101 Christmas Recipes

Last Tuesday we asked all our retail team to gather after work to take part in a Christmas training evening. Everybody showed up, drank a few glasses of mulled wine – made with one of our own Mulled Wine Kits and settled down to an early Christmas. Christmas this year, is being organised by the wonderful Tracey Bellow. Tracey has worked in marketing for many successful high street brands and we asked her to lead the way and help deliver what we think is our best Christmas offer ever.  We have, over the years, created 101 Christmas recipes that will be going through our kitchens this festive season. We have worked really hard at improving some old recipes like our stuffing recipe – it’s now packed full of zesty flavour, we have added more aromat to our spiced red cabbage, our pudding is lighter and fruitier, with no nuts, and our Christmas cake is richer and moister with extra brandy. Some recipes we’ve left alone like our fabulous mince pies which everybody loves and the brandy butter that goes perfectly with them. There are some completely new ideas from our Executive Chef Flori, like our range of party food : Kedgeree Cubes, Venison Sausage Rolls, Cheesy Profiteroles and Ham Hock croquettes. As we sat and munched away, Tracey laid down the guidelines; how to take an order efficiently, new suppliers information, how to pair certain foods, our commitment to delivering Christmas In a Box to the customers’ door this Christmas Eve and how this year for the very first time customers will be able to place an order online. The evening drew to a close and Josh joined in with some gentle words of encouragement. We didn’t stay late as the next day we installed “stage 1″ of our Christmas offer which you can now see at both of our shops. If you’re already making plans for your Christmas, feel free to pop in and ask for more details on our 101 Christmas recipes.

A portrait of Oriel Hall, Hampstead.

Chris Tubbs is a great photographer. We met him last year when he came to take some pictures of our shop and home for Elle Decoration. We have since worked with him directly on three different occasions, commissioning him to take images of the shop for our website and for our new shop in Hampstead. So like proud parents we would like to share these images with you. They speak for themselves,  so there is nothing else to add apart from to say “Thank You Chris”.                                                                                                                                                                                        

Day One @ Hampstead

So we did it, we opened the doors at Oriel Hall and sold some lovely food yesterday. Customers old and new came in to congratulate us. Kate our interior designer friend finished off the last touches  and upstairs in the kitchen Jose got busy and baked some pasties and plated some beautiful salads. All the staff were very calm and organised and they looked great in the new aprons we have made for them.  We love our new shop, it has such an easy feel to it and we know people will enjoyed shopping there. Here are some pics from the first day.

Hello Hampstead

We are open tomorrow for the very first day of “Hello Hampstead”.  All our brilliant staff have worked so hard to get to this point and we could not have done this without their commitment. We are lucky to have such a dedicated team. The shop looks fantastic. We are so pleased and we hope our new customers enjoy it as much as we will. I will take some photos tomorrow and will share them here on the blog.

We have the keys to our new shop!

The builders left today and we have the keys to our new shop at Oriel Hall in Oriel Place in the heart of Hampstead Village. The boys from Syntec were great , we fed them cake and beer and they have finished on time on budget and it looks almost perfect. Rupert has already dropped in to install his table of abundance and hang his “cloud” , Kate is here with her clipboard ready to spin some interior design magic and we have arrived like eager parents waiting to see their new born. We plan to open on Thursday the 3rd of June so we are wasting no time in setting up shop. Pots, pans, bells, jelly molds, cheese boards, cake stands and cooking scales ; where will they all go?