Christmas lunch is the one meal of the year that everybody has an opinion about before they’ve sat down. Who’s cooking, who’s carving, whether sprouts are compulsory. This year we’d like to take most of that off your hands. With two of our pubs open on Christmas Day, there’s a choice of county as well as a choice of table.
Here’s how Christmas lunch works across Country Creatures this year. That includes the pub that won’t be serving lunch on the day, and why that’s less of a problem than it sounds.
The Double Red Duke, Clanfield
The Duke is open on Christmas Day, and lunch is £180 per person. It starts before anyone has ordered. Exmoor caviar on potato rösti and cold smoked trout with black truffle and cucumber come out first, with Lynwood baguette and Ampersand Dairy butter to keep everyone going.
From there you choose a starter, a main and a pudding. Diver scallop with XO sauce sits alongside duck liver parfait, beef fillet with egg yolk and cornichons, and a truffle and chestnut soup. For the main, we’d point a first-timer towards the rib of beef with chestnut sauce. The rolled and stuffed turkey leg with cranberry and white truffle sauce makes a good case for tradition, though. There’s brill with champagne and caviar for the fish-eaters, and a pumpkin tart with 24-month aged Comté and preserved truffle for vegetarians.
Sides come to the table to share. Roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, Brussels sprouts with bacon, braised red cabbage, and tenderstem broccoli with almonds. Then it’s Christmas pudding with brandy cream, cranberry and orange trifle or a warm chocolate pudding, with port and Stilton for the table to finish.
There are nineteen bedrooms upstairs, so nobody has to draw the short straw on driving home.
The Wild Duck, Ewen
This is the Wild Duck’s first Christmas, and it’s open on the day with the same menu at the same price. For anyone on the Gloucestershire side, that means Christmas lunch five minutes from Cirencester rather than a drive across into Oxfordshire.
The building does a lot of the work. It was once the gardener’s cottage to Ewen Manor, and the original beams, open fires and wooden floors suit a long December lunch better than most dining rooms could. Through the season there’s wreath making and chestnuts on the fire, plus a Boxing Day walk for anyone who needs one after the pudding. There are nineteen bedrooms here too.
The Mason’s Arms, Clanfield
The Mason’s won’t be serving lunch on Christmas Day. What it does have, for the first time this year, is eight bedrooms. That makes it a good base for Christmas in Clanfield. Stay at the Mason’s and walk across the road to the Duke for lunch, which is about as short a commute as Christmas Day allows.
Through December the Mason’s is open for festive parties and catch-ups, with the fire going and good Guinness on.
Booking Christmas Day
There’s only one Christmas Day, so it’s the booking we’d make first. You can book a table at either pub from the festive season page, which also has the full menus to download. If anyone at the table has allergies, let the team know when you book. An optional 12.5% service charge is added to the bill.
Making a stay of it
All three of our Cotswolds pubs have rooms over Christmas. Arriving on Christmas Eve takes the drive out of the day itself, and nobody has to watch their second glass. A walk on Boxing Day morning tends to feel earned after the Stilton.
Someone else does the cooking this year. The only decision left is beef or turkey.
