FOODIE GETAWAY

Combine your secret desire to be Nigella with your much-publicised love of a mini-break. Here’s four we love…

HEALTHY CHEF

Introduction to Superfoods , Lucknam Park, Wiltshire

Okay, I really love food but tell me again why I’d want to spend my weekend away cooking?

Granted, most of us go away so that someone else can cook for us, but Lucknam Park’s cookery school feels anything but arduous. Located in a light and airy house to the side of the main country estate (more on that later), there’s a dressing room upstairs where you’re given a chef’s uniform (complete with hat) to change into. Then, after tea and homemade snacks (rosemary biscuits, vegetable canapés, something involving figs and goats’ cheese), you start your course.

I’m sold on the promise of snacks and playing dress-up. What kinds of classes are there?

All sorts - from fancy bread making and desserts to butchery skills and autumn harvesting. I chose the Introduction to Superfoods half-day class. My mini-break companion – aka my mum – has suffered health problems and so far has refused to take my advice on eating herself well. But she was all ears when it came from handsome Welsh chef Hywel Jones (who boasts a Michelin star). Typical.

So they teach you more than just how to pronounce açaí?

Hell, yes. Classes are a mixture of practical demonstrations from Jones and his commis chef, and cooking at

your own station. We made four dishes including super-speedy vegetable broth with wild garlic pesto, tea-smoked mackerel and a loaf of soda bread, before sitting down to lunch. Too posh to chop? You can get help with your prep and every used utensil is whisked away to be washed; you don’t have to dirty a finger. Jones explains he’s not a nutritionist, but he can teach you interesting ways to use the best quality fresh ingredients in different ways, such as toasting quinoa in the pan with some oil and spices before boiling it, or adding avocado to a vegetable broth right at the end to make it more satiating. You leave with healthy hacks to update your cooking back home.

Sold! But what else does the weekend have to offer food-wise?

Cookery school aside, Lucknam is a foodie’s paradise. The Michelin-starred Park Restaurant is on site, as is the informal brasserie, which has a section at the back of the menu offering lighter options, and there’s a kitchen garden that grows its own produce – all your gastronomical needs are covered.

And after an exhausting day’s feasting?

Lie back and relax in some of the most beautiful bedrooms in the UK, complete with roll-top baths and huge, pillow-strewn beds.

Is there some way to earn all that grub?

Start your stay with a run around Lucknam’s 500 acres of gardens and woodlands and stables (you can bring your own horse to Lucknam, or you know, borrow one of theirs). Then, retire to the spa, which is everything you’d expect from a five-star wellness facility. It has a separate Pilates and yoga space, heated indoor, outdoor and thalassotherapy (fancy word for seawater) pools, as well as four separate steam and sauna options. You could spend five hours happily doing nothing here. Confession: there was more steaming than running.