Celebrate… St George’s Day (23 April)

Daniel Woolfson looks at how operators are planning to capitalise on St George’s Day.

Steak slayers

At ETM Group site the Jugged Hare in London’s Moorgate, customers are invited to become ‘steak slayers’ on St Georges Day.

The site is offering a sharing dish for four people of 45-day old prime steak cuts from Lake District Farmers, including the Cumbrian Axe – 1.4kg sirloin steak on the bone, the King Jacob –

2kg slow-braised short rib, and the Dumbbell – 1.6kg pot roasted shin.

The £75 per person feast comes with roast bone marrow, greens, truffled mashed potatoes, sautéed wild mushrooms, braised red cabbage, hand cut chips, Bearnaise, green peppercorn sauce and braising juices.

Beer festival

London Brewing Company sites the Bull in Highgate and the Bohemia in North Finchley are set to host a joint beer festival over the St George’s Day weekend.

The event aims to showcase some beers that have been brewed “up and down the Northern line” as well as two beers brewed within walking distance from the two sites.

Mitch Adams, general manager at the Bull, said: “Both our [London Brewing Company] pubs are within a short walk of the northern line and both have breweries, so we thought we’d do something a little different to get all our neighbouring northern line breweries involved – apart from the Edgeware branch, which doesn’t have any breweries.

“I’ve tried a fair few – it should be really good fun as it’s the first time we’ve done one at the Bohemia and the first London Brewing Company overall beer festival.“

A selection of events will take place across the two sites, including a beer tasting with food and drink writer Adrian Tierney-Jones and a beer and food-matching dinner.

Special menu

Whiting & Hammond pub the Cricketers Inn, in Meopham, Kent, is putting on a special St George’s Day menu.

Some of the dishes on offer include savoury vine tomato and thyme scones with goat’s cheese clotted cream and red onion jam, pan fried corned beef hash cake with homemade baked beans and a fried duck egg and homemade beetroot gnocchi with sautéed mushrooms, leeks and roasted walnuts.

Prices are set at £17.95 for two courses and £20.95 for three, with entertainment to be provided by Kentish Morris dancers Hartley Morris Men.

Crusade

The White Horse, in Netley Marsh, Hampshire, is offering customers a self-styled St George’s Day crusade.

Customers arrive at the pub for breakfast, and then board a 50’s style London bus which takes them a variety of different locations on a patriotic pub crawl.

The bus returns to the venue in the evening for a traditional English meal and live music.

Tickets are £30 per head with a £10 non-refundable deposit.

Medieval Mayhem

At the Dragon, in Willington, a four course dinner featuring ‘olde English food’ is set to take place followed by live entertainment including actors performing comedy re-enactments in medieval armour.

Some of the Dragon’s medieval style dishes include gilded apples with saffron and honey mustard glaze, roast suckling pig with pork pot pies, stuffed quail, turkey legs, herb salad and drip pudding and rabbit and market vegetable pottage with granary and honey trenchers.