The big takeaway: the lengths Londoners go to to get the best food to-go

Not in the catchment area? Londoners will lie about their address to get the best food to-go delivered, says Rosamund Urwin
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11 April 2014

It's Friday night in Camberwell and there’s a run on the local kebab shop. Actually, calling FM Mangal a kebabby does it a disservice: this place — loved by Jay Rayner — dispenses salty, juicy, meaty joy in a wrap, with a sauce so delicious you’ll lick it off your fingers. South Londoners will queue for an hour for an FM Mangal.

Across town a swarm of hipsters descend on the Spital Square branch of Itsu. With half an hour to go before closing-time, all the sushi is slashed to half-price and locals clock-watch for the moment they can raid the shelves before heading home.

But these are not the greatest lengths Londoners will go to for a top takeaway. Curry-lovers have been known to drive for 20 minutes to The Tiffin Tin for a “guilt-free” Indian that comes Giles Coren-approved. A friend tells me she often walks to a street corner just inside the area where her favourite Chinese will deliver. Another jokes that young foodies are almost as obsessed with the “catchment areas” of premier takeaway venues as parents are with schools — though no stats yet show whether living near a Franco Manca has the same price-boosting properties as a top comprehensive.

The takeaway has taken over. No longer the preserve of smashed students and the culinarily challenged, tin foil trays can now be seen in the hands of the foodies who would swap their own kidney for a free meal at Dabbous. In the UK, the takeaway industry is now worth £29.4 billion. It’s so vast it has its own Expo.

Just Eat, which had its London Stock Exchange debut earlier this month, is one of the biggest beneficiaries of this growth. The takeaway aggregator, started by five Danes 13 years ago, links diners to restaurants and takes around a 10 per cent cut on orders. You may recognise the name from its ads in which an actor mourning the decline of his career encourages the shredding of cookery books in a fake Italian accent.

Just Eat was valued at £1.5 billion when it floated — a sum City scribblers thought seemed steep and its shares fell below the listing price this week. Rivals include the more upmarket Delivery Hero (Hungry House in the UK) and the even posher Deliveroo. All three are stealing market share from the paper menus that drop through your letterbox.

Perhaps the biggest change in London is the quality of the food on offer. Obviously, there’s still a Domino’s on every high street, but ever more fashionable restaurants have branched out into takeaway.

Kimchee, the South Korean restaurant in Holborn, offers noodle soups to go, Wahaca lets you take its street food straight to your sofa and you can collect a roast from Canteen too. Dishoom, which has brought the Bombay café to London, offers daytime takeaways for collection — its bacon naan roll is said to be the ultimate hangover cure.

“People kept asking us about it so we figured out a way to make it work,” says co-founder Shamil Thakrar. “We’ve helped many a nearby office survive the morning after the night before.”

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Katy Riddle, director of food consultancy Market Fresh Communications, says: “The big split is between places doing the healthy thing like Pho and those selling pizza with burgers in the crust. High-quality restaurants have realised that the demand is there but logistically, it can be difficult. Takeaway demands a different mentality from running a restaurant.”

Predictably, places around Canary Wharf and the Square Mile are big on “to go” dishes to accommodate financiers. As if they hadn’t been amply rewarded with bail-outs, they’ve just scored a new Patty & Bun, which will open opposite London’s busiest McDonald’s on Liverpool Street next Tuesday. Apparently, the founders have gone long on location, short on seats — suggesting it’s all about chasing the takeaway market.

On the delivery front, stand-outs include Pizza Lupa (with branches in London Bridge, Canary Wharf and Crouch End), Fulham’s Chosen Bun (which allows you to enjoy our burgeropolis without leaving the sofa) and Hackney’s Bombay Munch.

In this way, London is becoming more like New York, where Carrie Bradshaw’s quip about using her oven for storage reflected a city that either eats out or orders in but rarely sautés for itself. Good intentions to cook for the whole week — strong on a Sunday night — give way to a “can’t we just get take-away” tiredness come Thursday. In a city of the time-poor, cooking gets delegated and the capital’s hot dining scene is now seen in tin foil trays as well as on posh plates. So London: let’s order in tonight — mine’s a lamb kebab with chilli and garlic sauce.

TAKEAWAY ETIQUETTE

EAT OUTSIDE THE BOX

Even if you’re slumming it with some MSG-infused sweet and sour chicken, put it on a plate. Cutlery is not optional either, but don’t attempt the chopsticks challenge lest you drop some beansprouts down the back of your sofa and spend the next month wondering why your flat smells of eau de rotting veg. Pizza is the exception to the plate and cutlery rule: a calzone is a definite box and hand job.

HERE’S ONE SOMEONE ELSE MADE EARLIER

Serving takeaway at a dinner party is a no-no no more. Even Debrett’s, the toff-adviser, reckons it’s okay to offer guests a delivered feast. Frankly, if you host the kind of dinner parties where your friends leave whispering, “Well, the company was great, but next time, let’s eat before”, then order in every time. At least that way no one spends the rest of the weekend hugging the lavatory bowl. And don’t pass off Just Falafs’ efforts as your own — unless you want to keep up the farce by dirtying saucepans and spoons.

SHARE, DON’T SNARE

As a regular sufferer from dish envy (the awful moment where the food arrives and your meal is four forkfuls of some sad, undercooked animal while your dining companion has a mountain of truffle risotto), I’m a big believer in sharing. This is especially true for takeaways. No one likes a meal grinch who guards their food with a fork. Order for the group and divvy each dish up between you (allergy-sufferers excepting).

LEFTOVERS

Cold pizza is a perfectly acceptable breakfast option. Re-warmed curry too. However, if you should wake up having brought a kebab to bed, with the meat and sauce having oozed all over your boozed-up, somnolent body, the remains are definitely not for hungover consumption.

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