foodie

Five of the best foodie holidays to book for 2026 from island wine tours to all-inclusive resorts

HUNGRY Brits are being led by their stomachs when it comes to booking a holiday – as the UK establishes itself as a nation of foodies.

Research from tour operator TUI has revealed that 41 per cent of us would consider booking a trip that’s all about the nosh.

We share the best short-haul breaks in 2026 for those who love their grubCredit: Getty

It’s little wonder as, even at home, 39 per cent said they prioritise eating out in local restaurants.

Sophie Swietochowski shares her pick of the best short-haul breaks in 2026 for those who love their grub . . . 

AYIA NAPA, CYPRUS

TO get a bit of guidance on your foodie adventure, take a look at TUI’s new Dine & Discover packages, which are designed to send travellers to hotels renowned for their food.

As well as excellent grub and booze within the resorts’ restaurants, visitors will be treated to special extras, such as a complimentary cookery lesson or a cocktail mixology class, as part of the deal.

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Ayia Napa, on Cyprus’s south-eastern coast, is the ideal spot for a romantic foodie escapeCredit: Getty

The 5H Amanti, MadeForTwo hotel in Ayia Napa, on Cyprus’s south-eastern coast, is marketed as a couples-only resort and is the ideal spot for a romantic escape.

Travellers booked on the TUI package will receive money off a mountain villages tour with lunch and honey tasting.

Or they can opt for a discount on a halloumi-making and bread baking experience.

GO: Seven nights’ B&B at the Amanti, MadeForTwo hotel is from £1,192pp including flights from Manchester on June 1, 2026. See tui.co.uk.

MOROCCO

IF it’s authentically traditional tastings you are after, Intrepid is the holiday company for you.

Their 12-night Morocco Real Food Adventure is undoubtedly something for the bucket list, showcasing everything from camel burgers to traditional family dinners whipped up in local homes – as well as tours of traditional markets.

Intrepid’s Morocco Real Food Adventure is undoubtedly something for the bucket listCredit: Unknown

Cuisine is at the heart of this trip, but you’ll tick off some pretty cool sights, too, as you pass through Casablanca, Meknes, Moulay Idriss, Chefchaouen, Fez and Midelt before moving on to Merzouga, the M’Goun Valley and, of course, Marrakech.

You’ll stay in hotels, guesthouses, gites and a desert camp.

GO: The 12-day trip costs from £984pp including accommodation, breakfasts, most dinners and some lunches.

Price also includes several foodie experiences such as a goats-cheese tasting and cous-cous demonstration. Flights extra. See intrepid.com.

DOLOMITES, ITALY

HAVING your hand held is no bad thing – and because of this, you know you’ll get the best of the best wherever you go when you book one of Saga’s food-and-wine holidays.

Every itinerary on a these getaways has been carefully curated, to include the top spots and activities on offer in that region, whether it be a visit to a local market or a cookery workshop combining culture and grub.

A couple raise a glass in the tranquil Dolomites in ItalyCredit: Getty

How does la dolce vita in the Italian mountains sound?

This week-long Dolomites tour is lip-smackingly good, with a visit to a working dairy farm, a wine-cellar tour with olive-oil samplings, and demonstrations at an apple orchard.

When you’re not tasting goodies, kick back at your hotel, the Alle Dolomiti over-looking Lake Molvano – enjoy the pool or unwind in the sauna.

GO: A seven-night Food And Wine In The Dolomites trip costs from £1,525pp on a half-board basis, including flights from Gatwick on September 21, 2026. See holiday.saga.co.uk.

BODRUM, TURKEY

HOLIDAY firm Jet2 has a specific section entirely dedicated to foodie escapes.

It is called Perfect For Dining – and these places really are.

The all-inclusive-plus deals at the 5H Lujo Art And Joy hotel, in sun-drenched Bodrum, cover everythingCredit: Getty

The collection of hotels offer gourmet food, with extensive a la carte menus, and have an emphasis on local flavours.

Some of the properties even house Michelin-star restaurants.

Unlike many all-inclusive packages, the all-inclusive-plus deals at the 5H Lujo Art And Joy hotel, in sun-drenched Bodrum, cover everything.

That means not being restricted to the buffet each night, as a la carte dining at breakfast, lunch and dinner is available at most of the 11 onsite restaurants and bars.

You will have to fork out extra for the teppanyaki, steakhouse and Asian joints, though.

Kids will be kept happy with a 24-hour ice cream and frozen yoghurt stand.

