Artisan Restaurant, Booths, Lytham

Eating in-store is usually an unrewarding last resort of the desperately hungry.  Eating in a supermarket all the more so.

But, to borrow a phrase, Booths is not just any supermarket.  Indeed some years ago they specifically dropped the word supermarket, and I like to think of them as a small chain of grocery shops.  They have long been champions of local food, and have more recently been working with Slowfood UK on bringing some of England's Forgotten Foods onto their shelves.

Booths is often called the Waitrose of the North, but it would be more accurate to call Waitrose the Booths of the South, as Waitrose is something of a newcomer compared to Booths.  Edwin Henry Booth opened his first shop in Blackpool (then little more than a seaside village) in 1847: it would be nearly fifty years before Wallace Waite and Arthur Rose opened their first shop in West London in 1904.  An Edwin Booth is still at the helm of Booths.

Lytham was the first branch (originally opened in 1879) in what has become a chain of 28 shops across the north west, though the current store is a new construction.  Booths has long had restaurants attached to its stores (indeed, my grandmother worked in the café at Booths in St Annes in the 1950s), but in the last decade there has been something of a renaissance, beginning at their Kendal store, for which Steven Doherty, the first British head chef in a Michelin 3-star restaurant (Le Gavroche), consulted when the Artisan restaurant there first opened.

The Artisan restaurant at Booths in Lytham, is a large airy space above the store, adjacent to the art gallery (oh yes, there's an art gallery in this branch of Booths too ... you don't get that in Asda...).  The menu is nothing especially striking, and as you would expect, given the location and its association, seeks to be many things to many people. There is a fairly extensive breakfast section, which from 11.30 a.m. gives way to a fairly standard brasserie menu, drawing heavily on produce available on the fresh food counters of the store below. Which made it all the more odd to be told that they had run out of burgers.  How do you run out of burgers when there is an extensive butchery counter, including various varieties of pre-made burgers, attached to the restaurant?  But it's not all shop and serve: there's some real cooking going on too.

I started with some Eggs Benedict.  Rather than the standard English muffin, these came on a larger base, which I suspected might have been Greenhalgh's oven bottom muffins.  There was a very generous helping of excellent roast ham, with a couple of neat, poached eggs on top.  In contrast to the generous amount of ham, I thought they had been a little mean with the hollandaise, which itself could have done with a bit more punch.  But for £5.95, it's difficult to criticise, and I'd have no qualms about ordering it again.

Eggs Benedict

 The main menu is supplemented by a brief daily specials, so brief that you wonder if it's worth printing it.

For a main course I chose the Pan Fried Hake with shrimp risotto from the specials menu.  The only criticism I could possibly have of this was that it might have been better described as shrimp risotto with pan-fried hake, given the relative proportions.

The hake itself was perfectly cooked (which is not bad going for the graveyard mid-afternoon shift, when you might expect the cooks to be out the back having a smoke), and the risotto too was spot on - not overcooked and gluey, as can so easily be the case.  There was a very generous helping of shrimps in the risotto: it would have been nice to think they were Lytham shrimps, but I suspect it's more likely they were (unfortunately) the Dutch brown shrimps (equally unfortunately) usually sold in Booths stores. If anyone from Booths reads this and would like to enlighten/correct me, I'd love to hear from you.  But they and the risotto that contained them were still very tasty.  This really was a very impressive dish by any standards, and all the more so, given that it came out of a grocery store café at half past three on a Saturday afternoon.  It was also excellent value at £9.25 - in fact, most main courses are under £10.

Readers of my website and blog might have picked up that I'm a bit of a sucker for what we used to call French Fried Onions, but which now seem to be just called battered onion rings. (I wonder when and why that changed?)  They're not a bad test of a kitchen: can they make a good batter?, do they clean their deep-fryer regularly?, can they deep fry food accurately?  The beer batter on these was obviously quite thick to start with (probably a batch of batter made earlier in the day), and also quite thickly applied.  The kitchen failed a little here, as the cooking was a bit uneven, with a couple of rings really needing a few seconds more in the fryer.  Being that little bit underdone gave them a bit of a feel of an onion-flavoured doughnut.

Hake with onion rings towering in the background

 Presumably as it was mid-late afternoon, I wasn't shown a wine list, but looking at it later, it serves it purpose well, and, with prices between £10 and £20 a bottle, isn't going to damage anyone's wallet.   I think it might be nice to see a corkage deal on wines bought downstairs, and what I particularly missed was the opportunity to buy a glass of  Booths' latest wheeze, #BoothsSecret, an unlabelled great value, cheap red, only available retail by the case.

