A Veritable Feast in the British Aisles

Food is comfort. And on a recent monthlong trip to London during troubling times, my husband, Dick, and I often found comfort in some of the greatest food halls of the world: Fortnum & Mason, Selfridges, Marks & Spencer and Harrods.

Our forays into the department stores’ epicurean arenas, packed with exotic produce, international groceries and takeout restaurants, began innocently enough. After spending hours on tourist activities most days, we retreated to one store or another for lunch or tea and, along with it, some first-rate people-watching, browsing and gift shopping. By the end of the first week, these visits were the highlight of our days.

The halls were often more interesting than museums, more entertaining than galleries and livelier than the theater. More important, when the world was rocked by conflict after Sept. 11, the halls became a sanctuary for us. It was reassuring to see so many international cuisines mingled under one roof. It gave us hope for the world.

From the prepared dishes in the delis to the takeout dishes and packaged groceries, the selection reflected London’s status as an international hub.

It turned out that the halls’ restaurants were a good way to save money on meals in the notoriously expensive city. Their prices are comparable to, or lower than, what many London restaurants charge. They’re also ideal places to buy gifts and edible souvenirs.

We found that each hall has a personality. Fortnum is regal and traditional; Selfridges is festive; Marks & Spencer, practical and unpretentious; and Harrods, sumptuous. Each hall provided a fascinating look at British life and cuisine.

Fortnum & Mason

The queen mother of London food halls, this landmark on Piccadilly has been a grocer to every British monarch since the mid-1700s.

I surveyed dark wood shelves lined with packages of tea, jars of marmalade, mustards, marinated vegetables and quail eggs, tins of biscuits, chocolates and fish. More than half the products displayed are Fortnum’s brand.

In the elegant confectionery, candied fruits glistened beside trays of chocolate truffles. The cheese department featured an assortment from a runny French vacherin to the buttery English Waterloo and Wigmore.

The tea department, which smelled of exotic fruits and spices, was equally impressive, with bins of loose-leaf Ceylon teas, Chinese teas, Indian teas and India-Ceylon combinations, such as royal blend and Queen Anne’s Breakfast.

Walking around these lavish displays--on crimson carpeting under crystal chandeliers, and surrounded by tweedy shoppers--I felt as if I had stepped into a scene from “My Fair Lady.” Even the fastidious professor Henry Higgins would be at home here among the stock boys in black cutaway coats, vests and ties and the polite clerks, natty in black or gray pinstripes.

After all the browsing, Dick and I needed refreshment, so we stopped at the Patio, where, for $17 each, we had a pot of robust Fortnum & Mason blend tea, Welsh rarebit crumpets with bacon, scones with clotted cream and strawberry preserves, and shortbread. It was a substantial tea in an elegant setting and reasonably priced by London standards.

Another day we tried the store’s St. James for lunch, where the menu featured a fixed price for a two- or three-course meal. A lunch of lobster bisque followed by Shropshire blue-cheese tart with grilled tomato, peppers and green onion cost $27. With a third course of cheese or dessert--I chose a fruit salad, while Dick dug into a slice of decadent chocolate torte--the price was $30. The food and live piano were delightful.

Formal tea in this crisp-linen setting can cost $25 to $28 per person. Welsh rarebit with sweet-cured bacon, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on “granary” toast, or freshly baked scones with clotted cream and strawberry preserves are among the choices.

The Fountain serves the most formal breakfast offered at any of the halls, from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. At $17, the substantial meal is, for this city, reasonably priced.

Selfridges

For a food hall that’s more festive than opulent, hie thee to Selfridges. Near the Bond Street Underground station on Oxford Street, one of London’s busiest shopping areas, the hall is on the ground floor of the block-long Selfridges & Co. Department Store. An Oxford Street landmark, the store was built by Chicago millionaire Gordon Selfridge and opened in 1909.

The food hall is an ongoing party. As upbeat background music plays, shoppers sample Belgian chocolates or Spanish chorizo.

When we visited I counted 20 lamb, chicken and vegetable dishes--from fiery to mild--in the Indian department. There were boxed sushi and sashimi lunches in the Japanese department, and sweet and savory pastries, salads and dips at the Mediterranean counter. The clerks put on a show as they fill orders, bantering with the customers and offering samples.

The bakery has 170 kinds of goods; the deli, 25 varieties of salami and 30 types of sausage, from Thai style and Toulouse to wild boar and venison. The confectionery is one of the greatest chocolate collections in the world, with 200 types and original flavors including pink peppercorn, juniper, Earl Grey and bittersweet orange.

And, of course, there are aisles and aisles of packaged foods (which make wonderful gifts): coffees, teas, sauces, chutneys, marmalades, mustards, biscuits. Our Selfridges’ shopping bag held a box of English Victorian mints ($7), a 6-ounce jar of honey from Essex ($4), a 16-ounce can of lobster bisque ($2), a large square of Brazil nut toffee ($5).

Selfridges is also a great place for breakfast, lunch or tea, with about 10 eateries in the hall and 15 throughout the store. At the Sienna Cafe on the lower level, we took in a fashion show on a TV monitor as we sipped tea and munched shortbread. On another teatime visit we listened to two girls singing and playing guitars on a nearby stage.

On the ground floor are several more restaurants, all good lunch spots. There’s the YO! Sushi Bar, which sells sushi off a revolving belt; the small Balcony Wine Bar, with soups, salads and sandwiches; and the marble-countered Oyster Bar, which offers fish-based soups, salads and seafood plates, including lobster soup ($8), crayfish and mango salad ($11), marinated prawns ($17), smoked haddock ($6) and hand-carved smoked salmon ($14).

Our favorite lunch spot at Selfridges was the least expensive and most casual. The Eat Cafe claims to serve the best soups in London. Dick, who has a passion for soup, says this deli gets close. Each week the list of choices is posted in small (12 ounces, about $3.50) or big (16 ounces, about $4) sizes, and with “simple” or “bold” spicing. When we were there, the offerings included roast pumpkin (my favorite), Moroccan root vegetable, cream of leek and potato, Thai chicken with ginger and coconut, vegetarian chili, carrot and coriander, and a fine crab bisque. (Eat even has its own Web site at www.eatcafe.co.uk so fans can check out the soups of the day.)

Eat’s sandwiches were equally tempting: cheese and Branston pickle mayonnaise on freshly baked sweet malted bread ($2), Tuscan tuna ($3.50), lean ham and mustard salad ($2.40), smoked salmon and egg mayonnaise ($4), crayfish and lettuce ($4).

We ate here several times, and the food was always delicious and complemented by the bustling atmosphere. No other London food hall is as entertaining.

Marks & Spencer

As we explored, we discovered there was a food hall for every mood. When we wanted to be dazzled, we went to Fortnum & Mason or Harrods; when we wanted to be energized, we went to Selfridges; and when we wanted to relax, we went to reliable and oh-so-reasonable Marks & Spencer.

Marks & Spencer began in Leeds Market, England, in 1912 with the slogan, “Don’t ask the price--it’s a penny.” That philosophy of practicality and value is reflected in the sensible lighting, the simple decor and the plain dark blue suits worn by food hall employees.

The food hall takes up the lower level of the department store. We went there first because it’s next to Selfridges on Oxford Street and returned because of its Coffee Bar.

We usually dragged into the store around 4 or 5 p.m., tired and hungry after a long day of touring. Our first stop was always the Coffee Bar, a large, cheery, family-friendly cafe with low prices.

Many coffee and tea places in London charge about $20 for tea for two. At the Coffee Bar, prices range from $1.50 for a regular espresso to $3 for a large caramel latte. A pot of tea or a cup of filtered coffee is $1.50. The place had all the usual treats that make afternoon tea satisfying: Devon scones ($1.30), turkey and stuffing sandwiches ($4), Black Forest cake ($3), apple and raspberry cheesecake ($3) and, to keep the children happy, a colorful cardboard lunchbox that contained a sandwich, pictures and colored pencils ($4).

When we managed to extricate ourselves from the Coffee Bar, we browsed through aisles of beautifully packaged and relatively inexpensive items. We brought back tins of Marks & Spencer Luxury Belgian chocolate biscuits ($14), huge hits with friends and family. And our own pantry is still stocked with tins of Cafe Chocolate Drink Mix ($2), several large cans of Scottish salmon ($6), Marks & Spencer Boxing Day Chutney ($2), a box of 80 Marks & Spencer Ceylon teabags ($3) and a box of 18 Marks & Spencer petits fours ($6).

