Christmas lunch near Aberdeen: a table above the sea

Christmas Day lunch

Four sittings, at 12.00, 12.30, 13.00 and 13.30, and the hotel closes at 16.00. The menu is three courses with a kids menu alongside. To start, a honey roast parsnip, carrot and butternut soup, a seafood platter, haggis spring rolls or a winter salad. For the main, roast turkey with all of it, roast rib of salt crust Scotch beef, a seafood trio of lemon sole, salmon and king scallop, or a vegetable strudel. After that a sticky toffee pudding, a Baileys and white chocolate cheesecake, a panna cotta or a Scottish cheese board.

It is £105 per person, £45 for children aged 3 to 12, and free for the under 3s. Every dish is cooked to order, so the whole table pre-orders in advance; the form and the dates are on the Christmas page, and the deposit is £20 per person at the time of booking. Ring 01224 897211 to book.

The pre-Christmas menu, from 4 to 24 December

In the run up to Christmas the restaurant swaps to the pre-Christmas menu. It is our main menu with the festive dishes added, so a table of six where only three want turkey is not a problem.

The festive additions are the ones people ring to ask about. A traditional roast turkey platter: butter basted turkey breast, roast and mash potatoes, honey roasted winter roots, sprouts, peas, cranberry stuffing, kilted chipolatas, skirlie and gravy, at £19.95. A festive hero, which is turkey breast, cranberry stuffing, pigs in blankets, cranberry sauce, melting cheddar and gravy in a warm baguette with skinny fries, at £18.95. A traditional Christmas pudding with brandy sauce or vanilla ice cream, £8.50. A three cheese brioche toast to start, with Brie, Emmental and smoked Applewood cheddar, chilli jam and a honey glazed pear. And seven liqueur coffees to finish, from the Gaelic coffee with Grouse to the Bonnie Prince Charlie's with Drambuie.

The rest of the menu is the one the restaurant is known for: the jumbo haddock, the Cove Bay steak pie, the Cullen skink, the 8oz Scottish rump, the macaroni cheese, the kids desserts. Everything is cooked to order, so allow half an hour and know it is worth the wait.

The menu runs from Friday 4 to Thursday 24 December at the restaurant's usual hours, and it stands in for the main menu while it is on, so you will find it on the menus page as well as on the Christmas page, with a PDF to print.

How booking works in December

Small tables book the way they do the rest of the year: online through the restaurant page, or by phone. December is busy and the window tables go first, so if the view matters, say so when you book and we will do what we can.

Eight or more. We take a £50 deposit at the time of booking, by card over the phone or in person in the restaurant. It comes off the final bill. You can change your numbers up to three hours before the booking time; if we are told inside that window, the full deposit is still redeemed. If numbers drop and we are not told, the deposit is lost.

More than fourteen. Larger tables pre-order from a slightly reduced menu, so that forty plates can come out of a kitchen this size at the same time.

Bills. Where there is a deposit to redeem we cannot split the bill. Bring cash, or have one person pay and the others transfer them the money on their banking app. We can take several payments if you tell us the amounts, and the last person to pay settles whatever is left.

Allergies. Tell us when you book, not when you sit down, and the chef will help with special requests. The gluten free dishes are made with gluten free products, but we cannot promise they are 100% gluten free, and we cannot guarantee that any dish is free of nut traces.

Running late. We hold a table for 30 minutes after the booking time. After that it goes. A quick phone call keeps it.

If you are organising the works do

The Charleston Suite is our private dining room and it seats up to 36 at tables. Laid out other ways it takes 30 theatre style, 14 boardroom and 12 in a U shape, with a digital projector, a screen and flip charts for anybody who insists on speeches with slides. The patio doors open, and the public bar and the Poop Deck are next door when people want to stand up. There is more on the private dining page.

A party of that size pre-orders from the reduced menu and pays the deposit, which is the same arrangement as any large table.

Getting here, and getting home

We are at 15 Colsea Road in Cove Bay, just off the Aberdeen ring road, with parking outside. The bus stop is 250 metres from the door and the train and bus stations in the middle of Aberdeen are about fifteen minutes away in a taxi, which on a Friday in December is a thing to plan for.

The easier answer is upstairs. The rooms are all en-suite, breakfast is cooked to order in the morning, and the sea is outside the window. They are on the rooms page and they fill up in December the same way the restaurant does.

Dogs are welcome in the public bar at Christmas as they are the rest of the year.

One page has the lot, both menus and every term: the Christmas page. For anything it does not answer, 01224 897211.