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A somewhat biased and entirely food-based guide to London

Good food is something best shared with friends. This adage may be referring to the actual act of sharing a meal, but I think it applies just as well to sharing restaurant suggestions and food recommendations: While I was in London last month, I kept notes on a few of the particularly note-worthy places that I ate. This post, based off of those scribblings in my notebook, is a quick guide to my favourite food in London. It’s obviously not comprehensive (most of these places were visited only once, and sometimes only one dish off the menu was sampled), and I’m sure there are a million more amazing places to eat that I’ve never even heard of, but each of the places mentioned here seem have solidly good food and an enjoyable atmosphere, and, in my opinion, are worthy of a visit next time you find yourself in the city.

Borough Market

8 Southwark Street, SE1
boroughmarket.org.uk

For any self-proclaimed food lover, a trip to London wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the city’s famed Borough Market, which is easily my favourite place in all of London. The market, which sprawls out in a cavernous warehouse-like space (and under a set of continuously rumbling rail lines) with interesting brick and wrought-iron details, has been in existence in some form or another since the thirteenth century. If you enjoy food anywhere near as much as I do, you’ll easily be able to spend hours wandering through the stalls and sampling all sorts of amazing foods – besides the typical market-standard produce, fish, and meat sellers, you’ll find numerous bakeries, massive buckets of plump, perfect olives, a nearly infinite variety of cheeses, jams (ranging from the usual to the downright unexpected) ciders, wines, and more. The streets surrounding the market itself are also packed with interesting shops and restaurants – the whole area is basically one giant shrine to all that is edible.

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t eat before you head to the Borough Market. In fact, here’s how your morning at the market should unfold: As soon as you arrive (and you’ll want to arrive as early as possible), make your way to Monmouth Coffee and grab a flat white to go (don’t be put off by the long lineup; it moves much faster than you’d expect). Head back to the beginning of the market (I always find myself starting at the entrance next to the cathedral; it sets a rather grand tone for a day at the market), buying a few pastries and a baguette as you pass a bakery stall or two. Wander through the stalls, sampling liberally as you go, while you gradually collect the ingredients for a lunchtime picnic.

Make sure you head to at least one cheese stand – the one called L’Ubriaco (located fairly close to the market’s cathedral entrance) features raw, unpasturized cow and sheep’s milk cheese. They offer one that’s encrusted in olives and one that’s been soaked in red wine; both are absolutely phenomenal. After buying a wedge of cheese, head a stall selling jam. They’re all fantastic, but I found the ones at the Hampreston Foods stall to be particularly good. Hone in on the pear and elderflower jam, which pairs perfectly with the cheese and a baguette. Grab a sausage from one of the butchers, a few heirloom tomatoes from one of the local organic produce sellers, and maybe a few bags of fruit. Then pick up a bottle or two of apple cider and a package of gourmet chocolates. Make your way down to the banks of the Thames (which, conveniently, is extremely close by), then enjoy an impromptu riverside picnic.

Tip: While the market is open on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, Saturday morning (as close to 8AM as possible) is by far the best time to arrive.

Tayyabs

83-89 Fieldgate St, E1
tayyabs.co.uk

Although Indian restaurants and kebab stands are sprinkled liberally all over curry-loving London, I got the distinct impression that a good chunk of the city had given Tayyabs the stamp of approval as their number one choice. After making your way through a decidedly sketchy neighbourhood (think jumping at your own shadow, certain that you’re going to get mugged kind of sketchy) to the restaurant, which is tucked onto a side street that seems to be devoid of any other activity, you’ll be rewarded with what must be the world’s longest line you’ll ever stand in while waiting for food – it snakes through the entry area, around the corner, past a cruelly tantalizing display case packed with exotic desserts, and around an insanely packed dining room.

