A desk of the Journal

Table desk

The Table desk takes in the kitchen and what passes through it. Cookware and crockery, tea and chocolate, recipe boxes and vegetable deliveries. We look for the gap between the lifestyle photography and the actual product, which is sometimes small and sometimes not.

Whittard of Chelsea, read closely: excellent loose tea, a promise you must collect in person
A proper loose-leaf merchant with a sweet tooth; buy the leaf, check the labels on the rest. Read
Riverford, read closely: the organic veg box that still trusts you to know what a celeriac is
Organic, employee-owned and seasonal to a fault, with customers who rarely leave. Read
ProCook, read closely: honest steel and cast iron, sold beside a price comparison it wrote itself
Own-brand cookware with long guarantees; buy the steel and the cast iron, think twice about the coatings. Read
Mindful Chef, read closely: the healthy recipe box, now with pasta and a few more footnotes
A well-run, health-minded recipe box that charges properly for its good intentions. Read
Le Creuset, read closely: the casserole you inherit, and a good deal you need not buy
Buy the French cast iron for life; think twice about the mugs, the kettles and the Klingon casserole. Read
Lakeland, read closely: the best returns promise on the high street, attached to an uncertain courier
Sound bakeware, famous airers and a three-year guarantee; buy in the shop if you can. Read
Huel, read closely: a sensible meal in a shaker, sold with a guarantee smaller than it sounds
Nutritionally complete powders and shakes, best bought once you have read the guarantee’s terms. Read
Hotel Chocolat, read closely: the best hot chocolate on the high street, and boxes priced for the lid
Buy the drinking chocolate and the Velvetiser; approach the gift boxes and the Selectors with the label in hand. Read
Gousto, read closely: the biggest menu in the recipe-box business, and a delivery lottery attached
Enormous choice and clever cooking, with a box that does not always arrive whole. Read
Emma Bridgewater, read closely: polka dots from Stoke, a candid word on crazing, and returns you pay for
Hand-sponged Stoke earthenware worth having, best bought as seconds, and never put in the microwave. Read
Denby, read closely: a great British pottery that, for the moment, has nothing to sell you
The Derbyshire stoneware maker has closed its kiln; the name survives, the pots for now do not. Read

11 pieces on this desk