Food on a Friday: Bistro Greggs at Fenwick/Greggs Champagne Bar
Murray Chalmers goes for champagne and Greggs pasties in Fenwick - what could possibly go wrong?
Newcastle is one of my favourite cities in the UK and Fenwick – that venerable Grace Brothers of Glam – is that most wonderful of department stores, shining like a shard-like beacon of unbridled consumerism in the city centre.
Founded in 1882 by John James Fenwick, the Newcastle mothership remains an ultra- glamorous destination, hugely enhanced at this time of year by the excellent Christmas window displays - an attraction in themselves before you even enter the hallowed perfume halls, so white and sparkling you half-expect to find the Clockwork Orange Droogs lurking behind the Chanel counter offering you a little more than a spritz of No 5.
Fenwick Newcastle is that rare thing – a department store outside London that doesn’t seem at all provincial.
Some smart minds are definitely at work here, especially in everything food-related, as evidenced by an enjoyable late summer visit to the inspired pop-up run by the venerable Hjem team, bringing Michelin-starred food to we, the masses.
Laden with joyful things
Fenwick’s food hall itself groans with joyful things, the provenance of much of it either local, esoteric, or both.
For those used to London prices, the chocolate counter will make you forget Zoe, Mounjaro and impending diabetes, with all negative thoughts lost in a reverie of cacao-inspired delight - and so bloody cheap!
When Fenwick announced a Christmas collaboration with Greggs (a company also formed in Newcastle) it took us about five minutes to book the train, which is about the same time it usually takes me to eat a Greggs pasty or to down a glass of champagne, both of which anchor the amusing concept at work here.
If ever a marketing idea was to become a reality, then a champagne bar selling Greggs pasties could only really have been dreamed up in the boardroom of Fenwick in Newcastle, a city that knows how to party like its forever 1999, even on a wet Tuesday in December.
Frugality and glamour
Sticking with the concept of mixing frugality with glamour we opted to stay in the Premier Inn on the Quayside, where some rooms have a great view of the Tyne and its bridges.
The hotel itself was dirt cheap, which seemed only fitting when the view from our window was obscured by such a veneer of grime that we could barely see the street- lights outside, let alone Gateshead, just over the river.
Visually, the Greggs Champagne Bar at Fenwick fits the bill of a glamorous cocktail bar, however ersatz that concept has become – seats arranged around a counter, slightly over-harsh lighting, Cerulean blue walls – less Breakfast at Tiffany’s and more nocturnal Nightcap at Nando’s - and a sort of informality that comes from trying to impose a rigorous booking system whilst seemingly not having a clue who is expected when.
Our names didn’t seem to be on the list for our 1pm reservation, and when the closest approximation seemed to be some random woman’s name which neither of us two guys could possibly live up to, we were told just to sit down anyway.
It’s just a booking, really
Normally I wouldn’t mention something as prosaic as this, but we had already been asked to confirm our reservation earlier that day, whilst being reminded that each booking was for an hour – making any faff over reservations a bit of a pain, especially in a place seating such few people.
This mild comedy of errors was to sum up what turned out to be a fascinating, if frustrating, experience.
We ordered champagne and pasties – what else? – and both were as quintessentially good as champagne and pasties taken together can be.
Our bottle of Gremillet champagne was £55 (£15 per glass) which seemed a reasonable mark-up from the £32 it would have cost us 20 steps away in the food hall.
Food is all around the £4.50 mark, including two festive specials – a festive bake with Brussel sprout kimchi, and its vegan sister.
There are no desserts but there are a selection of cocktails including a Yum Yum Twist and The Return of the Iconic ‘Pink Jammie Fizz’ by Mother Mercy (both £11).
In truth, I didn’t feel any alchemical gustatory response to the pairing of champagne and pasty but I certainly felt a physical one – as the champagne flowed deeper and the ballast of the pasties sunk increasingly lower within me, I felt that sense of deep joy that only drinking at lunchtime, talking bollocks and eating pasties can bring.
Untroubled by service
However any sense of getting this party started remained damningly out of reach when it became obvious that the counter upon which we ate was the equivalent of the velvet rope at a nightclub – and we were on the wrong side.
It has to be said that I haven’t encountered service this untroubled by any desire to provide, um, service, for a long, long time.
From the moment our server asked if we wanted ice IN the champagne to the moment we gathered our coats and left, this was an example of how transactional some dining experiences can be.
Sitting at the counter watching the jollity behind the bartop, we felt very much like bit parts in someone else’s play.
I wish I could tell you how funny the banter was - in the way that some restaurant staff effortlessly engender a feeling of us all having a nice experience together – but for that to have happened we would have had to feel included.
And none of the customers actually were, except perhaps the food vlogger at the end who seemed at least to get some engagement.
A perfunctory tick
This isn’t to say we didn’t have a very nice time here. The food was fine and I admired the chutzpah of offering kimchi as a gut soothing counter-attack to the acid reflux punk rock rush of lunchtime champagne, and the surroundings were also fine – it’s just I absolutely hate being made to feel like a number, something to be processed, a tick on a spreadsheet.
It’s interesting here that service is added automatically because the truth is, had we been able to choose, we probably wouldn’t have tipped (I have to say something has to be strikingly off kilter for me not to tip).
We left without a trace
As it was, we gathered our belongings and left without trace – just as we had arrived and then existed without trace throughout a lunch that seemed to be a party for the staff to which customers were cordially uninvited. Ho ho ho indeed!
I’m at an age now where a rare bout of lunchtime drinking means the hangover kicks in almost before you’ve left the restaurant.
And much as we came to praise the enterprise and frivolity of this camp theme, the taste of the champagne wasn’t the only sour element of the whole experience, which can be summed up by an early exchange with our server.
Me: “What’s in the festive special?”
Server: “I don’t know.”
There were eight things on this menu in total, six of them completely self- explanatory. Just how hard can it be to learn the two specials, especially when both are billed as being festive?
My advice? Go here for the experience but go to the pub first to take the edge off your expectations.
Or simply grab a decent bottle of Crémant from the supermarket, a bag of goodies from a regular Greggs and settle down at home with ‘Casablanca’. Now that’s true glamour!
Bistro Gregg at Fenwick, 39 Northumberland St, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 7AS. T: 0191 232 5100. www.fenwick.co.uk
All Scots Ink reviews are based on anonymous visits to restaurants/cafes and paid for by the reviewer.
Am I the only person in the UK who hasn't actually been in a Greggs?
Thanks for sharing and sounds like a strange mixture of venue and service.