London restaurants open on Christmas Day

Dosa n Chutny

68 Tooting High Street, SW17 0RN (020 8767 9200).

A la carte meal: around £10 for food

If it’s un-Christmas you’re after, you’ve got it. No turkey, no crackers, no carols. The lighting is set to ‘interrogation-bright’ (as if to ensure there’s no hanky-panky between courting couples), while the café seating isn’t conducive to settling into for a post-lunch snooze. But what you get is excellent South Indian cooking at unseasonally low prices. From crisp-edged dosas (savoury ‘crepes’, plain or stuffed, served with mildly-spiced gravies) to street snacks such as vada (dense lentil ‘doughnuts’) and breaded mutton and potato rolls, you can feast on a huge range of full-flavoured vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes without getting yourself into December debt.
Read Dosa n Chutny review

Hope

1 Bellevue Road, SW17 7EG

Christmas meal: £55

As cunning plans go, stepping out for a bracing walk after your Christmas meal is, frankly, genius. Not only can you breathe that crisp winter air, but if it’s planned in advance, you can convince yourself that you’re about to burn off enough calories to justify that extra roast potato. So the Hope pub is ideal, given its location smack-bang opposite Wandsworth Common and a cosy yet casual ambience that means you can go wearing mud-friendly comfy shoes. The set menu sticks to simple festive flavours, from starters of smoked duck liver pâté to main courses that not only include roast turkey, but the likes of roast rib of West country beef. Puds are equally homely (mince pies, xmas pud, choc brownie), though the spiced winter fruit tart with a kirsch and cherry coulis sounds most tempting of all.
Read Hope review

Blueprint Café

Design Museum, 28 Shad Thames, SE1 2YD

On Christmas Day the Design Museum will be closed, so those of you taking a trip to its rooftop restaurant will get the place all to yourselves – no wealthy students (surely the worst kind), no tourists, no corporate suits. Ask for a window seat and drink in the views of the Thames, before feasting on an upmarket modern British menu. Alongside the more traditional ingredients (salmon to start, turkey for main), you’ll find the braised oxtail ravioli or Colchester crab cocktail followed by turbot with smoked mashed potatoes, or venison with braised red cabbage. Puds are equally appealing, from an egg custard tart with preserved plums to clementine jelly with Amaretto foam.
Read Blueprint Café review