Dining Out: Five Places in London for a Last-Minute Christmas Meal

Great, reliable restaurants where you won't be turned away like Mary and Joseph at the inn, at the busiest time of year.

We have reached the bit of the year that is essentially like Total Wipeout for socialising – work drinks on Tuesday, group chat Secret Santa exchange on Wednesday, random Christmas party you’re only sort of invited to on Thursday, and so on until the 23rd rolls around, everyone goes home, and you’re mercifully released to give yourself the sofa equivalent of bedsores for the following week.

This period, however, is when the worst of London reservation culture also tends to rear its head. Because everyone’s going out in December, places are booked up to their eyeballs, and tend to get that way very quickly. So if your friendship group doesn’t happen to have a Type A pal who rings up the pub on the 1st of November to reserve a 12-person roast six weeks later or whatever, you can sometimes find yourselves turned away like Mary and Joseph at the inn, left to wander aimlessly, then finally forced to settle on, like, a 6/10 burger that costs £15 more than it should.

So, because I don’t want this fate to befall any of you – and because the spontaneity of a last-minute silly season meal should be well within everyone’s grasp – this week I thought I’d offer a rundown of a few places where you’ll almost definitely be able to get in for a Christmassy dinner with your friends, even if you haven’t planned meticulously ahead.

Also, before I get to the list – if you are a paid subscriber, please don’t forget to claim your free copy of A Very Dining Out Christmas by emailing your postal address to diningoutkisskiss@gmail.com!

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Pizzeria Pappagone

Hear me out. One year, when I worked at VICE, our Christmas party was: Pappagone’s —> Faltering Fullback —> Rowan’s, and to be honest I’d make the case for that as one of London’s Great Triples. Pizzeria Pappagone is a big-laminated-menu-type Italian spot in Finsbury Park, where the pizzas are huge and the alcoholic slushies are bigger. It’s always fun, the portions are massive and while the pizzas – vaguely Neapolitan and again: really very big – aren’t necessarily going to knock your socks off in terms of texture or toppings, Pappagone’s know how to play the hits extremely well, and that always works for me. Dishes-wise, get a salty, gooey Parmigiana pizza down you, and you will be ready to clomp up and down the Fullback’s treacherous as fuck outdoor staircases without spilling your pint, before tearing the Rowan’s karaoke booth a new one with a very moving “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”.