• Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Snapchat
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

MsMarmiteLover

  • Food
    • Recipes
    • Vegetarian
    • Vegan
  • Travel
    • France
    • Italy
    • Spain
    • UK
  • Wine
  • Gardens
  • Supperclubs/Events
  • About
    • Published Articles
    • Books
  • Shop
    • Cart

How hospitality has pivoted to survive the Covid lockdown: meal kits, zoom tastings and a delivery supper club

March 5, 2021 Leave a Comment Filed Under: Christmas, Food, Food history, London, Pasta, Supper clubs, Vegetarian, Wine

Restaurants are closed, many never to be seen again. Chefs, front of house and kitchen staff are losing their jobs en masse. The incredible rise of the food scene over the last decade in the UK, particularly London, has been abruptly halted in its tracks. Will it ever recover?

I’ve only been able to host one supper club in 2020. I’ve pondered creating something similar to the food boxes I did for the NHS last March and April. Many restaurants have pivoted to take-away and others to meal kits. I tried a few and they were infinitely better than supermarket cook-chill meals which are often overly sweet, under-spiced and bland.

Meal Kits:

I’ve always been a bit snooty about meal kits. ‘Why don’t people just learn to cook?’ I sniffed. Fast-forward to months of cooking for myself alone during the pandemic. I love to cook but there comes a point when you are sick of your own food.

A meal kit is fresher than a takeaway. Some of the ingredients are part-cooked; some are raw. The food hasn’t stewed in a large vat for days waiting to be dished out into plastic.

Many of these companies opt for recyclable or reusable packaging to avoid creating waste. And with kits, you can add a new skill and recipe to your repertoire. It makes adventurous cooking look easy.

Who buys meal kits? I can imagine busy working mums who get home at six would find them a godsend. All the benefits of a home-cooked meal, all the ingredients portioned out and packaged, and easy instructions. Within 10 to 20 minutes you have dinner on the table.

They vary in price, but are competitive with takeaways. When compared to shopping and cooking from scratch, if you lack time rather than money, they are a good alternative. If the average family of four (two adults/two children) spend £100 a week on food then buying say, Hello Fresh meals for five dinners a week, would cost you £67.99.

There are also high end options: Boris Johnson and his fiancee Carrie have been ordering from Daylesford Farm. The River Cafe are doing gourmet ‘box sets’- three course meals with sides from £140 for four people.

Here is a list of some of the meal kits I’ve tried and loved. All of the meals were vegetarian and for two people.

Hello Fresh

IMG_7419
hello fresh meal kit pic Kerstin Rodgers

Contents: 2 meals. Black bean, halloumi tacos with chipotle mayonnaise and lettuce.

Aubergine and courgette linguini with walnuts.

Ease of preparation: Clear step by step instructions. The recipe at the side could be in bigger clearer type.

Packaging: 75% recyclable except for the small plastic sauce packets of chipotle, tomato paste, mayonnaise.

Flavours: really delicious, seasoned and well thought out. You would need your own (olive) oil, salt and pepper.

Quantity: enough for four people each meal.

Price: £30 for two meals. I got a 50% discount by searching online for a discount code. Good value for money.

Noble House Prepared

noble house prepared Pic- Kerstin Rodgers-msmarmitelover - 1
Noble House prepared vegetarian Christmas dinner pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

 

Contents: a Christmas dinner meal kit. Wild mushroom pie; pumpkin and goat’s cheese pithivier; parsnips and carrots; roast potatoes; balsamic glaze brussel sprouts; red cabbage; creamed leeks; cranberry sauce; mashed swede with parmesan crust; Christmas pudding, brandy butter and coffee.

Packaging: 75% recyclable except for film lids and some plastic boxes.

Quantity: The portion sizes were generous, feeding five or more.

Flavours: The seasoning was spot on, and there were a few ideas that I would imitate.

Ease of preparation: Some containers were for oven cooking, others for the micro-wave, some on the stove top. I put the oven stuff in together. The timings worked well. Everything was clearly explained.

Price: From £15.75 a head plus £6.99 shipping

Caravan

Caravan meal kit Pic- Kerstin Rodgers-msmarmitelover - 1
Caravan brunch meal kit pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

At home brunch kits from the well-known London restaurant chain, delivered on Fridays.

Contents: a brunch kit with all the ingredients for baked eggs, chickpea ragu, yoghurt, parsley, sourdough bread, muffin mix, cold-pressed ginger, orange and carrot juice and gourmet coffee.

