Fish and fizz in Cornwall

In a quiet Cornish valley, a few miles north of Bodmin, sits the Camel Valley vineyard (www.camelvalley.com). It's been producing wine since the late Eighties and its speciality sparkling wines have won several top awards. A tour of the vineyard (Monday-Friday, £4.50, including a glass of sparkling wine) takes you through the basics of wine production and, once you've finished, you can enjoy a wine tasting overlooking the vineyard. Afterwards, make the 20-minute car journey to Fowey (pronounced 'foy'). Its restaurants serve some of the freshest seafood around. It's hard to beat a meal of fresh, deep-fried fish, coated in a thin crisp crust of batter covered in salt and vinegar, eaten while you watch the boats come in. For that, head to Sam's Other Place (www.samsfowey.co.uk) and eat outside.

Beer and oysters in Kent

It was a brave man that first prised open the shell of an oyster and sucked down the goo inside. Whitstable is one of a handful of places in Britain where they grow easily and this small town is dotted with seafood restaurants such as Wheeler's Oyster Bar (www.whitstable-shellfish.co.uk) and the Crab and Winkle (www.crab-winkle.co.uk). Once you've had your fill, make the short journey to nearby Faversham (around 20 minutes by car) to see the Shepherd Neame brewery. There you can enjoy a tour and a tutored tasting of their Kentish beers.

Britain's food capital

With a food festival in its 12th year and at least six independent butchers Ludlow deserves its title of food capital of Britain. Between 8-10 September, around 17,000 people will descend on this market town to take part in the festival. The medieval castle is home to the Food and Drink Fair where local producers get to show off their finest goods (admission to the fair starts from £4.50 on the Friday and family tickets are available). One of the Saturday highlights is the famous sausage trail, offering you a great opportunity to try sausages varying from the traditional to the wacky. You need to get there early as there are only 1,600 sausage trail tickets available, though if you miss out there's always the bread trail and the real ale trail too (the ale trail is repeated on Sunday). In the evening take a room at Mr Underhills, a Michelin-starred restaurant with rooms (double rooms start at £135) and round your day off with the seven-course tasting menu. For £55, it's a great opportunity to sample the variety of Shropshire's produce.

Cheese and beer in Wensleydale

Before Wallace and Gromit, The Wensleydale Creamery (www.wensleydale.co.uk) was a small producer, popular with enthusiasts but Nick Park's creations have changed everything and demand for this creamy, crumbly cheese has rocketed. Today the creamery makes a great afternoon out, with a museum, a dairy tour and a shop stocking all the cheeses they make. You can walk in the surrounding countryside, keeping an eye out for pubs selling Black Sheep Ale, made in nearby Masham. In the evening, the Simonstone Hall hotel (www.simonstonehall.co.uk) has a popular restaurant serving locally sourced food inspired by Yorkshire (rooms from £130 per night).

Scottish specialities, Loch Lomond

There is a lot to be said for Scotland's delicacies: finely hued pink slivers of smoked salmon, fat lumps of delicious haggis, fiery shots of peaty whisky. This year's Loch Lomond Festival between 15-17 September (www.lochlomondfoodanddrinkfestival.com) is set to gather together some of Scotland's finest cuisine. With local chefs such as Jacqueline O'Donnell from Glasgow restaurant The Sisters and wild-food expert Steve Hanton giving talks and classes any thoughts of deep-fried chocolate bars should be banished. The festival is also a great opportunity to broaden your knowledge of whisky at the dedicated marquee. Afterwards, the award-winning hotel and restaurant The Lodge on the Loch is a popular place for some fine local food, such as pork and black pudding (www.lodgeontheloch.com), rooms from £75).

Six Michelin stars in Bray

There are three triple Michelin star restaurants in Britain and two of them, the Fat Duck and the Waterside Inn, are in the 16th-century village of Bray, Berkshire. No guide to foodie days out could avoid a mention of these two great restaurants: if you're a food pilgrim, Bray is your Mecca. Heston Blumenthal, chef-proprietor of the Fat Duck, and Alain Roux of the Waterside Inn couldn't be more different. Roux comes from a family of chefs - his father, his uncle and his cousin are all Michelin star winners - while Blumenthal had barely worked in a kitchen when he bought a crumbling pub in Bray. But he learnt on the job and has gone on to produce some of the world's most daring food, winning, in 2005, the title of World's Best Restaurant. You might have to take out a small mortgage to afford the multi-course tasting menus but a trip to Bray will be more than a day out; it will be more like the foodie treat of a lifetime (www.fatduck.co.uk and www.waterside-inn.co.uk, rooms in the Waterside Inn from £180 per night).

A super market, London

Borough market is the epicentre of food lovers' London. During the week, it's a wholesale fruit and vegetable market, popular with some top restaurants, but on Friday and Saturday its stalls are open to the public and the market is thick with amateur chefs and food-lovers stocking up on fresh fish, meat and just-picked vegetables. Right next to the market you will find the wine museum Vinopolis (www.vinopolis.co.uk). A two-hour tour (£15) includes a wine tasting session and a Bombay Sapphire cocktail, as well as the chance to buy everything you've just drunk. There are several restaurants nearby but, if you're happy to queue, wait for food at Brindisa tapas bar (www.brindisa.com). All its food is sourced from small producers in Spain and it's about as authentic as it comes, with the restaurant even employing a specialist meat carver to slice paper-thin slivers of sweet, salty Serrano ham.

Celebrating organics in Bristol

The Soil Association's Food festival (www.soilassociation.org/festival) on 2-3 September on the harbourside is the biggest organic festival in Europe and it's an opportunity for the country's hard-working farmers and producers to display their wares. This year exhibitors will include the Chocolate Alchemist company, producing organic, wonderfully gooey chocolate, and the Well Hung Meat Company, suppliers of fine, organic meat, among hundreds of others. There will also be demonstrations from chef Sophie Grigson and Darina Allen from the Ballymaloe cookery school in Ireland. Even the fringe entertainments are food-focused with a poetry installation about 'Lost Flavours' from the arts collective 'Once' and an exhibition of Observer Food Monthly/Seeds of Change photography competition winners in the foyer of the Imax theatre.

· For more foodie trips see www.enjoyengland.com/taste, www.eatscotland.com and www.visitwales.co.uk