We Asked One of Northumberland’s Best Curry Houses to Cook in a Caravan 

Everyone assumes a holiday home kitchen is for beans on toast and a kettle. So, we handed one over to the team at Saathi in Hexham and asked them to cook a proper meal in it — cameras rolling. 

[YOUTUBE VIDEO HERE] 

 

Why we made The Caravan Kitchen 

 

There’s a moment that happens on almost every viewing. Someone walks into a holiday home, admires the lounge, opens a bedroom door, nods at the bathroom, then glances at the kitchen and says something like, “I suppose we’d eat out most nights.” 

We’ve heard it enough times to know where it comes from. If your last experience of a caravan was a 1990s touring van with two gas rings and a grill that only worked if you held the knob in, you’d assume the same. But it hasn’t been true for a long time, and there’s only so far you can get by listing appliances on a spec sheet. 

So, we stopped listing and started cooking. The Caravan Kitchen is a simple idea: take a real holiday home on a real park, invite people who cook for a living, and let them get on with it. No prepped-off-site cheats, no professional kit wheeled in. Just the kitchen exactly as an owner would find it on handover day. 

Rather than make it easy on ourselves, we picked a cuisine that pushes a kitchen hard, lots of pans on at once, high heat, tight timing, and a proper spread landing on the table together. 

 

Head Chef. Titu Ahad – Saathi, Hexham 

 

Saathi has been part of Hexham since 2001 , a family-run Indian restaurant and takeaway on Priestpopple that’s become one of those places locals quietly guard as their own. Titu and the team cook traditional curries using freshly ground and blended spices and seasonal ingredients, with a lighter, more precise touch than the standard high-street curry house. 

We asked them to bring their own menu rather than simplify it for us. What they cooked was karahi, plus breads and sides. Using fresh ingredients, the full process was filmed. 

Their verdict is worth more than ours, and you’ll hear it in the video: “wow, look at this lovely spacious Kitchen” 

If you’re staying with us in Northumberland and you’d rather someone else did the cooking for a night, Saathi is only a 35-minute drive from the park. saathis.co.uk 

 

The kitchen: inside the Willerby Portland 

 

We filmed in a 2024 Willerby Portland — one of the larger, more open-plan holiday homes on the park, and a model that’s genuinely built around the kitchen rather than treating it as an afterthought. 

What the chefs had to work with: 

• 4-burner gas hob — enough to run curries, rice and a sauce simultaneously 

• Full-size gas oven and grill 

• Integrated microwave 

• Integrated fridge-freezer 

• Dishwasher 

• A breakfast bar for prep, plating and getting in the chef’s way 

The thing that surprised us wasn’t any single appliance, it was the flow. Because the Portland’s living space is open-plan, the person cooking is never shut away in a corridor. Plates go straight onto the breakfast bar. Conversation carries. Nobody misses anything. 

That’s the part a spec sheet can’t tell you, and it’s the reason we filmed it instead of writing it. 

See our Willerby Portland 

 

The park: Percy Wood, Northumberland 

 

Percy Wood sits just off the A1 in Swarland, a few minutes from Alnwick and within easy reach of the Northumberland coast, the National Park and Hadrian’s Wall. It’s a quiet, countryside park with it’s own golf course and Coast & Country Bar and Restaurant. One of eleven parks in the Harrison Holidays family. 

It’s also the kind of place where the cooking matters. You’ll spend your days out on the beaches at Alnmouth and Warkworth, or walking, or on the golf course – and then you’ll want to come back, close the door and eat well without getting changed and driving somewhere. 

[Book a break at Percy Wood → | Enquire about ownership →] 

 

Five things we learned about cooking in a holiday home 

 

1. The larder cupboard is doing more work than you think. Dry goods, spices, and oils keep the worktop clear, which is the only real constraint in a space this size. 

1. Cook with the space, not against it. Open-plan means the cook stays part of the evening. Lean into it rather than trying to recreate a closed-off domestic kitchen. 

1. Gas hobs are quick. 4 burner gas gets to temperature faster than most home electric hobs and gives you the control that Indian cooking actually needs. 

1. Bring one thing from home. A knife you trust and a heavy pan cover almost everything. Most owners end up leaving a small kit permanently in the van. 

1. The oven is a real oven. Naan, roasting trays, a Sunday joint — it’s not a novelty.