IT'S A DONE DEAL

City of Design Dundee needs to be on your UK wishlist, Fiona Whitty discovers

- 

Scotland’s fourth biggest city used to be famous for the three Js...jute, jam and journalism.

But now Dundee’s J, J & J have been replaced - by the V&A!

Part of the city’s £1billion waterfront regeneration, this super-modern design museum - the first V&A outside of London - celebrates Scotland’s influence in fashion, architecture, innovation and culture.

It was devised by esteemed Japanese architect Kengo Kuma - the man behind Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium - with 2,500 exterior stone panels to emulate Scotland's rugged coastal cliffs.

The interior whips your breath away too. Its full height atrium is filled with light and texture and a wide sweeping staircase linking the ground and first floors adds to the feeling of space (free entry, vam.ac.uk/dundee).

When we visited it was filled with a Shylight installation, where large silk flowers bobbed up and down while opening and closing Upstairs houses three galleries and the Oak Room - an original two-storey tearoom by Charles Rennie Mackintosh that was discovered in pieces ready for scrap and currently there's a colour-filled Garden Futures: Designing with Nature ticketed exhibition focusing on our passion for gardens.

We couldn't leave without popping into the V&A's Tatha restaurant where floor-to-ceiling windows provide views down the River Tay.

Their Taste Of Tayside afternoon tea went down a treat, with delicious locally inspired nibbles such as a haggis and cheddar scone, a Forfar bridie a semi-circular minced beef pasty - and a mini Dundee fruit cake.

Next door was another prime attraction: RRS Discovery, Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic exploration ship.

Scott and his crew, including Ernest Shackleton, travelled further south than anyone before aboard this Royal Research Ship between 1901 and 1904, defying tempestuous seas, blizzards and -45C temperatures to carry out pioneering research.