London

The grocery lists of the rich and famished are oddly revealing. London’s great and good have long had urges only the most discerning stores can satisfy, their individual compulsions matters of national importance. Charles Dickens loved ham and pies, Winston Churchill liked a drop of Champagne and Edward VIII often grumbled for kippers and marmalade.

From the mid-1700s, the pleasures of such elevated figures became steadily more dependent on two unlikely men: salty opportunists who set culinary trends and imported exotic goods, showcased surrealist homewares and served knickerbocker glorys the size of small boroughs. Their entrepreneurial knowhow and ballsy confidence soon grew into what is now London’s oldest department store, Fortnum & Mason, Piccadilly, enduring two world wars, riots and looting, as well as witnessing the passage of tonnes of Earl Grey tea and countless wheels of cheese.
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Now, after a year and a half of renovations and rebuilds, Fortnum’s is about to celebrate its 300th birthday. Its history is a little murky, but a few undeniable facts remain. William Fortnum, footman at the court of Queen Anne, and his landlord, Hugh Mason, set up a shifty outfit, selling candle ends from a doorway on Duke Street in 1707. ‘They were the same as a thousand others,’ explains historian Dr Andrea Duncan, the store’s official archivist. ‘They were young men looking to make a quick buck from the aristocracy. They spotted a niche [in that market], as did lots of other people, and there was a huge amount of competition, but most of that competition in 2007 has gone.’

Appointed full-time in 2005, Duncan discovered Fortnum & Mason’s 300 years of history crammed into a single cupboard, wedged in by a mini-fridge in the store’s fifth-floor offices. Filing and cataloguing for the past two years, Duncan is adamant as to why the store has survived: ‘The reason that Fortnum’s is still here is that it has always changed, adapted and innovated. For 300 years.’

It’s strange to think to what extent Fortnum’s – now the dusty old lady of Piccadilly – has been a pioneer of the capital’s consumer culture. Duncan proudly lists a few of the shop’s firsts, which saw it introduce Londoners to a combination of racy designers and daring products, including Zandra Rhodes, Louis Vuitton luggage, the Scotch egg and even Heinz baked beans.

In its very early days, the Fortnum & Mason partnership specialised in more traditional merchandise. From its dodgy candle stall, it developed into a catering company supplying directly to the housekeepers of the local bourgeoisie. The pair of rogues were soon authorities on the most modish exotic goods, including coffee, chocolate and foie gras, using their connections with the East India Tea Company to import exclusive blends. ‘Their clients were people with money who wanted to display taste in the way they dressed, the way they ate and entertained,’ explains Duncan. ‘Fortnum’s partly educated them in that, and partly grew because of that.’

Purely by dint of surviving a number of wars, including the two world wars (the second obliterating the majority of the archive in an air raid), the store developed a tradition of providing army officers with home comforts. Queen Victoria, a fan of Fortnum & Mason, sent Florence Nightingale 250lbs of beef tea for her hospital at Scutari during the Crimean War. People left at home also capitalised on Fortnum’s resources. When rationing hit London, Fortnum & Mason’s regular clientele lodged ration books there, although whispers that the store could procure black market delicacies are still unsubstantiated.

Today, Fortnum's leans heavily on its colourful history, though it has also benefited significantly from the prowess of Hugh Stewart Menzies, the store’s marketing magician who, in the 1920s, brought the notion of frippery to the shop floor with comic gazettes and wry illustrations. A further boost came in 1951, when Garfield Weston, a Canadian food magnate with a modern vision, purchased the shop and quickly installed a trendy perfumery and ladies hairdressers.

In 2007, Fortnum & Mason is content with its niche in the capital: to supply ridiculously British indulgences, from rose-petal jelly or honey created by its own bees (whose hives, currently in Wiltshire, will be installed on the roof next year) to a £20,000 Christmas hamper delivered by horse and carriage. Contemporary celeb fans include Stella McCartney, who takes tea in the famous St James restaurant (reopening October 29), and Giles Deacon who, apparently, is keen on their Scotch eggs. The food hall has an appropriate Oscars-style red carpet and staff, at least on Time Out’s recent visits, are refreshingly knowledgeable and surprisingly friendly – British service at its best.

While its age and peculiar history mark Fortnum & Mason as unique, its relatively intimate size and perfectly tight edit of stock – food counters are small, displaying only the very best selections of meats, cheeses, game and fish – add to an experience other London department store giants could never muster. Even if goose terrine, beluga caviar or jeroboams of Champagne aren’t your cup of tea, 300 years on, it’s still the most impressive place in London to buy your groceries.

Fortnum & Mason, 181 Piccadilly, W1 (0845 300 1707/www.fortnumandmason.co.uk) Piccadilly Circus tube. Open Mon-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat 12noon-6pm.