You know it’s Christmas at the Lodore Falls Hotel when…

Christmas butter sculpture at the Lodore Falls Hotel

For the last 28 years Mike Ward, Executive Head Chef at the Lodore Falls Hotel, has produced a magical butter sculpture for the hotel’s festive celebrations. Each year Mike secretly works on his sculptures at home and unveils them to signal the start of Christmas. These amazing sculptures have ranged from unicorns, to ballerinas to dazzling sugar plum fairies, with Mike’s enthusiasm growing every year.

Mike has finally revealed his butter sculpture for Christmas 2014 – a magnificent dragon, he has always found dragons to be such fascinating creatures and his inspiration came from an ornament that he came across on a recent holiday. Mike adds “this year’s dragon sculpture has to be one of my best, the design and intricate detail that’s gone into it has taken hours. I have help from a good friend to make the frame, then I can spend a good 20 hours sculpting, with at least another 20 hours on the fine glitter detail”

“The last two weeks I’ve seen myself working on the sculpture till 1am and have had a few 5am starts. Each year the pressure is on to create a new design, as we have so many regular guests that return time and time again for Christmas at the Lodore Falls Hotel and look forward to seeing the latest sculpture ”

Over the years Mike has encouraged his team to develop their skills, which includes Sous Chef Shane Hamilton, who produces the towering gingerbread hotel, which is a replica of the Lodore Falls Hotel. The gingerbread hotel features stained sugar windows and real working lights, all of which are edible (except the lights) and ready to be knocked to pieces on New Year’s Day by the children staying at the hotel – a tradition firmly embedded in the Lodore Falls’ Hotel New Year -celebrations.