Partly because in the dining craze it is considered bland and not quite haute enough. However, I think the main reason is because people think it is too simple.

A Lancashire hot pot for instance is a stew but then so is a cassoulet. I admit that cassoulets are fantastic but then so can a Lancashire hot pot.

A well done poached plaice with capers and butter reduction is brilliant. Call something beef wellington and people will turn up their nose but boeuf on croute and they are going to be knocking the door down. A lot of it is stereotype and prejudice.

And dont get me discussing cheeses. Some British cheeses are absolutely outstanding compared to what I have had in the rest of the world. French cheese is good too. Lancashire tasty (or mild too) and Stilton are just outstanding. Have those with a Ploughmans Lunch and Branston pickle - to die for IMHO.

I was born and brought up in the very centre of London and went on to work in Soho, and run a club with food. It was a well known and respected club. Food in those days in the UK was pretty dire. I'm old enough to have gone through stages when I'd regularly take my wife .. and then family to various bits of Europe to have great food and meals because London was so poor and we were that desperate to eat World class food. And then around 20 years ago or so .. London started to change. That change accelerated. Now at all levels the food is the best food provided in any European capital in terms of both range and quality. Generalisations are always difficult to defend but that is exactly where I see it today. After my club years I worked for an American corp and spent loads of time in the US for extended periods and was taken by foodies to experience what they considered the very best of both local and let's call it more classy food. Nothing I experienced was comparable to what I was starting to find i the UK. I spend a lot of time now in European cities and I have loads of European foody friends that take us to their idea of their best places.

I see very little evidence to show that at this moment - in a general sense - exclusions excluded - that London isn't right at the top of food World-wide based obviously only on personal experience.

The idea that visitors can speak and judge authoritatively about their spasmodic visits is as reliable is me making judgments about their hometown based on a few visits.

^

We owe a lot to the way that lowering supermarket mandated milk prices has led to the growth of artisan cheeses in the UK from farmers simply seeking to add value to their milk herds. We have seemed to have moved from a time of virtually no decent cheese to an astonishing range and quality of cheeses, and small enthusiastic producers - just when other traditional cheese countries like France for example seems to have stagnated.

It's true that there's been a recent (last 20 years or so) at the top end thanks to Ramsey, Oliver, et al -- but everyday eating in England is still terribly hit and miss, especially outside the big cities. Some pubs try hard and some are, sadly, practically in-your-face mediocre. Some little ethnic places are great, some are just disgusting. And if your dining options are limited (e.g. small towns, Sunday night) some publicans will use it as a weapon, charging top quid for frozen / reconstituted food on the hunch that it would take too much of your energy to complain or bolt. You still see flashes of Basil Fawlty-ish indifference or hostility to customers that is almost comic.

Salad? Until recently, asking for fresh salad in many / most places earned you a blank look - and maybe a small, dejected heap of lettuce and small hard green tomatoes with a dollop of Heinz salad cream. An entree salad was like a unicorn sighting. Fresh healthy variety is a concept that's come slow and hard to the provinces.

I did have a top-flight dinner at a charming pub in a Cotswolds village a few months ago, best meat pie ever... but the bill for five of us, with drinks and wine, was nearly GBP300 - not exactly an everyday adventure!

I do love British food actually, especially middlebrow pub grub, but I've yet to figure out how to target quality reliably. I just never know what's going to come out of the kitchen when I'm eating for GBP10 or 15, not spending out the ears.

One interesting thing, though, is the highly evolved supermarket fare pointed out by EuropeanPete. In any Tesco or Sainsbury's you find terrific selections of fresh wrapped sandwiches, bits of salad, entrees for one, etc. which are head and shoulders above what can be had in the US, except perhaps at the few Prets we now have here. Bought road sandwiches at a rest area off the M40 on our way out of London last trip, they'd been made same day and were incredibly good. That would never happen here in the States.

So maybe the revolutions are at the very high and very low ends, and the broad middle remains all over the lot?

Heheh - whenever I go to visit my best friend in the UK, after he picks me up at the airport we go out for breakfast to some cafe somewhere on the road home because I really want beans on toast.

