From the Editor, Leigh O’Connor.
Pull up a chair for The Long Lunch – Celebrating the Christmas Table, where time slows, glasses clink and every bite feels like a hug. Think platters of prawns tangled with lemon, roasts carved with flourish and salads bright as tinsel.
The room buzzes with stories that get funnier every year, kids darting under elbow, and that one aunt who always brings the best dessert. You linger over second helpings, then thirds, because "just one more” is the season’s motto. When afternoon melts into dusk, someone starts singing and you realise this is joy on a plate for all ages.
This week, we uncover the art of easy Christmas preparation with tips, recipes and good vibes…
There is a quiet rebellion hidden in the slow clink of cutlery, in the gentle pause between courses, in the way sunlight drifts lazily across a table set for more than nourishment. A long lunch is never just a meal.
It is a refusal - a soft but steady one - against the cadence of a world that measures worth in speed, output and constant motion. In a culture intoxicated by urgency, choosing to linger becomes an act of defiance.
A long lunch begins long before the first plate arrives. It starts with the decision to be unhurried, to allow time to stretch like warm dough beneath the hands of a baker. When you sit, there is no mental countdown ticking in the background.
The humble entrée - once a warm-up act - has slipped into something cooler, bolder and more self-assured.
Gone are the days when starters needed to simmer or sear to impress. Today’s most captivating opening dishes are arriving without a wisp of steam, trading heat for harmony, freshness and unapologetic elegance.
Cold entrées are staging their comeback and they’re bringing relief to both diners and Chefs. There’s liberation in dishes that don’t demand a stovetop tantrum moments before service.
There’s a moment every year - usually around 6 pm on Christmas Day - when you open the fridge, stare at the precarious towers of Tupperware, foil parcels and mystery bowls and wonder whether you’ve accidentally catered a wedding instead of a family lunch.
What if that mountain of leftovers wasn’t a burden…but a playground? What if the best part of your Christmas menu actually happens after Christmas?
This year, cook with the confidence of someone who knows exactly where every leftover is going. Build a Christmas menu that not only shines on the big day but transforms into new, cheeky, joy-sparking dishes for Boxing Day, the 27th and even beyond.
This is the Christmas our most visionary table stylists are designing for now - not the snow-globe one. Think eucalyptus instead of fir, sculptural ceramics instead of plastic, native florals doing the heavy lifting and a quiet, confident refusal to drape the whole thing in tinsel.
Welcome to the table as canvas: where lunch goes long, colours nod to Country and coast and the styling feels like Summer itself took a seat and loosened its collar.
We also dish up a long lunch road trip progressive Christmas feast, why festivities in the mountains might be the next big thing and the long lunch drinks cart…
Merry Christmas!