GO: Seven nights’ all-inclusive-plus costs from £1,828pp based on a family of four sharing and including flights from Leeds Bradford on April 19, 2026. See jet2holidays.com.

PORTOPETRO, MAJORCA

THE Spanish island of Majorca most certainly pips the other Balearics to the post when it comes to a smashing food and drink scene.

If you’re tempted to visit, it’s worth remembering that customers booking a TUI Dine & Discover package also receive 15 per cent off food and gastronomy experiences with TUI Musement.

Majorca most certainly pips the other Balearics to the post when it comes to a smashing food and drink sceneCredit: Getty

And on this gem of an island, that includes a Majorca Winery Visit & Local Food Tasting experience.

You’ll be driven into the heart of the island’s wine country to sample tipples from a small family-run vineyard.

Soak up that booze with homegrown snacks, fresh bread, olive oils and local cheeses.

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A stay at the 5H Ikos Porto Petro also includes a free bottle of cava from the hotel’s private cellar, as well as a cocktail event on site.

GO: Seven nights’ all-inclusive at the 5H Ikos Porto Petro is from £2,240pp including flights from London Gatwick on May 5, 2026. See tui.co.uk.

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A place at the farmer’s table on a foodie trip to Trieste | Food and drink

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.

Illustration: Guardian Graphics

“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.

An osmiza spread for one at Verginella Dean, including home-cured salumi and hams, local cow’s milk cheese, pickles, olives and sun-dried tomatoes. Photograph: Mina Holland

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.

Mimì e Cocotte, which specialises in regional natural wines. Photograph: Lavinia Colonna Preti

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.

Drinks and nibbles at Pagna, which specialises in natural wines

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



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‘I visited foodie paradise city with most Michelin stars per person for one simple dish’

While northern Spain may not attract as many tourists as it’s resort-packed neighbours in the south, one city is attracting a whole new set of visitors looking to try some of the best food the country has to offer

Jamones de Jabugo on the counter of a bar in San Sebastián
One city has become famous for it’s foodie culture and is a must-visit for anyone obsessed with food(Image: Alvaro Fernandez Echeverria/Getty)

For many people, the best bit about going abroad is eating and drinking your way through a new place, trying all the local dishes and bringing home your favourite recipes.

While millions of foodies may head to tourist hot spots of Rome, Barcelona or Paris to eat their weight in pasta, tapas or pastries, one hidden gem has actually gained the title of Europe’s culinary paradise.

Nestled on the coast of Northern Spain, and just a few miles from the French border, is the small port and fishing city of San Sebastian. Lining the turquoise ocean of the Bay of Biscay, it made its living from catching fish, and is now making its fortune cooking it.

The Basque city has the highest proportion of Michelin Star restaurants of anywhere else in the world. Despite a population of just 180,000, the city is home to 12 Michelin-starred restaurants, including three highly coveted three-star restaurants and three two-star restaurants.

While getting a table at the prestigious Arzak, Akelare, and Martin Berasategui may be easier said than done – and out of many of our budgets – the foodie culture is something that has seeped down to the streets.

San Sebastian,Basque Spain: Locals and Tourists are ordering and enjoying eating Pinchos
Spending a night eating through Pintxos bar’s is a must on any trip(Image: Chalffy/Getty)

The city’s picturesque Iberian streets are lined with pintxos bars (pronounced pEEn-chos), delightful little watering holes filled with locals that serve you bite-sized pieces of bread served with local meats, cheeses, fish and anything else the chef fancies, perfect when paired with a cold beer or glass of sangria.

An evening can easily be spent hopping from bar to bar, tucking into the delicious bites, with the odd slice of tortilla or other tapas classics, before finishing it off with a famed slice of Basque cheesecake.

But for those wanting something much more filling, the region is home to what has been described as the “best steak in the world”.

On a trip to the city, Isaac Rodgers from the Steak Society went on a hunt around the city to try to find the best Txuleton steak around.

The Txuleton steak is a regional delicacy that is served from much older cows than you’d normally find – usually about 18 years old – from the specific Rubio Gallegia breed.

 Casa Julian, a traditional Basque Txuleteria grill restaurant
Traditional Basque steak at the nearby Casa Julian in Tolosa has become famous around the world(Image: marktucan/ Getty)

Having eaten so much steak, he gained 4.5 pounds on his trip, Isaac concluded his favourite came from Gandarias Jatetxea.

