Many Young’s pubs are offering Christmas Day menus (the Windmill in Clapham looks like a winner) but for sheer feelgood factor none beat the Guinea in Mayfair, tucked down a mews off Berkeley Square and serving rib-sticking British classics since 1952 (there’s been an inn on the site since 1423). Expect pretty much everything you would hope to find on a Christmas lunch menu, with very civilised opening hours of 11am-5.30pm: rock oysters washed down with Champagne ahead of butter-poached ballotine of Norfolk turkey with maple and chestnut stuffing, or carved dry-aged rib of beef with a lamb cutlet, both served with immense trimmings of roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, cauliflower cheese, Yorkshire pudding, honey-glazed carrots and Brussels sprouts. Veggies get a blue cheese, truffle and walnut gratin, there are starters of winter-vegetable soup or oak-smoked salmon, sticky toffee or Christmas pud for afters and mince pies served at the end.
