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Hotel Hit Squad: Child-focused fun and family cookery courses make the Grand Hotel and Spa in York ideal for a half-term break

The Grand Hotel and Spa's new reasonably priced cookery school host classes for all ages and abilities, including 'parent and child' sessions
The Grand Hotel and Spa's new reasonably priced cookery school host classes for all ages and abilities, including 'parent and child' sessions

What are you looking for when you book a hotel with kids? It’s not a rhetorical question. I genuinely want to know. Tweet me (@hattiegarlick) or write (how charming would that be?) and I will diligently hunt down and test hotels that meet your specifications. Talk about selfless public service.

Here’s my view. Travelling with children, I want one of two things. A true home from home, somewhere small, warm and characterful where my children’s eccentricities and muddy boots can be absorbed into the chatter and charm. (See: Penally Abbey in Pembrokeshire, or Augill Castle in Cumbria.) Or somewhere so vast and anonymous it’s like being luxuriously institutionalised.

The benefit of this is that you can check in, and check out of adulting altogether for a short, blissful time. A concierge will do the thinking, the housekeeping the picking up and turning down – reducing you to a giant toddler yourself, padding the corridors in a fluffy gown. (See: Gleneagles, at the fantasy end of the scale, or more realistically, The Grand Hotel and Spa, York).

The latter is a proud red-brick building inside the city’s medieval walls, once the headquarters of the North Eastern Railway Company and reincarnated as York’s only five-star hotel in 2010. Last year, it added 100 more bedrooms, doubling its size (vast – check; luxurious – check).

The Grand Hotel and Spa, York - Credit: Credit: PURPLE MARBLES YORK 1 / Alamy Stock Photo/PURPLE MARBLES YORK 1 / Alamy Stock Photo
The hotel is a proud red-brick building inside York's medieval walls that was formerly the headquarters of the North Eastern Railway Company Credit: Credit: PURPLE MARBLES YORK 1 / Alamy Stock Photo/PURPLE MARBLES YORK 1 / Alamy Stock Photo

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Doormen in bowler hats sweep you into a lobby that’s all marble chequered floor, Corinthian pillars and Edwardian wrought-iron balustrades befitting the “Palace of Business” the building was originally conceived to be. The new annexe, on the other hand, was converted from a Seventies office block. While the former has all the character in its bones, the latter appears to have been allocated the entire interior design budget.

The new rooms have white marble bathrooms and panelled walls in Farrow & Ball shades, but our room in the old hotel is beige as a boardroom (which it probably was, originally). It has curtains in striped toothpaste shades and an intriguing view across a multi-story car park. It is, however, vast and supremely comfortable.

Besides, we are really here to test the hotel’s new cookery school. Opening next month, it will host classes for all ages and abilities, including “parent and child” sessions.

A huge amount of love and money has been sunk into equipping the bright, 2,500 sq ft space with copper light fittings and cool plywood cabinets. Four long, marble-topped islands house 16 workstations, each equipped with induction hob, oven and professional equipment. It looks like the set of Junior MasterChef.

It is also reasonably priced. Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons has a family cooking course, too. It lasts a full day and costs £555 for two. The Grand’s (three hours in which you cook a main course and a pudding before sitting down to eat both) costs £45 for two.

Head chef Andrew Dixon gives a concise demo, focusing on kitchen skills the children can take home and practise. Then we are assigned a workstation. While my son and I make meatballs and tomato sauce, Andrew and two assistant chefs offer tips and whip away all the washing up.

The Grand Hotel and Spa, York
The parent and child cookery workshops involve creating (and eating) a main course and pudding

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This is cooking without the adulting and it is fabulous. There is no faulting it. But let me move quickly on to the pool. The Grand’s is inside the Espa spa. It welcomes kids, giving them small robes and little bottles of Child’s Farm 3 in 1 swim gel to wash off the chlorine. Not everyone is so relaxed. A pasty man breast-stroked up to us, muttering accusations about the children talking – or possibly breathing – marring his relaxation.

The rest of the hotel is heaven for kids. The smart dining room, Hudsons, has three AA Rosettes and a £50 tasting menu, but we eat in The Rise, an art deco-styled brasserie. It has a decent children’s menu, an endless stream of colouring and crayons and, crucially, reasonably priced wine (another point on my family hotel checklist, since paying £45 for a chardonnay that I have to sip between rounds of I Spy doesn’t thrill me).

Breakfast is served here too, and ticks off another of my big hotel essentials – a buffet on an epic scale that Willy Wonka would smile on. In fact, almost everything about The Grand is straightforward and slick. Even its location is ideal for families – a two-minute walk from the station, and a 10-minute stroll to the Shambles, the medieval lanes that inspired Diagon Alley and are now crammed with cute wizarding emporiums selling Harry Potter wands and gowns.

City breaks aren’t usually much fun with children in tow. This one, however, is magic.

A family of four can stay at The Grand from £245 a night, B&B. Parent and child cookery workshops cost £45 for a pair, and are aimed at children from eight to 18.

Read the full Grand Hotel & Spa review