Xmas lunch at local pubs/restaurants?

[Alisongb1]

Does anyone know what local pubs/restaurants will be open this year for Xmas serving lunch? 

[Sue]

The Palmerston is open for meals on Christmas Day.

I imagine The Cherry Tree will be again. We had a truly terrible meal there on Christmas Day last year which cost us around  £100 each without drinks, so I wouldn't recommend you book there 😭

Please PM me if you want details, though I am very tempted to post them on here.

Edited yesterday at 08:52 by Sue

[MrsR]

The Dulwich Wood House is advertising a four course meals for £105 per person

[Penguin68]

If you like very good quality South Asian food then Babur in Brockley is offering a well priced, for what it is, Christmas day menu with sensitively priced reductions for a more limited children's menu. They also have a compelling wine list and their specialist cocktails are phenomenal. Not traditional Christmas fare, but then that might be an additional recommendation. 

[Pugwash]

I may be a scrooge but to pay over £100 plus for a meal is a bit much. I understand that staff costs would be a high factor in this price and that being no transport on Christmas Day - pubs may have to pay car hire fees. The café in Christ Church will be doing a 3 course meal in the run up to Christmas for around £30 per head (Booking essential) so to charge an additional £60 plus seems somewhat unreasonable.

The past few years, there have only been the 2 of us on Christmas Day, so we lash out and buy a lot of M & S food - ready prepared or with minimal cooking at a cost of between £30 and £40.

We host the family Boxing Day onwards (8 - 10 people) spending around £60 on food and drink.

Rather spend £100 for food etc over a couple of days rather than £200 for one meal. We are fortunate that we have the finances  to do this as many people are not able to do this. One family member with young children would find it hard to spend even £10 on a Christmas meal. Our kids come armed with plastic boxes to all family meals to take home any leftovers - so we are left with minimal waste- any veg and meat  get made into soup.

[Sue]

 

1 hour ago, Pugwash said:

I may be a scrooge but to pay over £100 plus for a meal is a bit much. I understand that staff costs would be a high factor in this price and that being no transport on Christmas Day - pubs may have to pay car hire fees. The café in Christ Church will be doing a 3 course meal in the run up to Christmas for around £30 per head (Booking essential) so to charge an additional £60 plus seems somewhat unreasonable.

The past few years, there have only been the 2 of us on Christmas Day, so we lash out and buy a lot of M & S food - ready prepared or with minimal cooking at a cost of between £30 and £40.

We host the family Boxing Day onwards (8 - 10 people) spending around £60 on food and drink.

Rather spend £100 for food etc over a couple of days rather than £200 for one meal. We are fortunate that we have the finances  to do this as many people are not able to do this. One family member with young children would find it hard to spend even £10 on a Christmas meal. Our kids come armed with plastic boxes to all family meals to take home any leftovers - so we are left with minimal waste- any veg and meat  get made into soup.

£30-40 for M&S Christmas food for two seems very low!

And only £60 for food and drink for 8-10 people? 

We have had M&S food at Christmas in the past, and it came to a lot more than that. I suppose it depends exactly what you are buying.

We left it late to book a Christmas Day meal out last year, so there weren't many options left. 

The Cherry Tree menu looked very nice. That was our first mistake. We also overlooked the fact that it was a Young's pub, with all that implies about the food. That was our second mistake.

We don't have shedloads of money. We  took the view that we deserved a nice meal  out after working bloody hard all year.

So it was doubly disappointing to basically waste a lot of money which could have been very much better  spent elsewhere.

Edited 6 hours ago by Sue