Daylesford is probably the most famous farm shop in Britain. A retail heaven of organic gorgeousness on the edge of the Cotswolds, it has grown over the past 10 years into something between a mall and a Japanese temple, selling not just food and produce, but clothing, gardening equipment, homeware, yoga classes and spa treatments. Alex James, who lives nearby, once described it in The Independent as "absolutely ridiculous, fantastic and sexy", and gratefully recorded how Daylesford's gentrifying effect had sent the value of his house rocketing.
Daylesford is much less of a curiosity now than when it first opened and was dismissed as a rich woman's plaything – its founder is eco-chatelaine Lady Bamford, whose husband is the "B" in digger manufacturers JCB. Early visitors would return with incredulous reports of the rural farm shop's exquisite produce and even more exquisite customers, who famously included Liz Hurley and Kate Moss. But it's harder to dismiss Daylesford as an organic folie de grandeur now that it has survived, diversified and expanded – there are two Daylesford cafes in London, as well as various spin-off ranges.
A working farm, Daylesford is easy to distinguish from its Cotswold neighbours. The hedges are more kempt, the golden stone buildings more immaculate, even the grass looks greener. A fleet of black SUVs stands in the car park, surrounded by chatting groups of honey-maned women, holding babies and takeaway cappuccinos. Desirable benches are scattered around, bearing discreet price tags.
The farm shop, with its colour-coded fruit and veg, walk-in cheese room and wet fish counter, is Selfridges food hall in miniature; if this was my local food store, I'd be slobberingly grateful, and a lot less solvent. The original farm shop café was extended last year, and is not just bigger, but apparently much slicker, according to my lunch companion, a designer friend who is a Daylesford regular.
Read more at http://www.independent.co.uk/
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