The moment Britain gets a glimpse of sunshine, two things happen. First, someone declares it “too hot”. Second, someone else buys 48 sausages and starts frantically searching for tongs.
This week, Jamie Oliver is on a mission to convince us there is a better way. I spoke to the chef about why British barbecue culture remains oddly stuck in the 1990s – and why grilling should be treated less like an annual event and more like an actual way of cooking. His new book and TV series make the case for putting vegetables, fish, flatbreads and even breakfasts over fire, rather than simply incinerating burgers whenever the Met Office issues a yellow heat alert. The recipes are genuinely tempting too, from romesco cauliflower to chilli-and-lemon chicken and a herb-crusted leg of lamb with smoky beans.
Speaking of sunshine-induced behaviour, supermarkets have spotted something else about modern Britain: we increasingly want to eat like we’re on holiday. Or, more specifically, we want to eat tiny portions of things that vaguely resemble being on holiday. This week I investigated the supermarket “picky bits” boom – the extraordinary rise of what is essentially a refrigerated aisle dedicated to aspirational grazing. Olives stuffed with things. Pastries stuffed with things. Cheese wrapped around things. Entire meals shrunk into canapé-sized fragments and sold back to us as “British tapas”. It’s absurd, oddly charming and, in some cases, astonishingly expensive.
Elsewhere, Lydia Spencer-Elliott charts the rise of this summer’s most performative cocktail: the sgroppino. If you’ve never encountered one before, imagine a frozen margarita that spent a gap year in Venice and returned with opinions.
Recipe-wise, we’re fully embracing the season. We’ve rounded up the best summer desserts for 2026, with recipes from Mary Berry, Nadiya Hussain, Tom Kerridge, Yotam Ottolenghi, Thomasina Miers, Andi Oliver and more. There are semifreddos, pavlovas, paletas, cheesecakes, crumbles and enough berries to keep every greengrocer in business until September.
If savoury cooking is more your thing, Tom Parker Bowles shares recipes from the newly updated edition of Let's Eat Meat, alongside his argument that sustainable meat-eating isn’t about abstinence but buying better, wasting less and using every last scrap. Expect Cornish pasties, pork with clams and chicken kebabs with proper punch.
And if you’re dreaming of warmer shores, Georgina Hayden joins us to champion three lesser-known Greek and Cypriot dishes that deserve far more attention than they get. Her one-pan moussaka alone might be enough to postpone booking that flight.
Whatever your plans this weekend – barbecuing, picnicking, cocktail sipping or simply eating ice cream in the garden while pretending your neighbours can’t hear you – enjoy the sunshine while it lasts. Because if British summers have taught us anything, it’s that we’ll either be in a heatwave or talking about one.
