A feast upstairs and a party downstairs, all in the beautiful chapel surroundings.
You can barely move for winter pop-ups this year: every stroll down the Thames is interrupted by an erected igloo filled with insufferably adorable couples and all my favourite sushi joints are now selling fondue. What I really want for my Christmas entertainment is David Copperfield-level Victorian opulence: like The Winter House, the winter wonderland hosted in a beautiful Grade II-listed chapel in the heart of the West End.
Brought to you by Bourne & Hollingsworth – the guys behind two beautiful bars and the notorious Chap Olympiad – this winter pop-up will see you thrust into a world of amazing food, drinks and elegance, boasting decadent dishes that’d make Ebenezer Scrooge blush. Think slow cooked long horn beef marinated in merlot, baby onions and celeriac potato puree, and Loch Duart smoked salmon and salt baked heritage beets.
Sure, it all sounds a bit Pride and Prejudice at the moment, but if you have a naughtier and more gothic (that’s a la Wuthering Heights, not Marilyn Manson) streak, you can descend into The Crypt for a spot of late night partying. That’s right, you can dance till the early hours in an actual chapel’s crypt with cocktails and canapes as if you were Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Now this is what Christmas pop-ups should be about.
The Winter House is found on 136 Shaftesbury Avenue, W1D 5EZ and is open from 23rd November to 23rd December.
