On British radio, I hear them allude often to WAITROSE.... It's a new-ish chain of upscale delis which serve prepared food and groceries (deliverable, of course) which is delicious, gourmet, gastronome, classy, expensive. British food has taken plenty of jibes in past years for being a bit stodgy... but this, apparently, is revolutionizing everything.

Busy Britons can just pop in and take-away some really classy grub. Some Brits have been known to secretly cater whole dinner parties with it.


If I understand correctly, even the good old department store MARKS & SPENCER (for our Yanks: more than SEARS but less than MACY'S) has recently followed suit by offering some upscale prepared eating.

My British friends, have you had some WAITROSE food yet? Is it all that it's cracked up to be? I hear it's simply fab.


D.

Waitrose is a supermarket chain that sells all the normal food items that other supermarkets sell... (Do you use the term 'supermarket' in the US?) Fruit and veg, bakery, all grocery items etc, as well as deli items. The major difference between Waitrose and the others is in the quality of the items sold, and although Waitrose is a bit more expensive than the others, it has by far the highest level of customer satisfaction. Personally I always shop at Waitrose, and luckily there is one at the end of my road!

They do have a very good range of ready prepared items, as does Marks and Spencer, and both have been offering these for years. I haven't tried their banqueting service, but I would trust it utterly to be superb. Of more interest to me, they have a brilliant cheese counter, an excellent fresh fish and meat counter - the only place I know of where I can get properly hung and aged beef - an excellent in-store bakery, and yes, if you want them, they also sell such things as fresh ostrich eggs! They also have the best selection of organic produce of any of the supermarkets - my store sells at least 4 different brands of organic dairy products as well as it's own Waitrose brand from its own farms, as well as organic meat, eggs, bread, fish and of course fruit and veg. They do not, as a matter of policy, sell any meat or eggs from intensive, or factory farms. They also sell organic toiletries and baby items, as well as eco-friendly household cleaners.

And just for Prince Barry - they are now selling Pepsi Raw!

My goodness, Nutmeg, it sounds wonderful! When are they opening a branch in Canada?! I have to go to four different places to get that range of high-quality products!

We have it , sort of ...look no further than the Weston family who own Holt Renfrew and Selfridges in the UK , they also own an umbrella* company called Loblaws who run some pretty funky supermarkets with spendy foods , quality items and even go so far as to scour the planet for some interesting concepts in food ( President's Choice anyone ?). I have no way of comparing it to Waitrose but they seem to be barking up the same tree. I can vouch that the cheese counters , deli and seafood departments are superb.

*said umbrella also owns some No Frills chains at the opposite end of the spectrum

I love Waitrose. It's never crowded like Tesco or Sainburys, probably because it's more expensive. The US equivalent would be Gelson's, a California chain. Last week, whilst doing the grocery shopping, my boyfriend and I got a still warm loaf of whole meal bread that was delicious. We ate half of it in the car going home. For cheaper foods, canned goods, toilet paper, pet food, cleaning supplies, bread for the swans and hens, etc., we shopped at Tesco.

I've always liked Marks and Spencer's food, especially their sweets. They have the best sticky toffee pudding and if you buy their prepared custard, pour it over and heat in the microwave, it's a sugarholic's heaven! You can't beat British sweets.

As for traditional British food, eh. It reminds me of hospital food -- boiled potatoes, green beans, carrots, cabbage, broccoli with nothing on it. They have a penchant for serving two kinds of potatoes at the same meal -- roasted and boiled and maybe chips thrown in. "I'll have some starch with my starch, please." Meat is a big deal. Cumberland sausage looks like the cook s__t on the plate! Disgusting, along with blood pudding. I don't eat meat anyway. Most Brits have sophisticated palates, eating all sorts of international dishes. I noticed that Mexican food has appeared in pubs -- nachos, of all things. We had lunch at one lovely, traditional pub in the countryside and they were playing Mexican music all through lunch! I left LA so I wouldn't have to listen to that garbage!

