Five restaurants for the Glorious Twelfth

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With liver, kidney and heart pâté or pickled blackberries?

Knives at the ready for the start of the grouse-shooting season. Why? “News abounds of there being a scarcity of grouse this season,” says Tim Hughes, chef director of Caprice Holdings restaurants including 34 and The Ivy. “Hatching time in May and June was blighted by cold, wet weather, and many grouse chicks didn’t survive their vulnerable early days.” This year, the Glorious Twelfth might also actually be the 13th, 14th… or even 19th. “In the past we have had fun – and stress – racing the birds down on the 12th, tracking them from the moor to the kitchen for waiting guests,” says Jeff Galvin, owner of Galvin Bistrot de Luxe and Galvin La Chapelle, but this year there’s a shift in attitude. With that in mind, here are five of the best places to beat a path to – on the 12th and beyond…

1) Having put in its orders early, Mayfair’s 34 will serve an exquisite take on classic grouse for purists and traditionalists (£39.50): “roast grouse – pink, of course – with bread sauce and parsnip chips in the traditional style,” says Hughes. Although some restaurants have been known to order birds early on August 12 and get them down to London in time for dinner, “it’s nigh on impossible to get hold of grouse on the 12th itself, so I will start serving on the 13th”.

2) At Galvin too the Glorious Twelfth special five-course meal (£95) will in fact happen later – on August 19, as birds will have been hung for a week. One of two feasts will be held in the upstairs gallery at Galvin La Chapelle, and the roast Yorkshire grouse (second picture) with watercress, game chips and bread sauce will be top and tailed by, among other dishes, lasagne of Dorset crab with sweetcorn and lemongrass velouté, and Saint-Marcellin with salad of lamb’s lettuce and truffle salad. Over at Bistrot de Luxe’s private dining room, Le Cellar, classic roast grouse with game chips, watercress, game croutons and bread sauce will be introduced by Scottish girolles and fried duck egg, and followed by smoked Montgomery’s cheddar (£75).

3) Over at Lyle’s in Shoreditch, head chef James Lowe will offer a fruitily experimental take on the bird. “I’ll be roasting it with pickled blackberries and serving it with bread sauce,” he says. “I’ll be buying through Ben Weatherall, who owns Yorkshire Game, the best game company around.” The menu will be priced at £27 and available from August 13. “It will arrive about 4pm, just in time for dinner.”

4) Koffmann’s at The Berkeley hotel is presenting a gloriously rich choice of dish (£26). Classically roasted grouse will be placed upon a pâté of its liver, kidney and heart – served with herbs and bread sauce. Head chef Pierre Koffmann is leaving nothing to chance on delivery – he is travelling up to Scotland to source the grouse, ready for August 14.

5) The left-field approach is to be found at M restaurant in the City, where from August 12 to 26 the alternative Glorious Twelfth menu (£49) will feature exotic meats prepared by head chef Jarad McCarroll. Dishes will include crocodile with quails’ eggs and bone marrow, python steak and kangaroo tartar. Greater than grouse? Remains to be seen, but equally glorious in its own way.  

For other foodie adventures, try dining while suspended over London or the pop-up dinners where sommeliers battle it out for supremacy…