The decline of British food culture

How does a stall that has dished out jacket potatoes to Preston’s market goers since Winston Churchill was Prime Minister become a national restaurant empire? By going viral on TikTok, of course. 

You might never have heard of SpudBros. But MrBeast, Logan Paul and KSI — men with almost a billion social media followers between them — have all been filmed chowing down on their tuberous delights.

For the two brothers behind the brand, this exposure has paid off handsomely. Their stores go through 2,000 potatoes a day. Fans travel from Plymouth to sample jackets topped with a nausea-inducing blend of garlic butter, baked beans, cheese and tuna mayo. Three hundred miles to eat a dinner lady’s nightmare request — just let that sink in. 

They recently opened a shiny new flagship store in Mayfair. In three years’ time, a franchise agreement means there’ll be 30 spud sellers across the country.

SpudBros’s success is emblematic of our brave new online-first culture, but its real-world consequences are profound. As businesses built for social media spread through our towns and cities, regional restaurants that spent decades honing their craft have to turn out the lights. 

Late last month, Simpsons — a Birmingham institution that held a Michelin star for 27 years — suddenly closed, and even the spoils of Manchesterism weren’t enough to keep Puccini or TNQ afloat.

The Great British dining public must shoulder a great deal of blame. Older generations are already pontificating on the loss of their favourite restaurants, echoing the lectures on the tragedy of disappearing pubs they’ve bored us with for years. The truth is that when small businesses needed their support, they preferred to sit at home, supping supermarket sauvignon blanc and eating Charlie Bingham’s lasagna. 

Hard-up Millennials and Gen Zers can’t be criticised for not routinely splashing out on Michelin meals. Yet I can’t help wondering if things could have been different if algorithms dished out content on the skill of stopping a Béarnaise sauce splitting or the patience it takes to cook a perfectly tender piece of meat, instead of feeding us a steady diet of fat blokes shoving burgers down their throats.

One slap-up dinner costs the same as three or four viral bits of street food. Saving up for something better, something longer, is an option, but instant gratification is the order of the day. Modern food influencers are easy to imitate; that’s their allure. Most of us can afford the latest taco that “Eating with Tod” is paid to drool over. Cutting back on Deliveroo so we can afford a trip to a quality restaurant requires a discipline we no longer possess.

 These are long-term, societal trends. We are all responsible for letting big tech take hold of our lives. But this government, and its reverse Midas touch, has made everything worse. Even restaurants like Simpsons, with ironclad local reputations and loyal customer bases, couldn’t withstand the perfect storm they’ve unleashed on the restaurant industry.  

Outside of a London that’s still awash with foreign cash, increases in employers’ National Insurance contributions and the minimum wage have made running hospitality businesses that depend on skilled staff economically unviable. It takes time to serve great food: techniques must be mastered, recipes meticulously honed. 

After Brexit, there isn’t a pool of oven-ready foreign labour to do this. Restaurants have to train their own staff, an expensive, time-consuming process. As I witnessed growing up above a Michelin-starred pub, for every one who makes it, another three or four fall by the wayside. 

Spiralling wage bills leave restaurateurs with an unenviable choice: join a race to the bottom or pass costs on to customers. When costs are cut, customers get a worse product — cheaper ingredients, slower service, no sense of luxury — and they don’t come back. If costs are passed on, they’ll stay at home. Either way, great restaurants close. 

What survives them are joyless, identikit franchises — cheap to run, serving beige food that’s sexed-up for our screens. Banging a jacket potato in the oven and slathering it in baked beans takes no skill, talent or time. But that doesn’t matter as long as the melted cheese looks great on Instagram.

Food is part of what makes areas unique

SpudBros is just one example. Last year, American fried chicken giants Popeyes opened restaurants at a rate of almost one a week; their rivals Wingstop have been the Sunday Times’s fastest growing restaurant operator for four years on the trot.

Food is part of what makes areas unique. When we think of Lancashire, we think of hotpot, Eccles cakes and black pudding; Yorkshire of roast beef, parkin, and Wensleydale. These aren’t pieces of content to capture; they are a region’s history, its collective memory. The fact that we’re replacing them with fried chicken sandwiches is an absolute travesty.

Big businesses’ press releases trumpet the money they bring to an area, the thousands of jobs they create. But not all jobs are equal. Working in a great restaurant is a vehicle for social mobility, giving young people who don’t see their future in a classroom a chance to learn a skill for life and make a fantastic living. 

A young man who started out washing up at my parents’ pub is now Head Chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant. When he turned up, I was studying for my A-Levels, looking forward to university and the riches of a professional career: he’ll make a better living as a great cook than I ever will working in an office. I don’t think many people who embark upon a career frying frozen chicken can say the same.

When a great restaurant closes, these are the people who suffer most. Restaurants like Simpsons were training grounds for hundreds of professionals, they gave areas culinary identities, tourists a reason to visit, ordinary families a place to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and graduations. 

A simple solution to these ills exists: the public being willing to pay more for food that’s made with love, attention, and local ingredients. Sadly, this is a pipe dream. The algorithms will keep force-feeding us the newest must-visit spots, the biggest burgers, the dirtiest pizzas, and the hottest chicken wings. Longevity and quality are irrelevant in the short-form video era.

Regional institutions take decades to build, and they will take decades to replace

Andy Burnham’s call to cut VAT for restaurants to 10 per cent could be the next best thing. As my father liked to quip, “This would be a f***ing good business if it wasn’t for VAT,” and rates on the continent are half as high as in Britain.  

Unfortunately for the King of the North, the damage has already been done. Regional institutions take decades to build, and they will take decades to replace. By the time his Adidas Gazelles are under the desk at Downing Street, more independent restaurants will have closed, and Britain’s food culture will be further down the road to a franchised future where every town tastes the same.