Fiona MacLeod on the city’s best affordable food for visitors who have not been told it exists
By Fiona MacLeod
The reputation London has for expensive food is both deserved and misleading. It is deserved in the sense that a dinner at a mid-range restaurant in London costs more than the equivalent meal in almost any other European city, and that the tipping culture, though less embedded than in the United States, adds a cost to dining out that visitors from continental Europe find surprising. It is misleading in the sense that London also has some of the best and most affordable food of any city in the world, if you know where to find it and are willing to eat it standing up or sitting on a bench rather than at a table with a waiter.
The distinction between London’s expensive food and London’s affordable food is primarily a distinction between seated restaurant dining and everything else. Borough Market, Maltby Street Market, Brixton Market, Tooting Market, Broadway Market, and the various street food markets that operate across the city from Thursday to Sunday offer food that is, in many cases, produced by the same cooks who work in the restaurants that charge ten times as much for a similar meal in a different format.
The Specific Recommendations
E Pellicci on Bethnal Green Road: a Grade II listed Italian cafe, full breakfast for under Pound Sterling 10, pasta dishes for under Pound Sterling 8, family-run since 1900 and genuinely one of the best places to eat in East London at any price. Bao on Windmill Street in Fitzrovia: Taiwanese bao buns at Pound Sterling 5-7 each, queue before opening or wait, worth both. Koya on Frith Street: udon noodles in Soho, prices that seem high relative to a sandwich and low relative to the quality, one of the places I take people who are convinced London cannot do good affordable food. Roti King in Euston: Malaysian flatbread and curry at prices that feel like a different city’s exchange rate. The Time Out cheap eats guide covers the landscape. Fiona MacLeod writes about London travel at prat.uk.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
