The food hall in the basement of John Lewis is a shrine to gourmet capitalism. You can pick up salted caramel truffles (salted caramel is everywhere this season), tiny, jewel-like baby salad leaves, and cheeses so rustic and charming that they might have been churned by Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Up on the fifth floor however, it's still 1977. The Place to Eat is just what it claims to be. It's not really a restaurant, more of a self-service refuge where you might hope to stave off a migraine with a slice of banana loaf. Here in the land that basil forgot, the ceilings are low and the options limited. The Christmas offering was turkey with roast potatoes, parsnips, sprouts and some rather delicious looking chipolatas; you can also have quiche, fish and chips or lasagna, with vegetables or salad. There are many plumptious cakes, and a separate crêperie with sweet and savoury options. There are iced penguin gingerbread biscuits, cashing in on Monty the Penguin (an ad campaign so effective that even a glimpse of the cookie had me in floods) and overflowing baguettes that require genteel slicing.
The couple at the next table, barricaded in by bags of seasonal loot, had gone for the tomato and bacon quiche.
"Is it nice?" asked the wife.
"No," replied her husband. Pause. "Still," he added manfully, "best finish it."
I had the lasagna, with peas on the side for the spirit of the thing. Throughout the store, you can buy authentic Italian delicacies shipped straight from the Peninsula, including panettone, that naked emperor of Christmas pastries. Italians are actually rubbish at cakes, except cannoli, which are really deep-fried cheese rolls: their patisserie tradition comes from the Austrians, but somehow we keep buying panettone, trying to inject our stolid Yuletide treats with a bit of sunshiny Catholic glamour. In northern Italy they force the stuff down at Christmas lunch with custard — "English soup" — but if I want crap dried-out fruitcake I'll bake my own.
Lasagna, though, is another matter. In Liguria, lasagne are parchment-thin, delicately cocooned in vivid pesto, in Verona it comes as a sturdy tranche of pasta and sausage with an edible shadow of porcini, in Sicily I've tried it with shaved golden bottarga, redolent of slightly rank Romanesque garum, in Florence with raspberry-fleshed wild duck. This lasagna was none of those things. It was British Lasagna, basically spag bol with a Cheddar crust, and in its own unassuming way quite lovely, if you like mince. The salt was in those tiny blue packets that used to come with crisps. I tried a squishy gingerbread loaf and a towering Victoria Sponge, and they were lovely too.
At 1pm on a Thursday, the place was packed, but there was something reassuringly English about the way people politely choreographed laden trays and settled themselves with pots of tea. It was placid and orderly and everyone seemed very glad to be sitting down. There was a collective air of penance quietly undergone, of lists crossed off and duty done. The Place to Eat is by no means a temple of gastronomic delight, but for a touch of peace and love, high above the festive frenzy of the city, John Lewis, in this as in everything else, delivers.
The couple at the next table, barricaded in by bags of seasonal loot, had gone for the tomato and bacon quiche.
"Is it nice?" asked the wife.
"No," replied her husband. Pause. "Still," he added manfully, "best finish it."
I had the lasagna, with peas on the side for the spirit of the thing. Throughout the store, you can buy authentic Italian delicacies shipped straight from the Peninsula, including panettone, that naked emperor of Christmas pastries. Italians are actually rubbish at cakes, except cannoli, which are really deep-fried cheese rolls: their patisserie tradition comes from the Austrians, but somehow we keep buying panettone, trying to inject our stolid Yuletide treats with a bit of sunshiny Catholic glamour. In northern Italy they force the stuff down at Christmas lunch with custard — "English soup" — but if I want crap dried-out fruitcake I'll bake my own.
Lasagna, though, is another matter. In Liguria, lasagne are parchment-thin, delicately cocooned in vivid pesto, in Verona it comes as a sturdy tranche of pasta and sausage with an edible shadow of porcini, in Sicily I've tried it with shaved golden bottarga, redolent of slightly rank Romanesque garum, in Florence with raspberry-fleshed wild duck. This lasagna was none of those things. It was British Lasagna, basically spag bol with a Cheddar crust, and in its own unassuming way quite lovely, if you like mince. The salt was in those tiny blue packets that used to come with crisps. I tried a squishy gingerbread loaf and a towering Victoria Sponge, and they were lovely too.
At 1pm on a Thursday, the place was packed, but there was something reassuringly English about the way people politely choreographed laden trays and settled themselves with pots of tea. It was placid and orderly and everyone seemed very glad to be sitting down. There was a collective air of penance quietly undergone, of lists crossed off and duty done. The Place to Eat is by no means a temple of gastronomic delight, but for a touch of peace and love, high above the festive frenzy of the city, John Lewis, in this as in everything else, delivers.
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