Castle Bow at the Castle Hotel in Taunton certainly ticks the ‘glamorous’ box, with a black tie (or little black dress) dinner kicking off with a Champagne reception and ending with a disco. Between nibbling canapés and hitting the dancefloor, guests can enjoy a sumptuous dinner (£125 per person) cooked by head chef Liam Finnegan and his team, featuring roast salmon, crab, monk’s beard, leek and lemon butter sauce, and Somerset beef with mushroom, spinach, smoked bacon and braised oxtail.
A more informal, but just as lively, end to 2017 will be found at Bristol’s Bell’s Diner, which is offering a £50 dinner of sharing dishes including suckling pig, spiced monkfish tails and pepperonata, and home-smoked salmon with pickled cucumber. To ensure guests truly get into the party spirit, Bell’s Diner has chosen Chase Distillery marmalade vodka to lace the draught Prosecco served with the canapés.
Leeds is known as a city that needs no excuse to party and New Year’s Eve at the Ox Club offers a range of tasting menus (from £40-£60), with head chef Ben Iley showcasing his favourite ingredients of 2017. Expect innovative dishes like ox cheek dumpling, bone marrow dashi and shiso, and warm chocolate mousse with Jerusalem artichoke ice cream and malted hazelnuts.
The elegant Georgian surroundings of the Olive Tree restaurant in Bath will provide a stylish setting for chef Chris Cleghorn’s seven-course menu (£130) featuring such temptations as Orkney scallop, pumpkin and chorizo, and venison, Jerusalem artichoke, leek, pickled blackberry and cocoa.
For a more Spanish celebration, Cardiff’s Asador 44 is hosting an evening of food, drink (including lots of sherry) and acoustic music. The £75 menu includes Beronia braised ox cheek, seared old sirloin, celeriac and hispi cabbage, and lemon curd Santiago tart, caramelised quince and muscatel orange cream.
If it’s a full-blown Hogmanay dinner you’re looking for, Number One restaurant at The Balmoral in Edinburgh has the lot, from a Champagne reception to watching the magnificent firework display over Edinburgh Castle. Head Chef Brian Grigor has devised a special five-course menu (£285) featuring a mosaic of Borders game with vegetables à la grecque, and roast beef fillet, horseradish, barley risotto and sauté foie gras.
London’s celebrated St John is a restaurant well known for its feasting menus and the dinner (£155) at the Smithfield site features St John classics such as smoked eel, pickled prunes and horseradish, pig’s head and potato pie, and Madeleines washed down with La Vieille Prune.
And if money really is no object, there’s always the New Year’s Eve gala dinner at The Ritz in London. As well as the black-tie dinner featuring lobster and Krug Champagne, there is a 14-piece military marching band, a lone piper and a private fireworks display in the gardens, followed by a live band until the early hours. At £1,500 per adult (and £750 per child), it will surely be a night to remember in more ways than one.
