Celeb chefs sell £150 meals for Valentine’s Day that you must cook yourself

27 January 2024 , 20:20

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Michel Roux Jr’s meal kit is £130 for two people - but they must cook the food themselves

Celeb chefs Rick Stein and Michel Roux Jr are flogging “extortionate” £150 mail-order dinners for Valentine’s Day that lovers have to cook themselves.

Rick’s heat-and-eat meal of grilled scallops, steamed lobster and chocolate pavé costs £141 with postage via a posh meal kit delivery app – with the cheapest wine priced at £27 a bottle.

MasterChef favourite Michel’s app offering is saffron and champagne soup, beef Wellington and profiteroles – but diners must fork out £130. In contrast, a lobster, hake and apple tart set menu lunch at Rick’s famous The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall, costs just £30 – and it doesn’t involve any cooking or washing up.

And diners at Michel’s La Gavroche in London – which closed this month after 56 years – were paying £80 each. Former sous chef John Lansdown, 42, called the meal kits “pretentious nonsense”, adding: “It’s probably a mark-up of 90%. If I had a £150-a-couple budget for a meal out, I’d eat somewhere less expensive, independently run, and give the difference to a charity. The food would taste better too.”

Rick Stein's mail-order dinners have been met with mixed reviews (BBC)

Michel, who is a judge on MasterChef, closed La Gavroche in London recently (Channel 4)

Food campaigner Maddy Alexander-Grout said: “I’m sure it’s delicious but £141 for a meal you have to cook when it arrives is extortionate, even when it’s from the kitchen of Rick Stein. You can eat in his restaurants for less. Valentine’s Day is about spending time with the person you love, not how much you can spend on the most extravagant meal.”

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Other posh February 14 dinners on the Dishpatch app include a £104 roast goose dish from Fergus Henderson, of London’s St John restaurant. Dishpatch’s website tells punters: “Have a restaurant experience at home and enjoy a decadent dinner for two, already prepped for easy finishing, from your favourite restaurant. Delivering exclusively for Valentine’s Day and the weekends before and after.”

Reviews are mixed, with one customer telling the firm: “Overall, it’s a pleasant experience. However, it is not optimum. It still might be better to go out and eat as opposed to spending as much on what ultimately isn’t much of an upgrade from a takeaway.”

A reviewer on Trustpilot said of Rick’s lobster meal: “The meal was a triumph, we enjoyed all three courses. Highly recommend.” Valentine offers for romantic folk with more modest wallets include Aldi’s starter, main and dessert meal deal for £10.86 for two with wine, or two courses for £39.90 dining out at Pizza Express or Beefeater.

John Siddle