Food and Drink Special
Food is news. Londoners can't hide from the screeching headlines, the marketing spin, the supermarket pledges which inform us that what we put in our mouths is a cause for concern. Forget about flavour; the most important thing to know about our meals today is their provenance. Where was that sausage raised? Has anybody fiddled with the soya in your sesame-seed bun? How long have those peaches languished on the supermarket shelf?
Continuing food scares, the vacillations of health advice, the vagaries of fashionable eating have all added to the feeling that we have little control over the food we eat. In one average week, we clocked up the following news stories: The Burger Scandal (rusks and rind in economy patties), The Fat Time Bomb (chubby kids and their passion for convenience foods), The Hygiene Nightmare (almost half of British food outlets failed to meet basic standards of cleanliness), Outrage Over Plastic Chickens (poultry fed on antibiotics to speed up growth, then pumped with water to fatten up flesh) ... It's enough to put you off dinner. If it isn't, take a look at our food special. We tested London's top two take-aways to discover precisely what's finding its way into your mouth on a Friday night. Prepare to be surprised.
Our reaction to the state of our plates has been to develop a new food consciousness, as Charles Campion - our resident restaurant critic - explains. Within the boundary of the M25, we are turning to farm shops and farmers' markets in ever greater numbers; a year ago there was no such thing in the capital. We are willing to pay more for food we can trust, whether it is fine ingredients ferried in from the shires or organic produce from local establishments.
But what of restaurants? The latest news is that the trendier establishments are seeing profits dip as they battle for custom. Profits are down 40 per cent at Conran Holdings, down 14 per cent at the Belgo Group. It's not that we're dining out less, but that there's so much more choice. Bars and pubs are offering food, others are smartening up and doing well. Look at Po Na Na, the bar that's eating London. It proposes opening 20 new venues a year - soon there may be a 'serial bar' on each street corner. Starbucks, eat your frothy heart out.
