That Waitrose has signed a partnership with the chef Yotam Ottolenghi might be the least surprising food news since McDonald’s launched a vegan burger, or Noma announced that, actually, no, it won’t be closing at the end of 2025 after all.
The two were made for each other and go together like sausage and mash, fish and chips, or, in Ottolenghi terms, aubergine and black garlic. And it is something to savour: since 2002, Ottolenghi, born to an Italian mother and a German father, raised in Israel and now a British citizen, has been essential to ever-evolving, ever-more adventurous British dining habits.
Ottolenghi started as a pastry chef in high-end restaurants around Knightsbridge and Kensington. Then, around the turn of the millennium, he began a partnership with Palestinian chef Sami Tamimi which saw the pair open an eat-in deli in none-more-Waitrose Notting Hill. That paved the way for endless inventiveness and exploration in the kitchen – and numerous delis, restaurants, cookbooks and TV shows.
I like the way Ottolenghi talks about his philosophy of food: about always looking for the new, about creating “drama in the mouth”, about how you “put delicious things out there and you hope people will see the light”.
Ottolenghi’s food blends Middle Eastern, Levantine, French, Turkish, Italian, and northern African flavours and textures. He helped push the likes of sumac, za’atar and pomegranate molasses into the mainstream. And he has inspired inventiveness in the kitchens of Britain.
So no wonder Waitrose has turned to Ottolenghi, little over a year after severing ties with Heston Blumenthal in what some have suggested was quite a sour break-up. I suppose it shows how food has changed in Britain. Where once consumers looked to the aspirational world of The Fat Duck – which, it has to be said, is one of Britain’s greatest and most historic culinary landmarks – they now step more assuredly towards the comforting and familiar, but with a tangible dose of pizazz.
There is much to be said about snail porridge, but to nab a media term, it didn’t really “cut through”. Do people really want gin-soaked smoked salmon, vanilla mayonnaise or bacon and banana trifle? No, they do not.
No wonder there were murmurings of heavy discontent before the abrupt culmination of the partnership after 12 years. Journalists claimed Waitrose had become disenchanted by Blumenthal’s “unpredictability”. The three-Michelin-star chef is alleged to have said he was pleased the contract, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, had come to an end.
Enter Ottolenghi, a far safer bet. And his safeness is itself monumental: his new range is a sure-fire win when it probably would’ve flopped catastrophically had it been rolled out a decade or two ago.
I can imagine countless apron-wearing suburban types firing up the barbecue and looking happily at any number of Ottolenghi’s new products this summer season. First, marinating steak in green harissa (£5 for a 170g jar), tossing Atlantic prawns through red chilli sauce (£4.50), and adding Ottolenghi’s citrus and spice blend (£3.95 a packet) to a rack of lamb.
There’s a miso pesto, too, and a shawarma marinade, among other items. Each would soundly elevate a salad already running high on mint leaves, toasted seeds and fried strips of juicy halloumi. The gardens of Britain will be all the more aromatic when 2024 finally allows us some sun.
In the inflation-ridden trappings of 2024, it might be easy to scoff at the ultimate supermarket for middle-class types – and it is the ultimate one; M&S is designed for little else than expensive picnics – joining forces with Ottolenghi, who has a column in the Guardian and lives in Regent’s Park.
Personally, I think their getting together is a fine thing. Ottolenghi might be getting close to Jamie Oliver territory here and that’s OK by me. He’s earned it.
And for customers, at least those with a bit of money on their hip, it’s a winner. Who has the time or energy to make a spice paste after work on a Tuesday night? Above all else, Waitrose has played a blinder here.
