Kay and Mark Chandler on finding the right festive ingredients at the White Hart at Fyfield

Deciding on the Christmas menu is an important job in our catering calendar. Mark, ever the perfectionist, starts thinking about it in late summer, developing and testing recipes for the ‘wow factor’.

He starts, as he does all year round, by looking at what seasonal ingredients he has to hand and what is available locally in the winter months.

Mark is a stickler for quality, fresh ingredients and says nothing can beat the taste and quality of freshly picked produce. Our own kitchen garden supplies the restaurant with as much as possible so on our Christmas menu we have our own homegrown beetroot, parsnips, pumpkin, winter greens and foraged wild mushrooms.

The White Hart is a restaurant, but also a pub which is the hub of the village community. And we support the community in return whenever we can. We get our eggs from the farmer up the road and our meat from local estates and shoots – sometimes local villagers even swap their excess produce for a meal.

In land-locked Oxfordshire, we are too far from the sea to source all of our fish locally but we get fresh deliveries daily from Brixham – although sometimes locals even bring in trout from the Farmoor reservoir. The menu is decided according to what is fresh in and available on a daily basis. Harder on our kitchen but better for our customers.

This year the star main courses on the run up to Christmas have been roast pheasant, sourced from Swannybrook Farm, Kingston Bagpuize, and our signature slow-roasted belly of pork from Kelmscott. On Christmas Day we will be serving roast Fyfield free-range turkey with all the trimmings, with local beef wellington and pumpkin and cep lasagne with pumpkin chips as alternatives. Mark and pastry chef Mike Parsons have devised a wonderful Christmas pudding parfait with spiced plum sauce and caramelised oranges to finish. (see recipe).

Mark’s background was always in pubs and restaurants – but always front of house. It was only when we bought the White Hart 10 years ago and found ourselves without a quality chef, that he entered the kitchen. Mark was always a fantastic dinner party cook, and had run Michelin starred restaurants, but truly found his metier in the professional kitchen. Two years later he had cooked his way into the Good Food Guide, Michelin Guide and won two AA rosettes for culinary excellence.

Like Mark, I always knew that one day I wanted to have my own restaurant and waited tables as I grew up. After studying law at university, I became a banking lawyer, before meeting Mark and following my dreams of owning a restaurant.

When we first saw the White Hart we fell in love with the historic 15th century building, which boasts a minstrel’s gallery and a secret tunnel leading to Fyfield Manor. With inglenook fireplaces, roaring fires and soaring beams, the White Hart epitomises Christmas cheer.

We now have two children Will and Freya, and will be joined at Christmas by Mark’s grown up girls, Zoe and Rachel.

It will be hectic – the family time works around the restaurant - and it can be difficult – but we wouldn’t have it any other way and have loved the last 10 years at the White Hart.