UK Gourmet proves there is nothing oxymoronic about its name
Fairfield, CT — “The English contribution to world cuisine—the chip,” quipped Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda.
For the average outsider, the term “British gourmet” seems a tad oxymoronic. We’ve never had an accurate depiction of their cuisine, save for the usual Earl Grey and biscuits.
That all changed for me when my new commute took me past UK Gourmet, which straddles the Bethel/Newtown border. This quaint food store shares its home with a hair salon and liquor store and the red and white-striped awnings that adorn the plaza seem out of place, except when they reach UK Gourmet, with its twin British flags.
Owners Lisa and Nigel Whitmore opened the shop in July 2003. They met five years prior while he was visiting the states. He found it difficult to find his native food and faced with a lack of options, they opened their own place.
As you pull in (or lock up, in my case), you see windows showcasing a gift shop of tea kettles and other merchandise. However, you enter (save for the jaundiced-yellow paint on the walls) a region full of pride and strange synonyms for seemingly simple foods.
To the right, from floor to ceiling, is a selection of candy with familiar names like Cadbury, Mars and Nestlé—all of which have British factories. I opted for a Mars Bounty bar ($1.50), the English cousin of Hershey’s Mounds, (it was better) and a Nestlé Yorkie ($1.50), the chunky candy bar whose wrapper announces It’s Not for Girls!
Nearby, wooden shelves topped with fake ivy and roses were stocked with crumpets, scones, biscuits, shortbreads, marmalades, preserves, canned veggies, soups, powdered “steak and ale” sauces, soaps and shampoos and…Heinz beans? “It doesn’t say 57 varieties for nothing,” says Lisa. The company stretched from Pittsburgh to Middlesex back in 1896 and has been operating in the UK ever since. The British version’s ingredients are more simple and healthy.
