The sandwich chain now has 274 branches in the capital. How did it grow so huge – and can anything stop it getting even bigger?

At 93-95 Victoria Street, Westminster, a blue plaque marks a piece of London history: the first ever branch of Pret a Manger opened on this spot on 22 July 1986. Nearly 40 years later, it is still going strong.

It’s a nice story – but it’s not the whole story. Look closer and the plaque states that the first Pret sandwich shop opened “near here”. In fact, it was down the road, at 75b, now a branch of Toni & Guy. Except … that wasn’t the first shop, either. The original Pret opened two years earlier and five miles to the north, in Hampstead. It went bust after a year and the founder, Jeffrey Hyman, sold the name, branding and logo to Julian Metcalfe and Sinclair Beecham, who reopened in Westminster.

While anyone can roast a potato, achieving perfectly crisp-skinned, buttery-fleshed deliciousness requires a little more thought …

When I pitched the idea for today’s column, my editor’s response was underwhelming to say the least. “Is that even a recipe?” he asked, which is exactly the attitude that inspired me in the first place. Often the simplest dishes feel in the least need of an actual recipe, yet surely I can’t be alone in thinking that the leathery, greasy roast new potatoes that turn up so often on tables at this time of year show some room for improvement.

I used to be of Jane Grigson’s opinion that “new potatoes should either be steamed or put into boiling water with sprigs of mint” – after all, they’re so good, and their season so short, from April to August, why meddle with perfection? But, having recently enjoyed crisp-skinned, buttery- fleshed beauties from a restaurant oven, I’d like to add them to my repertoire, too. While anyone can roast a potato, doing it proper justice clearly requires a little more thought.

Two rice dishes from the Gulf: bottom-of-the-pot chicken and rice, AKA fega’ata, and a side or main of tomato, potato and saffron rice

The Gulf countries are known for their elaborate rice dishes, many of them inverted, so the bottom becomes the top and the top the bottom. Some of the best and most traditional ones are cooked over charcoal and palm wood in deep underground fire pits, so the smokiness takes over every grain. That isn’t practical in most homes, but I like to think we can still produce the most wonderful rice dishes with just simple ingredients and a lot of love.

Data says 34% of those in US stopped purchasing breakfast staple and won’t buy again until costs lower to $5 a carton

As egg prices have reached record highs, about a third of American consumers have stopped buying them in response to the rising costs, a new study suggests.

According to research from Clarify Capital, 34% of Americans have stopped purchasing eggs as prices for the breakfast staple are becoming less affordable. On average, these consumers say they won’t begin buying eggs again until costs come down to $5 or less for a carton.

A champion of transforming food waste, the cookbook author shares ingenious ways to use leftover fruit and veg to create flavourful condiments

(Pictured above)

This versatile spice has long outgrown its Spanish and Hungarian roots to bring richness, warmth, colour and flavour to a host of dishes

Sweet, smoked, hot … What’s the difference between the various paprikas? And are there any substitutes?
“Paprika brings warmth, it brings colour and it brings another layer of flavour,” says Monika Linton, founder of Brindisa. “Even just a sprinkling over goat’s cheese on toast, hummus or any kind of dip, along with a bit of olive oil, will bring it to life.” Crucial to both Spanish and Hungarian cuisines, paprika is made by drying peppers (generally speaking, Hungarian varieties are air-dried whereas the Spanish stuff is smoke-dried) and grinding them to a fine powder. The taste, meanwhile, depends on the variety of pepper used, although, as Linton points out, not all tins of paprika specify that.

“Paprika brings a certain richness,” says Jeremy Salamon, author of Second Generation and chef/owner of Hungarian restaurant Agi’s Counter in New York. “It has this unique, vegetal, unripe fruit-like quality, and lends itself in different ways to different dishes.” While he generally has sweet (“to use as a flavour base to build on with other spices”) and smoked (“to whip into butters”) to hand, hot paprika always comes out tops: “I like the kick it adds, so I’ll use it in chicken paprikash or in a pimento cheese dip.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

The contrast of hot, sticky chilli with the sweet, ripe mango and tomatoes is extraordinary

Thinly slice 2 large tomatoes – I use beefsteak – and put them in a mixing bowl. Scrub, peel and very thinly slice a couple of small beetroot (a golden or candy-stripe variety is a colourful addition, but any sweet beet will do). Add to the bowl with the tomato.

Peel 1 medium-sized, ripe mango. Cut thin slices of flesh from each side of the stone and add them to the mixing bowl. Squeeze the fruit in your fist into the bowl to extract as much juice as possible, then discard the stone.

I like to eat this as soon as it is dressed, to get the mixture of hot, cold, sweet and sour.

In hot weather, I have been known to swap the beetroot for cucumber, peeled and thickly sliced and, on occasions, have tossed in a few cooked prawns and a big handful of coriander.

