There aren’t many places like Polo Bar, an old school British-Italian cafe that never closes (Christmas and Boxing Day aside). It is a place for enormous fried breakfasts and over-the-top milkshakes, stacks of pancakes and burgers with onion rings hanging off the top on wooden sticks. It also has a 24-hour alcohol licence.
This month, the family run joint, open since 1953, will be serving Christmas dinner all night long: a never-ending run of turkey with all the trimmings, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Owner Phil Inzani told the Standard he thinks it is the first 24-hour Christmas dinner in the country, though the Standard was not able to verify this claim. But it is, as far as we can tell, the first and only in London.
For £16.50, customers are served turkey, a giant pig-in-blanket, roast potatoes, stuffing, vegetables and gravy, and for £2 extra there’s the option to add bottomless Yorkshire puddings. Servings are always generous at Polo Bar.
Elsewhere on the festive menu is a “Christmas 24/7 bottomless” deal, which includes a fried breakfast, pancakes, and a never-ending supply of prosecco or Camden Hells lager for £40 per head. The “Santa’s breakfast,” meanwhile, is a spruced up full English for £13: a large pig-in-blanket replaces the normal sausages and the beans come with confit onions.
“The best thing about December is a Christmas dinner, so why not make it available all day and all night,” Inzani told the Standard.
“We’re the only restaurant in the UK doing it. We’ve had a lot of demand for roasts in general and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
“We know, strictly speaking, Yorkshires are not always on a Christmas dinner, but we love them, so we’ve made them bottomless. If this goes well, we will then launch our 24/7 roast dinner series in the new year.”
