breakfast through to dinner in three equally stylish rooms: the main dining room establishes a formal atmosphere, whereas the adjoining Winter Garden is an airy setting for guests to enjoy the Aria Hotel’s daily complementary breakfast or lunch. In summer you can dine on the Roof Garden Terrace, which looks up to the castle with panoramic views over the rest of Prague. So fine tune your senses and head for the Czech capital: if food be the music of love…

Without wines 1,850 Czk (approx £63) 

With wines 2,500 Czk (approx £85)

Coda Restaurant, Hotel Aria 

Tržište 9 

Prague 1, 118 00 

Czech Republic

Tel: +420 225 334 761    

coda@aria.cz   www.codarestaurant.cz