Jonathan Phang's Gourmet Trains

Jonathan boards this historic train at Venice train station and travels via Innsbruck to Paris and then on to London. On board he meets other guests and gets ready for a black tie dinner. After a night spent on the train, he enjoys a lobster lunch whilst travelling from Paris to London. In Venice he explores the Rialto food market and cooks scampi which he buys there with chef Ivan Cantenacci. He visits the palazzo Lezze home of Marie Bagnasco, on the Grand Canal, and finds out how Venetians live and entertain in these palatial houses. He cooks with Chef Maurizio Adamo at a local fried fish eaterie, Paradiso Perduto and enjoys a bellini and a Venetian sunset at the Hotel Cipriani. In Paris Jonathan is invited to the laboratory of chocolate master Patrick Roger where truffle making doesn’t go quite to plan and he does retro dining at the art nouveau restaurant, La Fermette Marbeuf.

Jonathan retraces Queen of crime Agatha Christie’s footsteps in a journey which inspired her most famous novel - Murder on the Orient Express. This sees him travelling from Bucharest to Istanbul through the Carpathian Mountains to the former royal resort of Sinaia – where he cooks a wild venison dinner if a hunting lodge. In Bucharest Jonathan explores the emerging food scene and cooks with Mircea Dinescu, a poet and political revolutionary turned restaurateur and rustic food enthusiast. In Istanbul Jonathan explores both the traditional and more cutting edge food scene. He meets Istanbul’s ‘spice girl’, the only female shop owner in the historic spice market and he attempts to cook traditional Turkish cuisine with local cookery school owner Selin Rozanes.

Jonathan takes the British Pullman to Whitstable in Kent where he faces his phobia for oysters. He goes foraging on the beach with ‘fine food forager’ Lucia Jackson and cooks a gourmet dinner with his finds. His Northern Belle journey takes him to Rutland, the smallest historic county in England, where he has an early morning start making artisan bread. He then uses this bread to embark on a bread and butter pudding cook-off with Mark Beastall the chef of the Michelin starred country house hotel, Hambleton Hall. Back in London he is invited to the Orient-Express depot to see how the trains are restored, before cooking lunch with chef Anthony Garlando of Aqua, 31 storeys up, in the newly built Shard.

In Singapore Jonathan meets executive chef Christopher Christie who is in charge of 30 restaurants at the 8billion dollar ‘wonder of the world’ that is the Marina Bay Sands. He takes on a chilli crab challenge and cooks with young British chef Ryan Clift who is making a name for himself with his molecular approach to gourmet cuisine at the award-winning Tippling Club. He then boards the Eastern and Oriental train from the world famous Raffles Hotel, and travels through the night to Penang in Malaysia. On board he enjoys a dinner so much he goes back for seconds.

In George Town, the historic capital of the Malaysian state of Penang, Jonathan explores a Sunday morning market and sends up buying a 100 year-old egg which he eats back on the train with chef Yannis Martineau. The train stops off at the infamous bridge over the River Kwai and Jonathan pays his respects at the war graves there. On to Bangkok with its markets, temples and food on every street corner, where Jonathan gets the ultimate lesson in making Thai green curry from one of Thailand’s most popular celebrity chefs, Vichit Mukura. He then explores Chinatown and puts two restaurants, which are old rivals, to the test to see which one makes the best Tom Yum soup.

Jonathan’s journey starts in Budapest, where he tackles an ancient dish inspired by blood sucking leeches at the influential Bock Bizstro. He meets TV chef Zsofia Mautner who’s pioneering a fresh approach to traditional Hungarian food and gets behind the scenes at one of the city’s most famous coffee houses - Gerbaud. Since Budapest is all about spas, Jonathan strips off to enjoy these healing waters. The Venice Simplon Orient-Express takes him to Vienna, where he takes part in a cook-off at Figlmuller; the city’s most famous schnitzel dynasty restaurant and is let in on the secrets of a legendary Viennese lobster dish at the Opera House restaurant Vestibuel. He also finds out how a city vineyard in the centre of Vienna is producing award winning wine.