In London, lunch is on the street – 09/22/2023 – Cozinha Bruta

This city, to the surprise of those who cling to lazy clichés, is one of the best gastronomic destinations in the world.

London has a formidable set of restaurants, both in quality and diversity.

You can even find traditional English food, from fried fish to kidney pie. She is there, a little shy, in the middle of the babel of accents and spices that took place in the headquarters of the old empire.

I will use kebab as an example, a specialty from a territory that stretches from Greece to China.

In a week in London, I’ve already eaten Iraqi, Indian and Turkish kebab. In the streets and markets, I saw Cypriot, Afghan, Sri Lankan, Lebanese, Greek, Persian, Turkish-German (the Berlin döner kebab) and even Uighur kebab.

Anyway, you can eat anything in London. As long as you have time and money, concepts that often merge.

Eating in London can be cheap or very expensive.

It’s cheap to buy food at the supermarket. The great ingredients often cost less than their counterparts in Brazil.

Restaurants, in turn, always hurt your pocket. Even for those who receive a salary in pounds sterling.

The result of this is a crowd having lunch on the street.

Around noon, restaurants are relatively empty. In coffee shops and markets, queues form to buy cold sandwiches, snacks, chocolate bars and sweet drinks.

A combo of sandwich, drink and sweet costs five pounds (R$35) at Sainsbury’s, one of the British retail chains. In family eateries, a kebab costs no less than seven pounds (R$49), all by itself.

This, to be clear, in the takeaway modality – for travel.

Restaurants and cafes, like planes, trains and society, have distinct classes in the United Kingdom.

The salon offers table service and charges higher prices; The takeaway, usually a small door adjacent to the main operation, facing the street, has a reduced menu and more affordable prices.

“Takeout” should be taken literally here in London.

There must be someone who brings the food to eat at home, with dishes, cutlery and a sink to brush their teeth. What is visible, however, is the masses eating lunch on the go (out of sight, there are also office lunches).

Activities are not interrupted. Between a bite and a sip, the Londoner walks, talks on the phone, checks social media, participates in remote meetings, gets rained on, gets windy, gets cold, pedals his bike impassively.

Of course, the phenomenon cannot be entirely attributed to the price of restaurants, nor is it exclusively English – American films are full of scenes of people eating on the street or at work.

It is the old estrangement that opposes Latins and Germans, people who work to live and people who live to work, the meal as a social event and physiological need.

The lunch that comes out walking down the street is appalling. But we end up doing the same thing. That’s what can be done.

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