Tom Kerridge M&S range - not impressed so far at all

[Onand]

The new Tom Kerridge Gastro Pub range - has anyone tried them yet? The prices are ridiculous for the average quality in my opinion.

I’ve tried the Beef Pie- awful, £7 and the meat resembled nothing like the picture and tasted nowhere near as good as their regular Steak pie which at £3 makes me wonder what the £4 extra was for? Thankfully I had a pot of their beef gravy (not great either) otherwise the pie is very dry. It’s an obscene amount of calories too which annoyed me every more.

The Beef lasagne was ok but the meat was very mediocre considering the price £6 (just Gastropub not TK) I’ll stick to Charlie Bigham though or just their regular £3.50 one.

Molten Cookie- awful, the chocolate tastes cheap and you could literally warm up some bakery cookies and have a nicer dessert without the £5.25 charge and nearly 500 calories per portion.

Anyone else fared better? I want to try some of the others purely out of curiosity but I’ll only get them with yellow stickers now because it’s simply not worth full price if what I’ve tried so far is anything to by.

I personally don’t find the Gastro Pub range to be as great as others make out. The steak pie, I find, has a sour taste. Like you say, the standard steak pie is nicer and cheaper.
Id rather pay extra for Charlie Bigham.

I agree, sometimes I think they just add in extra dairy to bump up the calories and claim ‘richness’ as a reason for the higher price.

I am refusing to buy it. The extra costs are for TK to take their cut of the dosh.

Thanks for your reviews, I'm glad to know I'm not missing out!

I think I recall another poster starting a thread about this recently, so you're definitely not alone!

I haven't tried any of it - I don't want to endorse a "celebrity chef", I just want a pie that tastes nice and doesn't cost a stupid amount.

Try Aldi lasagne and their other ‘posher’ range stuff. Much, much better and half the price of Charlie Bigham. They have a new Indian range too.

Celebrity collaborations are a rip off in my view.

I don’t know if it’s a TK one so sorry for the derail, but I was really disappointed with the Kerala prawn curry - £7 - won’t be buying it again. Bland and boring in my opinion.

edited for typos

I like the Gastropub range paella and panna cottas so it was always worth it to me to buy those and a side for £12 but £15 is stretching it a bit.

I recently saw an online comparison of luxury range supermarket curries and they said the Aldi one was far better than the M&S version despite being much cheaper.

Dh wasnt keen on tracle pie, the mousaka was ok, but really not worth the £3 rxtra on the meal deal

m & s ready meals just seem to be full of sauce now. They're ripping us off.

I really don't like Gastropub, I find it far too rich. We tried a beef bourgignon the other week, it was horrible, a sour taste and gristly, fatty beef. I've made better myself! DH didn't mind it but then he will eat anything!

@liveyoungstayactive I'm a big M&S fan but just the other day my h commented their chicken chow mein was not that nice and they had clearly changed supplier- so he's asked me to go back to the Waitrose one if I'm not making a stir fry myself now. I do agree there's clearly some 'cost cutting' going on- we don't have an Aldi near us at all so can't comment- we do have a Lidl but the only ready meals I ever bought I felt were not that nice.

Just reading the blurb for the beef pie:

M&S Gastropub X Tom Dry Aged Beef Pie
Dry aged British beef mince and shin, lovingly slow cooked in a rich beef gravy and encased in all butter pastry crust. Topped with crispy beef scratchings. Oven cooks in 35 minutes. Serves 1.

In the ingredients list:

Cooked British Beef (23%), Dry Aged British Beef (9%) so 32% meat in a 270g pie, and only 9% is 'dry aged'.

And it's £7 for a single serving - you can get a 225g M&S ribeye steak for that price.

Just had the lamb - would not give it to the dog

Tried the tom kerridge £7 steak pie from m&s last evening and was most unimpressed, dry inedible pastry resembling cardboard and occasional lumps of tasteless beef, otherwise dry mince which just stuck to the so called pastry. No gravy atall. No comparison to Steak pie from Tesco finest range just delicious at around half the price.

Cook meals and Charlie Bingham meals are much better.

Not really sure why anyone is surprised that ready meals taste like ready meals.

I don’t buy the Waitrose meal for two now that it’s gone up to £15, either.i think our eating habits will change.. we got used to nice convenient treat meals from M&S ans Waitrose etc , but now they aren’t nice, and seem like a rip off. It was a phase in food habits and I think it’s closing…. And I guess I’m cooking more from scratch again!