Here's to a merry Chic-mas

Perhaps the trendiest of this last type is The Reindeer (020 8880 6111, bookthereindeer.com). Until 23 December, this 250-seater, "temporary" restaurant will take over the T1 Building at the Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane. A chic celebration of all things festive, it is, as the tagline has it, "not for life, just for Christmas".

It is one huge Christmas present for London's fashionable diners from Pablo Flack and David Waddington, the brains behind the East End's bustling Bistrotheque. "The Reindeer is decorated like a fantasy Christmas," explains Flack.

The whole thing finishes as quickly as it began, on 23 December, after which all the decor - from antlers to log cabins - is up for grabs in a grand "Everything Must Go" sale the next day.

The Reindeer isn't the only venue to acknowledge that we don't lose our sense of style just because it's Christmas. There are lots of options, a world away from office party hell, for those hoping to enjoy a good meal and a nice bottle of wine with just a touch of Christmas silliness.

Every year London's fine hotels win the prize for fabulously OTT decoration and glossy Christmas camp. At The Dorchester (020 7629 8888, thedorchester.com), there's afternoon tea and carols every Saturday and Sunday throughout December (£50 with champagne), or seasonal menus (from £60) in the hotel's Grill - a restaurant so flamboyantly red and tartan, it could be Christmas every day.

Scottish style isn't only for Hogmanay: in Trafalgar Square, Albannach (020 7930 0066, albannach.co.uk) is making like a glamorous Scottish pile with antler chandeliers, silver fir tree branches, baubles and heather-mulled wine.

The mezzanine restaurant offers contemporary Scottish cuisine, including chestnuts with grilled Inverloch goat's cheese, or Christmas pudding with whisky-infused vanilla anglaise (£40 lunch, £55 dinner). Or pop in to the Christmassy ground-floor bar and work your way through the menu of whisky cocktails.

Traditional English is a perennial favourite too; try Rules (020 7836 5314, rules.co.uk), London's oldest restaurant, where you can enjoy plum pudding, pheasant-or sherry trifle among its open fires, garlands of ribbon and deep red banquettes (from £52).

You can always count on those from colder climes to do Christmas well. Swedish restaurant Glas, relocated from Borough to Islington and renamed Upper Glas (020 7359 1932, glasrestaurant.co.uk), is no exception.

The festive menu, based on the traditional julbord, or yule table, will be served over four courses for £25 a head or £12.50 for children. First up comes glgg, a warm spiced wine, followed by cold appetisers such as reindeer, herring and cured salmon; then hot dishes including meatballs or Jansson's temptation (potatoes and anchovy gratin); all topped off with seven types of spiced cookie.

And on St Lucia's Day, a Swedish holiday on 13 December, they're bringing in a Swedish church choir to sing Christmas carols. Even the restaurant's resident stuffed elk, Gustav, will be given a seasonal new look. It's really the Alpine Winter Wonderland look, however, as The Reindeer suggests, that seems set to be this year's theme.

City Road's
Bavarian Beerhouse (020 7608 0925, bavarian-beerhouse.co.uk) has just launched a ski hut with room for more than three dozen people. With its talking deer heads and oversized chandeliers, the bar-cum-gallery At Proud (020 7482 3867, atproud.net) looks like a Forties ski chalet that has been dropped in the heart of Camden.