I Woke Up at 5:30 AM for London’s Most Legendary Seafood Breakfast!

It really is the ultimate surf and turf at the Billingsgate Market. Today, one of the UK's most knowledgeable seafood guides is taking us on an exclusive tour of Billingsgate Market to see how London's most historic seafood market sells over 25,000 tons of fish and seafood every year. Wow, that turbot is massive. And later on, we'll eat London's most iconic scallop English breakfast. But would you wake up early enough to try it? This is actually a perfect breakfast. Hey everyone, good morning. It's Mark Wiens. It's 5 30 a.m in London and today we are starting at the Billingsgate Seafood Market. This place has so much history. It's the main distribution for seafood for fish in London from across the UK. And we're going to tour the market and then hopefully we're going to have some breakfast after that. So that's the plan this morning and I can't wait to see all the seafood. So before we go onto the seafood floor, we need to be official. And we're going to meet up with our guide CJ who's going to take us around and we're going to learn about the history here and see all the seafood. Yeah, good morning, CJ. Nice to meet you. Well, I'm CJ Jackson. Morning. I'm CJ Jackson and I run a facility upstairs at Billingsgate Market. I buy from a lot of the merchants here. This is the largest inland fish market in the UK. It's global. So we're getting product from all around the world. Wow. Got about 50 merchants running businesses downstairs. They're all independent. Okay. They hire a pitch from the fishmongers from the City of London and they are known as fish merchants. They're not fishmongers. So they don't prepare fish for you. You buy fish and you take it away and prepare it yourself. So before we go downstairs to the trading floor, we're just getting an overview. But it's so clean and it's really cool that it's a global fish market or seafood market. So seafood is coming from all over the world locally from just about every port in the UK, but also globally. And actually trade begins at 4am every day and people start actually working in the middle of the night. But we're here kind of in the time when most of the commercial trade has started to end. But it's open for just individual consumers to come and shop here as well. So we're about to head down and see all the seafood. Now this is a commercial entrance. And this is one of the best stands because it's right by this horrible stand to be in the winter. It's so cold here. I don't know how he manages it. Can you see nice bright eyes? That tells you the fish is nice and fresh. John Dorey. How much is this turbot? This jumbo giant turbot. Would you like to ask how much he's going to sell that to you for today? Well, how much would you think? And you, we'd have a conversation about this. How much do you think? 36 pounds a kilo. Wow, that turbot is massive. Over six kilos, 36 pounds per kilo. And that's one of the kings of fish. That one there. Oh, wow. That's a brill. Brill and turbot are related, but brill's got smooth skin. Turbot's got sharp bumps on it. Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Can you see it's got a beautiful row in there? Wow, it's huge. It's a jumbo. That's a jumbo scallop. Be very careful when you're handling scallops, because if they're very fresh, they'll snap very quickly. So these have been dredged. So you can see they're quite gritty. Oh, yeah. You get good value for money. You're going to get 12 for 10 pounds, but you've got to take them out of the shell. And are these local, local scallops? These are Scottish. Scottish, okay. So these would come from the UK. They've got big tiger prawns. They're probably wild. Now we're moving over into the fillets, and there's haddock, there's cod, two of the major fish for fish and chips. You can tell what that black line is haddock, and this is cod, cod fillets. Baby cod. It's a cod leaf. Oh, okay. That's as fresh as you can get. You wouldn't want to eat it today. It's too fresh. When you think about seafood or English seafood, UK seafood, definitely the first dish that comes to your mind is fish and chips. Fish and chips is the most iconic dish. But when you walk around here, you just see the diversity. And it's really cool that it's a global seafood market, so things are coming from around the world, plus locally from every fishing port in the UK. And seafood is distributed right here at this market. And so there's, we're seeing some lobsters, we're seeing some giant tiger prawns, some salmon, and the scallops. A lot of them right now are from Scotland, but those are some of the most beautiful scallops you'll ever see. They're huge. Oh, okay. Okay. Oh, these are velvet crabs. We've got brown crabs here. Oh, these are the native lobsters? From the UK. Yeah, from around the UK. You can see it's got big tanks of them over there at the back. Oh, yeah. So this is what happens at, what, six o'clock in the morning when coming to Billingsgate. You