Ease of prep: You add your own eggs and milk.

Flavours: everything tasted really fresh and well spiced. I particularly liked the juice and coffee. Really delicious, very much a treat.

Quantity: the meal for two easily served three people. I saved the loaf of sourdough bread for another meal.

Packaging: around 50% recyclable except for the plastic pots (although they made be recyclable in some boroughs)

Price:  £36

Kit.Eats.UK 

kit. eats meal kit from laksa mania Pic- Kerstin Rodgers-msmarmitelover - 1
kit.eats meal kits pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

This Brighton based outfit work with several different restaurants, devising ways in which to make their in-house restaurant meals, easily cookable at home.

Contents: Vegan Laksa kit : Laksamania’s Vegan Melaka Curry broth, rice vermicelli noodles, bean sprouts, tofu puff and mock prawns, sliced chillies, fried onions and salad. I also tried Goemen ramen.

Ease of Prep: instructions: heat up the broth, blanch the noodles and beansprouts, add toppings and garnishes. Easy to perform and an introduction to how to make your own Asian food.

Flavours: the laksa curry broth was particularly delicious. The ramen was nice but we all preferred the laksa.

Quantity: enough for two people.

Packaging: most of the packets were plastic but the box was recyclable.

Price: For London, from £10 a head plus £5 delivery  Minimum spend £30

Flamkuch by Amelie:

Flamkuche meal kit pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com
flam2

This Cambridge-based restaurant are sending out ‘flatpacks’ of their French ‘pizza’ from the Alsace region.

Contents: 4 thin bases; creme fraiche, mozzarella cheese; mushrooms, onion; pesto sauce. A very tasty and quick skinny pizza.

Ease of prep: Instructions were simple, only the oven was needed.

Quantity: enough for four people as a light meal.

Packaging: mostly recyclable, with a couple of plastic pots.

Price: From £16.95 plus £8 shipping.

La Tua pasta:

la tua pasta kit pic Kerstin Rodgers-msmarmitelover - 1
la tua pasta meal kit pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

Contents: Black truffle tortelloni with truffle butter. Ricotta stuffed heart-shaped pasta with a jar of tomato sauce.

Ease of Prep: Probably the easiest as was no different to buying from the supermarket. The pasta is boiled in salty water and the sauce tipped over. For the heart-shaped pasta, I differed from the instructions by baking it as there was plenty of sauce to hydrate the pasta.

Quantity: each pasta meal serves one person as a main, two as a starter. A generous amount of sauce.

Flavours: the quality was higher than supermarket fresh pasta which often tastes of rehydrated cardboard. The heart-shaped pasta was unusual.

Packaging: not recyclable except for the glass jar.

Price: From £5 per person + £5 delivery for orders under £30. Discovery boxes with five pasta dishes from £30.

Simply Cook

simply cook - pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com
simply cook cooked - pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

Contents: three little pots of spice or sauce per ‘meal’. You have to buy all the other ingredients yourself. Not terribly useful during lockdown.

Ease of Prep: not good. The meal I cooked, a Goan cauliflower and chickpea curry, consisted of two little pots of sauce and one little pot of spice. They claim a meal should take 20 minutes to cook. I’d say double that.

Quantity: as I said, three tiny teeny pots of sauce/spice. Not enough quantity.

Flavours: very disappointing, under spiced, under salted. It felt like the spice should have been tempered (fried in oil) at the beginning rather than, as per instructions, putting it in at the end. The result was the curry tasted powdery and inauthentic.

Packaging: plastic. Not eco.

Price: lots of offers from £3 for your first box. After that you have four ‘meals’ for £9.99 a month. So cheap but in my opinion, not really worth it. It doesn’t teach you how to cook and you must provide all the ingredients yourself.

Delivery supper club:

Chef Clare Heal
Chef Clare Heal
Delivery supper club Sycamore Smyth. pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com
Sycamore Smyth delivery supper club kit

I’ve also tried a local ‘delivery supper club’ SycamoreSmyth.com by Haringey-based chef Clare Heal. Her first dinner is on the 26th February. You receive a four course menu with instructions, with the options of adding a cheese course by The Fromage Cat and wine by Emile Wines.

I met Clare when as a journalist she did a piece on one of my first supper clubs. Explaining her change of profession, she says:

” I took voluntary redundancy in 2014 and got a retraining allowance which part-paid for a year’s training at Leith’s cookery school. I graduated in 2016 and did ‘stages’ at restaurants like Bocca di Lupo. I’ve started this delivery supper club because to be honest I’m lazy and don’t want to work Saturday nights. But it’s also the perfect solution for lockdown.”

