Donal Skehan: seabass ceviche and Californian cool

I'll be honest, our Los Angeles to San Francisco pacific coast road trip got off to a rocky start. The dreamy idea of leisurely freewheeling up one of America's most iconic routes was somewhat overshadowed by a looming book manuscript and photography deadline.

Having sailed through my deadline months ago, I would point out that it has been a fairly busy couple of months, with an office space in perpetual motion. However, my wife Sofie would argue that I only have myself to blame. Let’s put it down to a serious amount of procrastination. Either way, we argued it out while shoving our belongings into our tiny public storage unit, the only true piece of real estate I can lay claim to in the US.

We allocated five days for our trip, to take in Santa Barbara, Big Sur, Carmel-by-the-Sea and Santa Cruz. Our first stop was Santa Barbara, home to Julia Child’s favourite taqueria and a popular vacation place for Angelinos.

We stayed at the reasonably priced Wayfarer, a hotel cum hostel with modern, but small rooms. It was downtown, which made exploring easy. Dinner was delicious vegetarian fare at Mesa Verde – crisp polenta fries with a smokey tomato sauce, beans and caramelised onions, and pizza with confit tomatoes, mozzarella and chilli flakes – simple Californian cuisine.

Our first big drive of the trip took us deep into the heart of Big Sur, an area of steep cliff driving, state parks and spectacular postcard landscapes, some of which I saw, some I missed, with my head in a laptop.

We took a breather and tucked into picnic food bought from Santa Barbara's public market and watched the waves roll across the rocky beach at Limekiln State Park. Our destination for the evening was Carmel-by-the-Sea, where we stayed at the suitably named gem, The Hideaway.

The newly-opened hotel welcomed us to a wine and cheese reception, a nightly event by the firepits in the courtyard. As soon as the highspeed internet began zipping through the 20GB of photography my publishers were crying out for, I knew the internet gods were on our side.

To celebrate we enjoyed a glass of wine at Mundaka, a tapas bar, with tender octopus, charred lamb chops, and chickpeas with truffle salt. After a morning cycle around Carmel’s Disney-style homes and white sand beaches, we headed north again to Santa Cruz and San Francisco.

These recipes are inspired by some of the fresh flavours we tasted along the way.