When you’re in London, you must visit the Borough Market next to Southwark Cathedral.

As you know, I love markets and visit food markets whenever I get the chance. Just off the plane two weeks ago, I realised that if I didn’t go “right this minute”, I’d miss out because my time in London was so short. So dog-tired, I went off to Southwark.

This was my second or third trip to the market there and it is as good as ever. Tiredness is banished when I’m surrounded by beautiful food. With a 250 year plus history, they’ve had time to get it right. You can check out their website at http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/

With food ethics and seasonality firmly on the agenda in the United Kingdom, you aren’t regarded as strange for asking where something comes from or how it’s been grown. While there might still be places in the UK where you can only find fried foods to eat, London is well-served with good food and it doesn’t seem to be as expensive as it used to be.

Tomatoes from the Isle of Wight and Kent, pork pies from Cumbria and fantastic cheeses from France and Spain, Germany and Switzerland. And unlike most of Sydney’s supposed “growers’ markets”, here you can really talk to the growers and find out how they grow the food and why they farm.

To see the best British cheeses, visit Neal’s Yard Dairy at 6 Park Street, alongside the markets. Neal’s Yard specialises in the best British farmhouse cheeses: the service is friendly and knowledgeable, the displays beautiful and unlike many places, they were entirely happy for me to take some pictures. Their comment was “take as many as you like and tell all your friends”, a very refreshing change from a lot of food stores.

Even if you’re staying in a hotel, you can get a smidgen of a variety of cheeses, some Orkney oat cakes and enjoy the flavours of Britain. Check out Neal’s Yard’s website at http://www.nealsyarddairy.co.uk/

So pop along, pick up something for later, enjoy the incredible food that’s on offer and add London to your foodie experience.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at 7:10 am and is filed under food politics, markets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.