According to the Office of National Statistics, the average weekly household spend on food and non-alcoholic drinks in 2023 was £63.50 which represented just over 11% of the total household expenditure. This percentage has remained broadly the same for some time, and although the slight movements in expenditure are constantly reported, the fact is that we pay very little for food in this country and certainly very little compared with when I was growing up, when it accounted for more like 30% of household expenditure.
What I want to consider today is the further £40.50 per week spent on restaurants and hotels. Of course, hotels would include accommodation, so I can’t be sure how much was spent on food, but a major study into our food expenditure carried out after Covid found that around a third of our expenditure on food and drink was spent on “out of home meals”, which is not so different to the 40% that the 2023 ONS result shows including hotels. It is a figure that it is hard to ignore when there is so much talk of food poverty, although of course, those in this category may not be spending anything at all on food outside of the home.
Whilst statistics are difficult to interpret, we can clearly see how many more places there are to eat out nowadays than 50 years ago. Even pubs didn’t really serve food back then. My parents’ generation even took a flask of coffee with them when they went out for the day, and you only have to look at the plethora of coffee shops to see how much this has changed.
However, it seems we have now peaked in this regard, with the hospitality sector under financial pressures from every quarter (fuel, staff, ingredients) and more outlets closing now than opening. Many of those that are still in operation have reduced their working hours so that you might be hard pressed to find anywhere to eat other than on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sunday lunchtime.
Of course, “out of home meals” covers a massive spectrum from takeaway sandwiches to a multi-course meal in a smart restaurant but the average spend of £40.50 would indicate more is spent at the lower end. Supermarkets are currently targeting the dining out market, with higher-priced ready meals that claim to include superior ingredients. Marks and Spencer was the first to launch upmarket dine-in meals in 2008 but now everyone is at it. Many of the dine at home options are tie-ins with chefs, for example Marks and Spencer’s Gastropub ready range was developed by Tom Kerridge; but Rick Stein, Angela Hartnett and Michel Roux all have some supermarket partnership, whilst Jamie Oliver and Heston Blumenthal have also done so in the past. The premium ranges are all showing growth, which, against a backdrop of stagnating or falling spends in real terms, is an indication that consumers may be ready to switch more of their dining out money to dining at home. Of course, none of this really involves much cooking at home, although Waitrose has recently acquired Dishpatch, which is a meal kit delivery service. One popular ingredient, steak, really relies on the home diner being able to cook them. At £15.12 for a 400g salt dry-aged beef sirloin from Tesco, you can see that the higher than usual pricing means you wouldn’t want to mess up the cooking, but this compares favourably with dining out where a similar steak would probably set you back £40 or more.
Meanwhile, the hospitality sector is also making changes to ensure its survival. Ten-course tasting menus are out (hurrah!) and diners are reported to be more concerned with the provenance of their ingredients (another huttah!). Also good news is that fake meat just doesn’t sell and in fact the vegan option altogether is less prominent than its post-Covid peak. You have to feel sorry for the chefs trying to cater for everyone’s dietary requirements. One reason tasting menus became popular (with restaurants) is that there was no waste. I admire the chef who is able to say “this is what we offer – take it or leave it” because this really is the route to producing the best food, but few feel confident to do so. In Britain we seem to be more interested in discovering the latest newly opened restaurant than visiting those that have stood the test of time and yet it is these long-standing restaurants that are truly comfortable in their own skin knowing that the food they serve is of the highest quality, and that the people who serve it do so with that natural blend of professionalism in a relaxed atmosphere. I dread being asked for restaurant recommendations because people’s requirements are so varied, but my personal favourites are almost invariably from this long-standing category – The Walnut Tree, near Abergavenny, which has twice earned this reputation, first under Franco Taruschio and for the past 16 years under Shaun Hill, Clarkes in London where Sally celebrates 40 years this year; St Johns and The River Café – yet more London stalwarts. The Sportsman at Whitstable Kent, one of only 4 to achieve the highest ranking of World Class in The Good Food Guide, has also appeared in the guide for 24 years, proving again that a clear and distinctive style will stand the test of time. Of course, new openings can’t suddenly acquire this status, but they can consider carefully what they stand for and avoid responding to every new fad and fashion.
