From Harvester to Heston: eating out on Christmas Day

Do you enjoy Christmas lunch at home? Would you escape if you could? We ask the people at the sharp end, the restaurateurs, what they think.

The mad frenzy of preparation, the endless washing up, the final doze in the armchair before being prodded awake to watch the Queen... is it all worth it? Of course it all seems so different at Jamie and Nigella’s houses: lots of room, amazing food that seems to cook itself, fascinating company and well-behaved children.

For them Christmas is a Dickensian dream, but would you escape to a restaurant if given the option? The idea of someone else doing the Christmas lunch itself is certainly appealing, though a recent study of 2,000 diners conducted by SMG indicated that more than half actually hate to eat in restaurants, hotels and pubs during the last month of the year.

Once upon a time almost every restaurant in the UK closed on Christmas day, but there are now plenty of options for all pockets. From Harvester with their spitroast turkey, steak or ‘Christmas by the Sea’ (grilled fillets of sea bass and salmon with a king prawn skewer) for a knockdown price, to lunch at Heston’s Fat Duck where just about everything on the table will probably be edible for the grand old price of around £300 per person.

Dreaming of a waiter Xmas?

There are plenty of mid-range restaurants that make Christmas day a special one, too. Fred Sireix, General Manager at Galvin at Windows restaurant at the Park Lane Hilton, really likes Christmas in the restaurant and reckons his customers do too. Who comes?

"Mostly families," he says. "Grandparents, grandchildren the whole lot. They like to have champagne in the bar and to eat a little late, maybe 2 or 3pm. They have often come a long way - it’s a really special day out and they get well looked after. We do turkey of course, but also non-standard things such as venison and turbot." 

"Our customers are not the kind to get unruly," he adds, "but we do keep an eye on everyone. We have a responsibility to our customers and the staff will politely step in if someone has been overdoing it - we want everyone to have a good time and to get home safely."

It’s fun up North

Yorkshire chef Brian Turner is definitely a home person. "For some families eating out must be a good thing, but personally I prefer to be at home. I have two grandchildren so Christmas is a fun time. I don't like a first course; I like to go straight into roast turkey with all the trimmings followed by Christmas pud, rum sauce and a good snooze, then perhaps some cheese through the afternoon!" And would he work Christmas day? "I used to at the Capital Hotel, but today I wouldn't open a restaurant on Christmas day. I think the staff working with me deserve to have a good time that day."

Home is where the naan is

Over at Cinnamon Club you might think they’d be empty on Christmas Day, but it's quite the opposite. "And we don’t even do turkey," laughs Helen Head of Reservations. "We do game and it’s very, very popular. We have no trouble filling the restaurant and it’s just a great day. We all love working Christmas Day and when lunch is over the staff sit down for a big meal with crackers and all the rest. For Asian people of course the big deal has been Diwali, but many Asians do come in family groups to enjoy the spirit of the day. One of our most unusual Christmases was when snow cancelled flights at Heathrow and suddenly we were making extra room for stranded people desperate to have a good time despite being thousands of miles from where they really wanted to be."

Where do you want to be? In a restaurant with someone else doing the cooking, or are you happiest in the home? Let us know in the comments box below...

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