One of Angela Hartnett’s mantras for successful Christmas entertaining is “less is more”. Don’t serve a dozen different vegetables that nobody wants, or attempt some wildly ambitious culinary experiment on the most pressured cooking day of the year.
She doesn’t apply the same restraint to her own guest list. “Generally, I’m of the philosophy that if you’re cooking for five, you can cook for 15,” she says, though she and her partner Neil Borthwick, also a chef, often end up inviting even greater numbers to Christmas lunch. Sometimes, when there are 20-plus guests, they decamp to one of Hartnett’s London restaurants – Murano in Mayfair or Café Murano in Bermondsey – and take over the whole establishment.