You’ll instantly start to wonder whether it’s worth the wait – but I’ll spoil the surprise and let you know that it is, in fact, worth the wait. When you finally make it to a table, the food starts arriving instantly. Plates of salad, bowls of assorted traditional dipping sauces, and frisbee-sized discs of thin, crunchy crackers will quickly be whisked in front of you while you peruse the menu, just in case you’re ready to keel over from the extensive wait. While all the food I saw looked delicious, my friend and I ended up choosing to share a lamb curry in a spicy, fragrant sauce, a vegetarian dish of spiced chickpeas and lentils laced with delicately smokey eggplant, and naan bread, perfectly puffy on the inside and delicately charred outside then slathered liberally in ghee.  Dessert was a doughnut-shaped round of dense dough soaked in a sweet syrup and topped with pistachios, and a slightly crumbly square of what seemed to be a Pakistani twist on baklava.

Tip: We noticed that the line had diminished significantly by 10 pm. If you’re not particularly keen on standing for well over an hour before getting a table, you might want to consider a later dinner here.

José

104 Bermondsey Street, SE1
joserestaurant.co.uk

I’ve never been to Spain, but I’m fairly certain this is as close as you can get to an authentic tapas bar without actually getting on a plane and heading over to Spain. I’m also fairly certain that José is as close to my idea of restaurant perfection as it’s possible to get. It’s tiny, it’s loud, and it’s packed, although surprisingly, everyone seemed to find a place within a few minutes of arriving. Notice that I said find a place, not a table. In fact, there are no tables at José, only narrow marble-topped bars ringing the restaurant (and overlooking the open kitchen) and a few overturned barrels scattered throughout the space. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a stool. If you’re really lucky, you’ll score a place along the window, where you can watch the after-work crowds as they congregate at the pub across the street.

Now onto the food: The food is superb. The menu isn’t massive, but the choices are well thought-out. We ordered three dishes between two people: The pisto (which is a vegetable stew not entirely unlike ratatouille) topped with a duck egg that was perfectly soft on the inside and deliciously crispy around the edges, lamb meatballs cooked in a spicy tomato sauce laden with smoked paprika and served with crispy, olive-oil soaked slices of bread, and the seabream, which was cooked to delicate perfection and served with frisée lettuce, orange slices, and black olives. All three were absolutely excellent, although the seabream and its incredibly well-executed simplicity stole the show for me. I paired the food with a bold, smokey tempranillo wine from the Rioja region of Spain; my friend chose a lighter, crisper tempranillo rosé. And since it’s impossible to ignore dessert in a place like this, we shared the rice pudding, which shattered all the misconceptions I previously had about rice pudding: It was chilled, incredibly creamy, and brightly flavoured with orange and cinnamon. There’s a good chance I could have kept eating that rice pudding forever.

St. John Bread and Wine

94 – 96 Commercial Street, E1
stjohnbreadandwine.com

St. John Bread and Wine is a fairly spare, minimalist space – there are rows of tables neatly arranged throughout the high-ceilinged, white-walled room, and the atmosphere feels relatively calm, although certainly not overly subdued. The menu is also fairly minimalist, at least in terms of description – it’s the kind of place where you’ll almost definitely need to ask your server for more detailed explanations of some of the dishes, which range from seafood to some rather unusual and certainly underused cuts of meat (pork trotters, anyone?).

With a name like St. John Bread and Wine, it’s no surprise that a large basket laden with freshly baked bread (some sourdough, some whole wheat, both featuring that perfect crust-crispness to interior softness ratio) is whisked onto your table within minutes of sitting down, or that the wine list is fairly extensive and (like the menu) is probably best navigated with a few explanations and recommendations from your server. I ended up ordering the mussels, which where plentiful, cooked to perfection, and served in a subtle but incredibly flavourful apple cider sauce that I couldn’t help but mop up with slice after slice of bread long after the last mussel had been extracted from its shell. Dessert was a slice of eccles cake served with a wedge of lancashire cheese – on its own, the cheese was sharp and salty, but when paired with a bite of cake it was surprisingly perfect.

Chin Chin Labs

49 Camden Lock Place, NW1
chinchinlabs.com

Chin Chin Labs is an ice cream shop, but it’s certainly not your average ice cream shop. They offer only three flavours: Vanilla, chocolate and a flavour of the week; their claim to fame is that they take the ice cream from liquid form to frozen perfection in a matter of minutes using liquid nitrogen. As you watch, your choice of ice cream flavour (I opted for the flavour of the week, the elaborate-sounding buttermilk blueberry pancake batter) will be poured into a gleaming silver KitchenAid mixer by an employee sporting goggles and a white lab coat, doused with a foggy cloud of liquid nitrogen, then solidified as you watch.

