England Help

I'm over in London next week, and will be spending the following weekend in beautiful downtown Newbury. I've offered to cook dinner for the nice folks I'm staying with but I have been given dark warnings about the total unavailability of any decent herbs, produce, or miscellaneous ingredients more exotic than Morton's salt.

So... given that I want to follow my usual style of keeping ingredients at the center, I apparently need to shop elsewhere. Should I pack a bag in London or is there somewhere in the general Berkshire area where decent food may be found? If the former, where should I be looking, especially for fresh herbs or wild mushrooms?

And is it artichoke or asparagus season there yet?

Stuart
I don't know Newbury or London for herbs etc.
However if you have to shop at a supermarket, Waitrose is the best of the nationals, with Marks and Spencer 2nd (IMO of course). Most now sell mainstream herbs (basil, sage, parsley etc) growing in pots. Other herbs can be got in pots from garden centres. Wider selections of dried herbs are available in supermarkets.

try http://www.yell.co.uk for specialist food shops (it's the comprehensive yellow pages/commercial listing and many have websites). Look under Newbury and/or berkshire and speciality or ethnic food shops.

Meat is pretty poor quality here (I guess you know that), but if you can get a local recommendation of a good butcher, then good stuff can be found. Likewise a greengrocer is worth taking on recommendation.

Best of luck!

Ian

Ian, thanks. Is there any London equivalent to Vienna's Naschmarkt or Paris's Les Halles? Any decent Asian grocers?

Stuart
There will definitely be some stunning Asian grocers in the suburbs of London. There is a big Chinese supermarket place called Win Yip, but not sure where else apart from Birmingham where they have outlets.

Hopefully one of the London based folk can give more info. If not I'm happy to post a request on Tom Cannavan's wine pages site. That should at least get some good London recco's

regards

Ian

That's very helpful, thanks. We might actually be able to eke out a decent meal, although I wonder about the impact of actual flavor on non-foodie British palates...

There is a Waitrose supermarket in Newbury.

Oxford Road
Newbury
Berkshire

RG14 1NB
Tel: 01635 552061


They are the best UK supermarket. (Ok they buy my wines )

Yes, we went there. I was amazed at some of the things they had and some they didn't. For example, you could get pre-made polenta, but not corn meal.

As it turned out, between Borough market in London and the weekend farmers market in Newbury, we did OK. In the case of chevre, more than OK.