Is British food good enough to eat?

This year, due to the affordability of the pound, the British tourist market is expecting a boom in visitors but is the quality of its food and drink up to the job?

That was the question hotly debated at Eating for Britain, an event at the Wyndham Grand London on May 28th, hosted by the British Guild of Travel Writers, which brought together more than 100 of the nation's food, wine and travel writers to rank the state of the UK dining scene.

The panel included a leading chef, restaurateur, food personality, restaurant critic and travel editor who were all grilled by Radio 4 Travellers’ Tales broadcaster David Prest.

They were:
• Amanda Hyde, Travel Editor, Sunday Times Travel Magazine
• Henrietta Green, founder of www.FoodLoversBritain.com and the woman behind London’s Borough Market
• Richard, Earl of Bradford, food writer and owner of Porters English Restaurant in Covent Garden
• Oliver Rowe, ‘urban chef’ for the restaurant Komstam in London which sources all ingredients from within the M25
• Richard Ehrlich, food critic for The Guardian and other nationals
• Stephen Skelton, English Wine Expert, the foremost authority on English wine.

Ghastly pubs or gastro-pubs?

Amanda Hyde, Editor at The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, was critical of the British food scene.

She said she appreciated ‘foodie pockets’ such as Bray, Padstow and Ludlow: “But some parts of Britain have been left back in the 1980s. And there are 35,000 pubs in the UK that call themselves ‘gastro pubs,’” she said, adding: “Some are still passing off frozen chips and freezer food in them. Until people start to shop for local produce with the enthusiasm they do abroad, we won’t ever be a destination to rival France and Italy.” On balance, Hyde viewed the ‘dining revolution’ as a genuine shift in the nation’s sensibilities: “Organic local is the name of the game nowadays and we have at least moved away from that terrifying nouvelle cuisine.”

Excellence from the top down

Restaurateur Richard Earl of Bradford spoke positively about the revolution in British dining standards. He remembered his father taking him to London’s Lansdowne Club for ‘the filthiest food I’ve ever eaten’.

The Earl traces a quantum leap since then, in a revolution not restricted to the capital or the elite echelons of `fine dining’. “Back in 1979, they were mostly foreign chefs; now they’re mostly British,” he said.

He said he was seeing an explosion of interest in English food but added it was a shame we didn’t have a tradition of family-run restaurants in this country as they do on the continent, adding that their excellence ‘comes from the bottom up’, unlike in the UK where celebrity chefs ‘have led from the top down’.

A lack of discernment

Henrietta Green, the doyenne of the British food scene, felt that a lack of food culture was at the heart of the gap between Britain and the Continent. She admitted she put on a brave front when talking to foreigners about British food: “But we don’t care or talk about it with the same passion as they do in France or Italy.”

If pondering the merits of a two-euro cheese and an eight-euro cheese, she said: “The Frenchwoman wants to be seduced into buying the eight-euro cheese while the Englishwoman resists. She’d rather buy a £1 lump of cheap cheddar than a quality one for £4.”

Wine-writer Neville Bleach concurred: “In the UK, we extol the cheapest not the best.”

Green’s disappointment embraced the lack of “locale and local distinctiveness” in British food, as well as the “stratospheric” prices of starry destination restaurants.

Just what is British food?

London chef Oliver Rowe professed his scepticism about celebrity chefs, despite his admiration for Jamie Oliver’s lead. “Even the concept of a celebrity chef implies you’re a celebrity first and a chef second.”

Even food writer Richard Ehrlich agreed: “We have enough masterpieces in Britain. We need a better standard of ordinary.”

The rallying cry for British food was left to `Urban Chef’ Oliver Rowe, who prides himself on sourcing most ingredients within the area of the London tube network. “We need more national and local pride in our cooking and to find ourselves a genuine canon of British food.”

The Urban Chef’s quirky canon includes bacon and marmalade sandwiches as well as asparagus from Dartford and nettles from Barnet.

It was left to David Maguire, the voice of the restaurant industry in Scotland, to speak for the value and quality of offer north of the border: “Restaurants in Glasgow have barely raised their prices in a decade. We’ve got everything from style bars to fin de siècle tearooms to fusion restaurants,” he said.

Let’s hear it for British wine

He added that there was plenty for travel writers to focus on.
Scotch whisky, English wine, and micro-breweries are intriguing stories, with wine, beer and whisky tourism flourishing. There are now more than 400 vineyards in Britain, with more than 100 offering tours and wine-tasting.

According to wine expert Stephen Skelton: “The most successful vineyards are those that go out of their way to welcome the public,” offering everything from tastings to dining or B&B.

He was even more patriotic on the wine front: “I’ve drunk more bad wine in France than in England,” he said.

-ENDS-

Photos by Jeremy Hoare

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT

The British Guild of Travel Writers (BGTW): This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

The British Guild of Travel Writers, founded in 1960, is the premier professional association for bonafide journalists, editors, photographers, and radio and film broadcasters working in the travel field. www.bgtw.org

English Wine Producers
The association promotes the wines, the vineyards and the people behind them, turning wine into a tourism experience as well as a tasting experience. www.englishwineproducers.com

Denbies Vineyard
As England’s largest vineyard, Denbies offer a complete wine experience, from vineyard tours to dining –in the heart of this Surrey estate. www.denbiesvineyard.co.uk

Food Safari & the East of England
Food Safari events give you behind-the-scenes access to Suffolk’s finest food experiences. The Field and Fork days can combine farm walks with cookery, foraging and a feast with the producers. www.foodsafari.co.uk & www.tastesofanglia.com & www.eetorg.co.uk

Glasgow City Marketing Bureau - `Scotland with style’
Glasgow has been dubbed a `capital of cool’: “Forget about castles, kilts, bagpipes and tartan – you come to Glasgow for the cocktails, cuisine and designer chic” (Lonely Planet). www.seeglasgow.com

Glasgow Restaurateurs’ Association
This is the leading trade association of its type in the UK. As the voice of the Scottish restaurant industry, it is consulted on such issues as minimum pricing and alcohol abuse. www.graonline.co.uk

The Wyndham Grand London
The Wyndham Grand, set beside the chic Chelsea Marina, is London’s only all-suite hotel, and is readying itself for a major relaunch. The striking hotel boasts contemporary-style suites with waterfront views, as well as a spa, a quirky art collection, and movie star neighbours. The hotel is already popular with off-duty celebrities and sports stars. As for transport, the Wyndham makes a virtue of its waterfront location, with its own boat, and access further improved by the forthcoming rail connection. www.wyndhamgrandlondon.co.uk