While other diet fads come and go, the ultra low carbohydrate Keto diet seems to endure. But as scientists begin to understand how the diet works, more is also being discovered about its risks. To find out more, Madeleine Finlay speaks to Javier Gonzalez, professor in the department of health at the University of Bath, with a special interest in personal nutrition. He explains how the diet works, what it could be doing to our bodies and what could really be behind the weight loss people experience while on it

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Light, bright and sustaining: warming ginger and the richness of peanut butter and coconut milk make this an ideal soup for spring

This is the perfect transitional soup. I often make it without the crab, because it’s economical enough that you could have it on a weeknight with enough left over for lunchboxes the next day. But if you’re having friends over, or just fancy a treat, the flavour of the soup works beautifully with the crab – you could even use tinned crab, too.

With a splash of white wine and a dash of balsamic, any good meaty sausages will do nicely in this simple but mouthwatering dish

From Tuesday to Saturday, Andrea Legri makes approximately three kilos of sausage a day for his stall on Testaccio market. At about nine on any given morning, he may well be in the back section of the stall, which is visible through glass, his hands steadying the tabletop machine that feeds the minced pork into opaque casings. If ordered in advance, Andrea will also prepare sausages al punto di coltello (point of the knife) – that is, the meat cut by hand, which, paradoxically, manhandles it less and makes a colossal difference, producing a juicier, chewier sausage. One customer, who has been a regular for decades and with whom I am on dog-walking-nodding terms, quite regularly orders 3kg of hand-cut sausages for his family.

Andrea is a third-generation butcher: his grandfather took on the stall in the late 1950s, when Testaccio was still a slaughterhouse district, and passed it on to his son, Franco, who was later assisted by his own son, Alessandro, Andrea’s brother. While Andrea grew up around the stall, skill and trade, and worked there at weekends from the age of 18, he trained as a mechanic. Everything changed in 2018, though, when Franco, a central figure at the market, passed away, and the brothers reorganised: Alessandro took on a role at another butcher, and Andrea, who had just turned 30, took over the stall. Also in the back section, above the ventilator, is a small frame containing family photos, while on the worktop is a recipe book titled Il Macellaio di Roma Capitale Suggerisce (A Butcher of Rome Suggests), which includes Franco’s recipes and was produced by the guild of butchers in the early 1980s, with all profits going to families in need.

Solo dining is a sign of unhappiness, a new report claims. I’ll tell you why I think that’s nonsense – but please don’t pull up a chair

I once told a colleague that I was going to Amsterdam on a solo trip to wine and dine alone. “Do you not have any friends to go with?” she replied. She was joking, but I think she also meant it. Her comment was tinged with pity. Why would you choose to eat a three-course meal with a good view or order room service in a nice hotel on your own? What’s the point? Wouldn’t you want to share that with someone?

Eating alone often gets a bad rap. It’s getting an even worse rap now that the World Happiness Report moved Americans down the ranking in part because they are, apparently, eating alone too much. The picture doesn’t look good: too many people have no one to eat with, they lack community, and are clearly rather isolated and lonely. Community is incredibly important – especially now, when the world feels increasingly unstable and unpredictable. We all know that at the end of your life you will think about the people you love and how you spent time with them. Sharing a meal, especially in candlelight, is an intimate experience and makes us feel closer to one another. Historically, people gathered around open campfires – it was around these flickering flames that we first learned to share stories.

Emma Gannon is an author and journalist. Her latest book is Table for One

As a controversial list of rules for eating out does the rounds, here is my unsparing list of commandments for eating in

“You’ll never eat a good meal in a restaurant that puts caviar on scrambled eggs”; “Your dining companions should have a say in what you order”; “There is nothing wrong with making multiple reservations for the same evening and then cancelling them.” The Financial Times asked its food writers to produce a set of commandments for restaurant dining, which were reviewed by industry experts (and, erm, Brooklyn Beckham). The experts were not impressed: “The dumbest thing I’ve ever heard”; “Over my cold dead body”; “This is not just a bad rule, it’s an act of terrorism.”

Although entertaining, I’m not sure how useful this is at the moment. Have you seen how expensive eating out is now? When a fancy croissant costs £6 – in York! – most of us aren’t wondering whether or not a seven-course tasting menu is likely to deliver on its promises. We’re mostly eating in these days, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t rules to argue over. Here are mine – I expect, and hope, you’ll disagree.

Spicy noodles and delicate dessert for these see-saw days

In tune with the changeable weather, dinners this week have veered between substantial winter casseroles and lighter, more uplifting dishes. A typical dinner was one of a spicy noodle dish glowing red with chilli followed by a pale and gently flavoured panna cotta. A sort of whip-and-kiss effect that followed that of the week’s see-saw between icy mornings and blissful afternoons with the sun on our backs.

I used two hits of chilli for the noodles – a thick, brick-red Korean paste in which to toss the strings of noodles hot from their steaming water and then flakes of dried chilli added to the breadcrumbs I used to finish the dish. A double hit of chilli, but still producing an effect that was warm and aromatic, rather than blow-your-socks-off hot.

The common cooking ingredient has sparked fierce debate since the US health secretary urged people to avoid it

It’s curious that something so bland could cause so much controversy. Most of us have a bottle of seed oil, normally called vegetable oil in the UK, in our kitchens – a nearly tasteless but very useful fat that has been a commonplace cooking ingredient for decades.

And yet this previously unremarkable golden liquid has sparked online furore and vicious debate. Nutrition influencers on social media have described it as “toxic”, “inflammatory”, “unnatural” and the root cause of the obesity epidemic.

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