Each festive season, London's cafes, restaurants, bakeries, and shops offer a selection of festive treats. I love when London's cafes, hotels, and restaurants offer themed seasonal treats. I've tracked a few places down for you this year to help get you in the festive mood and to support our local businesses. I wrote the majority of this article before the new lockdown restrictions broke, so please try to support these businesses (and additional ones) by using takeaway or delivery services. Keep reading and scrolling to see where you can get Christmas-themed and festive treats in London.
First up is Bill's restaurant, which has several branches throughout London. I visited the branch close to Seven Dials. The restaurant are serving up a special festive menu, and one of their desserts is the mousse shaped like a Christmas tree in a flower pot. The flower pot is made out of white chocolate, and the tree is made of a mousse-marshmallow with berry coulis. It sits on top of cookie crumb soil with pumpkin seeds and blueberries dusted with edible metallic paint. Definitely visit on a hungry stomach because the treat is very filling; it's best to share with a friend.
One of my favourite cafes to visit for themed treats in London is Yolkin. I visited them last year, and they had the same treats on offer, minus the macarons. The giant ice cream macarons come in four flavours, which are the same as last year: candy cane snowflake, salted caramel reindeer, Christmas pudding, and Santa belly milk and cookies. I had the salted caramel reindeer this year, but my favourite is the candy cane snowflake. You can see more photographs from last year here: Yolkin Ice Cream Macaron Sandwiches - Christmas.
Fait Maison on Gloucester Road (the one closest to the station) has been offering festive treats for the past couple of years, and I visited last year (Fait Maison Brunch and Holiday Cupcakes) where the selection was different. This year, the cafe has gone with a swan theme, so you will find cupcakes and biscuits with the white swan design. The swan also features on the floral display on their shop front. Other cute treats include gingerbread cake pops, snowflake mousse, and snowflake triple-tiered macarons. There is also a messy hot chocolate, which is served with a festive twist and gingerbread man.
Next up is the Milk Train festive potted Christmas tree ice cream. This is similar to some of their other themed seasonal treats. There are a couple of festive flavours of ice cream to try with it - eggnog or chocolate orange. Not being a fan of either of those flavours, I had chocolate. Green cotton candy (candy floss) is used to create the pine tree with a chocolate stick for the trunk. A sugary snowman sits at the base, and a star is plucked on top. It is very festive indeed.
EL&N (also known as Elan) have also created various festive treats from eclairs printed with Christmas icons and other pastries created in the shape of pink baubles, snowmen, pine cone trees, Santa hats, and pink Christmas trees. EL&N are noted for their wonderful displays that feature a lot of pink, and they recently opened up a new branch at King's Cross St. Pancras station. They have placed the King's Cross Christmas tree in the station this year.
Humble Crumble is a new pop-up that started in London at the beginning of the year. I first visited them in January when they had a pop-up kiosk at an event, and later in the year, they opened up a permanent kiosk at Spitalfields market. They have sense expanded into Borough Market, following one of the surprising successes of 2020. Their crumble really is delicious, and they have been creating seasonal themes, such as this crumble with Christmas trees made from marshmallow. Visitors can customise their crumble with custard or cream and the type of crumble, and so on. Be warned that it can get very messy. They do serve in three sizes, and the one below is a medium.
Peggy Porschen bakery have two cafes - their original on Elizabeth Street and their King's Road cafe. They always offer seasonal treats, and this year is no exception. This year, they are offering a gingerbread cupcake topped with a sugar snowman. Last year, they offered a peppermint cupcake with polar bears of penguins, which you can see here: Peggy Porschen Winter 2019. I was not as keen on the gingerbread one, but it does look very festive, and their shop front always changes with the season. This year, it features gingerbread.
The Treats Club are located at Seven Dials Market, and they sell coffee and doughnuts on the ground floor. For the festive season, they have created nutella-filled doughnuts with salted caramel icing in the shape of Christmas trees. They also have other themed doughnuts.
Doughnut Time, which has several branches in London (the one I walk by most often is the one on Drury Lane), has seasonal doughnuts. The gingerbread one is vegan and is a biscoff biscuit.
Bubblewrap, one of Chinatown's sought-after bakeries (the ice cream and bubble waffle blended treats), also have their own Christmas treat. This is a bubble waffle wrapped with chocolate ice cream in the shape of a popular red-nosed reindeer.
Of course, there are more places to get seasonal treats in London. Whipped, known for its cheese cakes, have opened a new cafe on Endell Street and are serving cheesecake slices with shortbread antlers. Soft Serve, located in BoxPark in Shoreditch, are serving ice cream with snowman marshmallows on top.
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