Why not pull out all the stops this festive season with a five-star Christmas Day lunch at home, prepared by some of London’s finest restaurants. From The Savoy’s decadent offering to an Indian feast from Cinnamon Club and a Dickensian experience via Hawksmoor, there is no better way to show your support for the capital’s restaurant scene and spoil your guests at the same time. Here is our edit of the best Christmas food delivery services in London.
The Savoy
Eating at The Savoy is always a special experience and, this year, its team of chefs have been working hard to ensure you can recreate it at home for Christmas Day lunch. The Savoy’s Norfolk Turkey Feast is a sumptuous three-course banquet fit for a king: as well as the main event, expect Cumberland sausages, chestnut and apple stuffing, pigs in blankets, honey glazed carrots, sprouts with streaky bacon and Maris Pipers roasted in duck fat confit — plus bread and cranberry sauces. To start there’s a Jerusalem and smoked tomato velouté and to finish, sticky toffee pudding. This decadent menu comes with very thorough instructions, too, so don’t worry if you’re not an expert chef.
£550 for six to eight people with 72 hours’ notice required (and orders taken up until 26 December). Delivery or pick-up within London
thesavoylondon.com
The Gladwin Brothers
The brothers behind four of London’s most loved neighbourhood restaurants — The Shed, Rabbit, Sussex and Nutbourne — have created two festive delivery boxes to help out with your Christmas cooking, the Essentials and the Luxury. We would, naturally, go for the latter: on top of turkey, gammon, terrines, smoked trout, a wheel of stilton and some puddings, it adds a Beef Wellington, Exmoor caviar and black truffle. There are also five delicious bottles in the box, including an English sparkler and a magnum from the family vineyard in West Sussex – the Nutbourne Sussex Reserve, 2018.
The Essentials Box (£320) and The Luxury Box (£620) both feed up to six people with last orders on 23 December, delivery within London
gladwinbrothers.com
Adam Handling
Chef Adam Handling (the man behind The Frog in Covent Garden) is offering both a Christmas and New Year menu via his nationwide food delivery service, Hame. We highly recommend the show-stopping Christmas Day menu for four, which includes cheese doughnuts with truffle and a decadent main of Beef Wellington with all the trimmings. For those partial to a cheese board, there’s the option of adding a truffled whole Rollright cheese served with apricot and apple chutney, as well as a side of Smokin Brothers smoked salmon and a bottle of Handling’s own label English sparkling wine.Â
The Christmas Day box is £250 for four people. The final deadline to order is 23 December, delivery nationwide
adamhandling.co.uk
10 Greek Street
One of Soho’s favourite neighbourhood restaurants, 10 Greek Street has put together a delicious Christmas lunch box for those that seek a turkey alternative. The blow-out festive Beef Banquet starts with côte de boeuf as the main event, with duck fat potato terrine, celeriac purée, thyme-roasted carrots and cavolo nero with chestnuts on the side. It’s bookended by dill-cured smoked salmon and St John sourdough to start and spiced ginger cake with rum butterscotch sauce and crème fraiche to finish. Wine add-ons are available to purchase with the menu, with the restaurant recommending a fine Château Revelette Rouge 2019 to complement the beef.Â
From £155 for two people, delivered nationwide on 23 December
dishpatch.co.uk
Home-X
Created by the team behind Six by Nico in Fitzrovia, these limited-edition Christmas dinner feasts are only being released in a batch of 1,000, so you’ll have to be quick to get your hands on one. Available in both classic and vegetarian options, the multi-course menu comes with celeriac velouté, Scottish smoked salmon and a bacon-wrapped turkey ballotine with pine nut stuffing, served with indulgent potato and truffle gratin. The meal ends with a spiced sticky toffee pudding, served with a velvety eggnog custard for a final festive flourish. There are add-ons available, too, from a well-stocked Scottish cheeseboard to a range of wines from France and Italy.Â
£100 for two people, delivered nationwide on 22 or 23 December
home-x.com
Café Murano
Angela Hartnett’s popular Italian restaurant, Café Murano, is offering up a Mediterranean twist on the traditional Christmas lunch with its Osso Bucco Feast, centring around the hearty Milanese delicacy. Starting with a range of mouth-watering antipasti including mushroom and truffle arancini, monkfish carpaccio and roasted squash with gorgonzola, the main star of the show is the rich osso bucco, which Hartnett braises in chianti, house-made chicken stock, vegetables, rosemary and thyme until its meltingly tender, served with traditional saffron-spiced risotto Milanese. And for the dolci? An Italian version of a British favourite: panettone bread and butter pudding, with pistachio crème anglaise and candied pistachios.Â
From £100 for two people, delivered nationwide until 23 December
dishpatch.co.uk
Cinnamon Club
If you like your festive dinner with a side of spice, Cinnamon Club’s take on Christmas lunch could be just the thing. Featuring five-courses designed by chef Vivek Singh, start with canapés of chickpea gnocchi with tomato chutney and Bengali beetroot cake before moving on to street-food style bhel papdi chaat and Madras shrimps with curry leaf. Turkey is eschewed in favour of slow-braised lamb shank Rogan Josh – a Cinnamon Club classic – served with Biryani rice and 24-hour simmered black lentils. For pudding, there’s an Indian take on the traditional sticky toffee pudding, made with home-soaked mincemeat and garam masala.
£130 for two people, delivered nationwide on 23 or 24 December
thecinnamoncollection.com
Hawksmoor
London’s finest purveyors of steak, Hawksmoor, has teamed up with the Creation Theatre to create an immersive festive dining experience like no other. Their Christmas Carol Fillet Box comes with smoked salmon and soda bread, fillet steak and triple-cooked chips, garlic mushrooms, creamed spinach and sticky toffee pudding with clotted cream, all designed to be enjoyed while streaming the theatre’s digital-first production of A Christmas Carol. They’ve even thrown in a couple of cocktails to complete the experience, so you can sip your sour cherry Negroni as you learn the fate of miserly Scrooge in this Dickens classic.Â
£125 for two people, delivered nationwide until 22 December
thehawksmoor.com
