11 Best Meal Delivery Services, Tested by an Ex-Restaurant Critic
11 Best Meal Delivery Services, Tested by an Ex-Restaurant Critic
11 款最佳餐食配送服务：前餐厅评论家的测评报告
I didn’t expect to appreciate meal kits as much as I do, because I like to cook, and I like to eat out even more. But the best meal delivery services and kits don’t just make your life easier—they help you eat better and maybe even live a little better. At their heart, the best meal kits are marvels of logistics—a convergence of growers, butchers, purveyors, and sauce makers from all over the globe, kitted out into little individual portions and sent to your doorstep with one-sheet recipes.
我原本没料到自己会如此青睐餐食套件（Meal Kits），因为我喜欢烹饪，更喜欢外出就餐。但最优质的餐食配送服务和套件不仅能让生活更轻松，还能帮你改善饮食，甚至提升生活质量。从本质上讲，这些顶尖的餐食套件是物流领域的奇迹——它们汇集了全球各地的种植者、屠宰商、供应商和酱料制作商，将食材分装成小份，并附上单页食谱，直接送到你的家门口。
The promise of the internet has always been the world at your door (maybe even economically, if you do it right). This, in part, is why WIRED devotes so much coverage to the best meal prep kits, as well as all manner of other food delivery services.
互联网的承诺始终是“将世界送到你门前”（如果操作得当，甚至可能更经济实惠）。这在一定程度上解释了为什么《连线》（WIRED）杂志投入了大量篇幅来报道最佳餐食预制套件，以及各类其他食品配送服务。
The WIRED Reviews team has requested and tested more than two dozen meal kit delivery services since 2017. For a lot longer, I’ve worked as a food critic on both coasts, and I bring a critic’s gimlet eye to testing recipes and food. I’ve been surprised at how well the best delivery services fare. The best meals I’ve eaten from a meal kit have come from Marley Spoon, which offers a path to genuinely good home-cooked meals on nights when I might otherwise feel uninspired.
自 2017 年以来，《连线》测评团队已经申请并测试了超过两打餐食配送服务。在此之前，我曾在美国东西海岸担任过很长一段时间的美食评论家，我带着评论家敏锐的眼光来测评这些食谱和食物。令我惊讶的是，这些顶级配送服务的表现竟如此出色。我从餐食套件中吃过最棒的菜肴来自 Marley Spoon，它为我在那些缺乏灵感的夜晚提供了享用真正美味家常菜的途径。
But over the past couple of years, HelloFresh and Blue Apron have also made bold plays to expand both convenience and options. Others among my favorite meal kits, like Green Chef or Purple Carrot, offer hassle-free solutions for organic, gluten-free, and plant-based home cooking.
但在过去几年里，HelloFresh 和 Blue Apron 也采取了大胆的举措，在便利性和选择多样性上进行了扩展。我喜爱的其他餐食套件，如 Green Chef 或 Purple Carrot，则为有机、无麸质和植物基饮食提供了省心的解决方案。
During my testing, I assessed each meal plan’s recipes, breadth of selection, sourcing, ease of preparation, convenience, organization, packaging, high-quality ingredients, and suitability for different eating restrictions and needs. I also tested the best new and innovative meal kits for those looking for alternatives to Blue Apron or HelloFresh’s longstanding meal delivery services. And not for nothing, I sorted out some often maddeningly non-transparent pricing. Here are the best delivery meal subscriptions I’ve tried.
在测评过程中，我评估了每项餐食计划的食谱、选择范围、食材来源、烹饪难易度、便利性、组织性、包装、食材质量，以及对不同饮食限制和需求的适应性。我还测试了一些新兴且创新的餐食套件，供那些寻找 Blue Apron 或 HelloFresh 等老牌服务替代品的用户参考。此外，我还梳理了那些令人抓狂且不透明的定价机制。以下是我尝试过最棒的餐食订阅服务。
Best Meal Kit Overall: Marley Spoon
最佳综合餐食套件：Marley Spoon
Marley Spoon has been evolving of late. Over the past year or two, the German-founded meal kit has added more menu items, more cosmopolitan meals with global flavors, and a greater variety of preparation times that now include a lot of 15-minute meals. They’ve done this without raising the price of the meal kit.
