Whole Foods Market

Reviews for Whole Foods Market

• 3

  Whole Foods Market

  63-97 Kensington High Street London W8 5SE uk
  
  ramanauskas

  28th October 2007

  Over priced, now over here

  Current

  
  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.
  

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• 5

  Whole Foods Market

  63-97 Kensington High Street London W8 5SE uk
  
  sue

  27th October 2007

  Gourmet Food Supermarket

  Current

  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.
  

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• 1

  Whole Foods Market

  63-97 Kensington High Street London W8 5SE uk
  
  johanna

  11th July 2007

  Keep walking....M&S is just down the street

  Current

  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.

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• 4

  Whole Foods Market

  63-97 Kensington High Street London W8 5SE uk
  
  RenZephyr

  8th July 2007

  Current

  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.

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• 3

  Whole Foods Market

  63-97 Kensington High Street London W8 5SE uk
  
  helenlewis

  20th June 2007

  26 kinds of tomato

  Current

  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!

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