Florence Pugh's Christmas day cocktail is our new holiday obsession
It’s been quite a year for the seemingly unstoppable Florence Pugh. She starred in Dune: Part Two as Princess Irulan and wowed fans with her custom Valentino sequin dress by Pierpaolo Piccioli at the London premiere, as well as being cast in the hotly anticipated We Live in Time – released in cinemas the UK on January 1, 2025 – starring opposite
Andrew Garfield. She even made her British Vogue debut on the October 2024 cover. But while Pugh may be becoming one of Britain’s biggest stars – she’s also gained quite a reputation for, well, enjoying cooking.
During the 2020 lockdown, Pugh used her social media platform to inspire others to spend their time cooking. She created a beloved ‘Cooking with Flo’ casual cooking series on IG, where she shared videos of her cooking healthy, and delicious-looking meals. The tzatziki was, frankly, out of this world.
Last year, Pugh appeared on the Christmas special of the foodie podcast, Dish – hosted by Nick Grimshaw and Michelin star chef and restaurateur Angela Hartnett – where she shared her relationship with her family and how it shaped her passion for food. After all, her dad is a rather successful restaurateur.
From how Florence cooks her Christmas roast potatoes to her favourite Christmas cocktail ‘Granny Pat’s Potion’. Here, then, is everything you need to know about Christmas at Pugh's house...
Florence Pugh on making her Christmas cocktail ‘Granny Pat’s Potion’
‘Basically, I got my gran into drinking hard liquor,’ Pugh tells podcast host, Nick Grimshaw. ‘Which is always a great thing to do when she’s in her eighties. So, she doesn’t really know what goes in them.’
Pugh says her gran prefers fruity cocktails and asks her to ‘make me one of the fruity things’, which is essentially a concoction of all the things Pugh knows her Gran likes.
Named ‘Granny Pat’s Potion’, Pugh describes the drink as a martini-style cocktail. ‘Grapefruits are her favourite fruit, so we're going to do a bit of squeeze of grapefruit, and then some Chambord, and a little bit of elderflower, shakey shakey shakey, that'll be in the bottom of the glass and then just make it look really sweet and naughty.’
Florence on growing up in a big family and working in the family restaurant
Florence Pugh grew up in a big family with four siblings and two sets of grandparents who had a deep love for food – who spent most of their lives talking, eating, and creating good food – which, of course, influenced her parents.
‘My dad grew up in a pub and has been running and creating restaurants since he could, and I've just been around the need for eating food and understanding good quality,’ she says, emphasising that it wasn't necessarily about eating expensive food, it was more about understanding why they ate the food they did, how it benefited them, and how it made them feel better. ‘I remember on the weekends we weren't allowed to watch TV at a certain time, but we were allowed to watch cooking shows. And so I'd be watching Jamie Oliver when he was doing all of his canteen nightmares.’
All the kids, including Florence, had their first jobs in restaurants – which involved dealing with both great and not-so-great people. ‘I think when you're a teenager and you're working in any establishment, you think that you are there for the business and you're allowed to be treated as such for the business. And I think it's such a massive part of growing up when you are doing a job as a waiter or washing dishes or making coffees,’ she says.
‘You're there to work as part of a family, you're there to work as a team, and then equally, you're there to grow as a person. And everybody gets to help you kind of like, shape that part of you.’
Florence on cooking on Christmas Day
While her Dad may be the main cook – and describes him as a ‘fantastic cook’ – sometimes ‘he needs help, but no one else can be in charge of the kitchen,’ she says.
‘I have a good friend called Ashley, and he is a fantastic cook, and when I'm in his kitchen I'm his sous, and when he's in my kitchen, he's my sous. We don't bring our ideas to the table.’
Now, there's a mutual understanding to defer to the person in charge, says Pugh, likening them to Yoda in their own kitchen. ‘So with my dad, dad's the Yoda, and we can do things and do them on the side, don't ask too many questions, just get on and do it. Which I actually kind of like.’
Don’t ask stupid questions, like whether you should put the carrots on, she jokes ‘you should know that, you grew up in this household, get them on.’
Everyone in the family has their own role when it comes to Christmas in the Pugh household. ‘Other people are designated decorators,’ she explains, ‘a few that will be lighting candles, and putting on outfits, and getting the table ready. We're a hosting family, so everybody knows how to host and everybody knows how to serve. Obviously, because we grew up in the restaurants, it's like- it does just happen.
‘So Bella will be on serving drinks and getting champagnes out, Toby and I will be in the kitchen, Mo will be getting the table, like everybody's doing everything to make sure the whole thing looks great.’
However, if she had to choose, she said her favourite thing to be in charge of is the gravy – and she loves Brussels sprouts.
She said that ‘they play family board game after dinner,’ just ending the feast on a great note.
Florence on her perfect Christmas roast potato
Florence uses her dad’s recipe for making the perfect Christmas potato, and he uses goose fat, she says.
‘He'll part boil them until they're like nearly falling apart, put them in the pan, and usually, the goose fat has been warmed and oiled and all gooey and gorgeous and wet. And then he'll get two forks and scratch them up or just like shake them around in the pot. Salt, turn them over, put them in and then he'll turn them over again so that they're getting on all sides. But it was always growing up, it was goose fat. And he'd do them, sometimes he'd chop them really thin, so that you get like this crispy almost like a, like a hash. So he'd get massive potatoes and slice them sideways, so you'd get this crispy thing where all of the bums of the potatoes would be extra crispy too.’
Read next
Cut through the noise and get practical, expert advice, home workouts, easy nutrition and more direct to your inbox. Sign up to the WOMEN'S HEALTH NEWSLETTER
You Might Also Like
