A taste of luxury on a budget

Lidl chefs Nick Nairn and Lesley Waters fight it out between Christmas traditional favourite turkey and the more modern choice of lobster, as they launch the new Lidl festive range in freezing UK temperatures.

A third of families in the North East are saying no to turkey this year and opting instead for a more modern and luxurious Christmas dinner feast according to research released today by Lidl.

In response to this, the food retailer has trebled its affordable-luxury range on shelves throughout December, and includes unusual festive menu items such as whole lobster.

According to Lidl, while frugality is now chic, Britons are still unwilling to sacrifice taste and style.

The retailers new festive range includes luxury items such as venison, ostrich, smoked salmon and champagne which when compared to other high-end food retailers such as Selfridges and Harrods Food Hall, costs up to 82 per cent less.

This follows the recent announcement by Which? rating Lidl’s £2.99 deluxe matured Christmas pudding (454g) as the best-tasting ahead of high-end retailers and luxury ranges including Waitrose, M&S Collection, Co-operative Truly Irresistible, Morrisons

The Best, Tesco Finest and Sainsbury Taste the Difference.

This comes in at £7 less than the Harrod’s Christmas pudding (450g).

Similarly, Lidl's Comte de Brismand bubbly currently reduced from £13.99 down to £9.99 for Christmas, topped the recent Bloomberg Champagne blind taste-test ahead of M&S and Selfridges.

It was beaten only by Harrods by half a point and at double the price.

Other affordable luxury items from Lidl’s festive range includes Panettone for £3.99 (1kg), £14 less than Selfridges, Marzipan Stollen which comes in at £1.99 (1kg), £18.95 less than Harrods and a luxury iced Christmas cake (1.36kg) which is on sale for £6.99, £12.96 less than Harrods.

Lidl celebrity chef, Lesley Waters, who is a popular television cook and a regular guest on BBC2’s Ready Steady Cook and ITV1’s This Morning, says: “Christmas can be a time for following both old traditions and creating new ones.

“Lidl's new luxurious festive range takes inspiration from familiar Christmas produce and more modern luxury ingredients.

“It will provide families across the country with the chance to create a special and much deserved festive feast while still keeping within their allocated budget during this time of tightened purse strings.”

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