run into the most unexpected characters, isn't it? Yeah. End up giving, naming crabs. We met up with Andre. So Andre, you do all sorts of videos and things about seafood, eating all sorts of seafood? I try to, I try to. But today is, I have a strict no fish policy outside of work. So after we're done here, I'm going home and I'll have myself a nice rack of lamb. Oh, okay. Lovely. Who doesn't love lamb? Yes, nice. CJ, if you go into any seafood restaurant or if you go to any fish and chips, or fish and chips restaurant in central London, is it likely that the fish has passed through this market? Possibly, not all of it, but possibly. This particular business, who are known as Barney's Seafood, they built their market here on jellied eels. Have you ever had jellied eels? Yes. Okay, well, jellied eels are declining in popularity. When I first came here 25 years ago, they were probably cooking about a ton a day. They're now doing about a ton a week. I put a cooking in there, that's a cooking. That's where, those are eels? Yeah, you can't see them yet because they're not boiled up. We're just seeing a little bit of the process of jellied eels, which is a traditional British food, but it's something that is becoming less and less available, but it's something that should be preserved until they're cutting up all the eels, they're boiling them, and then they settle and they create that jelly around them. A very unique delicacy. Right now, let me just double check the time. Okay, we're right at 7.30 a.m. And you can see everything is packing up, the market is closing down. But for us, next up, we're on our way to one of the best parts of this entire morning tour. My mouth is watering. Yes. Welcome to Billingsgate Cafe. This is the iconic, the legendary cafe right within the Billingsgate Fish Market. And they're known for breakfast. Of course, they're open very early in the morning to cater to fishmongers, to cater to people shopping at the market. They have full English breakfast, but with a twist, with seafood. So it's actually interesting, around the world at fish markets, and probably because you're surrounded by fish and seafood all day long, a lot of people that work at fish markets actually don't want to eat seafood. They want to eat meat, lamb, or beef. So you'll see on their menu, they have all sorts of English breakfast with the classic egg, bacon, sausage, beans, mushrooms, the full English breakfast. But they do also, luckily, have a seafood breakfast, which comes straight from the market. It's the scallop breakfast. That's what we're going to have. And they're also famous here for the scallop bacon roll, which we have to try. So chef is going to assemble our scallop breakfast here. Tomatoes are already going. Oh, yes. Bacon goes on. Back bacon, smells so good. Oh man, that was incredible. All the back bacon, sizzling fresh. But the star of the show is definitely the scallops, which are simmered in lots of butter, sprinkled with parsley, salt, and pepper. Oh, it smells so good. Thank you, chef. Thank you, thank you so much. Yes, very nice. Scallop and bacon, and we have the full scallop breakfast. Oh, that's protein packed. Here we go, sitting down with CJ, Kevin. It's been an amazing tour at the market, but this is definitely, what's before us is definitely going to be a highlight. Oh, breakfast. Let's try the scallop all together. These are the scallops directly from the market, all in a pool of butter and parsley. This is the moment we've been waiting for all morning, what we woke up for. I've been waiting for it. Oh, wow. Perfect scallop. Oh, scallop is amazing. Nice texture. Incredible. So sweet and soft and silky, absorbed with that butter. Ruth, my wake up at 4 a.m. this morning. What is the best day for eating fish in London? Well, probably if you're coming here, and probably Tuesday, but actually if you go to most restaurants, Monday is not a great day to eat fish, although if you get a fish and chips shop where they're probably not frozen, it's perfectly good. So, and a lot of places don't open on a Monday, actually, to be fair. So I would say probably Friday is going to be good, but Tuesday or Wednesday is pretty good. The best fish days? Yeah. We heard it from the source, from the expert CJ. