The thought was only marginally less surreal than the loss he had just announced: at £6.4bn it was the largest writedown in British retail history. It was only after a moment's puzzlement that the non-specialist journos in the room realised he was talking about a restaurant, not a quaduped.

Tesco, it turns out, not only owns the Giraffe restaurant chain; it has a stake in the coffee shop Harris & Hoole and the Euphorium bakery, all of which run concessions in or near Tesco stores. Lewis inherited the acquisition of these family-focused cafe brands from the same management team whose stewardship led to Tesco having to restate its finances, submit to a serious fraud inquiry and report a giant loss. And though he's ditched much of the old strategy, Lewis is sticking with the idea of making Tesco stores the single "destination" where people go to do all or most of their shopping. This, I think, is going to be quite tough, because to modern consumers the average supermarket – not just Tesco – can feel like a chilly, toothpaste-coloured, fluorescent-lit hell.