farma.org.uk/members-map.The British culinary scene is going from strength to strength. Along with an insatiable appetite for trying new foods from around the world, increasing importance has been placed on good-quality and sustainable eating – not only sourcing products locally, but also using free-range, organic, humanely produced ingredients. London continues to be the main centre for all things foodie and fashionable, though great restaurants, gastropubs, farmers’ markets, street food markets and local suppliers can be found throughout Britain.
For some visitors the quintessential British meal is fish and chips (known in Scotland as a “fish supper”, even at lunchtime), a dish that can vary from the succulently fresh to the indigestibly greasy: local knowledge is the key, as most towns, cities and resorts have at least one first-rate fish-and-chip shop (“chippie”) or restaurant. Other traditional British dishes (Scotch eggs, pies, bacon sandwiches, roast dinners, sausage and mash) have largely discarded their stodgy image and been poshed up to become restaurant, and particularly gastropub, staples – comfort food still, but often cooked with the best ingredients and genuinely tasty. Many hitherto neglected or previously unfashionable British foods – from brawn to brains – are finding their way into top-end restaurants, too, as inventive restaurateurs, keen on using good, seasonal produce, reinvent the classics. The principles of this “nose to tail” eating cross over with the tenets of Modern British cuisine, which marries local produce with ingredients and techniques from around the world. Vegetarians need not worry, either – veggie restaurants are fairly easy to find in towns and cities, and practically every restaurant and pub will have at least one vegetarian option. As veganism becomes more popular (though still fairly niche) vegan-friendly places are popping up, too, in the big cities at least.
THE GREAT BRITISH BREAKFAST
The traditional British breakfast (aka the “Full English”, “Full Scottish”, etc) will keep you going all day. As a rule it includes eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans and toast – generally they’re all fried, though the eggs may be scrambled or poached. It might also include black pudding (ie, blood sausage). Veggie alternatives are commonly available. A traditional Scottish breakfast includes oatmeal porridge (eaten with salt or sugar), oatcakes (plain savoury biscuits) or potato scones; in Wales breakfast might also feature laverbread (edible seaweed). Though less common, you may also be served kippers (smoked herring) for a traditional breakfast. B&Bs and hotels will also serve cereals, toast, and many other breakfast standards. A “continental” breakfast usually means cereal, toast and preserves, though often croissants, fruit and yoghurt too. Though the staple early morning drink is tea, drunk strong, hot and with cold milk, coffee is just as popular.
The wealth of fresh produce varies seasonaly and regionally, from hedgerow herbs to fish landed from local boats. Restaurants are increasingly making use of seasonal ingredients – and in rural areas many farms offer “Pick Your Own” sessions, when you can come away with armfuls of delicious berries, orchard fruits, beetroot and the like. Check out the growing profusion of farmers’ markets and farm shops to enjoy the best local goodies and artisan products. For a directory of markets in Britain see farma.org.uk/members-map.
Though traditionally a nation of tea-heads, Brits have also become bona fide coffee addicts, and international chain outlets such as Starbucks, Costa and Caffè Nero line every high street. However, there will usually be at least one independent coffee shop, even in the smallest places, and artisan coffee, brewed with obsessive care, can be found in many towns and cities. Despite the encroaching grip of the coffee chains, every town, city and resort in Britain should also have a few cheap cafés offering all-day breakfasts, snacks and meals. Most are only open during the daytime, and have few airs and graces; the quality is not guaranteed, however. A few more genteel teashops or tearooms serve sandwiches, cakes and light meals throughout the day, as well, of course, as tea – the best of them will offer a full afternoon tea, including sandwiches, cakes and scones with cream and jam.
The old-fashioned British pub remains an enduring social institution, and is often the best introduction to town or village life. In some places, it might be your only choice for food. While occasionally the offerings can be terrible, Britain’s foodie renaissance, and a commercial need to diversify, means that many have had to up their game. The umbrella term gastropub can refer to anything from a traditional country inn with rooms and a restaurant to a slick city-centre pub with upmarket dining room, but generally indicates a pub that puts as much emphasis on the food as the drink. Some are really excellent – and just as expensive as a regular restaurant, though usually with a more informal feel – while others simply provide a relaxed place in which to enjoy a gourmet pork pie or cheese platter with your pint.
Partly by dint of its size, London has the broadest selection of top-class restaurants, and the widest choice of cuisines, but there are some seriously fine dining options in most major cities and in many rural spots. Indeed, wherever you are in Britain you’re rarely more than half an hour’s drive from a really good meal. Heston Blumenthal’s Michelin-star-studded Fat Duck, for example, touted as one of the world’s best restaurants, is in the small Berkshire village of Bray, where you will also find the equally lauded Waterside Inn.
While you can eat well in cheap restaurants and cafés for just £15–20 a head, the going rate for a meal with drinks in most modest restaurants is more like £25–30 per person. If a restaurant has any sort of reputation, you can expect to be spending £40–60 each, and much, much more for the services of a top chef – tasting menus (excluding drinks) at the best-known Michelin-starred restaurants cost upwards of £80 per person. However, set meals can be a steal, even at the poshest of restaurants, where a limited-choice two- or three-course lunch or “pre-theatre” menu might cost less than half the usual price.
Top 5 DESTINATION RESTAURANTS
Clove Club London.
The Kitchin Edinburgh.
L’Enclume Cartmel.
Three Chimneys Skye.
