Meal delivery service in the UK?

April 13, 2021 9:36 AM

A friend in the Midlands in the UK has suffered an unexpected and shocking bereavement. Where I live (non-UK) we have a commercial meal service that delivers healthy, home-made and delicious food that you just need to heat and eat. Can anyone recommend something similar in the UK?

Frozen is fine if that's all that's available. I was looking at www.cookfood.net which looks great, but the options and requirements were just too complex for someone in my friend's situation (needing meals for one adult and one small child), plus he'd need to choose side dishes. The Food Doula also looks great but is closed temporarily. I'd like to send a gift voucher where he can just look at a website, choose from a couple of options, no more thought required.

To reiterate, I'm really after something home-cooked (style), something that I might cook for him if I lived closer. Any tips?

posted by rubbish bin night to Grab Bag (9 answers total)

I've not used it, but Tastily might be worth a look. They have an option to gift meals to others.
posted by greycap at 10:18 AM on April 13, 2021

Is Cook that complicated? It sounds like exactly the right thing and it's great; could you order for him? Mindful Chef also has excellent frozen meals.
posted by heavenknows at 10:20 AM on April 13, 2021

Best answer: Yeah Cook is exactly what I use for this sort of gift (and have gratefully received myself). I'm actually struggling to think of other options..
posted by atlantica at 10:26 AM on April 13, 2021

Best answer: Work colleagues treated me to a Cook delivery when I was recovering from surgery last year and it was great. All the food was delicious and high quality, and I was grateful it was frozen rather than fresh. As a recipient, I can’t recommend it more highly.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 10:45 AM on April 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

From watching a lot of SORTEDfood channel, different restaurants have their individual meal kits so folks can recreate their meals DIY style at home. But that's more DIY than reheat and eat.
posted by kschang at 10:59 AM on April 13, 2021

Best answer: Came here to say Cook -- they had a brick-and-mortar shop in Cardiff when I lived there, and I think I could afford to splurge on it maybe once, but I remember the meal clearly, it was that good. A quick glance through the website shows that perhaps a meal box would be more suitable, as your friend can just click once and go, no decisions need to be made? (This, I guess, assumes no food allergies/intolerances, but it might be a very un-overwhelming place to start?)
posted by kalimac at 11:02 AM on April 13, 2021

Coming in here to recommend Cook too.
posted by essexjan at 11:03 AM on April 13, 2021

Best answer: Also came to suggest Cook- to make things easy, I would get a meal box for one and a kids meal box .

These meals are all-in-one, so don’t require any side dishes.
posted by Dwardles at 11:14 AM on April 13, 2021

Response by poster: Thanks so much everyone, I went with Cook in the end. The reassurance that it really wasn't that tricky to navigate was exactly what I needed.
posted by rubbish bin night at 12:08 AM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]