Royal Albert Hall catering

[NickWraight]

Chris, Its some time since I walked to the other side of the Albert Memorial! How far is teashop from the Diana Fountain?

The "luggage" that folk take into the Arena, on the Season Ticket side, as long as its of a reasonably small size is rarely questioned: brief cases and similar are fine but rucksacks not - you should see the number of small bits and bobs some litter the floor with! Umbrellas are never questionned, in my experience, and given the weather recently that is just as well. From a purely practical angle the cloakrooms available could not cope with everyone in the Arena using the facility and retrieving stuff afterwards would be eternal.

[Chris Newman]

Nick, I am not sure where the Diana Fountain is. I guess you mean that thing that looks like an unambitious ski-slope that got clogged when the wrong sort of leaves fell .

The Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens opposite the Albert Hall sits in the middle of a paved "square". Coming from the hall keep to the left of the memorial and the tea shop is on the left on the far (north) side of this square. It is about two minutes from the hall if the pedestrian crossing is kind. It does ice creams and cakes, much cheaper than those rip-off vans.

[NickWraight]

Chris, exactly!! Thanks for the info.

[PhilipT]

An update for anyone interested: There was a hot roast dinner (not a carvery - the meat was ready-sliced, so you couldn't ask for 'thick' or 'thin') in the East Arena Foyer Bar last night (Sunday, the Verdi Requiem). It was roast pork, OK but nothing special. But almost all of it had gone by the time the Promming queues were admitted, even though there were plenty of table places laid with cutlery that wasn't going to be used. Also, it wasn't exactly clever of Rhubarb to have only one person behind the bar at the time the queues went in - the crowd at the bar was three deep.

[Mr Pee]

Sorry (in a 'Schadenfreude' sort of way) to hear about the hike in the price of the Mercier. I've only ever paid more than £10 for a bottle of wine on one occasion in my life, and that was to accompany lunch on the occasion of our silver wedding anniversary. Otherwise, it's got to be more than 12% ABV and under £4.50 a bottle - and there's still some pretty satisfying stuff out there if you look out for special offers.

Well, each to their own, but the chances are that on a 4.50 bottle of wine the actual wine cost is going to be about 20p, and it's quite likely that the winemaker will make a loss on the production of it by the time all the other costs have been taken into account. On a 4.00 bottle of wine, duty and vat will be c.2.60, shipping cost about 20p, and the retail mark up about 1.00.


This from the Wine Club:-

For a £4 a bottle, the winemaker loses 1p to grow the grapes, make and bottle the wine. To produce wines on the scale requires the retiailer to cut their margin from 30% to be profitable. It also requires a total focus on costs and producing large volumes of cheap grapes.

At a retail price of £5 a bottle, the winemaker receives around £0.49. This is a huge increase over £4 a bottle. At around £5 the grower can afford to manage the grapes in the yard to a high standard. Generally the fruit concentration is the big improvement by growing fewer grapes on the vines (low yield). You can usually taste this by the flavours lingering for a while after swallowing the wine and some styles start to become weightier in the mouth. This is a great entry point to start drinking well-made wine.

Between £7 & £15 the wine's concentration continues to improve, but also more flavours start to appear. Either through the use of oak barrels (adding 50p / bottle in costs) to impart toasty vanilla flavours, or perhaps the soil where the grapes are grown has unusual minerals that give the wine a unique flavour. Wines at this price point can benefit by ageing, helping develop more unusual flavours. All these extra flavours are said to add complexity to the wine.

Between £15 & £25, greater complexity and concentration are added. The law of diminishing returns is starting to take hold. However the winery will be very well funded and as such in poor years they will have the equipment to help get the most out of the grapes. For example, top châteaux in Bordeaux have reverse osmosis filters that let you to concentrate the fruit even in wet years. They will also have the option to hand pick the grapes, giving careful handling and the ability to select only the best fruit. If poor weather comes at a critical time they will be able to mechanical harvest in a very short time. This means the wine will be of a consistently high standard.

Above £25 a bottle the winemaker is making at least £10 profit per bottle. This is normally more then they need to spend on equipment and labour in producing the wine. Some areas where the hype of the wine has forced land prices up so much that this has lead to the wine costing more. Champagne is a classic example, where the incredible cost of the land has pushed the cost of the grapes (that the Champagne houses buy) so high that a £20 bottle is considered a mid price. A similar price on the white scale would be around £7.

When a winemaker starts making a bottle of wine they will have a target price for the wine in mind. They will then use the techniques that will allow them to get the best wine made at a profit.

Personally, I think it's worth paying a little more and getting a bottle that is at least vaguely drinkable, and the allows the winemaker to earn some sort of decent money for their labours. And as for the supermarket offers, treat with caution. The 50% reductions etc. that litter the shelves of Tesco are often not what they seem.

Still, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

[Lord Mersey]

PhilipT

I assume the cutlery was not plastic?

[PhilipT]

Mr Pee: I agree with much of that, especially the bit about cheap supermarket offers, but my original point, which seems to have got lost, was that Rhubarb are charging £10 a bottle more this year than Leith's were last year for the same wine.

Lord Mersey: Quite right - I couldn't fault the cutlery.

[old khayyam]

Referring upthread a little, is it not the case that the doorpersons take a cursory glance into each and every bag before waving you through? If so, i can see people with deeper bags such as rucksacks getting their refreshments in successfully. I'm sure the security are not allowed to rummage.

[PhilipT]

They certainly did rummage on the First Night. They seemed a little puzzled by the contents of my bag - presumably an Oxford B.A. gown and hood (see the "The First Night - a modest proposal" thread) were outside their experience - but since they weren't what they were looking for they didn't mind.

[Chris Newman]

The prices are clearly putting people off in the restaurants. At the two Proms I have been to the audiences leaving the concerts have been invited through the public address system to come and dine whilst in the intervals the bars looked fairly empty.

[cavatina]

So does anyone have any recommendations for anything from Rhubarb that's actually worth the money? I had a salmon sandwich the other night and it was quite disappointing; I don't think they could have made it any more bland and ordinary if they tried. But then, I like really decadent OTT dishes, so maybe it's just my jaded palate. However, in this case, I really do think less was less, if you know what I mean.

All I know is I better start eating something...I had been fasting in order to heighten my senses and get the most out of the music, but half-fainting on the stairs the other night was quite frightening. Terrifying, really...I'm lucky I didn't break my neck and do myself in. What a wake-up call! Agh.

Oh dear...posting at 2AM again? Better call it a night.

[BudgieJane]

I notice the rules about not eating your own food in the hall are being flouted widely, and the miscreants are being ignored by the stewards. So why are they victimising the regular Prommers, and allowing the day-trippers to do anything they like? Sounds like discrimination to me. Not good. I'm going to have to have a chat with the powers that be about this.

[Lord Mersey]

Standards in the Hall are very variable. I saw two people in the Arena with what appeared to be glass bottles.

[Bryn]

I have attended 4 Proms so far this season. Each time standing in the Arena, and each time entering wearing a 30 litre rucksack. On none of these visits have I been challenged of had my bag searched. It always had food and drink in it, some of which I consumed before the concerts and/or during the interval when there was one. It seems that the most aggressive searching took place on the first night, and some of those subjected to searched and who had food and or drinks stolen (or confiscated as the RAH management would prefer to call it) have since received apologies from said management.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Standards in the Hall are very variable. I saw two people in the Arena with what appeared to be glass bottles.

That's nothing. I stood next to two characters each with a pint of beer at the Halle Prom.