The Deli Warehouse; ‘just a posh Costco’

Harvey & Brockless is a huge company who supply restaurant quality foods like cheeses, meats, chutneys, oils, antipasti to most of the 5-star hotels and Michelin restaurants in the UK. They also supply all the big names you can think of with their premium goods. The Ivy, the Soho House group, Premiership football stadiums, airlines, Pret, Nandos, León, all make use of Harvey & Brockless. So, this warehouse in central London is vital for getting the goods to where they need to go and keeping the hospitality industry happily ticking over… But it’s also an absolute must visit if you’re hosting a dinner party, large event or just want to stock up on some high quality stuff for your cupboards.

Deke has been in charge of the Harvey & Brockless offshoot in Battersea since March 2020. For a lot of its life this huge, refrigerated warehouse went under the radar because it was just for trade businesses. Then Covid struck and supermarkets were out of stock of literally everything and people turned to local stores for their essentials. At that time the warehouse lost a lot of their big customers, for obvious lockdown related reasons, so they saw the gap and opened their doors to the public for the first time ever, and The Deli Warehouse was born. It was then that many of the lucky souls living around The Deli Warehouse found this hidden gem. During those days, Deke would see as many as 200 people through his doors per day and, though things have settled a little, there’s certainly still an appetite for this ‘posh Costco’.

It’s because of a few reasons. First off, the quality is terrific. The truffle oils, the cheeses, that Scottish smoked salmon! It’s all premium and you’ll find a lot of ingredients that wouldn’t see your local Waitrose. Lots of the products are in big quantities because they’re used to selling in bulk to big companies, but the quantity doesn’t affect the quality. As we said: posh Costco. Secondly, the food that they sell there is at insane prices. Hunks of parmesan that are 50% of the price (per gram) that you’d find in a supermarket. Tins of Spanish Gordal olives that could feed 5 dinner parties worth of friends for a fraction of what you’d usually find. Speciality cheeses that you’d pay an arm and a leg for anywhere else. It’s all wholesale costs (or cheaper if you snag a deal!) so you’ll be getting this really, really proper produce for extremely reasonable prices.

And finally, it’s the experience. Visiting The Deli Warehouse is a fun activity- who doesn’t love browsing whopping wheels of cheese or litres of alphonso mango puree? Plus, you get to walk around in a huge fridge wearing a high-vis vest and a hair net. If that’s not a good time, we don’t know what is. And then there’s Deke himself. His knowledge, enthusiasm and friendliness make The Deli Warehouse truly unique. He’ll show you round, he’ll tell you about his favourite products and how to use or store them and he’ll probably be getting WhatsApp’s from regular customers checking if their order is ready to pick up whilst he is at it. He’s a community player and it’s places like this that make us see there was a little bit of good that came out from all the bad of Covid.So go to this posh Costco for your tasty treats and bring an empty bottle and fill up with wine. But also go to enjoy the experience and chat to Deke. Tell him we say hi whilst you’re there.

P.S: BRING SOMETHING WARM TO WEAR AS IT’S A REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE!
The Deli Warehouse is open from 10am-5pm, Wednesday-Saturday and is located at 15 Linford Street, SW8 4UP