One of the courses was fresh tortelloni filled with dolcelatte and pumpkin; clearly her fresh pasta skills benefited from working at Bocca di Lupo. The portions were generous and the instructions were clear, giving tips on how to plate up. It’s also a way of learning how to construct a dish.

All containers are biodegradable: each component is in a tiny plastic tub and the main ingredient of each dish is in a paper box. The ingredients themselves were hyper seasonal and from good suppliers such as Natoora.The downside is that you don’t get that special supper club atmosphere of mixing with other people.

sycamore smyth delivery supper club salad pic Kerstin Rodgers-msmarmitelover - 1
sycamore Smyth supper club pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

Contents: Winter Pinks Radicchio Salad: roasted beets, blood orange, orange and Vermouth vinegar dressing, toasted hazelnuts. Pumpkin and dolcelatte tortelloni:browned lemon butter, parmesan, crispy sage leaves. Braised beef shin or four mushroom ragu: slow cooked with red wine, seville orange zest and fennel, gremolata crumb, potato and celeriac dauphinoise, braised kale. Vanilla Pannacotta: rhubard roasted with blood orange, hazelnut tuile.

Price: £35 for one, £65 for two, cheeseboard £12 and wines £29

Zoom Tastings

Another resourceful solution to the closure of the events industry is remote tastings. Samples of the product are sent to each participant who is led by an expert in analysing the tastes. I’ve done this with cheese, wine and chocolate.

Wine:

serena G wine kit for zoom tasting Pic- Kerstin Rodgers-msmarmitelover - 1
Selena G zoom wine tasting pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

Host: Serena G. She sends a range of wine from sparkling, to white, rose, red and dessert. Each event has a theme. Her next will feature female wine makers for International Women’s Day. For the tasting I attended, she had vacuum-pressured samples into small bottles, posted the day before, so that the wine did not oxidise. However she can only do this for a minimum of 10 households due to cost. For larger households, she uses full sized bottles.

Atmosphere: increasingly jolly as the tasting wore on. The other attendees felt like old friends by the end despite being merely a pixellated image on my laptop. The wine provoked nostalgic yearnings of wine trips abroad, laughter and anecdotes aplenty, just like a real dinner party.

Price: From £36 a head for full sized bottles.

The next one 26th March at 7pm, book at: https://tinyurl.com/4zxhdn6q

Cheese:

IMG_7346
E04AF2D6-102C-42CA-B0F1-9D119C336D7A

Host: Francis Gimblett of Gimblett Cheese and the cheesemaker of the month.

Samples: Every month you are sent a British cheese pack by an artisanal cheesemaker. This month the cheesemaker is Martin Gott of Cumbria who makes St James Cheese from ewe’s milk. The pack includes access to the interactive show, 60g portions of each of two featured cheeses, tasting card, drink instructions, recipe instructions, packaging and next day tracked postage

Atmosphere: you have an opportunity to meet and question the cheesemaker and discuss the product with others. Often the participants are from the food world or the press which means the questions are interesting. I’m interested in the politics of food so I got a chance to ask Martin Gott what support he’d received from the government during the pandemic. Very little it turned out. It’s very concerning that two or three artisanal British cheesemakers are closing down every week.  This is all part of the Campaign for British Artisan Cheese.

Price: £9.50 per cheese pack

You can also buy a cheese and wine tasting game from Gimblett, costing £57.60 to share with others.

Chocolate:

pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

Host: Jennifer Earle, founder of Chocolate tours (I’ve been on one of her tours, it was full of history, sweet treats and visited parts of London I never knew existed, a fantastic gift).

Samples: hour-long tasting themes every month with special guests. The next is with Martha Collison on Mother’s Day, March 14th.  I took part in the filled chocolate tasting. You are given six exquisitely hand-made artisanal chocolates from different makers, tasting wheel/notes and a recipe.

Price: £30

These options offer a change to the dreary routine of lockdown.

I have a new found respect for meal kits. They usually cost the equivalent to a takeaway and provide deconstructed advice for how to add to your own meal repertoire. It’s an educational experience as well as good food cooked by someone else for a change.

The delivery supper club was delicious and certainly a wonderful alternative to a night out in a restaurant. Every aspect is curated. It’s perfect for someone who wants a special meal for an occasion.

The zoom tastings were great fun, a chance to socialise and educational.

