Bang off Clerkenwell’s Hatton Gardens at the Hat and Tun (Hatton Tun – punny, no?) is Ed and Tom Martin’s latest addition to their empire, a funny cross between Victorian East End boozer and English country pub.
So we have the ubiquitous dark, wood-panelled walls hosting haphazard stuffed pheasant, wild boar and badger heads. Then – on the counter – a jar of pickled eggs, a tureen of cauliflower soup, mushy peas in a vat.
Nothing pleases a foodie more than opening their door to a delivery person carrying a food hamper full of everything they love. Caviar House will design a gift box exactly to your specifications, pulling fresh from their shelves just what your loved one was dreaming about as they were writing their Christmas wish list.
Eversfield Estate has gotten together with local Devon farms to put together Christmas hampers filled with local meat products and all the trimmings for Christmas meals. The Eversfield Deluxe Christmas hamper has enough home-produced organic meat to feed six-eight people for the entire holiday season.
On Wednesday, 3 December, the Black Boy Inn in Milton will offer a feast made from local produce alongside the opportunity to buy gifts directly from producers. And for this shopping trip, all under one roof, no umbrellas will be needed. The Black Boy Inn’s head chef Kevin Hodgkiss has prepared a menu using entirely local seasonal produce, including “Upton Smokeries” goose breast with berry salsa & shaken oak sweet honey mustard dressing, or “The Meat Joint” made with rosemary & redcurrant sausages. Guests will be able to try the “Country Deli” Christmas pudding or “Oxford Cheese Company” cheese board. With Homemade mince pies served with handmade Grand Marnier truffles, the dinner alone is an event not to be missed.
Waterloo Brasserie is offering a twenty percent discount on food at any Christmas party booked from now until the end of the year. But book soon, so the dates don’t all get taken. Located on London’s South Bank, the brasserie has a range of seating options, from discrete tables for two to a large circular table for groups of up to twelve. Private events space can offer seated dining for up to sixty-five diners and will accommodate between thirty to one-hundred and ten for a drinks and canapés reception. Another option is to hire the entire restaurant for up to two-hundred and fifty people. The restaurant has an intimate bar for dancing and carries a late licence until 3am.
Even though you can’t bring Henrietta Green home with you to help prepare your Christmas celebration, you can still have access to the regional food writer’s advice twenty-four-hours a day at Foodloversbritain.com. Her regular feature, the “Little Green Book” has turned into the overflowing “Big Green Christmas book.” The online resource is bubbling over with suggestions for finding everything you need for the holidays.
Smirnoff is stirring up some holiday spirit with a collection of gifts to thrill the closet bartender on your gift list. Look inside a traditional Russian Matryoshka doll and usually what you’ll discover are five or more increasingly smaller wooden figurines. But take off the lid of Smirnoff’s Black Matryoshka, and your surprise is a bottle of premium vodka. The special holiday bottle container, a doll’s face painted in gold on a deep black exterior, also doubles as a cocktail shaker. Smirnoff’s Black Matryoshka is available at Selfridges and Waitrose in [Great Britain] for around £20.99.
This really is the funnest cookbook that has ever crossed my desk. Things suddenly pop out, charts and tables are stored in pockets, and a double page of a cupboard opens up to reveal the contents. It’s like those books we had as children, where every page was a revelation inside hard-backed covers that boasted a solidity that was reassuring and comforting.
Irish whiskey, my favourite whiskey, and when it comes to a drop of the Irish, Bushmills have been practicing the art at Ireland’s oldest working distillery in Co Antrim, Northern Ireland for a very long time, 400 years in fact.
No it’s the not the cry that goes up when we search the Financial Director’s desk on a Friday afternoon, but the name of a range of ready to eat meals that show that fast food needn’t be either tasteless or unethical.
These are dishes that feature the finest ingredients from ‘best in show’ small producers with full traceability right back to the individual farmer. They’re made from 100% natural ingredients and are ready to eat in minutes, yet due to innovative packaging can be stored in the cupboard for months.
