TAKING a look at London's best spots for food lovers
Perhaps the most famous of all London’s food markets and certainly the oldest having served Londoners for 1,000 years, the market located across the road from London Bridge station and just along the Thames from the Globe Theatre is not only packed with delicious food but is also frequently used as a film set.
You should grab a coffee from Monmouth’s, one of London’s original gourmet coffee companies, and wander through the undercover market where you’ll find anything from Balkan street food to traditional ingredients from the Emilia Romagna region of Italy.
The undercover market in the centre is also surrounded by an eclectic mix of even more of the capital’s finest food producers and restaurateurs, such as seafood experts the Wright Brothers and the East London Liquor Company, who specialise in traditionally handcrafted spirits.
Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays are quiet days with only a limited selection of market traders opening up, but from Wednesday to Saturday the full market is open.
Located beside London Fields in central Hackney, the Broadway once served as an entry point for traders hundreds of years ago.
In that vein, let’s start with a traditional pub which serves a huge range of Belgian beer and some of the best pub grub in the area, with a Belgian twist: The Dove Freehouse. This is one of the comfiest pubs you’ll ever visit, and, “Belgian beer heaven,” according to TimeOut.
For food which is straightforward but no less exotic, try Buen Ayre. They serve up Argentinian food as it should be, rustic and without fuss. The result is the, “best steak you’ll taste in the capital,” and a restaurant which is in the top 100 in the world according to Elite Traveller.
Some of the best sourdough pizzas can also be had from the Franco Manca run by Emanuele Ricci on Broadway. The Guardian’s William Skidelsky once called their pizzas the, “best in Britain.” High praise indeed.
So this stretch of the London Fields area is already bursting with great places to eat and drink during the rest of the week, but on Saturday morning everything shifts up a gear, too.
Having been revived over the last ten years by the market traders who sell their produce there, you can now tuck into some of London’s best cakes at Violet’s, mezze at the Arabica Food & Spice Company, and Vietnamese coffee at Ca Phe VN. It’s a been long time since jellied eels were the top delicacy in East London.
Stalls are open from 9 am until 5 pm every Saturday.
.jpg)
Whitecross Market
The cosmopolitan patchwork you’ll see when you visit the Whitecross Market website is the perfect introduction to yet another internationally-influenced London food lover’s hotspot.
Unlike the markets at Broadway and Borough, however, this one is open during weekdays so you get to sample the atmosphere of Londoners hurrying for their lunch in one of the busiest business areas of the city, near the Square Mile.
There’s everything from Korean bibimbap to Scottish venison produce on sale for lunch, with healthy, meaty and vegetarian options available too.
Highlights include Buddha Bowl, which must be one of the healthiest fast food outlets in the entire city and the Turkish Gozleme Company.
Situated right in the plush area of Notting Hill inside the famous Portobello Market, the Acklam Village Market is totally focused on bringing as wide a range of world food to its customers as possible.
Peruvian meat dishes and Cuban pulled pork, Berliners’ favourite Turkish fast foods, Jamaican and even Palestinian foods are featured here – it’s a truly global food experience.
You also have plenty of time over the weekend to have a casual stroll around too – the market is open on Saturdays and Sundays every weekend, from 11 am to 7 pm.
Love food and want to build a career? Get involved in the London food scene by studying at one of London’s top hospitality colleges, the London Geller College of Hospitality and Tourism.
The London Geller College at the University of West London provides some of the best culinary tuition available in the UK, in the world’s food capital.
By studying on the Culinary Arts Management and Food and Professional Cookery courses you'll learn a range of techniques for the patisserie and the kitchen, and gain first-class knowledge in nutrition, microbiology and gastronomy:
