Champagne and fries had their moment. This Christmas, Butter Bird, the neighbourhood rotisserie on Blossom Street in Ancoats, is making the case for the pairing that comes next: golden, fire-turned rotisserie chicken and a glass of French Crémant. Its first Christmas feasting menu, Gather Your Flock, runs Monday to Saturday from Tuesday 1st to Thursday 24th December at £45 per person for three courses, with every guest welcomed with a glass of Crémant on arrival.
Built for sharing and designed for groups, the menu swaps the stiff office-party set menu for platters passed down the table. It opens with chicken fat popcorn and warm sourdough with chicken butter or roast onion and confit garlic butter, before the main event: a half rotisserie chicken per guest, tea-brined in house and slowly turned over open flame in Butter Bird’s Rotisol Millennium rotisserie and butter-basted until the skin is crisp and golden.
The feast comes loaded with sides: rotisserie potatoes with chicken salt, chicken fat roast parsnips with honey and thyme, baked butter mash with smoked cheddar and mozzarella, rainbow carrots with dill crème fraîche and hazelnut vinaigrette, roasted sprouts with Parmesan, red cabbage slaw and proper chicken gravy. Vegetarian guests are served spiced roast cauliflower with celeriac purée and roast garlic, and sage and onion stuffing can be added for £8. To finish, there’s blackberry and apple crumble with proper custard, dark chocolate torte with coffee and vanilla cream, Christmas pudding with brandy cream and winter berry compote, or a choice of three scoops of ice cream.
“Christmas should feel like a big family dinner, not a set menu you sit through. Everyone round one table, plates going back and forth, glasses topped up. Rotisserie chicken is made for sharing, and there’s nothing like the first pop of Crémant to tell everyone the celebration has started,” says Joe Akka, owner of Butter Bird.
Why Crémant? Made in the traditional method across French regions outside Champagne, with a second fermentation in bottle and time on lees, Crémant brings the same fine bubbles, bright acidity and brioche notes as its famous cousin at a far friendlier price. That freshness cuts cleanly through roast chicken, butter and gravy, which is exactly why Butter Bird built a dedicated Crémant bar into the restaurant. Guests can trade up from their welcome glass to bottles from the Loire, Burgundy and Bordeaux, including Langlois Château Crémant de Loire and Burgundy from Jaffelin, or Crémant cocktails such as the Elderflower and Rosemary Spritz, Blood Orange Spritz and Bakewell Spritz. The restaurant’s weekly Club de Crémant night continues throughout the season.
The Gather Your Flock menu is available by pre-order only and is designed for tables of six or more. Bookings are open now at butterbird.co.uk/christmas.
