5 Best London Food Markets

The best food markets in London. I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions, and in this video I'm gonna be telling you some of the best places to get food in outdoor or maybe indoor markets and food halls across London. And the first market I'm gonna be starting with is this one, it's Borough Market. This market has been in London since about the 12th century, so it's been here for quite a long time. This is the quintessential tourist market, which means it's really busy. You are likely to be here with 2 3rds of all of the tourists in London, but it's definitely worth a visit here. It is just on the south bank of the London Bridge, and if you're coming to this market, the best days are Wednesday through Saturday. It is closed on Sundays, Monday and Tuesday. It's a limited market. This market is best at lunch, so let's check out this market and some of the other best markets in London. Here we go. Part of the appeal of Borough Market is definitely its layout, which really encourages you to explore. Some of the stands are under the tracks, under bridges, some are outside, some are under awnings, and none of it's really straight lines. You have to meander around corners, underneath arches, and you can even get free samples. Don't mind if I do. Some paella for you. Whether you're looking for fresh truffles or some fine aged cheese, you'll find it all here. You can even get illuminated cheese. This is quite an impressive cheese display. The stalls here also range from produce to prepared food that you'd cook later to food that's ready to eat right now. And it is London, so of course you'll find some fabulous loose leaf tea. Of course you'll find delicious Indian food as well, since Indian food, I think, has become the British national cuisine. For something traditionally British, pick up a meat pie with mashed potatoes. A pie and a side, $6.50. This stall is roasting up the whole hog, literally. It's the whole hog roasted. First time I've seen that in a street market. All the seafood you'd ever dream of, including fresh lobsters. And what's really neat is a lot of these stalls have a hygiene rating, so you can tell you're not gonna get sick here. A selection of fresh soups, and these two up here, this is actually hot mulled apple juice. If you don't want apple juice, but you prefer to drink grass, you can do that here too. I love these vendors that have their food set up in big skillets. Looks and smells delicious. You don't just have to see where the biggest line is, but you can smell it as you're walking by. This stall's grilling up some big Boston burgers and big sausage buns. The only real con I see of this market is there are not a lot of seats. You'll find a few seating areas scattered around, but chances are you'll be standing most of the time. Oh, it is good to know there are clean toilets. And you won't have to spend a fortune on drinking water either, because they've got these water bottle fillers. If you haven't had breakfast yet, and you're here really early, you can stop by Maria's Market Cafe, get a whole bunch of different breakfast items. Pretty cheap. If you like coffee, then you'll definitely want to stop by Mon Moth, evidenced by the long line for coffee, supposed to be one of London's best coffees, supposed to be, I didn't stand in that line. For one of the market's most iconic foods, stop by Brindisem, pick up the double chorizo roll. It's got two pieces of chorizo roll, arugula, and some spicy peppers in there, all for six pounds. It is the only prepared food this stall sells. It's right on the outer market, just left of the big Borough Market awning. And let's dive into this, check it out. And for dessert, I picked up some goat's milk ice cream, salted caramel and strawberries and cream. Five pounds for this little scoop of deliciousness, but it's a good way to mellow out the spiciness of the chorizo. It actually got pretty spicy in the end. It's one of those that builds on you. And this goat's milk ice cream, pretty smooth, and doesn't have some of the lactose things that milk's milk would have, cow milk would have. Well, not quite no lactose, but less lactose. You know how I know? The cup told me so. Don't miss the second part of the market, under the Green Market archway, it's right across the street. Also, make sure to explore the surrounding alleys. Really a lot of food vendors around here. You won't be hungry. Another great place for street food in London is at Camden Market. Camden Market has a lot of food vendors, but the biggest collective of them is at Curb. Curb at Camden, they've got 34 different vendors that sell street food ranging from Thai noodles to mac and cheese, to buns, to ribs, lot of delicious stuff here. Best part about this street food market is they are open 364 days a year. They start cooking for lunch at 11 a.m., and then they're open till 6 or 7 p.m. every night. And to find Curb, well, if you go to the Camden Town tube station, just walk until you get to the canal, which is right here behind me, and you just go past the lock, the Camden Lock, and then you'll find these 34 delicious food vendors. What I love about this market, like a lot of London markets, is the vendors put out samples of their food, not plastic wrap, because like Japan, but actual things they cooked when the morning starts so you can see exactly what you're gonna get. So what did I get? I got a kati roll. What's a kati roll? It's kind of like a northern Indian burrito. It's made with some flatbread with some egg on it, some house-made chutneys that would include some tamarind sauce with a squeeze of lime, pickled onions all rolled up, pretty delicious. It's a very intricate flavor, the tamarind, the yogurt, and the slightly spicy chicken, and the hot flatbread with the egg, super delicious. Check that out, seven pound 50p. For dessert, I got some Dutch pancakes. 