Garden dining special – Eat, drink, laugh, love your garden

Do you love garden dining? Roll back time a couple of decades and alfresco dining wasn’t a ‘thing’ in the UK. Now it’s a really big, popular thing, a pastime loved by millions. The covid pandemic means more of us than ever are staying at home in the UK for our holidays. The thought of disrupted summer holiday flights and worries about climate change mean fewer of us are flying abroad.

Talking to customers, friends and family, we’ve discovered something fascinating. Rather than go glamping, staying at an hotel or booking a holiday home in Britain, plenty of us are deciding to stay at home. We like to enjoy precious time in familiar surroundings. We spend quality time with those we love. We’re chilling at home, and it’s lovely.

All this means garden dining furniture and cooking equipment has come into its own. If you’d like to make ‘home’ your holiday destination this year, we have a host of wonderful products for you.

Top garden dining choices for your outdoor space

Whatever the size of your garden you need places to sit, a way to cook, a method to heat the area so it’s cosy, and practical ways to serve drinks and food:

• A chiminea, fire pit or fire bowl for supreme heat outdoors
• A beautiful BBQ or pizza oven for tasty alfresco cuisine
• A garden furniture set for comfortable chilling and eating in the daytime and into the evenings
• A candle lamp for exciting or romantic light after dusk
• A drinks trolley or folding butlers tray to serve everything in style

Choose your chiminea, fire pit or fire bowl

First, what kind of fire do you want to make garden dining a warm, comfortable experience? A chiminea is a beautiful object. It’s also very practical. Perfect for generating heat outside, you can cook basic BBQ food on most chims with ease. Just add the BBQ grill provided with the chiminea or buy one from our chiminea accessories collection.

Most people love a large or XL chiminea, which fits every kind of space pretty well. That’s what we stock most of. Take this, the magnificent Asteria XL Chimalin AFC Chimenea in glazed green. The colour is awesome. She performs beautifully. You won’t believe the amount of heat these clever things generate.

If you need a smaller chiminea, the small Billie chiminea is a little cast iron version that gives you loads of heat. It takes a big fire, radiating warmth very efficiently. If your patio or garden is really wee, it’s the perfect choice. Isn’t it attractive?

Firebowls and fire pits are a great alternative to chimineas. They deliver the same awesome outdoor heat and magical flickering flames in a different way. Some come with a contemporary look, smooth and sleek, others have a more traditional appearance. The small Dakota fire pit makes short work of keeping you cosy without taking up too much space. The simple, elegant design suits every kind of garden, as you can see.

One thing to bear in mind for garden dining and entertainment. If you’re worried about pet and child safety around an open fire, a chiminea might be your best bet. There’s no open flame to fall into. On the other hand some fire pits are designed to keep the flames safely contained in a glass box. Take a look at the hyper-modern Happy Cocoon Aluminium Rectangular Anthracite Cocoon with its own Burner and Glass Screen. It comes fresh from the Netherlands, packed with cool Dutch style.

Outdoor food – Pick a BBQ or Pizza Oven

A barbie is the traditional way to cook fab food outdoors. It’s a kind of outdoor oven. But these days an outdoor oven can be anything from an enormous, all-singing, all-dancing outdoor oven, perfect for pro chefs and skilled amateurs, to a traditional wheeled kettle barbecue.

The Norfolk Grills Absolute Outdoor Kitchen 6 Burner Gas BBQ With Side Burner falls somewhere in the middle. It gives you a big oven to play with, but it isn’t quite so big as the biggest of all. This gorgeous beast can stay outdoors year-long. There’s even a specially made, top quality cover to keep it in the best condition for years to come.

If that’s a bit much for your cooking inclinations and garden space, we can dial things down a bit for you. How about the neat, efficient and very good-looking Norfolk Grills ATLAS 400 Gas 4 Burner with Side Burner & Cabinet? While it’s bigger and gives you a more varied outdoor cooking experience than a conventional BBQ, it’s small enough to keep things tidy. It’s perfect for a smaller garden.

Pizza ovens are a popular garden dining choice, and no wonder. Show us a person who doesn’t like pizza. Is there such a thing? We’ve hummed and hawed about which pizza ovens to stock. This one, the classic Pizzaro Traditional Pizza Oven, is the nicest we’ve found so far. It flies out of our warehouse thanks to its traditional clay good looks. The attractive rounded shape creates pizza perfection every time.

Pick a stunning garden furniture set

You’ve got fire, and the food side of alfresco living is sorted. Next, you need chilling gear, and we have a whole load of cool choices for you. Our huge collection of garden furniture comes from just a handful of respected brands, all known for quality and style.

Your choice depends on your budget, the size of your outdoor space, and the number of people you’re likely to entertain outdoors. If it’s two of you we have some lovely bistro sets, neat enough for secluded corners and useable indoors in your conservatory if you like. If you’re thinking big, we have a choice of grand garden furniture for large-scale outdoor fun.

Let’s take a look at the Florenity Grigio Bistro set, a masterpiece of a real wood bistro set in cool, trendy pale greys. There’s also a Galaxy version in darker greys from the same brand, and a lovely sage green one in the Verdi collection.

Our many big, beautiful garden furniture sets include the brilliant Norfolk Leisure Longbeach Lounge Set. It’s made from a stylish resin rattan in shades of pale and darker grey. It seats as many as seven if you in considerable comfort. And the big table makes it easy to create sociable spaces. Can you picture yourself chilling in it with friends and family?

If you need even more seating and table space, it’s good to know everything in our collections go together really well. The on-trend greys we’ve chosen blend together perfectly. You could buy a big set, a smaller set for a different area of your garden, and bistro sets for all your shady and sunny nooks. The result is attractive and welcoming.

Garden dining essential – Add safe candlelight

There’s nothing quite like a candle or two to add atmosphere to outdoor events and garden dining occasions. Once the sun drops below the horizon and the party begins to heat up, add this superb real wood candle lamp from the Florenity collection. It’s available in pale grey, darker grey, and sage green, and everything else in the collection goes together perfectly. Here’s the Grigio candle lamp in the dark blue-grey.

Your drinks trolley and butler table

Why struggle to carry dishes and plates, glasses and napkins, wine, beer and ice buckets? There’s a solution in the shape of the Florenity Verdi, Grigio and Galaxy collections. They all include a fabulous butler’s tray and a classy drinks trolley. Available in dark grey, pale grey or sage green, they’re well made from sustainable eucalyptus wood, finished with tough matt exterior paint. Here’s the drinks trolley from the Verdi range.

A Butler’s Tray is another must-have for relaxed garden dining. Here’s the Florenity Galaxy Folding Butler Tray in deep grey, a convenient choice that folds up for easy storage.

Sorted? Great! If there’s anything w ecan do to help, get in touch. Otherwise, we wish you the best alfresco summer EVER!