Whole Foods Market

CPaskell

Not for the weekly shop 17th September 2008

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I go to Whole Foods for 4 things.

1. The experience: to see the plethora of items on sale, some rare, some expensive but worth it for what you get, some overpriced and cheaper at Waitrose for comparible quality. But we do not have another shop like this in the UK - Like Selfridges for foodies.

2. The cupcakes. Exquisite huge, decently priced beautifully decorated cakes the authentic American way. No where else I have been to in London matches these.

3. The samples - wine, cheeses, biscuits...try the expensive stuff even if you don't intend to buy.

4. Veri veri Terriaki. I could not find anywhere that stocked this - my favourite stir fry sauce ever ( I used to live in California and bought a bottle of this from Safeways every week!)Halellujah! It has taken 5 years, but I can once again enjoy the best Chinese-Jewish stir-fries in the world!

Reshma

whole foods 3rd September 2008

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Okay so whole foods is the fancy american supermarket that has opened in kensington. I recently read that because of the credit crunch this place has suffered with profits. Im not surprised as the cost of some of the basic items is extortionate. Tesco Finest and Sainsburys Taste the difference of even m and S quality is even cheaper especialy in the fresh food department.

I did find some lovely items in whole foods though, being a vegetarian it is hard to find vegetarian parmesan and certain eggless or alergen free specialist foods, in whole foods i found lots of vegetarian and health type foods. Soya cheese in lots of differnt flavours and eggless products which I certainly couldnt find in my local sainsburys/tescos.

The queues at this place can be a bit annoyin but they have a fast track one for 5 items or less, and they even reduce 5p of your bill if you dont want a carrier bag. Its not much, but at least you feel like your doing your bit for the environment, and getting 5 p refund.

Some imported items were cheaper then the local produced ones such as refried beans for mexican food.

chrisp

Market Price? 22nd August 2008

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It's best not to think of Whole Foods Kensington as a supermarket. Try and imagine it's a very expensive foodstuffs art gallery, where you can saunter around and gawp at the ostrich eggs and 38-day aged ribeye steaks and fantastic selection of premium wines, then buy something timid like a wheatgrass smoothie and get the hell out before you feel the need to do your shopping there. The kind of people who do their weekly shopping at Whole Foods are the kind of people that really don't need to worry about money.

ramanauskas

Over priced, now over here 28th October 2007

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If you have more money than sense, Whole Foods has taken over from Fortnum and Mason as the place to buy your apples.

Yes, I know it's beautifully laid out. Yes I know it's supposed to be in the vanguard of organic food consumption.
But somehow it just seems to try too hard? And the prices are definitely too much.

For example, 250g dorset sheeps cheese is (gulp) £8.49, which you can get in the slightly less grand surroundings of the John Lewis Food Hall (Oxford Street) for I think £6.79.
The draw for me is the fantastic range of US wines - lots of Californian wines which I haven't seen elsewhere in the UK. But even then, a bottle of Zin I bought recently (£8+) was corked and undrinkable, and I didn't have time to take it back and complain. Next time I go in I'll let them know and see what they say.

We've been to the gastro-palace upstairs once, for breakfast. Again, very expensive even for Kensington, though a beautiful space with great tall windows overlooking the High Street. The yoghurt was sweetened and the staff (admittedly in the first couple of weeks) a bit clueless.

To sum up: an expensive curate's egg.

sue

Gourmet Food Supermarket 27th October 2007

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Whole Foods is a huge, gourmet food supermarket located in the gorgeous old Barkers building on Kensington High Street. Laid out over three floors, this is a foodies heaven. The 'Market Hall' is on the lower ground floor, and here you can browse amongst the displays of beautifully arranged fruit and veg; make up your own muesli; buy a slab of mouth-watering looking air-dried beef; purchase the ingredients for that seafood platter; and stock up on those grocery items that you can't seem to find anywhere else.