I just had a small bottle of ginger beer, and also decided not to have coffee after seeing two utterly vast bowls of coffee being brought to the next table, with the announcement that these were their flat whites.  I have to say I've never seen anything looking less like a flat white.  I think some barista training could be useful, if that were typical.  Service, however, was very good.

So, in summary, not faultless, but an impressive performance, and undoubtedly a useful addition to the restaurants of Lytham, which, since the closure of The Hastings, generally lack distinction.

Note that Booths Artisan Restaurant is open daytimes only.

Booths new store: Media City, Salford

I've always been a fan of Booths, the family-owned chain of grocers (ok, supermarkets if you must) based in Preston and with stores across the north-west (and a couple in Yorkshire too).  They have a firm policy of local sourcing and support Slow Food and smaller producers.  In their Lancaster branch, I once counted fourteen different Lancashire cheeses (not cheeses made in Lancashire, Lancashire cheeses). Remarkable.

So I was very pleased to get an invitation to the launch evening of their latest store at Media City in Salford.  I think this is their first venture into Manchester, and, besides the impressive set-up generally, it was interesting to see how Booths had adapted their range to what they see as the rather different market in a big city, and also that of the influx of media types, notably the numerous BBC employees who've been exiled up north.  In fact it seemed to me that the second largest group of people attending the launch evening were, to judge from their lanyards, BBC employees. The largest group of people there seemed to me to be all the "suits" from Booths themselves, who were largely hunting in packs, keeping together for safety.  It made me think they probably don't get out into the stores much to meet customers!

Indeed, the best thing I overheard all night was a Mr Booth asking another Mr Booth why he kept looking at his watch.  Mr Booth was simply wondering "how much longer I have to keep being nice to people"!



A string quartet from the BBC Philharmonic battled bravely against the general hubbub


The Media City branch of Booths has a very airy feel.  Look up and it feels a bit industrial, but keep your eyes at well, umm .. eye level, and it feels very modern and open, though not especially large.  It is, however, unusually for any sort of supermarket, on two floors.  I wonder how that will work: will customers really go up and down stairs (or the lift) to continue their shopping?

 

The produce on show was all extremely high quality, some even higher quality than I'm accustomed to in Booths, though of course it's entirely natural that they're out to impress. The display of various wild mushrooms in the greengrocery selection particularly caught my eye.  Ascrofts were offering some delicious tasters of a sort salad of golden beetroot and lentils that Booths should definitely think about selling ready made.

Some shelves (bakery notably) were still empty, which is entirely reasonable as the store wasn't opening until the next morning. It did make me laugh that some of the empty shelves had stocking plans on them marked "strictly confidential"!! Probably not a good idea to leave them out when you've invited hundreds of members of the public and press.



Butchery and fishmonger counters were very striking, though not especially large. Lots of beautiful looking fish and especially shellfish, with representatives from Neve's, the Fleetwood-based fishmongers on hand for this event. Thinking back to when Selfridges first opened in Manchester city centre, they too had an impressive fish counter, but that was very quickly cut back before disappearing entirely. It will be interesting to see if Booths can maintain the impressive range they had on show at this launch event.

 

The meats on display were just as impressive, if not more so.  Some beautiful looking National Trust beef, cornfed ducks and chicken from Reg Johnson of Goosnargh, salt marsh lamb, and most notably of all, some amazing-looking British rose veal, of which there were various cuts, all beautifully butchered.  Again, I really hope they can keep up these standards.  It would also be nice to see the veal being offered in other stores, as it's a meat that isn't at all easy to find, even in our excellent local butchers.

The meat and fish counters seemed a bit small, and clearly stocked with the premium end of their respective produce. I also thought the deli and cheese counters were also quite small, the cheese in particular feeling very cosmopolitan, and indeed Booths' cheese buyer confirmed to me that they had deliberately gone for the higher end here.


Mr Kirkham (of Mrs Kirkham's) behind the cheese counter

By contrast the 'ready meal' fridges seemed to occupy more space proportionately than in other Booths stores.  I don't know if that's really the case, though that's how it felt. Interestingly all these fridges have doors to keep down energy consumption, which can only be a good idea.

The BWS (beers, wines, spirits) section is upstairs and definitely felt both larger and more spacious than in many other branches, though interestingly did not seem to have the same really premium wines and champagnes that I've seen in, e.g. the Windermere store, in the past.

The worst thing was actually finding the place.  Not a problem if you work at Media City, but until Google Maps and satnavs get updated, it's not obvious. In particular, once you've found it, finding a way into the Booths car park is far from obvious, as it seems protected by more no-entry signs than is surely necessary!

http://www.booths.co.uk