Hmm, why is the last sentence of this post bothering me? ..I wonder

Perhaps because you are one of those tourists who travel to a foreign country expecting everything to be the way it is at home? Why bother to travel if that's the case?

Perhaps calling the genre garbage was a harsh ....not my cuppa darjeeling music wise but it has its fans, certainly at that pub it seems.

Oh, puhleeze! I consider rap "music" to be garbage as well. Are we supposed to all like the same things now? Sheesh!

hey , one has as much right to say "harsh" as another has to say "garbage" , no ? speech is fun like that.

I do not recall anyone here saying we have to like the same thing at all , but IRL when I go about referring to C&W as dreck and rubbish Rap I fully expect a different point of view to turn up, heck , have even had verbal floggings .... hate it with all the vim and vitriol you like , it still has a fanbase somewhere

On the subject of Waitrose...yes, yes, it is my supermarket of choice, and very super indeed! It also has a marvellous home delivery service called Ocado which is totally brilliant and delivers in guaranteed one-hour slots (funnily enough I placed an order just today).

Several of the London branches carry wine at £750 per bottle (for all those city boys with their bonuses and Hedgies as well as for the just orddinarily filthy rich) - in fact their wines are fantastic.

Yes, I love Waitrose. It's not a shop that is found all over the UK though - don't think there are branches in The North and I'm not sure about The Midlands.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who, in recent years, has started to grow disillusioned-- bored, even-- with 90's style political correctness.

Nutmeg, my love, I am positively jealous. I still have to go to Harvey Nicks for my fix.

We don't have a Waitrose up in my neck of the woods, they seem to be more prolific 'dahn sarf' than up here in Yorkshire. We do have a Tesco Extra though that does the most amazing dishes and of course my fave, M&S.

Barry

I shopped at a Waitrose in Northumberland. It was next to a Tesco, which was next to an Aldi. So you could do all your shopping at once for different types of goods in every price range.

Count me in among the Waitrose fans. I *hate* shopping, and most of all supermarket shopping, but Waitrose makes it all bearable. They're certainly not new and in fact are part of the venerable John Lewis chain. They seem to blend old fashioned customer service with high end delivery - all the staff are courteous, at least in my neck of the woods. The staff are called partners - actually shareholders in the company, an almost socialist model of employment that works so well... Compared to Tesco, whose business model exemplifies the greed and destruction of corporate capitalism at its worst, Waitrose can seem like a slice of nirvana. I shop there because I like the store, but also because I endorse their business model.

I didn't know that. I love John Lewis' housewares department!

It's my local supermarket, so I'm in heaven! The one next to my office in London is in the basement of John lewis Department store in London. It just opened about a year ago and I remember going in on the first few days and loving it. There were a lot of managers around in those first few weeks, making sure it was all running smoothly - and being fascinated by retail (I lecture on it as well), I couldn't help myself from going up to one of the guys and saying how wonderful this new store concept was. For me, this branch is like a cross between all my favourite food stores - Wholefoods in NYC, The Bon Marche Epicerie in Paris and your local deli. They have the same line up system for payment as Wholefoods. He told me that they had indeed modelled themselves on these stores, however the British consumer was having a problem adapting to the new queue system - there had been complaints - even though its very speedy and efficient, that people felt 'like cattle' - don't ya love the Brits!!?
They also have a great customer service policy - if somethings not right, you can tell them, even if you don't bring it in - this branch will refund your money, infact a few times they have given me TWICE my money back (I am a regular though!)
MB

We've had quite a few bottles of corked wine from Waitrose (they have a fabulous wine cellar) and when reporting the problem to the manager we were told that their policy is to give two bottles as a replacement (and we're certainly not complaining about that). Corked wine seems to be a particular problem with Italian wines, even very expensive ones. There seems to be less of a problem with French wine.