If You Think British Food Is Bland, Boring, and Basic, You’ve Been Sold a Lie

If all you know is pies, pints, and puddings, read on

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One of the best prawns I’ve ever eaten — and it was British. Image courtesy of author

All “best British dishes” listicles make me want to cry.

Haggis. Scotch egg. Sausage roll. Full English breakfast. And why oh why do jellied eels always make the list?

Whilst as a Brit I love all these foods (aside from jellied eels), no one would call them gastronomically creative.

They are the foods of Britain’s past and the moniker we are all stuck with on the international food stage. Just 4% of tourists visit our isles because of our food.

We are not a foodie destination.

Except, we are.

After spending almost a decade at the coalface of Britain’s food and wine scene — and spending three years traveling the world hence — I can tell you with absolute certainty.

British food is some of the best I’ve ever eaten.

The trouble is, no one knows that this side of British food exists.

Even Brits.

Britain’s food potential lies where most people wouldn’t think to look

What most people don’t know is that Britain’s food potential lies not in its traditional dishes but in its produce.

Our local produce, if you can find it (globalization hit us as much as anywhere else), is like a gift from the freaking food Gods.

Our cheese rivals France. Our heritage cow and pig breeds are off the charts, from Aberdeen Angus to Gloucestershire Old Spots. Our soft fruits do things to me.

Like more well-known foodie countries, we have Protected Geographical Status for everything from cheese (my local Caerphilly cheese can only come from Caerphilly) to pork pies (Melton Mowbray for the win).

In Britain, you feel the connection to seasonality. Our obsession with English asparagus in May could give the Catalonian calçot season a run for its money. Strawberry season comes along and everyone heads to Pick Your Own farms.

And yet. Go to most local pubs and you’ll find the crappiest, weirdest bunch of food on a single menu. My hometown pub serves that 1980s French classic Chicken Chasseur, a Goan curry, and steak and kidney pie — all year round.

And pubs are, of course, what we are known for on the world stage.

That and fish and chips.

Honestly, I get frustrated that as a Brit living abroad, I have to defend my country’s food on a frequent basis, often to a group of dubious individuals who refuse to believe it’s anything but crap pubs, chippies, and maybe a curry house.

They don’t know what I — and all food professionals or even engaged consumers — know.

The best food lies in that incredible produce.

Know that — and know where to find it — and your perception of British food will change completely.

There’s British food and then there’s British food

Most Brits I know wholeheartedly believe that our food is terrible when compared to the likes of France, Italy, Thailand, India etc etc.

What many people — Brits included — don’t know is much of Britain’s traditional food originated during the Industrial Revolution, a uniquely terrible time in Britain’s food timeline.

Fish and chips, pies, sausage rolls, pickled eggs, they all originated in the 19th century during that smoky, terrible-for-everything-and-everyone time. A time when factory life called for stodgy, easily-scoffed food on the fly.

In a recent podcast, British treasure and cookbook author Delia Smith explained why this food became so synonymous with Britain:

I met a historian who told me that because we had the industrial revolution, people lost their land. In France, they didn’t — they went BACK to the land.

Good cooking happens in the country where the ingredients are.

So unlike the French who kept it all going, we’re back to square one.

France became known for its ingredients, as did much of the Mediterranean.

Whereas Britain became known for pies.

Thankfully, times they are a changin’. Every single restaurant that pops up in the UK now seems to work with the same ethos.

Local, seasonal produce, simply prepared.

Gone are the days of what some might think of as modern cuisine — molecular gastronomy with its gels and spherification and sous vide machines. That’s so 15 years ago.

Nowadays chefs are more likely to become known for a single fillet of fish in locally foraged seaweed butter than a “reverse spherification” liquid olive made with olive juice and sodium gluconate.

We’re talking about a return to produce. We’re talking about pickling and curing and cooking on fire.

Sure, some of these places might make you a classic steak and kidney pie. But it’ll be the best pie of your fucking life.

I can name hundreds of restaurants like these in the UK.

And they are exactly why 96% of our tourists — the ones who don’t come for the food — should.

Our food isn’t basic, bland, or boring. It’s not just about pints, pies, and puddings.

It is, in fact, fucking incredible.

It’s so British to not shout about our food

That self-deprecating thing Brits are famous for? We do it with our food as much as anything else.

This means few people even know Britain is home to a Garden of Eden-like bounty, complete with the chefs who know how to prepare it.

So we languish on the world food stage. We take the jibes when we meet people from other more food-focused countries. Some of us believe our food to be terrible.

It’s simply not true. Food pros around the country are quietly doing their thing to bring UK produce to the forefront.

194 of them have Michelin stars. Two of them are in the top 50 restaurants in the world.

Thousands of them are plating food that would rival the most food-focused countries night after night after night.

It’s not just the food. Whilst you’ll have to do a lot of work to convince me our domestic wine is worthy of all the praise it gets (a story for another day), our craft beer scene is beyond excellent. Aside from the US, it leads the world in techniques, styles and openness to trying new things. 69% of Londoners believe craft beer tastes better than mainstream slosh.

Do people know about this outside of Britain?

Not in my extensive experience.

But they should.

Perhaps one day, they will.

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Only 4% of visitors to Britain may be there for the food, but according to this study, only 5% of them came away dissatisfied with what they found.

The study only focuses on the traditional foods of Yore like afternoon tea, fish and chips, and full English breakfasts.

If 95% of people are satisfied with those, imagine how happy they’d be with the quality-focused places I’ve harped on about for the last 1000-odd words.

They would blow their minds. They certainly blow mine.

So the next time you’re tempted to sum up British food in words like:

Basic

Bland

Boring

You might want to think again. I’m going with:

Banging

Best

Brilliant

Sometimes, Britain is full of surprises.