He wrote: “This wasn’t my first visit to Gandarias. I discovered Gandarias after searching for Steakhouses back in 2014 and was thrilled by a very reasonably priced and delicious melt-in-the-mouth steak. I’ve been wanting to go back ever since.

“We ordered Octopus and a 1.1kg ‘Old aged T-Bone steak’, a delicious new take on surf and turf, I suppose.

“The steak was unexpectedly tender as well as being quite beefy (but not as much as expected). The steak closest to the bone was also the most tasty. Given the cut of steak and the breed of cow, there were copious amounts of fat. Combining some of the chunks of fat with the beef created an insanely pleasurable taste.”

Flights from the UK to San Sebastian are relatively expensive and infrequent, but budget flights from the UK to nearby Bilbao can cost as little as £21, with similar costing flights available to Biarritz in France, requiring just a short hop over the border.

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Tell us about a great foodie experience in rural Europe | Travel

Farm-to-fork dining may be the latest buzzword on Britain’s foodie scene, but it’s something they’ve been doing brilliantly, and without fuss or fanfare, on the continent for decades. We’d love to hear about your favourite rural food experiences in Europe, whether it be a perfect Italian agriturismo, a fabulous farmer’s market in France, or joining the festivities as the locals celebrate their favourite delicacy coming into season.

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Foodie Finland: the best restaurants and cafes in Helsinki | Helsinki holidays

Unexpectedly, porridge is a Finnish obsession, available in petrol stations, schools and on national airline flights. But Helsinki’s gastronomic offerings are a lot wilder, featuring reindeer, moose, pike perch, salmon soup, herring, seaweed – and even bear meat. And from summer into autumn, Finns’ deep affinity with nature blossoms, fusing local organic produce with foraged berries and mushrooms. This inspires menus to feature whimsical fusions of textures and flavours, all straight from the land.

Garlanded with superlatives, from “friendliest” and “happiest” to “world’s most sustainable city”, this breezy Nordic capital is fast catching up on its foodie neighbours. Enriched by immigrant chefs, the youthful, turbocharged culinary scene now abounds in excellent mid-range restaurants with affordable tasting menus – although wine prices are steep (from €10/£8.60 for a 120ml glass). Vegan and vegetarian alternatives are omnipresent, as are non-alcoholic drinks, many berry based. Tips are unnecessary, aesthetics pared down, locals unostentatious and dining starts early, at 5pm. And, this being Finland, you can digest your meal in a sauna, whether at an island restaurant (Lonna) or high in the sky on the Ferris wheel (SkySauna).

Eat, sweat, swim – go Finn!

Nolla

Nolla has a Michelin green star. Photograph: Nikola Tomevski

Top of the table in zero-waste cred is pioneering Nolla (meaning “zero”), which even boasts a designer composter in one corner. It serves regularly changing taster menus (four courses €59, six courses €69) in an old townhouse with a relaxed, hip vibe. Led by Catalan chef and co-owner Albert Franch Sunyer, the 70-seater espouses localism and upcycling: staff uniforms are made from old curtains and sheets, while the base of a wine bottle becomes a butter dish. Nothing goes to waste, whether leftover bread or used coffee grounds (an ingredient in a roasted hay ice-cream). Goose is a recent innovation, roasted deliciously with honey turnips, parsnip puree and hazelnut crumble, while Finncattle carpaccio with a radish and tomato harissa dressing brings an exotic hit. With a Michelin green star, Nolla’s easygoing atmosphere and strict environmental policies make it a winner.
restaurantnolla.com

Muru

Not far from Nolla, in the popular central area, is long-standing Muru, one of the first French-style bistros in Helsinki. Masterminded by award-winning sommelier Samuil Angelov, it’s intimate, with a slightly worn, rustic edge and eccentricities that stretch to a wine store at the top of a vertiginous ladder. The changing menus (four courses €59, two courses €39) are chalked on a blackboard in Finnish, which any waiter will translate – English is virtually a second language in Helsinki. Depending on the season, you might indulge in a starter of lavaret (freshwater fish) with pickled cucumber, radishes and dill flower, a nettle risotto with rhubarb and parmesan (risottos are Muru’s speciality) and end with a luscious pannacotta and strawberry dessert.
murudining.fi

