Forget the beach – in August, I like to be in the city, where the eating is easy

Everyone goes to the beach in August. I stay away – too hot, too crowded, too busy, too expensive. I wait for September, when the kids are back at school and their parents back at work, and the heat of the summer has waned. August, for me, is for cities.

Cities have a different quality in August. They are slightly less crowded, slightly less hurried. And the long days and scant traffic allow each day to stretch and fit in so much more – there is always one more thing to see or do, another hour outside, one more drink …

Some cities are better suited to summer than others: I’ve learned the hard way that Madrid is best avoided in August. Likewise Cairo. Italy’s cities are pretty much closed-up all month, and Paris certainly is, but things get interesting further north in Europe. A few years ago, we somehow ended up operating the grill at a street party in a municipal park surrounded by beer-nursing Copenhageners: that city does not get a lot of sun, but when it does, it really makes the most of it. The next day we took a little motorboat, loaded it up with bags of crisps and a bottle of rosé, and spent the day on the water, dipping in and out of a rather balmy Baltic.

Of course, the best place to be in August is London – I love it so much, and I really don’t get why some people don’t. I’ll take the rain for the glorious sunny days, I’ll take the relatively empty parks and woods over any crowded Mediterranean beach, and I don’t mind the hordes of students from the continent, even if they do block the tube exits (why?) because it is only them and me in the museums and galleries. I love the Proms, the open-air cinema and theatre and opera, I love that a bus from south to central London takes 15 minutes when it would normally take 40. More than anything, I love being able to get a table in my favourite restaurants: Trullo, Rochelle Canteen, Andrew Edmunds, the French House. In August, you can book in the morning for a table that same evening; come September, you will have to book for October.

There is also a lot to be said about having access to your own kitchen at this time of year, rather than being on the road. Plus, the produce that comes this month is fantastic and cooking is an absolute joy: sweetcorn from Norfolk, strawberries from Herefordshire (in Yotam Ottolenghi’s granita, pictured top), plums from Kent, mackerel from Cornwall and game from Scotland. With all of this goodness, I am staying in my city, in my kitchen.

A perfect summer Sunday | Train up to Chingford, a stroll through the magical Epping Forest, build up an appetite and head to lunch at the newly opened Gina. Make sure to order the tomato pasta and leave room for the co-owner Ravneet Gill’s chocolate cake and the delicious sorbets. Then wish you lived in the area so you could do this every Sunday.

What I read this week | It’s a long journey ride to Chingford from our place, so a good book helped: Tart, by the mysterious author with the pen name Slutty Chef, is a look at contemporary chef/dating life that feels like a modern-day, female-led Kitchen Confidential. It is also a little love song to London.

¡Buen provecho! | They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes, but if your hero is José Pizarro, I think you definitely should. He is one of the classiest cooks, and I was a little nervous when we hosted a supper club for his superb new book, The Spanish Pantry. I needn’t have been – José made everyone feel comfortable, welcome and special, a masterclass not only in cooking but also in hospitality. The food was, of course, gorgeous.

The Greyhound, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire | ​The Greyhound, in a grade II former coaching inn from the 17th century, is no typical gastropub, writes Grace Dent. It “boasts a decidedly fancy and swanky restaurant that steers well away from muddy wellies and sticky toffee pudding, and instead pitches its tent in the land of wood pigeon with white beetroot and lavender, Norfolk chicken pressé with pickled girolles and sweetcorn, and ajo blanco with grapes, cantaloupe melon and nasturtium”. Read the full review.