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, eat fish when you're in London. Okay, let's try that bacon. So we've got thick cut back bacon, British back bacon, seared on the hot griddle. That little bite at the end there, that little fatty piece, is like one of the best bites of the bacon, right? Oh, is that bacon? Nice smokiness as well. Nice smokiness, a little bit salty, not overly salty. And the contrast of the salty bacon with fresh seafood is a perfect surf and turf. Oh yeah, one of the essential components of an English breakfast. Gives you that acidity you need for that tomato. For a sweet tomato, huh? Very. Lovely. Oh man. So good. Protein rich. This is actually a perfect breakfast at Billingsgate Market. I'll go in for more bacon. Put that onto the bread. So it's not toast, but it's just buttered bread here. Actually, this will be good with the scallops as well. That bacon is phenomenal. I'm gonna squeeze some lemon onto the scallops. You just have to admire these scallops. They're fantastic. Amazing. Which month of the year do you think is the best for scallop in the UK? Well, they say generally March and the autumn because they've got a lot of roe. And the ones that we saw today had a huge amount of coral in there or roe in there. So yeah, good time of year. Other times of year, what happens is that roe gets bigger and bigger and bigger and then the membrane pops around it and it mixes with another. We have a big popping party. Mixes on the seabed when the next scallop is formed. It forms as a single shell and then the second shell comes around it. So when they've had the big popping party, there's not gonna be so much roe. So they get nice meat but not the coral. Coral's best taken off, poached briefly and then dried. And then you ground it down into all these delicious. One of their specialties here is the jumbo sandwich. Oh, that bread is so crispy on the top and then so fluffy in the center filled with some of that back bacon. Look at this. Loaded with scallops and that butter and parsley and finished with salt and pepper. You gotta push the scallops up. You wanna have a full bite. You press it down. Oh, whoa. That combination, bacon, scallop. It's a proven combination. I mean, you always have like bacon wrapped scallops. You have all sorts of recipes with bacon and scallops but this is like in its purest form. The raw ingredients together. Exactly. And then you've got the saltiness compliment with the scallop and you've got the crunchy bread. Beautiful. This is so good. You could just make a habit of eating this every morning if you come to Billingsgate Market. I think I need to come back tomorrow again. It would be a tradition. That's without a doubt. Oh, it's so tasty. The butter as well. The scallop is so moist. It seems I love it. It's such a simple combination but it's so good. And of course, chasing that all down with a cup of tea. An English cup of tea, milk. Brings it all together. So soothing. What a fantastic breakfast. I love the combination. It really is the ultimate surf and turf at the Billingsgate Market. As we're finishing up breakfast, CJ is going to show us her new book. Just come out. It's called The Great British Seafood Revival and we're trying very hard to get the great British public to try other things apart from cod, haddock, salmon, tuna and prawns. Branching out into other types of fish. Absolutely. And 80% of the fish we land in the UK is exported. 80% of what we eat, which is cod and haddock, is imported. Every picture has a memory for me. That is the beach at Fraserborough in Scotland. We had a cup of tea and an ice cream when we were there. Last year, we took nine months to work around the coast, fly in, visit some fishmongers, go to see fish being landed, go to the big auction houses around the UK coast. And then there's loads of recipes in here. One of my favourites, coconut crumb fish fingers. Wow, amazing. All the fish we should be eating, ling and whiting. I've also put cod and haddock in there because if somebody picks up a book and they can't find cod and haddock, they might not want to. And you can get it on Amazon. I'm pushing it like mad because I'm excited about it. Yeah, you should be excited. So go check out Great British Seafood. CJ, it's been incredible. She's so knowledgeable. Thank you for taking us around the market, Billingsday Market. Thank you for sharing breakfast with us and go check out her book. Goodbye. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you very much. Oh yeah, and the market is completely finished. Wow, a transformation. Completely ended. Just to let you know, the cafe is open from about 4 a.m until about 7.30 or 8 a.m when they close. Open to the public. So you can go to eat at the Billingsgate Cafe for your scallop breakfast. But it was an incredible time hanging out with CJ. She's so knowledgeable. She's so passionate about seafood. She can tell you everything about this market and she also does cooking classes. She has her book. Thank you to CJ. Another thing that is also sad is that the Billingsgate Market in a number of years, in a few years from now, it is scheduled, unfortunately, to be moved to another location. And so this chapter of history will be changing again in London. But I'm really glad we got to visit and it's been an amazing experience and an amazing breakfast. Thank you for watching this video. Remember to give it a thumbs up and be sure to check out all the other videos. I'll leave another video here that you can check out for lots more delicious food that we're eating in London. Thanks again for watching. Goodbye from a beautiful morning. It is a beautiful morning in London and I'll see you on the next video.