For more information and updates see, for now, the Abbey Stores blog and watch this space for an announcement regarding a website for Coombe Bissett Stores.

• French or Italian patisserie
• large and varied music store (like Fopp [God rest its soul])
• a branch of Lush
• real cider pub
• late evening cafe style bar with outdoor provision and chill-out music club

Link: Abbey Stores Blog

3 Fish Row
Mon – Sat 8.30am – 6pm
Sun – 10am – 4pm

A very recent addition to Salisbury is Bird and Carter Delicatessen, housed in a fine timber-frame building on Fish Row, next to Pritchetts the butchers. It is independently run by Joff Bird and Annie Carter. They offer fine chacuterie (cooked and cured meats, English and continental), cheeses, pastries, hand-made cakes, savouries such as olives, pickles, sauces and chutneys, tinned fish (including the sublime Cornish pilchards from Newlyn, Penzance), coffee and all manner of dry deli items, interesting soft drinks, and filled baguettes (beautifully, and more importantly ecologically, wrapped in a peace of food grade wax paper which is biodegradable). They also provide a small catering service.

I like the feel of this deli. Bird and Carter obviously take pride in their food and pride in how they sell it. They are friendly and knowledgeable and obviously care about their shop. It’s pristine, well-lit and well-laid out without being pretentious. I’m looking forward to being introduced to more gastronomic delights and I’m really pleased to see a fresh deli in Salisbury city centre.

If you do live in Salisbury, and can never quite find the time to physically visit the shop – did you know that they deliver for free in the local area. See? No excuses!

See Abbey Stores on Google Maps.

Harnham Road, Salisbury, SP2 8JG

I mentioned East Harnham Deli a few posts back on our walk to Odstock. Here’s a little more about it. Neatly perched just beyond Harnham bridge, it retains its original name on the shop hoarding, ‘A. Hand and Sons’. Outside are blackboards advertising the delicious wares of the deli from sweets and cakes (the best lemon drizzle cake we’ve tasted, they use real lemons and lots of them!) to homemade tarts and pasties. It sells a good selection of ‘dry’ deli foods made by decent companies including pasta, rice, cereals, tinned soup and more.

The real draw of the deli is however its fresh produce, much of it homemade which caters evenly for meat eaters and vegetarians. How wonderful to be able to buy excellent quality chorizo and marinated olives at the same time? Also available are stunning cheeses, fresh locally grown vegetables and fresh bread – the cashew nut bread is particularly good. The cold drinks available are also worthy of mention. They stock almost the whole range of Fentimans botanically brewed drinks including ginger beer, real lemonade and our favourite, danelion and burdock. This place is obviously run by people who love their food and drink and want to run a proper deli – it would be good to find out more about who they are! The fact it is open on Sundays also tells you something of their desire to not just run a shop but provide a service to the community and to visitors passing through.

East Harnham Deli have been nominated for the UKTV Local Food Hero 2006 awards. We wish them the best.

Last Saturday afternoon, after a hard day’s wandering, we finally managed to go into Polly Tearooms rather than walk past wistfully. I ordered a traditional cream tea, consisting of a pot of tea (enough for at least two cups), a sizeable fruit scone (choice of fruit or plain), strawberry jam (choice of strawberry, raspberry, apricot) and clotted cream (or whipped if preferred but why would you?), while my partner-in-tea went for a cream slice (slice is far too diminuative for what it was). As you enter, you can’t stop coveting the array of beautiful cakes and confectionery to choose from: gateaux, meringues, eclairs like you’ve never seen such things. Which one? Which one shall I have?? The tea, although tea-bag was of a high quality and you can buy boxes of it that have smiling ‘Beef-Eaters’ on them (just so there is no doubt about the Englishness of the tea) from the shop. There is also a chocolate factory on the first floor and you can buy the chocolate in the shop among other things like teapots, jams and freshly ground coffee. You can also enjoy Polly’s as a restaurant for light meals but we haven’t done this yet.

A bit of cursory history. The Tearooms have only belonged to Polly since December 2003. Before that it was Snell’s Tea Rooms until it was bought by Sir Brian Mussell. Polly’s older sister, also Polly, is a tea room in Marlborough.

Taking tea at Polly’s is what I can happily describe as pleasant and satisfying. Exchanging slurps of tea with bites of cream and jam has a certain zen to it which I don’t think is equalled by anything other than having a beer after a frustrating day’s work. You feel you are able to sigh in comfort and reflect upon the world with ease. Aaaahhh.

Open Monday to Saturday – 8am – 7pm

There is so much to say about Abbey Stores that I can hardly contain myself to write properly. This has been my fourth attempt to write a review and every time it makes me so desirous to just dash down there to see what new things they might have in, that I never finish what I want to say. Abbey Stores deserves more than one review anyway so for now I shall be content in just saying a fraction of the amazing things I wanted to.

Abbey Stores is everything a good shop should be. In fact, it’s not just a good shop, it’s a magnificent emporium of first-rate food and drink and other useful household things. How is it possible that we can go in and take so long choosing which cider we want to drink and whether to go for bottled or draught take-out (choices in both) with our free-range local sausages and craft cheeses? Is it possible that we will ever get through the range of condiments, sauces and chutneys called (as it should be) Tracklements (made locally in Sherston, Wilts), or ever do without them again?
But more than the produce, which is a good balance of locally sourced items and those yummy things that Britain has no hope of producing in any sensible fashion (olives, salami, etc.), it is the people who run Abbey Stores that makes it a pleasure to shop in. Abbey Stores is run by Penny and Charles, two of the loveliest people we have met in Salisbury, and in fact, ever. Again, we could go on about them and their kindness in sharing so much good information about Salisbury with us, but it would embarrass them and probably make you think that I have consumed too much cider. One example is indicative. Within the first week of moving to Salisbury and discovering Abbey Stores, we couldn’t remember whether they were open on Sundays or not so we telephoned the shop but there was no answer. Content to know then, it was shut we went about our Sunday morning. However, within minutes the phone rang again. It was Charles who had returned the call through 1471. He said they were indeed closed but that he would be happy to open up for us if we needed anything. Nothing more needs to be said.

Both Penny and Charles have succeeded in running the kind of ‘decent local shop’ that many people moan about not having. There is no pretension here. It is good food and drink, not dressed up as gourmet or something for occasions. To shop in Abbey Stores is to not just support a brilliant enterprise and contribute to the local economy, but it is also to make a stand against the increasing ubiquity of the super-giants such as Tesco which not only suck away at your soul but also make you pay for ‘necessities’ you never really wanted in the first place.

Verdict: With Abbey Stores and Salisbury’s Charter Market, we haven’t made our weekly shop in a supermarket for over 3 months. We very occasionally (when the moon is new) go to Waitrose when we’re in need of something particular at short notice.

PS. No, it doesn’t cost a fortune. It is just a matter of choosing how much you value eating decent food and drinking proper drinks while supporting the local economy. We think it’s quite important so we spend accordingly. Without exaggerating, it would be safe to say that we both earn significantly below the current UK average salary. I’ll get off my tall horse now.

[GP:Abbey Stores]