The take-away department has modestly priced salads (from about $3) and a line of sandwiches created by six prominent English chefs. Among the offerings: roast chicken with harissa mayonnaise and cos (romaine) lettuce; marinated prawns with spicy mayonnaise, baby spinach leaves and cilantro in a chili and onion roll; pesto apple slices, field mushrooms and butternut squash with watercress on whole-grain bread.

Harrods

Although we have been to Harrods many times, we are still dazzled by the seven cavernous rooms on the ground and lower levels that make up its food hall. It’s hard to believe this four-block-long, multistory building with 3,000 employees and more than 100,000 food-hall products started out in 1849 as a one-room grocery shop owned by Charles Henry Harrod.

The present Harrods was built between 1900 and 1911 and features many of the original details: white marble floors, carved white wood ceilings, Royal Doulton tiles, carved marble counters and murals. Like Fortnum & Mason, Harrods is a historical landmark.

But we didn’t spend too much time looking at the walls or ceilings; the sights and smells of the food were overpowering. The aroma of roasting fowl, sizzling steaks, grilled sea bass and king prawns, spicy pizzas fresh from the oven and steaming Turkish coffee drifted through the hall.

Choosing one of the 10 restaurants was a challenge. A mouthwatering menu beckoned at the Tapas Bar, where Spanish music filled the air. A choice of three tapas--for example, marinated anchovies with olives and gazpacho jelly, deep-fried calamari with black rice, and grilled chorizo with Spanish ham--was $21 per person. We were equally tempted by the Salt Beef Bar, where hungry diners lined up for hot, hefty salt beef, turkey pastrami or beef tongue sandwiches on rye or crusty bread served with marinated cucumbers or pickled vegetables for $18.

In the Sea Grill we were tantalized by grilled prawns, octopus salad, Scottish smoked salmon and oysters Rockefeller. But Dick couldn’t resist the fish and chips, a filet of cod in beer yeast batter, for $21. He pronounced it the best he had ever tasted.

A handsome pub on the lower level, the Green Man, serves the traditional English fare my husband and I love. At one lunch, Dick savored the turkey cranberry pie for $10; I sampled the English cheese platter with generous portions of Kirkham’s Lancashire, Ticklemore and Cashel Blue.

The bear-shaped biscuits ($11), milk chocolate truffles ($11) and lemon biscuits ($5) we brought back from the food halls were hits with neighbors. The fresh food departments have 350 cheeses, 150 breads, 1,400 wines and spirits, 151 varieties of tea, 27 types of coffee, 45 homemade pates and 65 types of smoked fish, in addition to caviars, oysters, foie gras, Scottish smoked salmon, Aberdeen Angus beef, sushi and homemade pasta.

Fortified, with shopping bags full and budget intact, Dick and I headed back to London’s streets, knowing we could find comfort, culture and the world’s cuisine in those hallowed halls.

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Guidebook: London’s Food Fairs

Getting there: From LAX to London, nonstop service is available on British Airways, American, United, Virgin Atlantic and Air New Zealand. US Airways offers direct service with a stop. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $556.

Telephones: To call the numbers below from the U.S., dial 011 (the international dialing code), 44 (country code for England), 207 (city code for London) and the local number.

The stores: Fortnum & Mason, 181 Piccadilly; 734-8040, www.fortnumandmason.co.uk. Open 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 9:30 a.m.-

7 p.m. Saturdays. Tube stops: Green Park or Piccadilly Circus.

Selfridges, 400 Oxford St.; 629-1234, www.selfridges.com. Open 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Mondays- Wednesdays, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays, 9:30 a.m.-

7 p.m. Saturdays, noon-6 p.m. Sundays. Tube stops: Bond Street or Marble Arch.

Marks & Spencer, 458 Oxford St.; 935-7954, www.marksandspencer.co.uk. Open 9 a.m.-

9 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 9:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Saturdays, noon-

6 p.m. Sundays. Tube stop: Marble Arch.

Harrods, 87-135 Brompton Road; 730-1234, www.harrods.com. Open 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Mondays-

Saturdays. Tube stop: Knightsbridge.

For more information: British Tourist Authority, 551 Fifth Ave., Suite 701, New York, NY 10176-0799; (800) GO-2-BRITAIN (462-2748), www.btausa.com.

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Irene Woodbury is a freelance writer in Denver.