At Grantley Hall, a rural Yorkshire hotel so fancy they pipe jazz around the car park, there are various food offerings this Christmas Day. One of them, from the much-admired chef Shaun Rankin, is entitled the Taste of Home menu. It’s an interesting title, because it acknowledges something: that despite our growing comfort with paying others to cook for us, choosing to eat out on 25 December is still regarded as subversive and decadent. Christmas dinner is the one remaining domestic feast. It’s the one day of the year when we strap ourselves to the stove and cook a complex multistage meal, packed full of adored convention and cliche. And yet amazingly, some people choose to get out the credit card and leave the house.
So what is Rankin’s taste of home? It starts with sourdough, cultured butters and beef tea, continues through “scallop, celeriac, pine”, and ends with a tarte tatin and mince pies. In between, there’s the comforting sound of “traditional roast Norfolk Bronze turkey”, though as the butter is clearly more cultured than I am and the scallop comes with pine, who knows what that means. If you want to taste Mr Rankin’s home it will cost you £275 a head. Roll your eyes all you like, but remember there are people giving up their Christmas Day to cook this. It should cost.
More interesting is what all this says about restaurants when they attempt to engage with the domestic; to add literal value to what you could do at home, while meeting expectations. London’s grand hotels are all offering turkey this year. At the Savoy Grill (£320 a head) it’s “Norfolk butter poached turkey, confit leg and breast with cranberry and sage, roscoff onions, duck fat potatoes, armagnac jus”, while at Claridge’s (£525 a head) lunch is turkey with “stuffed leg, roast parsnip, chestnut, turkey jus, cranberry sauce”. At Moor Hall in Lancashire (£165 with half a bottle of wine each) there’s turkey, two gravies, duck fat potatoes and pigs in blankets. It’s worth noting that none of these mention the greatest of all Christmas condiments: bread sauce. For that, head to Rules in London’s Covent Garden, which, at £95 a head for four courses including cheese and a glass of fizz, is also one of the best deals. It starts with smoked salmon. It finishes with Christmas pudding. In between, there is indeed roast turkey, with stuffing, roast potatoes, brussels sprouts, red cabbage and, praise be, bread sauce.
Perhaps you find the idea of going out for Christmas lunch, only to be confronted by a version of what you could do at home but with portion control, a little odd. Better surely to go off piste? At Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester (£480 a head including wine pairing), you could have sea bass, celeriac, clams and red shiso, followed by the French-appropriate capon. Or go even further out at the Old War Office where, for £295 a head, uber-chef Mauro Colagreco’s kitchen will cook you wagyu short rib and a pumpkin mince pie with caviar.
Why my sudden interest in all this? Because, to my surprise, I see the appeal. I love my friends and family, but I have cooked a major Christmas lunch for each of the last 30 years and, being fortunate enough to afford it, I want a year off. However, the idea of trusting a restaurant kitchen with something so domestic doesn’t sit well with me. I could literally do that at home. Instead, we’re going for a fancy Chinese. There is peking duck in my future. As I often say at this time of year, it’s what the baby Jesus would have wanted, if he’d had any taste. Merry Christmas.
Are you eating out on Christmas Day? Tell us about it in the comments
