“When I was growing up, we thought we’d made it if
we could buy food from Waitrose,” says one millennial
friend who was raised in a leafy English commuter
town. “You were like the Queen if you could buy some-
thing from Marks & Spencer.” Back then a status food
shop meant a posh supermarket one. Another friend,
and fellow haute grocery shopper, remembers: “I ate
Turkey Twizzlers until I went to uni, when I became a
total snob. I became interested in cooking and hosting,
and everything changed.” She confesses that now she
has a small child, “oven pizza is my favourite meal of
the week again”. But she’ll drizzle cold-pressed chilli oil
all over it and eat trendy Torres Jamon Iberico crisps
and Perello olives while it’s cooking.
My idea of luxury now isn’t always fancy or elaborate
or Instagrammable. It might be something I haven’t
tried before or some magic ingredient that can turn a
quick aldesko sandwich into a joy. Or it’s something
I can feel a bit sanctimonious about buying, since
I’m supporting a small independent business, local
industry or ethical production line.
Of course, posh food shopping isn’t new. Dayles-
ford Organic, Whole Foods and Planet Organic were
our gateway shops — the ones that introduced us to
all- organic-everything and paying £10 for a box of
artisanal granola, £6 for a pressed juice and £100 for
the contents of a single shopping basket. What is new,
though, are the one-off food shops often run by
twenty and thirtysomethings that are springing up
all over the country. The millennial obsession with all
things foodie was compounded during the first lock-
down, when spending more on food that not only
fuelled us but also thrilled us seemed one way to make
the days brighter. It was during this time that friends
Brodie Meah and Max Venning decided to turn their
north London restaurant Top Cuvée into Shop
Cuvée, selling food from its larder alongside bottled
cocktails from Venning’s bar, Three Sheets. When
bars and restaurants started reopening, however,
instead of there being less of an appetite for artisanal
food and wine, Shop Cuvée became a permanent
shop, with another opening in east London. If you get
used to drinking natural wine, Meah reasons, “then
you can’t go back to Jacob’s Creek”.
Shop Cuvée specialises in natural wines (there’s a
subscription service, with deliveries UK-wide) and
things to stock your shelves with, such as jars of
peanut rayu from White Mausu (founded in Ireland)
to drizzle over everything (or dip your oven pizza in,
as recommended by my friend), or London Borough
of Jam’s delicious and unusual seasonal preserves to
spread on your morning toast.
Never heard of them? That’s part of the appeal.
Buying a big household brand has meant reliability to
the generations before us. To me, buying the big name
means mass production and profits going to a huge
corporation and its shareholders rather than a local
maker. We talk about the slow fashion movement —
the shift away from the ever-churning fast-fashion
machine and the ecological and ethical problems
that come with it. I wouldn’t dream of buying a £6
dress from Boohoo to wear once and then send off to
landfill — so, as much as I can afford to, I won’t shop
for food any less discerningly.And these cool food shops are not just popping up
in the capital. In Langar, Nottinghamshire, a lockdown
deli set up at the Unicorn’s Head pub is still going
strong, selling food from the local area: cheeses from
Colston Bassett, pork pies from Cotgrave, ice cream
from Retford. In Suffolk, the Dog at Grundisburgh
pub’s lockdown pop-up is now the Grundisburgh Dog
Delicatessen, with its own premises on the village
green: think luxury hampers including Suffolk-roasted
Butterworths coffee beans, local honey, chocolates and
condiments. Ziggy’s Deli opened in Congesbury,
Bristol, in February, selling fresh sourdough loaves
from Mark’s Bread in nearby Southville and award-
winning wheels of Gorwydd Caerphilly from Trethow-
an’s Dairy. The Unicorn Grocery in Manchester,
owned and run by its workers, with an emphasis on
local and organic food and keeping costs down, is
thriving. Meanwhile, Stockbridge in Edinburgh is
already a hub of independents — cheese shops, a fish-
monger, butcher and coffee roaster — and now there’s
Ocelot’s chocolate factory and café too (which also sells
foodie-signalling tote bags).
“There has definitely been a shift in the desire to
support small businesses and producers, and in caring
about how our food is grown and where it’s coming
from,” says the baker and food writer Safia Shakarchi,
who, inspired by this new food movement, has
launched the online space Another Pantry, where she
curates “seasonal, slow and conscious” recipes from
the UK food scene. James Dye agrees — during lock-
down he turned his south London restaurant, the
Camberwell Arms, into a shop “to support the small-
scale suppliers we use. We found people were even
more interested in the quality and provenance of their
food and drink than we had expected.” With the
restaurant now reopened, in March he decided to
permanently open a grocery store, Gladwell’s, in an old
bank on the local high street. There you’ll find seasonal
veg from Natoora, English ales from Macintosh and
doughnuts from Lockdown Bakehouse on the counter,
freshly made and filled that morning.
Conscious shopping isn’t cheap. “Unfortunately
being able to get hold of food grown at a small scale
for flavour, nutrition and quality is still a privilege and
not accessible to many,” Shakarchi says. At the Super-
market of Dreams, for instance, a mammoth loaf of
handmade bread from E5 Bakehouse costs £8.50. A
wedge of Neal’s Yard Comté is £15. A tub of La Grotta
Ices damson and grappa ice cream costs £10. These are
not meal-deal prices. Not everyone can afford to shop
like this. Not even close to everyone can. I only sort-of
can — and as a millennial not on the property ladder,
I’m very aware of the reasons I shouldn’t.
The truth is, though, that even if I shaved £25 a
week off my food budget it wouldn’t buy me a flat
anywhere near my family, friends or work. So why not
Marie Antoinette myself happy with a slice of cake?
If these past couple of years have taught me
anything, it’s to live them and take the joy where it
comes. And for me, it often comes at the end of a long
queue on a Saturday morning, surrounded by the
smell of freshly baked bread and just-brewed coffee.
Or even standing among plucked chickens in the
fluorescent-pink glow of a neon light. ■THEN
Carrier bags from the
food hall at Harvey Nicks
NOW
A tote bag branded
by your local deli —
with a potato sourdough
loaf poking out of
the topTHEN
Tyrrells Lightly
Sea Salted Crisps
NOW
Torres Black Truffle CrispsTHEN
Prime-cut wagyu
NOW
Slow-cooking the cheaper
cuts from the local trendy
nose-to-tail butcherTHEN
Melt-in-the-middle
chocolate puds
NOW
A family block
of Tony’s Chocolonely,
still in the wrapper, to pass
around the tableTHEN
Champagne toasts
and wine pairings
NOW
A natural wine subscription,
or St John’s house red and
white poured from the boxTHEN
No garlic in polite company
NOW
Wild garlic pesto (foraged
and made yourself)THE
NEW FOOD
RULESSTYLE
EATS
Hair and make-up: Alice Theobald at Arlington Artists using Guerlain and L’Anza. Dress, £155; kitristudio.com. Clogs, £295; ancient-greek-sandals.com
The Sunday Times Style • 19