Now relaunched as a digital publication, The Good Food Guide works hard to marry its traditional values with modern preferences. Today’s Guide has adopted just four rating levels: Good (735) , Very Good (272), Exceptional (40) and World Class (4); the numbers in brackets being the number currently included in each category. Members are asked to make this assessment against each of the following criteria: Uniqueness, Deliciousness, Warmth (of service) and Strength of Recommendation before an overall rating is arrived at. These criteria give some idea of the variety of considerations people will use in recommending a restaurant and they contrast quite significantly with Michelin Star ratings, which although not spelled out, seem mainly about the cooking skills but also require a professional level of service and decent tableware. To pretend that these later criteria no longer matter condemns us all to sitting at wobbly tables, eating off ohipped plates and drinking out of toothmugs!
Despite this, the digital Good Food Guide makes it easy to keep up to date with the goings-on in the restaurant world. Outside of the official ratings, updates are now weekly and include features on aspects often particularly pertinent to the time of year, e.g. where to eat the best fish near the sea, the best pasta (in answer to the growing number of requests for reasonably priced restaurants), the cosiest pubs, etc. The most recent initiative was to invite nominations for the Best Sunday Lunch, the meal that is, apparently, overwhelmingly the most popular with their readers based on the number of reviews it receives for this particular meal. In contrast, it was almost never mentioned in older guides, perhaps not considered sufficiently Avant Garde.
I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I am happy that this aspect of our food culture has held fast, especially given that so much else about Sundays has changed since the Sunday Trading Act was introduced in 1994.
The French refer to us as Les Rosbifs and any foreign visitor should find plenty of evidence to support this. When I am abroad Sundays are always my favourite day for observing cultural traditions and I love the fact that in our turn the eating of a roast dinner, or should I say lunch, is pretty sacrosanct. If you want to experience this tradition, the midday meal on a Sunday is when you will have to do it. That’s quite a challenge if you have only just finished a Great British Breakfast but you won’t find anywhere serving a Roast Lunch come Sunday evening.
What I am less happy about is how seldom the Sunday Lunch is cooked at home. We lose the starting point from which many of the rest of the week’s meals will evolve. Judging by the volume of queries it provokes, Christmas Dinner appears to be, for many, the only family roast of the year. Yet it is, in essence, just a large Sunday Lunch, with a few more trimmings, and perhaps for more people, but essentially if you are competent with a Sunday Lunch it is not a great step up to cook for Christmas.
Some of the reasons for not eating this meal at home include: the cost of a large joint of meat, lack of dining space, numerous varied dietary requirements and wanting everyone to enjoy the event rather than one person doing all the work. These are all understandable, however on the flip side, I rarely feel the meal served out is as good as the one I cook at home, and I miss having the leftovers, even if just bone for stock, but ideally also for a lovely sandwich.
Large family meals eaten in a restaurant are observed quite frequently and there is something quite continental about it. Does one person pick up the tab or is it split I wonder? If one person is paying you could certainly buy a large joint of quality meat far more cheaply. This aspect is never far from my mind when eating out – and if the price seems too low, I am suspicious about how the meat was reared. However, there is now greater emphasis on the quality of ingredients, with farm to fork venues being particularly popular.
Let’s just pause to think about service for a moment. The law has just been amended so that all tips, including service charge, be shared amongst the staff. Staff are a significant part of the overall costs of running a restaurant and since Brexit closely followed by Covid, restaurants have needed to rely more upon British staff. It is noticeable that whilst nearly all restaurants now charge 12½% for service (which is rarely now described as discretionary), the standard of service has fallen considerably. “Warmth” of service can go a long way and may enable people to overlook a lack of professionalism, although I’m afraid it rankles with me continually. What I do want from the staff is a decent level of knowledge. They shouldn’t need to interrupt the chef every time I ask a question. And since provenance of ingredients is of utmost importance to me, I do ask questions about the ingredients quite often!
“Deliciousness” is, of course, essential and although this may be achieved through the skills of the chef, sometimes perfect ingredients need little to make them sing. However, as a cook myself, when I eat out, I really do appreciate dishes where the time and skills are evident.
