Marks and Spencer Can’t Keep Its Sandwiches Out of the Spotlight

Marks and Spencer can’t get its sandwiches out of the spotlight

There was the patent wrongheadedness of the biryani ‘wrap’; there was the whiff of profiteering around the pride sandwich. Whatever Marks and Spencer’s food product development team have been mindmapping, it’s causing a stir, and now a new poll for a “street food-inspired” sandwich range has gone awry. The ‘kebab shop’ sandwich — because all kebab shops are the same, and also called kebab shops — features lamb doner meat, chilli sauce, salad, and the by-now-familiar habit of large supermarkets cherrypicking elements of cuisines and cultures before mashing them together. It has launched a thousand comments, views ranging through nostalgia-tinged / Brexit-invoking laments for “good old cheese and pickle,” people, amazingly, confused by the idea of doner meat with bread, and this gif.

And in other news...

• Gordon Ramsay “WANTS YOU,” for a new primetime BBC show, hosted by Gordon Ramsay.
• Guy Ritchie’s new London pub and restaurant needs to decide whether it’s “Ottolenghi or Mark Hix,” says Fay Maschler.
• Kricket, the “Indian small plates” group which currently has three restaurants in London, could expand to China and India with “International Kricket.” [Propel]
• Leon has announced financial results for 2018 that buck the casual dining downturn, crediting vegetarian dishes for much of its improvement. Sales rose by almost 25 percent. [Big Hospitality]
• Gavin Williamson’s food journey to influencerdom began on Instagram and took in a meal with George Osborne. Now he’s joined the Capitalise Important Words school of captioning in Cornwall. [Instagram]

• Good tweet: