I just spent a great week in London with the family (see here, and here) and yes, I did run across a few pasties, including these, in the breathtaking food halls at Harrods:
I find it hard to believe that the food halls can be profitable; part of the spectacle is the volume and variety of every sort of food imaginable, and though the prices are suitably dear, it is easier for me to believe the food halls are more loss leader than profit center. Does anyone know?
On another food note: As much as I love London, I am consistently surprised by how very, very bad the food can be. Yes, the more expensive restaurants are usually good, and yes, there are some cheaper places (like this one) that are outstanding. But very often the restaurant food hews to the English stereotype of potted meat, soggy pastry, and vegetable mush. At several meals, it was rare to encounter a single thing that crunched at all or was remotely fresh or colorful. And it wasn’t cheap.
This stood in stark contrast, however, to the takeaway food available even in shops like Tesco Express and Marks & Spencer Simply Food. In both those places, there’s a great selection of fresh fruit and veg (as they call it there) along with salads, prepared meals, etc., at very affordable prices. It would be the equivalent of walking into a 7-Eleven in New York and finding row upon row of clean fresh fruit and tasty greens — not quite as lovely as the Harrods food halls, but quite nice indeed, and probably one-fourth the price.
So why such an abundance of good fresh food in the corner shops, at good prices, and such a lack thereof in the more pricey restaurants? I expect labor costs figure into the answer, and economies of scale — there are a lot of Tesco and M&S shops — but I’d be pleased to hear from anyone who could explain the rest of it.
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stick to beer & chips when in london. the indian food is of course amazing though.
7-Eleven actually has a row of clean vegetables and fruits. I used to purchase their sliced green apples as a healthy snack — they also have a selection of fancy sandwiches.
what do y’all call fresh fruit and veg?
I am surprised Harrods allowed you to take pictures, I remember in 2000 when I visited Harrods and wanted to take a picture of the food hall, a security guard asked me to not take any pictures.
Better than Tesco and Mark & Spencers, are the open air markets hawking fruits and vegetables.
I also enjoyed shopping at the bakeries for tasty pastries.
This stereotype of bad British food winds me up even more than that of bad British teeth. Where exactly were you eating? As an economist you should surely know that a business can only survive as long as it has customers – and it’s not discerning Londoners buying the rubbish you’re describing, it’s tourists! Make some effort to find something interesting to eat and there is an incredible variety of great, fresh and affordable food to be found in Britain.
I agree, stick to the ethnic food restaurants.
Agreed that my very recent experience in London included not a single bad meal. Admittedly, for much of my stay I had the advantage of being shown around by a local foodie who happens to be a very good friend of mine, but even the meals we blundered into on our own were quite decent, even wonderful.
In fact, I would venture to say that the ratio of good to bad restaurants in London (or in any other U.S. city) exceeds that which can be found in NYC. New York has an unbelievable array of restaurants, yes, but compared to Chicago, Boston or San Francisco, it has a far great proportion (and number) of simply awful places.
7-Eleven is not a good comparison. Tesco is like Target and Marks & Spencer is Whole Foods or Wegman’s, a gourmet, middle class (read professional class) grocery. M&S is all about quality. The takeaway salads and sandwiches would have been summer picnic fare in decades past. The English aren’t used to having fresh things in winter, and so they still haven’t learned how to cook them.
Watch Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares and you will get the rest.