The Kingston Courier spoke to vendors for their food recommendations at the 2024 market.
The Kingston Christmas Market is well underway, with a range of craft and food vendors as well as live entertainment including a weekly open mic night.
From Dutch pancakes to bratwurst, mulled wine to topping-laden hot chocolate, the market has a wide variety of food and drinks to choose from.
With plenty of food options, we spoke to vendors across the market to help you make the most of your visit.
Pyramid Stage Bar
At the central bar of the Christmas market, mulled wine and beer have been the most popular drinks.
The bar sells Krombacher Pilsner and Weizen beers and Krombacher 0.0 as a non-alcoholic alternative. For wine options there is merlot, white, and rose, as well as sparkling Friggenti.
Pyramid Stage Bar is also offering a returnable cup system to reduce waste from disposable plastic cups. Patrons can pay a five pound deposit for a stein of Krombacher Pilsner or Weizen, and later return their cup to receive their deposit back.
Other available winter warmers are mulled cider, and Galaxy hot chocolate.
And if you are looking further afield locally, a handy guide to non-alcoholic drink options available year-round in Kingston pubs, a guide can be found in this article.
Dutch Pancakes & Belgian Waffles
Margaret Smith said Nutella was the most popular topping for the mini Dutch pancakes sold at her stall.
When asked what she’d recommend, she said she likes to leave the choice fully up to the customer, but that maple syrup is her personal favourite.
Hot Chocolate Counter
Helga Johnson is running the hot chocolate stall at the market this year. Their original blend – topped with whipped cream, marshmallows, and a flake – has been most popular, which she says is due to it being mid-priced within their range.
Johnson recommends the Christmas cup – hot chocolate topped with whipped cream, sprinkles, a gingerbread biscuit, and a candy cane – as it fits the season.
Original Bratwurst
Johnson, having also run the Original Bratwurst stall in previous years, recommended the cheese-topped bratwurst.
Sweet & Savoury Crepes
The crepe stall at the market offers a range of sweet and savoury crepes, waffles, churros, rolled ice cream, and smoothies.
Staff member Dinesh Jangir said out of the sweet crepes, their #25 combo, topped with Nutella, banana, and strawberries, was the most popular. Out of their savoury options, he added, their #9 combo of cheese, mushrooms and baby spinach had been a hit with visitors.
Jangir said there was similar popularity for their #10 waffles combo. These are also topped with Nutella, banana, and strawberries, but with the addition of vanilla ice cream.
The recommended topping for churros was classic milk chocolate.
For rolled ice cream, Nutella and strawberry were most popular again, but paired with Kinder Bueno.
Out of the smoothie options available, mango and passionfruit was Jangir’s recommendation.
Souvlaki Corner
Dimitra Tromaropoulou, owner of Souvlaki Corner, said their most popular menu item was the chicken souvlaki wrap, and tzatziki as their most popular sauce.
However, she added her preference of meat filling was lamb as she found it to be the more flavoursome option.
Sweets
For the first time, the market has a pick-n-mix sweets stall, with handmade fudge a popular option.
The European-style market will run until January 5th, but will have an early closing time of 17:30 on Christmas Eve and be closed all day on Christmas Day.
For an overview of everything the market has to offer, read our earlier story here.
Social Media Editor & Reporter at The Kingston Courier