10 pancakes, white chocolate, strawberries, five pounds. Did I mention you'll find everything here? You'll find everything, even New York-style pizza at Voodoo Ray's. When most of the other markets are closed on Sunday, this one's hopping. This is Brick Lane. It's so busy on Sundays, 10 to 5 p.m., they actually close off the street to cars because there's so many people walking up on it. The food vendors, they just set up on the side of the street. You'll find some of them inside a building. There's a Brick Lane food hall as well. But I thought one of the coolest food vendors was right behind me. It's that black taxi right there. The street's closed off, but that's the Black Taxi Coffee Company. Dude is making coffee out of a London black cab. That is pretty neat. Lots of great food here. Chinese food, Japanese food, even Mexican food. So let's take a look at some of the other tasty things on offer at this market. I was particularly impressed by the Street Side Ramen Bar. These places have full-on gas grills, big pots. I mean, they go all out at these street markets. This stand's grilling up some really big sausages. You can get the big one with cheese and drink for six pounds. Some more Indian food on display, along with some really delicious-looking Mexican food, given samples of those fajitas. Here's some Chinese food, fried rice, and noodles. And this one says authentic Japanese food, but taking a closer look, this is definitely Korean-inspired Japanese food. And there's also real Korean food at the Korean Rice Bowl stand. Italian pasta, pesto and alfredo sauces, Chinese steamed and pan-fried dumplings, and I think one of the most unusual stalls, this one's selling Lithuanian food. They've got lots of meatballs, for sure. For dessert, there's more of those little Dutch pancakes, and this guy's got a cool wooden windmill. To wash it all down, you can get some fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice, or this stand sells their drinks from a bicycle, either mulled wine or apple cider. Just a couple of blocks from Brick Lane, also in Shoreditch, is this two-story thing of shipping containers. It's called Box Park. It has 60 different vendors in it. About half of them are food stalls, particularly up on the second floor. They're interconnected one by one. They've also got bars and things like that interspersed between the shipping containers, where they created some open space. Voodoo Ray's definitely seems to be the biggest one. That's a New York pizza place. It takes up three shipping containers, but there's little shipping containers of donuts, little shipping containers of ice cream, little shipping containers of curry. So if you wanna be really cool, this place looks hip and trendy. Box Park is definitely the place to go to cram into a shipping container and get some noodles. This next one, it's in the same neighborhood as the last two. It's Old Spittlefields Market. It's about a seven-minute walk from the Box Park. Here, it's a regular flea market. They've got some permanent stalls, but indoor stalls. I mean, technically, it's all covered and under a roof, so maybe this is more of a food hall than street food, but it's worth mentioning anyway because there's tons of tasty food here. And while there are permanent things like Wagamama and more restaurants, there's also a lot of little things like, what have I got behind me? Yum Bun Mani's Deli. There's Indian street food. I really liked that there was a pizza place that brought in a big pizza oven on kind of a truck. There's also a guy cooking a pasta. He says it's Italian pasta, pasta carbonara, no cream, just like it is in Italy. So scour out this market for some tasty eats. And there's a whole flea market section too, so you can pick up some cheap stuff while you're here too, or some expensive stuff, depending upon what kind of things you buy from those stalls but hopefully good food. So what did I get to eat here? I got the pasta carbonara from the guy in that little truck back there. The pasta truck, and yes, the pasta carbonara with no cream, just like it's made in Italy. It was pretty good, seven pounds, big filling bowl of it. Only thing that makes it not quite Italian, they used Italian ham pancetta instead of guanciale. That's how it'd be served in Rome. And then to wash it all down, I got some Taiwanese fruit tea. You know, when I eat all this highly fattening food, it's amazing I don't gain a thousand pounds, but I gotta have my fruit in here, so I like to drink it. This tea is quite fruity, four pounds, 75 pence. Definitely not cheap for this drink, but it is lovely and refreshing, particularly after the slightly salty but really good pasta. 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