One of the great tragedies of America is that the beans/toast breakfast combination didn't make it over the Atlantic. Mushrooms are nice, too, but the beans are heavenly. :D

Two of the best cheeses are Stinking Bishop and Stichilton.

And don't forget all the delicious dairy ice creams that are now being made for the same reason. Light years away from that inedible, plasticky, glutinous mess that was just about the only thing around in the 70's.

What im surprised at is how little cross-pollination there is within the continent. Look at what comes out of Lombardy and whats available in Switzerland. Ask Austrians here where to get the best food and many will sarcastically tell you to board a train to Bolzano.

It makes some sense in a historical context but here and now I'm having difficulties satisfying my appetite in one of the great capitals of the world

Says the Londoner. If you want good ingredients, move to Scotland. Great meat and seafood.

What we suffer on a bit is that fresh veg and fruit, which is usually imported due to climate.

I would say that those who think British food is bad tend to be stuck in the past about 30 years ago. It has improved out of bounds. London still remains a place with a lot of mediocre eateries - and also some fantastic ones, but you have to hunt out the better ones . Too many tourists perpetuating the rubbish.

The other thing is I don't think the UK has a food type. There are regional dishes, some of which are great (Cullen Skink) and some of which are rubbish (jellied eels). The types of foods you are describing in this thread as "British" are not foods I associate with "Britain". Most of them are English, not British. Probably the thing closest to "British" is curry - which is of course, as cooked in the UK, not Indian, but uniquely British - as indeed is our "Chinese".

Yes, you won't be able to go anywhere and expect to have good food - as in France and Italy - but I would suggest those countries are the exception rather than the rule. Its certainly not the rule for most of the other countries in Europe, nor North America.

I'm lucky - I live in a country with great quality food production and a city with a really thriving food scene. Try telling me, in a city with half a million inhabitants, which also has five Michelin starred restaurants, another one which has been starred and then lost it, and another three Michelin starred restaurants (one of them a 2 star) within 1 hours drive... that British food is bad. I would suggest that Edinburgh has one of the highest ratios of stars to population (outside of France!) in the world. That does not suggest that British food is bad.

I'll add Swaledale to the list of great cheeses - underappreciated outside of Yorkshire.

All this has me fancying going for an English tonight. I'm going to ask for the blandest dish on the menu.

Personally, I like France, Italy and Spain. All three countries have the right attitude to ingredients, preparation and the ritual of the meal. This does not mean one must eat French, Spanish or Italian in one of these places. In France in particular, the attitude applies to all cuisines. I had a great Thai meal on my last trip to Paris.

San Sebastian :)

To add to this. One of the most frustrating things that compound this problem is that a high percentage of posters and opinions originate from the US. This compounds with the impression that when they seek advice about Europe and where to go and where to eat etc they almost invariably take their a advice from fellow Americans many of whom have taken their advice from other Americans in preference to advice from Europeans.

This behaviour is best illustrated when they go to the South of France. They all go to the same places. A great example is Eze which cannot be prized out of their itinerary. Vienna it's Figlmullers. We can all name them. They all share the same mediocre "secrets" but always from other Americans who previously visited for a couple of hours and took their advice in the same way. They almost always ignore advice from Europeans as though we are less informed. If you try to help and suggest, then the weight of many single-visit Americans all weighing in always outvotes local expert knowledge. You suggest somewhere different that's better ..... then all the Americans all say the same thing and so it goes on. That is why they all have the same range of poor and very narrow experiences and that is why many people have negative stuff to say.

The worst at helping perpetrating the worst is Rick Steves who the Americans seem to idolise and worship and is almost always invariably clueless. He reminds me of Chevy Chase. He has a knack at sending people to the worst places of all completely mispronouncing whatever it is but leaves Americans with the smug look on their faces that they now know and share a secret that no one else knows. It is predictably pathetic.

This incestuous behaviour in a great part explains the misunderstanding the OP highlights and help perpetrates the myth as they think they are all seeing the best that " everyone else " recommends.

Read through this thread and i've honestly not read such a load of absolute rubbish in all my life. Some incredibly ignorant people out there commenting on things they clear know absolutely nothing about and/or have very little experience of.

Oh, you mean like every other City on earth? :D