Fiona MacLeod’s Complete Guide to London’s Best Markets, Including the Honest Advice That Booking Sites Leave Out
Written by Fiona MacLeod for Bohiney Magazine, republished by The London Prat. Fiona writes London travel and insider guides to help visitors get the most from the city.
The Market as London Experience
London’s markets are among the best arguments for the city’s continued vitality as a place where things are made, grown, traded, and discovered rather than merely ordered and delivered. They are also, at their most popular, among the most crowded experiences in London, and the difference between a market visit that is extraordinary and one that is miserable is almost entirely determined by what time you arrive, what day of the week it is, and what you are expecting to do when you get there. Fiona MacLeod has been to all of these markets many times, at many different hours and days, and the advice below reflects what the markets actually are rather than what their best Instagram photographs suggest they are.
The first and most important piece of market advice: arrive early. Markets are at their best in the hour after they open, before the lunch crowds arrive. Borough Market at nine in the morning is a completely different experience from Borough Market at noon, and the noon experience is still excellent but includes queuing. The nine-in-the-morning experience is the market at its most functional: the traders are setting up, the first customers are serious about food rather than about photographing food, the coffee queue is manageable, and the atmosphere is of a working market rather than a destination. Arrive early at every market on this list and you will have a better time than the majority of visitors, who arrive at the hour they assume is the correct one and discover that the correct hour was two hours earlier.
Borough Market
Borough Market, near London Bridge, is the best food market in London and one of the best in Europe. Open Monday to Saturday, with reduced trading on Monday and Tuesday (the full market operates Wednesday to Saturday). The produce is exceptional, the prepared food is excellent, and the concentration of specialist food vendors — cheese, charcuterie, bread, pastry, fish, meat, vegetables, wine, coffee — is comprehensive enough to constitute a serious culinary education per visit. The market has been on the same site since the thirteenth century, which gives it the specific authority of a place that has been doing this long enough to know how. Go on a weekday rather than a Saturday if you can manage it. Saturday Borough Market is wonderful and Saturday Borough Market is extremely crowded. Weekday Borough Market is wonderful and considerably less crowded.
Portobello Road Market
Portobello Road in Notting Hill operates in layers: the antiques section at the south end (Notting Hill Gate end) operates primarily on Saturdays and is the serious antiques market with genuine dealers and genuine finds. The fruit and vegetable section in the middle operates most days. The vintage clothing and general market at the north end (Ladbroke Grove end) operates on Saturdays and is more casual, more tourist-forward, and more likely to produce the 20 vintage jacket that rewards patient browsing. The entire market on a Saturday morning is a several-hours commitment and is most rewarding for people who genuinely like browsing rather than shopping with specific intent. According to VisitLondon, Portobello Road is one of London’s most visited weekend destinations. TimeOut London covers market events and seasonal specialities.
Columbia Road Flower Market
Columbia Road in Hackney operates every Sunday morning, approximately eight in the morning to three in the afternoon, and sells cut flowers, plants, and bulbs from a single street of vendors whose combined effect is one of the most visually extraordinary markets in London. The market is small, densely packed, and genuinely beautiful. The vendors are characterful. The prices are reasonable relative to florists. The problem is that Columbia Road is also very popular and becomes extremely crowded after about ten-thirty. Arrive at eight or nine. Buy flowers. Walk east to the Broadway Market area for coffee and breakfast. This is a genuinely excellent Sunday morning in East London and requires no further additions.
Brick Lane and Camden
Brick Lane on a Sunday is covered in the neighbourhood guide above, but the market-specific advice is: the north end (the Old Truman Brewery complex) is the most interesting part of the Sunday market, with independent vendors across food, vintage, art, and craft. The famous curry mile is better experienced for a meal than for a market browse. Camden Market operates every day but is at its largest and most varied on weekends. It is extremely popular, extremely large, and somewhat exhausting — the right experience for visitors interested in alternative culture, music, and the specific Camden aesthetic; less rewarding for visitors looking for a traditional London market experience. Allow three hours minimum. Eat the street food. Do not attempt to see all of it in one visit. Camden Market is approximately the size of a small village and rewards multiple shorter visits more than one comprehensive one.
The market visit that Fiona most consistently recommends to first-time London visitors who are asking for a single market rather than a comprehensive programme is Borough Market on a weekday morning, specifically Wednesday or Thursday, arriving at approximately nine-thirty in the morning and staying for no more than two hours. This visit produces the optimal Borough Market experience: the full range of traders operating, the market atmosphere without the Saturday crowd, and sufficient time to eat something from at least three different vendors without rushing. The instruction to buy the salt beef sandwich from the vendor at the market entrance, the coffee from the stall near the cathedral end, and the cheese from one of the specialist vendors is not a constraint on browsing. It is the minimum specification for a Borough Market visit that has achieved its fundamental purpose, which is eating very good food in a very good market in one of the best food cities in the world.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