I’m not really overly fussed about the “uniqueness” of the venue, but I guess asking the question does help weed out some of the people who are always convinced that the restaurant just down the road from where they live is as good as it gets (even though they may have very few other venues with which to compare). This tendency is called Campanilismo in Italian. A separate category of “Local Gems” helps keep this tendency apart and if “where everybody knows your name” really is the most important factor for you, this section is the place to look. It can also be handy when you have to go somewhere with little to offer in the standard rankings!
Personally, I think the doom and gloom predicting the demise of restaurants is vastly overstated. What I think we are seeing is a shake up of an overpopulated sector. The good restaurants will stay, many new ones fold every year anyway. Pubs are experiencing the highest levels of closure, and those that remain tend to offer more in the way of a community service than being just about dining. In my view, this is a good thing as very few “gastropubs” are worthy of their description – this perhaps is the sector most threatened by the new supermarket dine-at-home meals.
With supermarket lunchtime “meal deals” now standing at £4 people are reportedly returning to taking in their own lunch, with baked potatoes being the most popular choice – far cheaper than £4, especially if the workplace is paying the electricity bill. Questioning the value we get from various dining options has to be a good thing and if people cook more often all the better!
Recipes
For my recipes this month I am sticking to two elements that are essential in a Sunday Lunch – roast potatoes – which have to be crisp and plenty of them; and Yorkshire Pudding, which is the essential “trimming” when serving roast beef but should never be offered with any other meat!
Roast Potatoes
I used to roast potatoes in the same fat as the meat we were eating (reserved from previous roasts) but I now find goose fat so superior in its ability to cook at a high heat and thus provide the crispest potatoes that I use it whichever meat they are to accompany.
Other than using goose fat, my other tips are:
- Choose a floury variety of potato, e.g. King Edward or Maris Piper
- Pre-boil the potatoes as far as you dare without them collapsing. In fact, even if one or two do collapse, you will just have more, but smaller pieces of potato to crisp up. Cooking the potatoes in boiling water (rather than starting from cold) will help the outsides rough up before the insides start to collapse. When you are happy that the outsides are cooked, drain them in a colander but leave the colander over the saucepan for at least 10 minutes to steam further and then cool. Shake the pan well before leaving them to rough up the edges.
- Heat the goose fat in a separate roasting tray to the meat. The potatoes will need to cook at a high heat (200˚C) so put them on a top shelf or even a separate oven if you have one. Carefully place the potatoes in the hot fat (I use tongs for this) and turn them so that they are fully coated. Cook for about an hour, turning them every 20 minutes.
- If you want to, you can part-roast the potatoes and then freeze them when cold for reheating another day. This can be helpful if you are short of oven space for a big occasion like Christmas. Re-heating can be done from frozen, just be even more carefully about the hot fat spitting when you put them in. This enables you to cook potatoes in the same oven that you have used for the meat once it is out and resting and the oven turned up.
Yorkshire Pudding
The need for an ultra-hot oven is paramount for making Yorkshire Pudding and probably the single reason that some people have difficulties. Anyone with an AGA or similar, where the heat is falling and cannot be quickly boosted, will have to resort to making them ahead of time and re-heating from frozen. Apart from temperature, there is little to it. The recipe I use is:
120g plain flour
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
120 ml whole milk + 100 ml of water (or use 220ml semi-skimmed milk)
Metal pudding tray (I like individual 4 cm puddings)
A batter mix that has been made in advance and chilled in the fridge for an hour rises more easily than one that is freshly mixed.
Sieve the flour and salt into a bowl (or simply use a whisk to ensure the flour has no lumps. Break the eggs into a well in the centre of the flour and then add the milk, whisking as you do, to make a smooth batter. Refrigerate for an hour.
Heat the oven to 230˚C (210˚ Fan oven). Put the tray in to heat a couple of minutes before cooking.
Put a small knob of fat in each cup, just enough to coat inside so that the puddings won’t stick. Add the batter to fill about 2/3rds of the way up. Transfer to the oven. 4cm diameter pudding will take about 15 minutes to cook, smaller ones only 10, or you can make a larger pudding and serve slices.
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