The deli news

05 October 2001 by
The deli news

New Yorkers take them for granted, but delis have been slow to take off in London. Now, restaurants are opening delis to offer one-stop eating and shopping. Sara Guild checks out a few.

As concepts go, adding a delicatessen or a food shop to a restaurant is not new. Antonio Carluccio added a shop to his Neal Street East restaurant in London 11 years ago, and a year later Sir Terence Conran opened one at Le Pont de la Tour, also in the capital, near Tower Bridge.

A decade later, however, the idea of shopping and eating at the same premises has only just started to catch the British imagination. In the USA, particularly in New York, there's a deli on every block, offering bread and croissants for breakfast, mixed salads for lunch and a little lasagne or fresh pasta for later. One of the best known, Dean and Deluca, offers myriad sauces, breads and fresh foods, as well as serving its products in its own café.

While London can boast world-famous food halls, such as those at Harrods and Fortnum & Mason, the deli idea has been slower to take off.

Priscilla Carluccio, marketing director for Carluccio's, believes that, as more people do their bulk-buying online, food shopping for unusual items will come into its own, paving the way for more delicatessens. "I lived in France and loathed shopping at the large supermarkets," she says, "but I'd do the bulk stuff at one and then go to the markets three times a week, which I loved."

The original Carluccio's, in Neal Street East, started as an Italian restaurant, taking the space next door, when it became available, to open a shop. Now the shop occupies the whole site, and Priscilla and husband Antonio are rolling out café-deli shops. The 122-seat café-deli Carluccio's in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, opened on 7 September and will be followed in November by the chain's fifth outlet in London's Canary Wharf. "We will have six by the end of this year, with plans to roll out five next year," says Priscilla. "It has been designed from the beginning as a series - I hate the word ‘chain'."

The specialist Italian café-delis are laid out so that people walk through the shop and go past the deli counter on their way to the café-restaurant. The idea is for them to eat and shop for food in the same visit.

The shop accounts for one-third of the turnover, compared with two-thirds from the restaurant, although the average spend in the two businesses can be similar. Priscilla estimates that the caf‚s have a £10-£15 average spend per head. "These places need a certain amount of foot traffic and are meant to be busy but without the fuss," she says. "In retailing, you measure success not so much by average spend as return per square foot. Running the two businesses is much more expensive than doing a restaurant on its own - retailing is a completely different animal."

So is it financially viable? Priscilla will say only that the existing three outlets are "extremely successful and profitable", acknowledging that they exceed the 10% net profit on turnover that financially successful restaurants achieve.

There are other differences between the restaurant and shop - for example, wages in retailing account for a much lower percentage of turnover. In a supermarket such as Tesco average wage costs are about 6%, while in catering it is more like 30%. The kitchen hygiene regulations are strict, but so too is the hygiene associated with a deli counter, where food is handled frequently and must be kept at the right temperature.

Priscilla believes that customers like the convenience of shopping and eating in one place. David Loewi, managing director of Conran Restaurants, agrees. "It is about giving the customer the whole eating experience," he says. At Conran Restaurants' Bluebird on London's King's Road, the shop sources fish and meat and produces bakery items for the restaurant, caf‚ and club, all housed on the same site.

Not the core business

Loewi says that this is an advantage, as retail customers can buy the same quality that is used in the restaurant. However, he admits, running a shop is not a restaurateur's core business. "The add-ons to the business are there for the customer," he says. "We do not just do it for financial reasons."

Bluebird is the company's second site with a shop - Le Pont de la Tour was the first - and, although Loewi is reluctant to reveal financial details, he says the company is pleased with the business.

Villandry on the capital's Great Portland Street was once just a food shop, with the restaurant coming later. The original business went into receivership and was bought three years ago by Martha Greene. She says that the ability to use food from the shop in the kitchen, and vice versa, cuts down substantially on wastage. "You might have figs that you can't sell but you can cook with, and so it becomes fig tart," she says.

This is possible, and necessary, partly because of the size of the operation, which includes a 100-cover restaurant, a 3,000sq ft shop and a bar. The restaurant menu changes twice a day to accommodate what is available.

While most operators have the deli in the restaurant or attached to it, one restaurateur has gone for a nearby location. Pascal Aussignac, chef-patron of the 60-seat Club Gascon, opened the 3,227sq ft Comptoir Gascon on London's Charterhouse Street in February. From there, it is only a short walk through Smithfield Market to the restaurant and Cellar Gascon, the wine bar, which opened last year. "We wanted to do this from the beginning, but it was very difficult to do the whole story when we first started," says Aussignac.

Two years spent finding the right site and getting planning permission, as well as an investment of £450,000, were needed to open the deli, which, like Aussignac's cooking, specialises in foods from south-west France. "Londoners are very receptive to new ideas and they like to tell you what they enjoy," he says. "Now, if they like the bread or the crockery in the restaurant, we can send them to Comptoir to buy it."

Comptoir Gascon has a bakery, which supplies the restaurant and Cellar Gascon, situated two doors down from the restaurant in west Smithfield. The shop also prepares the foie gras for which Club Gascon has become famous.

Although average spend in the restaurant is £45-£50 a head, against £15-£20 in the Cellar, Aussignac says that the range in the shop is much larger. Morning customers might spend £2 on bread or croissants, while lunchtime customers can spend £5-£10 on sandwiches, a deli selection or food for the evening.

Aussignac has also found that getting the right staff is as difficult for the retail environment as it is in catering. Christophe Le Tynecez runs the bakery, but Aussignac is still trying to find the right team to build on the 12 he already has at Comptoir.

However, he hopes that his timing is right. "I think people are more sophisticated than 10 years ago about food," he says. "They have been educated by the likes of Conran. Our challenge is to be successful in this location, which is not in the West End, like so many of the other deli-style places."

Deli details

Carluccio's

What: café-deli
Where: Market Place, London; in Fenwicks, Bond Street, London; St Christopher's Place, London; Kingston, Surrey; and due to open in Canary Wharf, London, next month
Who: Priscilla and Antonio Carluccio
Contact: 020 7580 3050

Comptoir Gascon

What: shop, with restaurant and wine bar in nearby west Smithfield
Where: Charterhouse Street, London
Who: Pascal Aussignac and Vincent Labeyrie
Contact: 020 7608 0851

Villandry

What: restaurant, food shop and bar
Where: 170 Great Portland Street, London
Who: Martha Greene
Contact: 020 7631 3131

Bluebird

What: restaurant, café, club and food shop
Where: King's Road, London
Who: Conran Restaurants
Contact: 020 7559 1222

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