Catering at St Anselm Hall
Meal Timings:
Monday to Friday breakfast: 7:30 – 9:30
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Communal dinner (Monday & Thursday): 18:30 - 19:30
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Casual dinner (Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday): 17:30 - 19:00
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Saturday and Sunday Brunch: 11:00 – 13:30
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Sunday Dinner: 17:15 – 18:30
Breakfast: muesli bowl, yoghurt with berries and maple syrup, and a toasted cheese and tomato bagel.
There are a wide variety of food options available for students.​
Breakfast is served for two hours every weekday morning, and brunch is served on the weekends. There is a main meal served every evening during the weekdays, and one in the early evening on Sunday.
Weekday meals come in two 'formats'. On Monday and Thursday, dinner is served at a specific time and students meet to have dinner together all at the same time. This is a tradition that has been in the hall for nearly 100 years. See below for more information about this.
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, students can attend dinner at a time of their choice between 17:30 and 19:00 and choose from a buffet-style service.
Menus are on a 5 week rota and are placed in the common room for students to see. A vegetarian/vegan option is always available. The meat is almost always halal, and if it is not, this will be indicated.
BREAKFAST OPTIONS
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Typical English cooked breakfast including scrambled or fried eggs, sausages (pork, chicken or veggie), cooked tomatoes and mushrooms, bacon, and hash browns
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Porridge
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Cereals such as Weetabix, Cocopops, Rice Crispies, Cornflakes, granola and muesli
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Fruit such as plums, bananas, apples, berries
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Toast and spreadables such as butter, jam, peanut butter, honey and marmite
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Banana bread and/or pancakes (depending on day of the week)
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Yoghurt and toppings e.g. granola, maple syrup, fresh blueberries, strawberries and raspberries
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Hummus and guacamole
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Continental breakfast including cheese, ham, croissants, pain au chocolat, and pain au raisin
Meat-free Mondays
In an effort to be more environmentally friendly, dinners on Monday at St Anselm Hall are meat-free. The meal served is vegetarian and/or vegan.
BRUNCH OPTIONS
These options can change from week to week. Nearly everything that is available at breakfast is available at brunch.​
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Burger or veggie burger
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Fish and Chips
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Salad
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Chicken kiev
DINNER OPTIONS
Typical starters (only available at communal dinner):
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Vegetable pakoras and samosas with dips
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Cheesy tacos
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Mozzarella sticks and dips
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Soup of the day with crusty bread roll
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Typical main courses:
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Veggie fajitas
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Chicken and Leek Pie with potatoes and green beans
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HM Pies with chips and roasted vegetables
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Vegetarian schnitzel
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Rump steak
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Chicken curry with rice and naan
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Typical desserts:
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Lemon tart
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Sticky toffee pudding
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Fruit salad
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Yoghurt selection
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Profiteroles
DRINK OPTIONS
​Drinks available at breakfast, brunch and casual dinner:
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Coffee machine serving a variety of hot beverages
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Various tea options
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CocaCola, Lemonade, Tango
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Juices: orange, iced tea, apple,
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Freshly made smoothie
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Water
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Milk and non-dairy alternatives
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Drinks available at communal dinner:
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Juices: fruit of the forest, orange, apple and iced tea
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Water
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Tea and coffee is served in the common room after dinner
Special Dinners
The dining hall also holds various events throughout the year such as the Harry Potter Dinner, Hallowe'en Dinner and Christmas Dinner. The Easter Ball normally takes place here as well.
Dobby at the Harry Potter Dinner
Easter Ball 2019
Tradition and Communal Dinner
St Anselm Hall as many traditions which are fuelled by its unique and rich history. These traditions include the Hall Play, an annual Christmas event, nomination of JCR committee members and regular Chapel services. One of the most valuable traditions that occurs in St Anselm Hall is Communal Dinner.
Each Monday and Thursday night the Hall sit down and have dinner together. Communal dinner is a really good way to make new friends, talk to new people and enhances the sense of community felt within the hall.
Most people wear a gown, this is optional and gowns can be purchased from the hall treasurer and can be returned at the end of the academic for part of your money back.
If you can't make it to dinner for some reason, don't worry! Packaged meals (hot or cold) can be ordered the day before and collected for the kitchen staff at breakfast.
At a typical communal dinner, students meet in the Open JCR at 6.20pm. At 6:30pm everyone goes into the Dining Hall where the President of the JCR gives updates and news. After they have finished, a spoon is banged, telling the RLC and Pastoral Team that the JCR is ready for them. Students stand until the RLC has said the traditional hall grace. Dinner usually takes 45 minutes and includes three courses (see above for meal examples).
At communal dinner there are three 'relaxed' tables, where casual attire can be worn. At the end of the room is Top Table. Everybody is welcome at Top Table, and this is where the senior JCR committee members and the ResLife team sit. Students who sit at top table are expected to dress smartly, as a part of the tradition.
The Value of Communal Dinner
by Louis McCaig-White, former Secretary of the Junior Common Room
When I started at St. Anselm Hall in the autumn of 2018, I knew almost nothing of its numerous traditions and unique elements. Though initially sceptical of many of these, having never encountered anything of this kind during my school years. However, there was one that soon became an indispensable element of my week above all others: communal dinner.
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We live in an era when university halls are becoming increasingly fractured and commercial across the UK – a destructive fire spreading long before the accelerant of COVID-19 – with many halls scarcely being fit to bear the name of a ‘living community’. Formal helps St. Anselm Hall buck this trend and, in my view, stands alongside Chapel and the Cellar Club bar as one of the most crucial elements achieving that.
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There are some obvious aspects that show the value of communal dinner for students here and now: a full meal at the end of the day is something many incoming students struggle to find the time for atop what can quickly become an overwhelming work load for many. Poor eating habits are not to be overlooked and can have a major impact on student wellbeing. The definite knowledge that such a meal will be there at a set time and place five days a week is also a permanence and consistency that I personally found difficult to find at the start of my undergraduate degree. Inconsistent and spread-out lecture and seminar times across the week is a major change from the consistent – though undeniably at times grinding and monotonous – nature of secondary education. This unifying element extends to the structure of the hall also. It brings together all elements of the hall, undergraduates, staff, ResLife, the JCR committee, and the occasional guest from the University or elsewhere. This intermingling and physical presence helps break down the often impersonal, corporate, and bureaucratic feel the modern university can tend to evoke.
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I first felt the major place formal held in my life in my second year, the same time I began to feel truly bedded into the hall. In my first semester I had a seminar on campus that ran from 5-6pm covering Early Medieval Europe. As winter came in and the days darker and colder, the warm glow of the common room’s lights, buffeted by the silhouettes of gown-clad Anselmians as I dashed back to be there in time always brought a smile to my face. I wasn’t coming back from a grey day on campus to sit in my room and eat whatever my tired hands could be bothered to muster, rather, I was returning to friends, a hot meal, lively conversation, and even a cup of tea should I be quick enough as the Anselmian host pressed out into the Open JCR.
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These elements I feel show that communal dinner, as it has been in the past (when it was held every week), must remain a central piece of life in St. Anselm Hall in the future.
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