Marley Spoon 近期一直在进化。在过去一两年里，这家源自德国的餐食套件品牌增加了更多菜单选项、更具国际风味的菜肴，以及更多样的烹饪时长选择，现在甚至包含许多 15 分钟快手菜。他们做到了这一切，且没有提高套件价格。
But what best differentiates Marley Spoon has not, thankfully, changed. It’s the cooking. The best individual meals I’ve cooked among the 20 or so kits I’ve tested in the past two years have come from Marley Spoon. A hearty Hungarian-influenced creamy mushroom chicken, a boldly Cajun-spiced whitefish, or a delicate eggplant parm. That hasn’t changed, and those meals are still on the menu.
但值得庆幸的是，Marley Spoon 最与众不同的核心优势并未改变，那就是烹饪本身。在过去两年我测试的约 20 个套件中，我做过最棒的单品菜肴都来自 Marley Spoon。无论是浓郁的匈牙利风味奶油蘑菇鸡、大胆的卡真香料白鱼，还是精致的茄子帕尔马干酪，这些经典菜品依然在菜单上。
What has long differentiated it from other meal kits in the US is the company’s devotion to classical cooking technique—the sort they teach in culinary school and on Martha Stewart’s TV shows. This is no accident. When the German-founded meal kit arrived in the US, it did so with the cooking maven’s endorsement and a lot of her recipes and techniques.
长期以来，它与美国其他餐食套件的区别在于该公司对经典烹饪技术的执着——即烹饪学校和玛莎·斯图尔特（Martha Stewart）电视节目中教授的那种技术。这并非偶然，当这个德国品牌进入美国市场时，它获得了这位烹饪大师的背书，并采用了她大量的食谱和技巧。
The cost used to be that Marley’s recipes often took a little more time and care to achieve. For me, it’s always been worth the trade. Recipes often call for light seasoning throughout the process—not all at once. A kale and sausage soup, deeply savory, might be balanced with acid from a surprising splash of red wine vinegar.
过去，Marley 的食谱往往需要花费更多时间和精力来完成。对我来说，这种付出总是值得的。食谱通常要求在烹饪过程中分阶段进行轻微调味，而不是一次性加入。例如，一道风味浓郁的羽衣甘蓝香肠汤，可能会通过出人意料地加入少许红酒醋来平衡酸度。
Those classic “Martha’s Best” recipes remain, but are now augmented by meals that emphasize convenience and global flavors. A third of the menu is now prepared, ready-to-heat meals. I see more 15-minute dishes and tray oven bakes. Marley Spoon also seems to have broadened its international fare, with takes on a Moroccan-spiced apricot and beef tagine and Indian-influenced keema matar that’s as easy to make as garam masala sloppy Joe.
那些经典的“玛莎精选”食谱依然保留，但现在增加了更多强调便利性和全球风味的菜肴。目前，菜单中有三分之一是预制、即热型餐食。我看到了更多 15 分钟快手菜和烤盘烘焙菜肴。Marley Spoon 似乎也拓宽了其国际化菜品，推出了摩洛哥香料杏仁牛肉塔吉锅，以及制作起来像“葛拉姆马萨拉肉酱三明治”一样简单的印度风味肉末青豆（Keema Matar）。
Marley Spoon is more honest than most meal kits about the time it actually takes to cook a recipe. While your 15-minute meal might actually still require 20 minutes, it definitely won’t take 30 or 40. There is one big point of inconvenience with Marley, one that might help them keep the company’s prices from climbing: Unlike other top-line kits, Marley sends your ingredients jumbled in a box, which reduces packaging waste but also leaves you digging through a heap of packets for the right spice mix or dried ingredient. The meat sourcing also isn’t as transparent as some kits.
Marley Spoon 在烹饪时长标注上比大多数餐食套件更诚实。虽然你选的“15 分钟餐”可能实际上需要 20 分钟，但绝对不会拖到 30 或 40 分钟。Marley 有一个很大的不便之处，这或许也是他们能控制价格的原因：与其他顶级套件不同，Marley 将食材混装在一个盒子里，这虽然减少了包装浪费，但也意味着你需要在一堆包装袋中翻找合适的香料包或干货。此外，其肉类来源也不如某些套件透明。
The trade remains, to me, worth it: While maintaining value, Marley Spoon offers genuine good cooking and acts as a little school in culinary technique.
对我而言，这种权衡依然值得：在保持性价比的同时，Marley Spoon 提供了真正优质的烹饪体验，并充当了一所小型烹饪技术学校。