Thai Christmas Banquet at Mango Tree

In a passer-by-free part of London – down the western side of Hyde Park Corner – Mango Tree is unlikely to be on your regular route unless you work locally. If you are well ahead with your Christmas wrapping and have time for a late, long lunch, or are taking a day off to Christmas-shop and need to recover from the throng by warming your wintry bones and spicing up your flagging enthusiasm, the Christmas banquet is extremely generous and excellent value for money.

The Mince Pie Project

What better way to raise awareness and funds at Christmas time than to get a whole bunch of top chefs together for a mince pie bake off? This brand new Christmas fundraising initiative is the creation of entrepreneur and keen foodie, Peter Butler.

The Bratwurst

There are plenty of options at Bratwurst with meal deals of sausages, as well as frikadelle and schnitzels too. With all the hype around street food, mostly stuff from the Far East, it’s worth remembering that closer to home we have a centuries old street food that is none the wurst for being eaten indoors either. Prost!

Thornbridge Beer

I like the idea of craft skills, dedication and talent being put into a bottle and Thornbridge Brewery from Bakewell, Derbyshire seem to have all the credentials and combine all that enthusiasm with state of the art brewing facilities. Faced with a bottle each of their Jaipur, White Swan and Kipling I got ready to go all the way.