London’s best restaurants to fuel the Christmas shopping

Christmas shopping is fun for some, burdensome for others. For almost all, it is a combination thereof. Either way, chances are you’ll need something to eat while perusing endless shelves. 

A day’s endeavour seeking out decent socks and the right scent is hungry work and though a Greggs festive bake might sometimes suffice, there are credible restaurants found in many of London’s shopping malls and department stores. Beware wine at lunch may afterwards make you more generous than intended.

The Corner in Selfridges is a place for experimental and seasonal cooking from Jackson Boxer, the chef behind Brunswick House in Vauxhall and Orasay in Notting Hill. Dishes in the second floor dining room include smoked butter tagliolini with Comte and chives, a fried chicken sandwich with tamarind mustard, and delica squash with cavolo nero and turmeric. Elsewhere in Selfridges, and also good spots to grab food between Lego purchases, include Din Tai Fung — purveyor of famous Taiwanese dumplings — and Brasserie of Light, one of Richard Caring’s failsafe operations that happens to feature a large Damien Hirst sculpture of a pegasus, hooves and all.

Those shopping in Mayfair — perhaps those wanting to make up with someone — should plan the day around a long lunch at Samyukta Nair and Claude Bosi’s bistro Socca. It offers respite from the winter; it is a transportive room with a transportive menu, both of which summon the sun and warmth of the French Riviera at its languid best. It is somewhere built for white wine by the bottle, whopping great tiger prawns, Dover sole and endless gossip. Good luck weaning yourself from the table and back into the bitter cold.