Everyday

Picnic-Chic in the Park with Dukes London Hotel

July 18, 2017

There’s no better Great British tradition than packing up a wicker basket with some Scotch eggs, sausage rolls and a bottle of bubbly and heading to the park for a picnic. Never ones to do things by halves, Laura, Lauren and I had heard of a special picnic courtesy of Dukes London Hotel that seemed absolutely perfect for a long awaited catch up!
Part of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, Dukes London is a gorgeous boutique hotel tucked away in a small mews in St James. A quintessentially English hideaway, it’s even where Ian Fleming was inspired to write his famous Bond novels! We were greeted by our personal butler who led us down a hidden passage emerging into bright and sunny St James’ Park. My favourite of London’s Royal Parks.
I know this park well and how crowded it can get but we managed to find a relatively secluded spot under the shade of a tree. Our butler laid out our picnic blanket with an assortment of dishes before popping the cork on a bottle of prosecco and pouring our glasses for us.

And here are the blogging babes themselves! Two girls who have come to mean so much to me since I started my blog nearly four years ago. I’ve seen both ladies individually but it had been ages since we’d all caught up together – I think the last time was nearly a year ago when we stayed at Bel & Dragon as part of a press trip with Champagne-Laurent Perrier.

I loved the beautiful traditional picnic basket that everything came in…

And I bought along my own basket bag that I’d picked up for my Santorini trip as I thought it would fit our luxury picnic vibes.
Food-wise, Dukes has included everything that goes into a classic picnic spread but has made it even better. I mean how epic are these chorizo and goats cheese Scotch eggs? We thought it was big portion for three of us but somehow we managed to work our way through them!

Fresh bread and baguettes were devoured and we munched away on poached Loch Duart salmon and delicious chickpea salad with cucumber, feta and mint.
The spiced chicken skewers with chorizo and roasted vegetables was my favourite and the quality was high for a picnic in the park. Our final main course dish was new potato salad which had a delicious flavour from the tarragon mustard. For non-meat eaters there’s also the option to have a picnic that’s entirely vegetarian – think sweet potato, goat’s cheese and caramelised onion scotch eggs along with avocado quiche.

All big cheese lovers we dived into the selection of British cheese which came with oatcakes to spread on and a side of chutney. Little bowls of hazelnut granola seemed a little random but tasty all the same!
The strawberries were huge, fresh and juicy and I loved tucking into a bowl of my favourite fruit. I did think it would have a been good to have a dessert as the delicious spread left us craving chocolate after all the savoury items.
When we finished everything we gave our butler a call to come and pick everything up with minimal fuss and no worries about clearing up. Heading back to the hotel for one of the famous Dukes Bar Martinis before all saying our goodbyes.