On the ground floor is the 'Provision Hall', where you enter to the smell of freshly baked bread, pastries and cakes. Continue on, and the smell will be replaced by the odour from the large cheese section - follow this scent and you will come across the charcuterie, and more importantly the wine bar where you can sample some meats and cheese and a glass/bottle of some of the large range of wines on offer in the store. On this level you will also find around 28 checkouts, which were nice and queue-free when we visited.

On the first floor is a posh food hall, where you can eat food that you have purchased on the lower floors, or sit at one of the food bars and enjoy a meal. We had some very tasty sushi at Genji Express, though are already talking about returning to try out the oyster bar, or one of the other tempting options.

I have to confess that I loved Whole Foods. Ok, it isn't cheap, but for someone like me who would much rather browse in a supermarket than a clothing store, this is about as good as it gets.

johanna

Keep walking....M&S is just down the street 11th July 2007

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Until a few hours ago I had happily been surfing the organic tidal wave which has swelled over the last few years. I eat porridge for breakfast (which I like), I went on a yoga detox retreat (which I hated) and I mercilessly question the waiter at the local indian take-away as to the origin of the chicken. I am however no longer prepared to be treated as the dumb overpaid city hippy i had apparently become. Walking past Whole Foods this lunchtime i decided to pop in for a salad. I filled my box, admittedly with enthusiasm, full of leaves, lentils, roasted vegetables and chickpeas. I grabbed a box of chopped pineapple and naively joined the queue. £17 poorer and slightly shell-shocked I emerged onto Ken High Street. £17 for some fruit and veg. Every market stall owner in london is chuckling into their non-organic satsumas. I admit Whole Foods does offer variety and quantity (you could feed Africa for a week with the contents of the Ground Floor alone). The food was also tasty and of reasonable quality BUT a time arrives when my bank manager has to over-ride my nutritionist. This time has come.

sokratis at 11/07/07

Seriously funny review ;-) Please keep em coming.

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RenZephyr

8th July 2007

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It's an American thing. I've been to the one in NYC and one in Michigan, I know US ex-pats that almost came when it opened. It means that I no longer have to import my coffee.

helenlewis

26 kinds of tomato 20th June 2007

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Whole Foods - it's a supermarket, for posh people!

You would not believe how excited the denizens of Kensington were in early June when Whole Foods opened. There were queues to get in, scrums over the biscotti and literally thousands of yummy mummies with Anya Hindmarch ethical bags and Jimmy Choo flats, desperate to talk about nanny problems and work-life balance over falafel.

I sort of see the excitement: Whole Foods, split over three floors, is a veritable temple of consumerism, albeit an extremely refined ten-quid-for-some-air-dried-ham consumerism. In the States, smug macrobiotic celebs like Gwyneth Paltrow, Brangelina and Madonna get their weekly rations there and I can imagine Whole Foods Kensington attracting oligarchs and A-listers too.

On the ground floor, there's a deli, plus a mound of cantaloupes, a florist, various expensive foods, people handing out cheese, a pile of Icelandic bottled water and a stack of Veuve Cliquot bottles. Oh, and some queues. I probably should have mentioned them earlier, as in the first week of the store being open, the queues took up a quarter of the ground floor. There was even a sign up indicating how long you could expect to queue for the pleasure of being charged extortionate prices for (fairly readily-available, these days) organic food.

The second-floor reminded me of the world's most expensive service station. There are various 'bars' (Oyster bar, sushi bar... juice bar) and lots of seating. Oddly, though, you can't eat from the 'bars' unless you are sitting at the 'bars'. "So what's all this seating for?" I asked a flunky. She pointed mutely at the take-away shelves. "So, you can eat your takeaway food here, but not the food that's served here?" She smiled grimly in reply.

There's also a basement. God knows what they have down there. Perhaps some authentic artisan peasants chained up and forced at gunpoint to make high-quality individually fashioned loaves in the shape of this season's It-handbags... darling, the mini-Paddington is just just perfect for a dinner party!

walid at 21/06/07

Great review Helen, I was laughing all the way. I especially loved the sign indicating how long the queue is... kind of make you think you're about to enter some kind of roller coaster. In this case perhaps a financial roller coaster heading ddddooowwwwnnnn.

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