Hole Foods

Visited the apotheosis of food shops on Saturday: the Whole Foods on High Street Kensington. Despite the fact that its been open for ages it hadn't really occured to me to go until last week. It occupies three floors of the Barkers Building and I was excited by descriptions of giant salad bars, a cheese room and a huge meat counter (not that I'd buy any, but its still fun to look) as decribed by Henry. Went in and was initially somewhat overwhelmed by the shinyness and variety of it all and for about 5 minutes was a kid in a sweet shop. Decided I needed to get a cup of coffee so went to the cafe upstairs. Waited in the queue for 10 minutes and not a single person in the line in front of me got a cup in that time so I left. It was OK though because you could 'sample' coffee in the basement, I stood at the coffee bar knocking back shots like I was on a bender.


The more I walked round the shop the more uncomfortable it made me. Whole Foods in the States are just very upscale supermarkets, whereas here they've gone for more of a Food Hall feel. Draws attention to the fact that you're paying over the odds to support their branding and polish. I think it's fair enough and entirely their prerogative to charge the earth for freshly made seafood skewers/salads/imported meat etc that are unique but it pisses me off no end when they sell something avaliable widely but at an inflated cost. After a half hour of wandering round watching all the Jocastas and Mungos shoveling free bits of cheese and bread into their horsey mouths, while forking out £8 for crab meat I started to feel a bit grossed out by the conspicuous consumption and left without buying anything. As a shop its entirely representative of everything food shouldn't be.