Having recently been introduced to André Dang, the Personal Shopping Manager of Selfridges Food Hall, it was the work of approximately four seconds to realise that here was one of London's most charming people and a further two to realise that his favourite occupation was his work. So when I suggested that he give up some time to showing me round, he seemed as pleased with the notion as I.
Our arrangement was to meet at 11am and – the store opening at 10am - I spent a happy hour on my own, walking around the various departments amazed at the variety and quality of everything that was on offer.
You want some honey? There are 44 varieties available – I know because I counted them – and the next door preserve section contains their own-label Rose Petal jam and Violet Jelly.
The kosher section has everything you might expect and should you get the munchies you can pick up kosher Kit Kats and M&Ms if you don't fancy one of the many varieties of halva on offer.
Another section, another blaze of colours and flavours – the counter given over to more eastern delights was like a bazaar in miniature - piles of Turkish delight; glorious regiments of pistachio-filled cakes made from millions of layers of filo pastry; vast bowls of taramasalata and houmous and exciting-looking nibbles; I wanted some of everything.
Heading towards the more prosaic items I came across the egg section - you would think little could be more prosaic than that. I haven't yet seen ostrich eggs in my local supermarket, but here was a dozen or so, large enough to look unreal and each bearing the legend £18.50. A young man was at work putting out fresh supplies of free-range hen's eggs and I asked him if they sold well. The assistant, Said Bacel, explained that yes, they always sold, mostly to people who wanted to produce something spectacular at a dinner party – and whilst scrambled eggs for six might not seem a dramatic first course, when produced from the contents of one egg they understandably invite comment. He then turned from me to assist a lady who was looking at the ordinary eggs and gave her as much care and attention as though she had been riffling through a selection of gold ingots.
The staff and their level of care and attention is one of Selfridge's greatest assets – dedicated people with vast knowledge, wanting to learn more so they can better help the customers.
André returned from his meeting, took my shopping basket, which was by now so heavy I could barely lift it and bore me off for a coffee.
It isn't until you begin to realize that there are seven major departments within the food hall, a team of chefs in the basement of the store preparing all the traiteur foods, 13 bars and restaurants and a catering division, that you even begin to understand the scope of what is involved in what, on the surface, is a place that sells food and has somewhere one can eat.
A Logistics Manager and a Supply Chain Manager are responsible for receiving and putting in place the myriad supplies that come in to the store and have to be available – and accessible – to all those who require them. Two loading bays are in operation from 6am-4pm every day and are situated well enough away from each other so that items for the catering department, which is a separate operation, do not become mixed up with supplies destined for the food hall. I wondered what happened if someone in one of the restaurants ran out of something and had visions of a chef dashing downstairs to buy emergency raisins. "It happens", admitted André smiling, "But not often – and we don't make them pay in cash, there are systems in place to assist with these occasions."
So how about sourcing the products? There were things available in Selfridges I hadn't seen anywhere – a huge range of organic products from an Irish company called Bunalun for a start and a glass safe containing civet coffee at a seizure-inducing £78 for 200g. And there are over 2,000 products available at any one time ranging from Maldon salt to Moravian spice cookies.
Buyers for each department head dedicated teams of staff who appear to take busmen's holidays, always on the lookout for new and exciting products from wherever they happen to be. Spying forays to other stores to see who is selling what are a regular part of the week – although this is true of the other stores and of course there are all the trade and food fairs to visit. Regular meetings along with dedicated brainstorming sessions take place to discuss what is available and what might be good for seasonal lines. Christmas was sorted out by July, next Easter is already under discussion and occasional promotions will take over the entire store.
There is a tasting room set aside where possible new lines are stored and when I looked it contained everything from the sublime to the ridiculous, including cans of smoked rattlesnake at £18 a tin. I held one up and raised an eyebrow. "Oh that shouldn't really be in here, we sell that on the floor – and I think we do cobra, too." (Later on in the day I happened to see a staff member replenishing the stock; it sells very well.)
The Selfridges name carries a lot of clout, unsurprisingly and in addition to all these sourcing methods, time is set aside to taste and test new products that providers send or bring to the store in the hope of being allotted some of the treasured shelf-space. There is also a small but excellent own brand – quality makers of grocery items are occasionally invited to come up with something that can be made and sold under the Selfridges label, or will themselves make something unusual that they will offer the store as an exclusive item – apricot game sauce with whisky springs to mind. Even the cook-in sauces are spectacular and made for the store by top restaurants.