Waterside Inn Bray.
Originating as wayfarers’ hostelries and coaching inns, pubs – “public houses” – have outlived the church and marketplace as the focal points of many a British town and village. They are as varied as the townscapes: in larger market towns you’ll find huge oak-beamed inns with open fires and polished brass fittings; in remoter villages there are stone-built pubs no larger than a two-bedroomed cottage. In towns and cities corner pubs still cater to local neighbourhoods, the best of them stocking an increasingly varied list of local beers and craft brews, while chain pubs, cocktail bars, independent music venues and wine bars all add to the mix. Most pubs and bars serve food, in some shape or form.
Most pubs are officially open from around 11am to 11pm, though cities and resorts have a growing number of places with extended licences, especially at weekends. The legal drinking age is 18, and although many places will allow, or even encourage, families – particularly in places that also serve food, or have a beer garden – young children may not always be welcome in pubs or bars after 8 or 9pm.
Beer, sold by the pint (generally £3.20–5) and half pint (often just a touch over half the price), is Britain’s staple drink, which has been a mainstay of the local diet for centuries, dating back to times when water was too dangerous to drink. Ask simply for a “beer”, though, and you’ll cause no end of confusion.
While lager is sold everywhere, in recent years there’s been a huge resurgence in regional brewing, and England’s unique glory is its real ale or cask ale, a refreshing beer brewed with traditional ingredients, without additional carbonation, pumped by hand from a cask and served at cellar temperature (not “warm”, as foreign jibes have it). If it comes out of an electric pump it isn’t real ale (though it might be a craft beer). The most common ale is known as bitter, with a colour ranging from straw-yellow to dark brown, depending on the brew. Other real ales include golden or pale ales, plus darker and maltier milds, stouts and porters. For more on cask ales, check the website of the influential Campaign for Real Ale (camra.org.uk), who remain the bastions of this traditional brewing scene.
Traditionally, Scottish beer is graded by a shilling mark (/-), and includes distinctive styles like the Scottish “Heavy”, which is typically a darker, sweeter brew; however lighter, hoppier styles are now also produced by Scottish breweries.
Complementary to real ale – and with the distinction between them contentious – are the craft beers produced by hundreds of small, independent breweries that have flourished in recent years, influenced by the American craft-brewing scene. Though hoppy pale ales predominate – generally carbonated and served chilled from kegs, not casks – the range of craft beers is overwhelming. They cover everything from German-style lagers to IPAs (Indian Pale Ales) and Belgian-influenced sour saisons – name a beer style and an independent British brewer will have tried making it, in small batches, probably in a shed in the suburbs or under the railway arches in a former industrial zone. Scotland’s BrewDog (brewdog.com) were at the forefront and are now going global, while London’s Kernel (thekernelbrewery.com), Manchester’s Cloudwater Brew Co (cloudwaterbrew.co) and Newport’s Tiny Rebel (tinyrebel.co.uk) are just a few names to look out for.
The resurgence of independent breweries – both real ale traditionalists and craft brewers – means that, unlike a decade ago, in many pubs across the country you’ll see a row of quirky hand pumps and keg clips lined up along the bar, boasting local provenance and unusual names. It’s always worth asking if there’s a good local brewery whose beers you should try – and a good pub will always let you taste first.
Though many pubs are owned by large breweries who favour their own beers, this beer revolution has increased the choice in most places. Still best, however, is a free house – an independently run pub that can sell whichever beer it pleases.
In England and Wales the other traditional pint is cider, made from fermented apple juice and usually sparkling, with most brewers based in the west of England. There’s also a variant made from pears, called perry, and, particularly in England’s West Country, scrumpy, a potent and cloudy beverage, usually flat, dry and very apple-y. In recent years “real” cider – which CAMRA defines as containing a minimum of ninety percent fresh apple juice – has been gaining popularity.
Scotland’s national drink is whisky – uisge beatha, the “water of life” in Gaelic (and almost never referred to as “scotch”). Despite the dominance of the blended whiskies such as Johnnie Walker, Bell’s and The Famous Grouse, single malt whisky is infinitely superior, though more expensive. Single malts vary in character enormously depending on the amount of peat used for drying the barley, the water used for mashing and the type of oak cask used in the maturing process, with, for example, the distilleries of Islay producing distinctive, peaty flavours.
The latest traditional tipple to have been given a “craft” makeover is the most English of ruins, gin. Long a stalwart of the British drinks cabinet, usually drunk as a gin and tonic, the juniper-flavoured spirit is enjoying a renaissance as part of the cocktail and craft drinks scene. Dozens of craft distillers have popped up across the region, often including local botanicals to create distinctive variations, such as Wales’ Dyfi (dyfidistillery.com), which adds local bog myrtle and seasonal botanicals to the juniper.
Now is the time for English (and to a lesser extent Welsh) wine. It has firmly shucked off its image as inferior to its longer-established European counterparts, with nearly five hundred small-scale vineyards producing delicious tipples, mainly in southern England, where the conditions – and rising temperatures – are favourable. The southwest has a couple of notable wineries, including Sharpham, outside Totnes in Devon), but most are in the southeast; there are several excellent vineyards for visiting in Kent, Sussex and Surrey. The speciality is sparkling wine, and the best of these have beaten French champagnes in international blind-tasting competitions. For more, see englishwineproducers.co.uk, which also lists the twenty or so vineyards in Wales.