The Room

A gilded turnip at The Room, where ‘gold rules’. Photograph: Fiona Dunlop

This is where the Middle East comes to Finland – dramatically. Cloistered in a curtained room, 14 diners sit around a kitchen bar to watch Kurdish chef Kozeen Shiwan enact his gastronomic life story. This is represented by 14 meticulously conjured courses – from a single richly decorated olive (“Made in Suleymaniah) to a spicy quail’s leg buried in flowers (“Flora’s Quail”). Each dish is introduced by the chef’s witty patter. Gold rules, too, whether in Kozeen’s teeth, his necklace, or encasing a platter of glittering potatoes baked with amba sauce and roe before they sink into a mayo, saffron and olive oil sauce. It’s a memorable dining performance (€159), but make sure Kozeen is present on the night you book, and choose wine by the glass rather than the €119 wine pairing.
kozeenshiwan.com

Finlandia Hall

Alvar Aalto’s monumental Finlandia Hall. Photograph: Fiona Dunlop

Nobody can visit Helsinki without paying homage to Alvar Aalto (1898-1976), the groundbreaking architect and designer who brought functionalism to Finland. After three years of renovation, his monumental Finlandia Hall, an events centre which opened in 1971, now includes a sleekly designed bistro and a cafe. Everything in the building is by Aalto, from lighting to furniture and brass fittings, explained in an illuminating permanent exhibition. On the food front, the bistro (open for dinner Thursday to Saturday) offers typically creative Nordic cuisine with Mediterranean accents (four courses €59, six courses €69, plus à la carte) in a moody interior. For more luminosity, or for lunch, head for Finlandia Café&Wine (open all week), with terrace views over the bay. Self-service snacks and drinks are backed up by a daily lunch special (€14.70) or a copious breakfast (€19.90) – porridge included, of course.
finlandiatalo.fi

Nokka

Warehouse spaciousness … Nokka. Photograph: Fiona Dunlop

Down on the south harbour, beside a stretch of other eateries, Nokka’s spacious warehouse is full of nautical artefacts and enlarged sketches of wild animals. The philosophy of chef-founder Ari Ruoho, a keen hunter and fisher, is to bring Finland’s peerless “wild nature” on to the plate, nose to tail. Apart from the wild meat, there is a huge emphasis on organic vegetables. There are three menus (four courses €89, vegetarian €74, eight courses from €129) and à la carte options. The smoked bream mousse starter with pickled cucumber, cucumber sorbet and a crispbread combining fish skin with dried roe and pumpkin seeds (€24) is a revelation, as is tender roasted reindeer, seasonal vegetables and roast potatoes with grated elk heart. This is ambitious, perfectly honed food that easily justifies its Michelin green star.
nokkahelsinki.fi

Lonna

Lonna restaurant. Photograph: Fiona Dunlop

Several thousand islands speckle the Gulf of Finland, so there’s no excuse not to hop on a ferry for a 10-minute ride to Lonna island. Here, recycling comes with a twist, as ageing military structures now house an eponymous restaurant with bar and terrace overlooking the Baltic. Add to that a beach, a sleekly designed sauna and views to Helsinki and you have a bucolic escape. The 60-seater Lonna restaurant is low key, with bare brick walls and gorgeous Finnish tableware, and is open May to September. Excellent-value menus (three courses €39) change monthly, offering local organic produce and plentiful vegetarian options, such as oyster mushrooms with barley and smoked tomato, or a meaty option such as organic pork with bok choi and trout roe.
lonna.fi

Bona Fide

A tomato salad at Bona Fide. Photograph: Fiona Dunlop

In an elegant residential neighbourhood, this quirky little restaurant offers a four-course menu (€48) tweaked every few weeks. “We do what’s in season, using French technique and good ingredients from abroad, and only wild game or fish,” says Ilpo Vainonen, one of the two young chefs who are co-owners with sommelier and manager Johan Borgar. Like many of their peers, they make their own bread, which comes with a black olive dip. Every dish is presented superbly: try a starter combining fresh and semi-dried tomatoes framed by hazelnuts, cream cheese and tiny cherries, or an ice-cream in a puddle of olive oil served with a pan of stone fruits poached in rum syrup. Suddenly, a spoonful of raspberry sorbet coated in pink peppercorn appears. Divine.
bonafide.fi

Lunch on the run…

Salami sliced … a reindeer-meat snack at Market Hall. Illustration: Fiona Dunlop

As most of the restaurants above open for dinner only, lunch during Helsinki’s summer is all about outdoor grazing. Ice-cream kiosks dot the city, while numerous lippakioski (wooden kiosks dating from the 1920s) provide drinks and snacks. Countless cafes include quaint Café Regatta, an old waterside fisher’s shack with terrace. The touristy Market Hall offers wide-ranging choices, from reindeer salami and salmon soup to Asian fast food. Inside Oodi, Helsinki’s spectacular central library, you can enjoy a bargain set lunch or take snacks on to the panoramic terrace. And as everyone has the right to forage, for dessert head for Central Park to fill your pockets.

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UK’s ‘most underrated’ beach is full of history and is a foodie haven

Tucked away from the crowds is a seaside town that is perfect for a weekend escape. The ‘underrated’ destination is full of history and has an ‘enormous food scene’

Aerial seaside view of Deal town
UK’s ‘most underrated’ beach is full of history and is a foodie haven (Image: Getty)

As temperatures soar to a sizzling 30C, Brits are flocking to their favourite coastal spots to bask in the sun and enjoy the refreshing sea breeze. But before you rush off to the usual hotspots like Brighton or Margate, consider exploring some of the lesser-known seaside gems that are teeming with life.

Time Out has ranked the best seaside towns and unveiled a hidden treasure that’s often overlooked due to its more famous neighbours.

Nestled away from the bustling crowds is the quaint town of Deal in Kent. With its cosy charm, breathtaking coastal views, and an unexpectedly lively food scene, it’s the ideal location for a weekend getaway.

Time Out praised Deal as a “Proper seaside town with a creative community and really great food. The travel guru went on to say: “It’s smaller and less well known than its ever-popular Kentish neighbours Margate and Whitstable, but overlooking little Deal would be a mistake. Stretching along the seafront and an enormous pebble beach, Deal is a gem.”, reports the Express.

Wide angle view of Deal harbour
Deal has an enormous charming pebble beach(Image: Getty)

Deal is characterised as “quaint, quirky, and one of the most charming coastal towns in Kent.” The town is steeped in history, boasting a variety of maritime exhibits at the Deal Museum and the Timeball Tower Museum, as well as ancient castles.

Visitors can stroll along Deal’s historic pier and take in a view that has remained virtually unchanged for over a century. The town also has a rich history, with its narrow streets and alleyways once infamous for 18th-century smuggling, according to Visit South East England.

The pebbly shores of a British beach have earned an impressive 4.2 bubbles on TripAdvisor, despite not boasting the golden sands many might expect beside the clear blue sea.

One visitor raved about their experience: “Lovely clean beach…..of shingle, not sand. Ideal for swimmers and families. Seafront is clean and accessible, being very flat and with a smooth surface.”

Old Fishing Boat Pulled up on the Beach at Deal, England
Visitors can stroll along Deal’s beautiful historic pier

They continued to praise the area, saying, “Ideal for all, from runners, cyclists, dog walkers, those in wheelchairs and disabled. There are plenty of places to stop with benches along the seafront. Nice looking pier that is flat and easy to walk on with buggies and wheelchairs. Again, with plenty of seating.”

A local resident added their thoughts: “Well, I live in Deal, 500 yards from the beach, so I can’t say anything bad about it. The beach is huge and stretches for several miles between Kingsdown and Sandwich. At the height of summer, the beach is never crowded.”

However, they did offer a word of caution: “Be aware that the beach is very stony and is quite steep down to the water. The water current is fairly strong when the tide is running, and you can very quickly get out of your depth.”

Adding to the allure, Time Out has spotlighted Deal’s culinary scene, stating: “It’s dotted with delicious places to eat, buzzy places to drink and gorgeous places to look at or buy beautiful things. Try 81 Beach Street, wine bar Le Pinardier and Smugglers Records for starters.”

View of the sea in Deal Kent
‘Lesser known’ Kent seaside town is foodie haven(Image: Getty)

81 Beach Street reigns as Deal’s top dining spot on TripAdvisor, boasting over two decades on the scenic seafront. Their commitment to local produce shines on their webpage, proclaiming their passion for the freshest ingredients from Deal and Kent’s local small businesses.

They say: “Put together by one of the most experienced and talented kitchen teams in the area, there is always a great choice of fresh, creative plates; meals that taste as good as they look!” The eatery’s menu tempts with a variety of freshly prepared fish specials along with succulent steaks and juicy burgers.

A gourmet reviewer at Muddy Stilettos praised the restaurant: “It’s a real crowd pleaser and would appeal for a lunchtime gathering with family, and equally a fun and foodie-filled destination for a date night.”

Other hot recommendations from TripAdvisor include The Sea View and V Gastropub & Bar.

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