There are also tastings for the staff on a regular basis. I keep coming back to the staff, the dedicated band who want nothing more than To Know. Mind you, there are occasions when the level of tasting sessions are so stratospheric that you could envisage the human resource department asking how much an interview candidate would be willing to pay to work there – "The foie gras tasting session was awfully good," murmured André, looking at me sideways to see how I'd take it "And the caviar session was very interesting."
Tineke Storey, Buyer for the fresh food department, which includes cheese, the bakery and the delicatessen, joined us and enthused over her job and the fact that Selfridges is keen to promote from within. She had been working on the delicatessen counter when the Buyer's role came up and she applied for – and got – it. I had already been to the cheese counter and marvelled both at the varieties available and the condition in which it was kept and thought that selling chunks of quince paste at the same counter was an excellent notion. I was only sorry that my timing wasn't quite right to watch the mozzarella being made, although how smart is it that you can buy the stuff still warm and with not only the usual date stamp on it, but the time that day that it was prepared?
On, on.
We carried on talking as we made our way to the Premier Restaurant. Pleased that it was only 1pm, since we happened to be seated directly underneath the immense Selfridge's clock and protected from its chime by only a window, I asked André about his own job.
Being Personal Shopping Manager involves about as much as he can cram in during a longish day. He arrives early to set up the tills, then checks the diaries – one of his responsibilities is the making up of hampers for customers ranging from those who want something elaborate for six to take on a picnic, to those whose tastes he knows so well they can just ask him to send round something nice for supper. People who know will ask for André by name, since he will arrange whatever they want without any apparent difficulty. Discreet to the nth degree, he was very careful about his customers' privacy, although I believe there was an occasion not long ago when someone drew up at the food hall entrance and paid for a few bottles of nice wine with £7,000 in cash and another customer who, having moved here from America, specifically instructed the estate agent that the apartment she wanted must be opposite Selfridges.
We returned to the food hall and I resumed prowling around, this time accompanied by André, who wanted me to try things but a delicious lunch made this an impossibility, until we reached the delicatessen counter, where row upon row of gleaming salamis and haunches of Parma ham made me think I might just squeeze in a sample or two. Wielding a knife with such dexterity it was performance art, Franco started carving Pata Negra, the black-footed, acorn-eating pig that eventually becomes possibly the most delicious air-dried ham known to man; dark, succulent, sweet and streaked with fat. It would have been churlish not to have just a tiny taste. Oh all right, two.
We visited the traiteur section, fresh foods made in-house and all of top-quality ingredients impeccably presented.
We passed through the chocolate department. Several 'boutiques' simply rent space, but Godiva, Valrhona and Leonidas form part of the Selfridges whole and central aisles hold mesmerising amounts of candies and fudges and marshmallow lollipops. Careful to allow for all possible tastes and persuasions, there is a Chantilly outlet here; a Lebanese choclatier selling products guaranteed to be alcohol free.
I chatted to Thomas in the Wines & Spirits department for a while. He knows every bottle on sale and he took time out to show me some of the more esoteric items – including their most expensive bottle of wine, Screaming Eagle '97 from the Napa Valley that costs £2,300 a bottle. And a bottle is what they have. Made in a
vineyard smaller than that of Chateau Petrus, it is unimaginably difficult to get hold of and they don't know when they will get another, so hurry or it will be gone. Failing that, you could pick up a bottle of Saki made from a strain of rice 2,000 years old and costing, by comparison, a mere £500.
Back in the main food hall, André had been spotted by a regular customer who wanted his advice so, leaving him to it, I chatted to two of his assistants at the service desk; charming, professional, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and helpful, they answered my questions in between finding a bottle opener for someone who wanted to drink their Coke immediately, sending a woman off in the right direction for paella rice and keeping a beady eye out for anyone who looked like they might need help.
Things are changing, under the constant quest for improvement. The entire store having been given a thorough and successful overhaul four years ago, departments are always changing to meet the needs of customers – the bakery department is to be re-done, along with the fruit and vegetable section and an eatery is to go into the food hall, along with Wines & Spirits, currently operating autonomously.
The Manchester branch is already up and running and a new store is planned for Birmingham in 2003. When this is completed, André's brief will be to visit each store and instil the London food hall ethic in them.
Lucky Birmingham is all I can say. They have a real treat coming to them.
