London Eating

As a regular visitor to borough market I’ve compiled a list of my favourite places within the market (if I haven’t named them, I hope that describing their produce will help)

Konditor & Cook – Amazing cakes

Booth – His stand next to chorizo man (see below), provides a tremendous array of fantastic fruit and veg.  The real speciality is mushrooms.  He’s seems to be able to source fantastic wild mushrooms throughout the year and given that a fresh porcini mushroom, even in the hands of an inept cook is a pleasure well worth the trip.

Chorizo man – Next to the Brindisa shop is the ‘chorizo man’, makes a simple sandwich of grilled chorizo, grilled peppers and olive oil – simply devine.

Sillfield Farm – Best bacon.

Boston Sausage – This guy has amazing boston and lincoln sausages

Truffle man – Loads of products containing truffles, the polenta with truffles and chicken liver pate with truffles a highlight

Parmesan Cheese Company – Ok, while parmesan is hardly a difficult product to find these days, the owner is such a nice bloke, that I find it hard to buy parmesan at Tesco’s rather than from him.

Tips – Get there before 9am, as borough market is clearly a hotspot on the tourist map if you get there late in the morning, be prepared for crowds.  Before 9am it’s relatively calm.

I’m reading an interesting book at the moment called The Black Swan. The author makes a great point, ‘the next killing in the restaurant industry needs to be an idea that is not easily conceived of’. Now, while the book is not related to the restaurant industry – the idea that by choosing an unusual idea you can carve out a niche in a very busy market is quite right. Ask anyone 10 years ago if they could imagine a Starbucks on every high street in the UK, the answer would probably be no.

Hummus brothers, is the type of concept that no one would have imagined could have worked, yet it has all the components of a good concept – simple, good and a little bit quirky. As the names suggest this is a restaurant that serves hummus with a number of different toppings. Now, while the thought of a plate of hummus as a main course may sound a little strange, the Hummus brothers win in the execution. The central product (hummus, in case you hadn’t guessed) is very good and they add to it a range of different toppings such as chicken, beef and mushrooms. Based in Wardour street, although it’s certainly a niche offering it’s great value and while clearly not haute cuisine the quirky menu allied to the wagamama style seating makes for a different lunch venue.

In a bid to squeeze that extra bit of revenue out of his flagship restaurant in Royal Hospital Road, the Gordon Ramsay group are offering a monthly cookery school.  The budding chefs arrive at 9am and learn how to prepare the meal while the chefs guests arrive at 12.30 to eat.  I turned up at a guest at the appointed hour and we were treated to 3 fantastic courses.  The whole experience is certainly not as fussy as going there for dinner, with the additional downside that you don’t get any amuse bouche or intercourse specials, nonetheless the food is great.  During the course of the meal at appointed times, the ‘chefs’ buzz off back to the kitchen to finish the cooking of the next course.

The meal consisted of a starter of scallops and potatoes with a truffle sauce, beef wellington and then a chocolate fondant to finish.

Our chefs did remarkably well and I think the experience of cooking in a 3 star kitchen makes it one of London’s hidden experiences.