Christmas was all set to be a quiet one this year, with Mr S’s whole family family away in various far flung destinations and my sister spending it at her boyfriend’s, it would be just my parents and us for once.
Spending Christmas morning just the two of you is rather rare for us as we both have extended families and eight nieces and nephews between us. But we decided to take some time to ourselves to take our minds off missing the kids opening their presents on Christmas day. Instead we popped open a bottle of Champagne Laurent-Perrier…
And toasted this rather funny old year…
Before moving our attention to our rather fabulous present haul…
I’ve been particularly good this year, so Santa bought me some boots and a bag…
And Mr S got the softest cashmere cardigan that I could find. Soon my parent’s turned up, more bubbles were poured and wrapping paper torn before we ordered a taxi to take us to lunch.
We’ve started a bit of a tradition in our family of going to a hotel for lunch on Christmas Day. It may not be for everyone and even Mr S was unsure about leaving the cosy comforts of home to go to a more unfamiliar place on our favourite day of the year. But now even he is converted as we can spend the morning at home, pop out for lunch and then return to a clean flat with no washing up!
I loved how cosy and festive the Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane was this year and it seemed the ideal choice for our Christmas lunch.
Before lunch we headed to the Winter Garden, my favourite festive pop-up of the season and snuggled in the Hennessy chalet with some fluffy cushions and cashmere blankets.
Mr S chose a comforting hot chocolate spiked with Amaretto.
And I took advantage of the chance to have some mulled wine before the season was over.
Soon our table was ready and it was time to pull some crackers! The hotel really was the perfect choice as the red walls and plush velvet seating felt very festive and homely. And the dining room was filled with other families fully in the spirit of the day.
I’d pre-ordered a bottle of my favourite Champagne Laurent-Perrier Cuvée Rosé, the perfect festive tipple.
An amuse bouche of foie gras was bought for Mr S and my dad, where my mum and I chose to replace it with a shell filled with delicious scrambled egg.
The starter was an absolute highlight for me, lovely thick pieces of Maldon cured salmon with horseradish cream, rye bread soil, pickled vegetables and caviar.
The fish course was also a winner, Dover sole fillet with baby artichoke, button mushroom chips, black truffle from Umbria with roasted celeriac veloute. Beautiful high quality ingredients, in a perfect portion size so as not to ruin your appetite for the main event.
I don’t think you can ever be too old to get excited about seeing Santa, so of course it was a thrill to have the big man come around to our table. The restaurant had even asked in advance if we’d have kids with us so Santa could give them a gift. A really thoughtful gesture!
And then out it came… our Rhug Estate Organic Turkey with the most perfect crisp smoked bacon, dried apricot bread stuffing, cranberry sauce and lots of lovely brussel sprouts! Admittedly we were all a little defeated by the epic meal but my mum declared the juicy meat, the best turkey that she’d ever had.
Of course there was traditional Christmas pudding served with Tahitian Vanilla custard…
Or if like me you don’t like the fruity confection, there was a citrus and praline log with almond marshmallow, crispy panettone and fudge ice cream.
It’s safe to say that we loved our Christmas at The Four Seasons, with the warm and festive environment and delicious food. After finishing off our coffee and petit fours we headed back to our flat for an evening of boards games and festive songs.
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