It’d be interesting to see which, if any, of these innovations continue to be popular once the pandemic is over. In the meantime, I’m full of admiration for the ongoing creativity of the UK hospitality industry.

Recent posts

Discovering fairytale Saxony in Germany

January 25, 2023

Fake meat taste test for Veganuary

January 8, 2023

A round-up of my favourite travel destinations of 2022

January 1, 2023

Previous Post: « Japanese sweet potatoes
Next Post: Online cooking courses: ‘Learning with experts’ »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

Subscribe to my mailing list

msmarmitelover

Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
Naples at Christmas- discovering piennolo di vesuv Naples at Christmas- discovering piennolo di vesuvio,the Christmas 🍅, which lasts up to a year fresh. It’s given boxed as gifts around Christmas being the only local fresh tomato available. It dresses all the Christmas pizzas and pastas. It’s grown on volcanic Vesuvius soil and sparsely watered. As a result it has thick skins, and a sweet intense flavour. #tomatoes #italy #naples
Not cooking much at the moment due to a thick laye Not cooking much at the moment due to a thick layer of dust over my kitchen. This will be my dining room/photography studio. Done on a whim.#unplanneddemolition
Another picture of my granddaughter Ophelia in a n Another picture of my granddaughter Ophelia in a nest of apricot tulle (found at portobello market). Isn’t she lovely? #granfluencer
Broccoli Stilton soup. This freezing week is defin Broccoli Stilton soup. This freezing week is definitely a week for soups. My friend @jimfrommanc is staying & needs his hot lunch.
Cheese on toast with crushed chilli 🌶️ in Ven Cheese on toast with crushed chilli 🌶️ in Venice the fresh food market sells bouquets of colourful chillies. I’ve still got mine, drying in an enamel jug. #travelandfood
The Christmas tomato or piennolo di vesuvio. Read The Christmas tomato or piennolo di vesuvio. Read all about it: https://msmarmitelover.com/2022/12/christmas-in-naples.html  Got a couple of bunches hanging in my kitchen. #naples #campania #tomatoes🍅 #travelphotography
Opheliagram. This morning I photographed her in an Opheliagram. This morning I photographed her in an Italian outfit I bought in Naples on a William Morris playmat which looks great and is practical for tummy time. So many things are different about parenting now. Parents use apps to track feeding, pooing, weeing etc. You don’t bathe them anymore for the first few weeks because you want to leave the vernix ( the white waxy stuff they are covered in at birth) on their skin as long as possible. Nappies now have a line on them that turns blue if they’ve done a pee. White noise apps to help them sleep. New technology guides new parents. As well as ancient probably prehistoric customs being rediscovered. #granfluencer #grandaughter I’ve tagged in @siennamarla and @jamescalmus as the authors of this baby.
I made two dishes from one pack of white beans las I made two dishes from one pack of white beans last night. Soak, then cook with 2 stock cubes, water & a fan of bay leaves. When soft & cooked, scoop some into a soup bowl with plenty of stock, add white wine, fresh basil and or a scoop of pesto and a squeeze of lemon for soupe au pistou. Garnish with Parmesan. Today I cooked the pot until the liquid had almost disappeared and added a block of feta. I baked this in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes, added @pomoragoodfood new olive oil, salt and pepper for a gigantes plaki (but with smaller beans). Eat more beans!
What to make when you have lots of leftover egg yo What to make when you have lots of leftover egg yolks after making a pavlova? Zabaglione, that classic Italian trattoria dessert made from egg yolks, sugar & tons of masala sweet wine. Whisk it up over a bain-marie or be a bit cheaty & add a teaspoon of cornflour. Strong wrists needed. #italianfood #christmasdesserts #leftovers #cooksmart
The unpackaged vegan meats. My panel of 4 ( from c The unpackaged vegan meats. My panel of 4 ( from carnivore, to recent vegetarian, to long-time vegetarian to never eaten meat (my daughter)) tasted 18. It was quite a bushtucker trial. Carnivores & vegetarians liked very different things. Full report in next weeks @hamandhigh #veganuary #vegan #vegetarian #tastetest #fakemeat #plantbasedmeat
Fake meatathon tasting taking place as my veganuar Fake meatathon tasting taking place as my veganuary column for @hamandhigh So many companies doing this now. As a longtime vegetarian I don’t want anything that tastes too much like meat. But new vegetarians and vegans may want something that tastes close as damnit to meat in order to stave off cravings? Which category are you in? Have you any favourites or dislikes? Is this just another example of ultra-processed food? Let me know in the comments #vegan #vegetarian #meatfree #veganuary