Besides looking incredibly cool, the resulting concoction is unbelievably smooth and creamy, thanks to the abnormally small ice crystals that form from the extremely low temperature and accelerated freezing process. Once the ice cream is scooped into a little cup, you get to choose from a variety of toppings and syrups to take it from good to completely amazing – based on the recommendation of a spatula-wielding employee, my ice cream was showered with white chocolate chunks and a drizzle of tart, intense raspberry syrup.

Pizza East

56 Shoreditch High Street, E1
pizzaeast.com

Housed in a converted tea factory packed with massive communal tables, a couple of long metal-topped bars (one with a prime view into the wood-fired pizza oven), and a wealth of industrial-inspired design touches, Pizza East makes a big impact. It’s loud, it’s crowded, and it’s solidly good. You’ll want to reserve a table ahead of time – the place was packed on a Friday night, thanks to its proximity to the neighbourhood’s nightlife options – or else prepare to spend a while waiting. If you opt for the wait, don’t worry: There’s a bar (centred around a gigantic reclaimed wood table) just off the entry, and you’ll be able to order drinks and charcuterie to make the time pass a little faster. As for what to choose off the menu? I indulged in a crispy-crusted pizza loaded with mushrooms, ricotta, spinach and an egg, which was excellent, and washed it all down with a refreshingly tart elderflower and cucumber soda.

Tapped and Packed, Monmouth Coffee, Department of Coffee and Social Affairs

26 Rathbone Place, W1 (tappedandpacked.co.uk), 2 Park Street, SE1 (monmouthcoffee.co.uk), 14-16 Leather Lane, EC1 (departmentofcoffee.co.uk)

Rough hewn wood floors? Check. Crew of cheerful hipster Australian baristas? Check. Mouth-watering display of pastries? Mason jars of sugar on the tables? Ridiculously good lattes and flat whites? Check, check, and check. Each of these three places all fit into a certain subset of London coffee shops which emphasize rave-worthy espresso and superior milk-steaming skills above all else, along with the kind of ambiance that encourages long conversations around small corner tables and attracts the city’s young and hip demographic in flocks.

Monmouth Coffee (their Borough Market location) features a large communal table for the bread-and-jam breakfasts they offer along with an unusually large selection of excellent croissants and pastries. Tapped and Packed stood out for its latte’s incredible silky smooth texture, while the Department of Coffee and Social Affairs offered free wifi, making it the ideal place to catch up on emails over a cup or two of coffee (also: Try a slab of their banana bread, which is best experienced grilled and slathered in jam).

Columbia Road Flower Market

London E2 – See map here
columbiaroad.info

As its name might suggest, the Columbia Road Flower Market is neither a restaurant nor a food market. Every Sunday morning, a section of Columbia Road – a relatively small street in London’s East End, within walking distance of the trendy Shoreditch and Spitalfields areas and the always eclectic Brick Lane – is closed off and packed with stall after stall of flowers, trees, and assorted greenery, all being hawked by enthusiastic sellers. This scene alone makes the market worth a visit – the flowers are gorgeous, and the atmosphere is vibrant – but the real interest lies in the collection of independent shops, cafés, and restaurants lining the street (and a few of the nearby side streets).

There’s a coffee shop, which is really nothing more than a take-out window in a space hardly large enough for an espresso machine, several bakeries (and a noticeably higher-than-usual concentration of cupcakes), a handful of cafés offering both coffee and meals (I ate at Campania, an Italian delicatessen. My sandwich and latte were solidly good, but my favourite parts of the experience were the decor, which felt perfectly in keeping with its Italian countryside theme, and the people-watching from the large, bright, street-facing windows), and, if you venture down one of the side streets, a little cart selling oysters – and nothing but oysters – freshly shucked while you watch. Overall, the food at the Columbia Road market isn’t groundbreaking. It’s not necessarily gourmet, and it won’t be winning Michelin stars anytime soon. But it’s solidly good, completely enjoyable, and roaming around the vibrant flower market and its surrounding shops between snacks and cups of coffee is an incredibly enjoyable way to spend a weekend morning.