Annie B’s Spanish Kitchen has added a new escorted gourmet tour for 2018, introducing guests to culinary Cadiz. An ancient port city on the Andalusian coast, Cadiz is home to over 100 watchtowers but on this epicurean escape guests will only have eyes for the food, enjoying guided tours of the city’s markets and restaurants plus cookery lessons on how to prepare local specialities.
So that holidaymakers receive a true taste of the Cadiz province, the course also includes four nights in Annie’s hometown of Vejer de la Frontera, where she has been officially adopted for services to local gastronomy, with more cookery classes and producer visits.
Annie is a highly regarded chef, Sherry educator, cookery teacher and tour guide who is consistently five-star rated on TripAdvisor. Her popular courses are generally based at her beautiful home, Casa Alegre, with lunch taken around the pool or on the roof terrace. Born and brought up in Scotland, Annie’s foodie connections in her new hometown are second to none and her trips include daily excursions to local purveyors of traditional food and wine with whom she has worked alongside for many years. The creative holidays mix food, fun and learning in a unique blend that has yet to be bettered in Andalucía.
The Ultimate Gourmet Tour of Cadiz
This escorted holiday takes guests from the undulating countryside of Andalucia, through the land of Sherry and to the ancient city of Cadiz. In Cadiz, the group joins host Pancho Jimenez Yanes, who cooked with celebrity chef Rick Stein on his Long Weekends BBC programme, for a tour of the fascinating Mercado Central de Abastos, one of the oldest covered markets in Spain, before cooking a fish dish at his restaurant. The next day guests catch a ferry to the nearby Sherry bodegas for a tutored tasting and lunch before returning for a second evening of Cadiz’s best tapas. The final day in the city is spent in the company of a ‘Gaditano’ (a true Cadiz native), who offers an authentic city tour like no other and a superb dinner in the cathedral square. Guests stay in the lovely Cuatro Torres Hotel in the centre of the city, a converted merchants’ house with an original watchtower.
The week is set up with four days of food and feasting in Annie’s hometown of Vejer de la Frontera. Here, Annie will teach guests to cook some iconic local dishes in her kitchen and there’s an included tapas tour of Vejer on foot, a private wine tasting, a gourmet tuna feast in nearby Barbate at El Campero, the ‘Tuna Temple of Spain’, and a private flamenco musical event in Annie’s home.
Price: Annie B’s Spanish Kitchen (anniebspain.com, +34 620 560 649) offers The Ultimate Gourmet Tour of Cadiz from €1,950 per person, based on two sharing, including seven nights’ B&B accommodation (four in La Casa Del Califa, Vejer de la Frontera, three in Cuatro Torres Hotel, Cadiz) five lunches, five dinners, guided tapas tour, visits to local producers, cookery classes, and a private flamenco event. Flights and airport transfers extra. Departures in 2018: 7 June and 9 September. Group size of 10.