Pasta buselli al cedro. Cedro or citron is a fragr Pasta buselli al cedro. Cedro or citron is a fragrant citrus & one of the founding citrus (along with pomelo and mandarin) that created all the other citrus fruits you know about. Usually candied, it is also used in this unusual neopolitan recipe in which you soak the zest in the pasta water overnight before cooking. Post up on the blog later today. Board a Xmas present from @siennamarla #pasta #naples #cedro #citrus
My london garden ce matin My london garden ce matin
My Sacher Torte (1 word or 2?) with a difference- My Sacher Torte (1 word or 2?) with a difference- bergamot marmalade in the middle. In the @hamandhigh this week. It’s bloody delicious. #chocolatecake #feelaustria #untoldstories #vienna #sachertorte
These are Mela Annurca apples, ‘mel’anurca’ These are Mela Annurca apples, ‘mel’anurca’ in Neapolitan dialect. They are a Christmas apple, in season now. I bought this little model basket of apples in San Gregorio di Armenia street in Naples where every year neopolitans buy something to add to their ‘presepe’ or nativity scene. Often scenes from markets to add to the expensive, anything from 500 euros to 5000 euros nativity crèches. Around Christmas this street is packed (watch out for pickpockets) with locals and tourist picking out their addition to the scene. Melanurca apples are picked in September then laid on the ground to ripen, turning them every day by hand, to ensure all sides transform from a yellow green into a Wicked Witch red. They are very healthy, particularly for your hair, according to scientists at the university of Naples. #naples #neopolitanchristmas #melanurca  #food #travel #sangregorioarmeno #presepenapoletano #nativityscenes
The Christmas tomato 🍅 or piennolo di vesuvio, The Christmas tomato 🍅 or piennolo di vesuvio, a local tomato that is sold around Christmas in Naples. It is grown with very little irrigation and lasts fresh up to a year. Hence it is used for tomato based Christmas dishes. This tomato has a thick skin and is really intense in flavour. It hangs outside grocers, on balconies, in kitchens, having been braided by ladies into bunches of 1.5 kilos. Each costs 15 euros. I went to visit the farmers and the ladies skilfully tying the tomatoes into clusters, using the vines to fasten them, like cherries. Boxed, these are given as gifts. Reel on the way! #naples #christmas #tomatoes #travel #food
Travel: how I pack. I choose one colour as well as Travel: how I pack. I choose one colour as well as black and white and stick to that palette. For Sicily & Naples I’m doing red, white & black. I’ve bought @coti_vision red glasses chain, a red beret & a black one, a pair of red @snagtights & a black pair, a red hair clasp, a red & white pair of shoes (25 euros, leather from Naples), a red & white dress, a black & white striped dress, and so on. Do you roll? Do you flatten & spread? Do you fold? How do you pack? A few days before I leave I leave my suitcase open in my bedroom and every time I think of something I need to take I sling it in there. ( like adaptors) Last thing is wash bag ( I have a hanging one which is useful) and coat (red for this trip). Basically I colour code my life. When I did the Camino everything was blue & yellow, the colours of the Camino. When I went to Ireland I took all my green clothes ( I don’t have many). If I go on a boat trip I pack blue and white. #packing #colourcoding #travel #mysuitcase
Ruota di pesce spada. A glorious oven baked Sicili Ruota di pesce spada. A glorious oven baked Sicilian fish dish, baked on onions, studded with garlic cloves wrapped in mint leaves, then more onions, capers, olives, oregano & rosemary. Use a thick central slice of swordfish (where can I get that in london?). I’m tasting grillo & Nero d’avola wines @tenutorapitala about an hour inland from Palermo. The owner is the last count Bernard de La gatinais. He has 3 daughters. He’s French (Brittany) and Sicilian. He spoke about how difficult it has been for wine growers since lockdown- so many restaurants closed. Now they are grappling with high energy & fuel costs. ##winesofsicilia #siciliaDOC #wine #travel #sicily
I love Venice. I love Maneskin. I love Italy. I lo I love Venice. I love Maneskin. I love Italy. I love boats and water. #biennalearte2022
London cure smoked salmon from @formanandfield wit London cure smoked salmon from @formanandfield with mikawa citrus (cross between mandarin & pomelo) and home pickled green peppercorns on a plate I bought in minori Italy. #londonfood #citrus #sundaylunch
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Archives

Copyright © 2023 msmarmitelover