There were queues around the block, black-clad heavies manning the velvet ropes and, for those lucky enough to have secured one of the coveted invitations, mounds of sushi and rivers of champagne inside.

The opening in Kensington of the first British outpost of Whole Foods Market, the American chain, was more akin to a grand film premiere than a supermarket launch. It’s hard to imagine Tesco, for all its financial clout, attracting green-leaning icons such as Mary McCartney, Anya Hindmarch, Zac Goldsmith and the restaurateur Oliver Peyton.

But the real stars were the enormous displays of food that took up the store’s 80,000 sq ft. On the ground floor, on a 12ft mound of crushed ice, cooked prawns swam in beautifully arranged shoals around platters of organic smoked salmon. The cheese counter boasted 100 kinds of British cheese and a cheese-ageing room about five times the size of the one at Marylebone’s La Fromagerie.

Downstairs, the tomatoes were lovingly arranged by colour: red, yellow, green, purple, white and practically black. Who could resist, even if a kilo of the yellow ones would set you back a whopping £7.99 – a price that would give your typical French peasant a coronary?

To be honest, I went expecting to hate the place. I expected it to be a supermarket in organic clothing, a cynical hijacking of a noble ideal. Yet, in the event, I was blown away. When you’re used to the wizened, muddy, worm-eaten produce that all too often occupies the organic aisles in British supermarkets, this polished American version is breathtaking in its swagger and bling. Whole Foods’ bakery produces 35 kinds of bread, the butchery 40 different in-house sausages, and there are 55 full-time chefs employed to stuff shoppers to the gills at the various bars (pizza, ice cream, sushi, tapas, oysters . . .). There’s also a range of organic cotton clothing, as well as spa-quality body care and ecofriendly cleaning products.

Beyond the glitz and almost indecent abundance, however, Whole Foods marks a turning point in the way we think about organic food. Yes, it will attract the sort of shopper for whom organic is as much a fashion choice as a healthy or ethical one (at the opening, Hindmarch confusingly declared that she would be shopping there – just as long as they sort out the parking). And, yes, the prices are wallet-clenchingly high, even compared with supermarket organics. But what Whole Foods Market shows is that it is possible to go organic across the board, from muffins to martini. It could well be the spark that ignites a full-blown organic revolution on a scale nobody could have imagined just a few years ago. And the new store is a sign that we, in Britain, are ready for it.

Guests wandered the aisles in reverential silence, exclaiming at the quantities of olive oil (I counted 70 kinds), the entire section devoted to nut butters – from everyday peanut to esoterica such as organic apricot-kernel butter – and the Whole Foods version of Woolies pick’n’mix, where you can have anything from muesli and dried fruit to fair-trade brown jasmine rice in the exact quantities you require. It actually made me want to do something with millet, it all looked so attractive.

“We’re all going to go bankrupt,” I heard one foodie say to another. I was wondering just how many nearby food shops – Marks & Spencer down the road, for instance – could survive the arrival of this infinitely glamorous American culinary superstar.

Whole Foods Market was started in 1980 by John Mackey, who had previously run a small vegetarian store with his girlfriend. When they decided to join up with another couple to open a shop in Texas, they agreed to sell products that weren’t necessarily healthy. “We were a whole-foods store, not a holy-food store,” Mackey says. The concept worked like a charm: in America, everyone who can afford to shops at Whole Foods, from Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt downwards. In the London store, alongside the myriad soya milks and shelves of porridge, you can get giant tins of Tyrrells crisps and enormous bars of chocolate from the Chocolate Alchemist, swirled through with yoghurt or studded with fruit as a nod towards health.

There are now 195 branches (of which the London outlet is the largest), and the company plans to expand over here, too, perhaps to the tune of 30 or 40 more shops. Some have queried whether there is enough organic produce to keep the shelves stocked.

So, if it encourages more farmers to go organic, that can’t be a bad thing. But I’m convinced Whole Foods Market will take off here because it directly addresses most of our modern eating hang-ups. Who wouldn’t pay a little bit extra to avoid the nagging guilt at the till: were these sausage rolls made from happy pigs? Does this pie contain hydrogenated fat? Are those carrots impregnated with pesticides? Shop at Whole Foods, and those worries melt away.

What bliss not to have to read the label or play nutritional detective against a duplicitous retail enemy that you all too often feel is trying to con you into eating carefully disguised rubbish. What bliss not to have to choose between organic fruit and vegetables and attractive ones, but to have both at once. How enjoyable to pop in for a worthy bag of lentils and come out with a (wheat-free) chocolate and absinthe cake from a small Italian producer instead.

Must buys Blueberry syrup, £2.99; British cheeseboard selection, £11.99; pomegranate martini mix, £5.99; Carley’s apricot-kernel butter, £2.99

GOING UP

FISH AND CHIPS

Never mind the fish stocks. Geales, the iconic Notting Hill chippy, has been relaunched by Mark Fuller, Gary Hollihead and Andy Taylor, who are using fish from sustainable sources caught off the Devon and Cornish coasts. September sees the opening of Tom’s Place (mercifully, not Plaice) by Tom Aikens, offering Chelsea residents the likes of battered ling and megrim sole, to be eaten with recycled wooden forks.

APPLES

Time to get back to fruit-bowl basics. It turns out that blueberries, pomegranates and wheatgrass are no healthier – just a lot more expensive, and worse for the environment.

BEER WITH MEALS

On the menu at both Le Gavroche and Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons. Check out Cellarmandirect.com for mini barrels, and Beerclubofbritain.co.uk for mixed cases of delicious beers. Our favourite? Innis & Gunn, which is oak-aged in whisky barrels (from all good supermarkets).

GOING DOWN

FARMERS’ MARKETS

Since savvy shoppers discovered that local doesn’t necessarily mean carbon-friendly (what with the heat required to grow exotica in our still-chilly climes), we’re starting to judge produce on taste rather than worthiness – and some of it has been found wanting.

MINERAL WATER

Banned at Chez Panisse in California for eco-unfriendliness. Many American restaurants are following suit, and tap water has become the last word in chic. It will happen here, too; if you must do bottled water, keep it British, at least.

HEARTY PORTIONS

What’s not to like about 5g of microleaves that pack the same nutritional punch as a kilo of broccoli? The trend has caught on: at Selfridges, even the croissants and chocolate brownies are shrinking in response to customer demand.

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