The Best of London's Borough Market

Outside of writing about, taking pictures of, and eating food, I spend most of my time reading and learning about food. Specifically, I love watching food videos. And one day, I was looking through one of my favorite channels, Sorted Food , when I saw they had a video where they did a London Food Marathon, where they eat 26.2 dishes in 24 hours. After watching this video, I had two main takeaways: one, that I had to attempt a version of this at some point in my life, and two, that I had to visit borough market whenever I got the chance. So when I was making my day-to-day schedule of what I was going to do in London, Borough Market was at the top of my list.

When we got there, it was around noon, so it was pretty crowded, but I knew where I wanted to head first. One of my other favorite youtube channels is Eater, which happens to also be one of my favorite food websites. Anyways, they have this series where they visit cheap places to eat in different cities, and in London, one of the places they visited was the Kappacasein Dairy stall at borough market, grilled cheese(or toastie) in London. Two of my favorite things in life just so happen to be bread and cheese, so I knew I had to check this out. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much of a line, so I didn’t have to wait too long after getting my number. Something I really loved is how you can see the entire toastie-making process right in front of you. Basically, what happens is they sandwich copious amounts of shredded cheese, as well as onions and leeks, between two slides of sourdough bread, then place it in a griddle press until the cheese gets all melty and the bread nice and toasty.

Just look at that mountain of grated cheese. Looks like absolute heaven to me. I mean, I used to(still) stand at the fridge, shoving shredded cheese straight from the bag into my mouth. Yum.

Before you even take a bite, you know it’s going to be good. I mean, just look at the crunchy cheesy crust that’s formed. And not to worry, it tastes just as good as it looks. The crispy, cheesy sourdough, combined the the gooey, salty cheese, as well as the soft onions and leeks, is quite possibly one of the best bites of food I’ve ever had. It is by far, the best grilled cheese i’ve ever had for sure.

Another stand I had heard a lot about was Bread Ahead, which is most well known for its donuts. The line here was much longer, giving me lots of time to decide which donut I wanted to try. I finally decided on caramel sea-salt honeycomb, mostly because I’m obsessed with honeycomb candy.

This donut really surprised me with just how good it was. It was so fluffy on the inside, like the best brioche you’ve ever tasted, and did not taste greasy at all. You could barely tell it was fried, which I consider to be a good thing. The custard on the inside was very creamy and thick, and not super sweet, while the sugar coating and crunchy honeycomb added an extra burst of sweetness and crunch.

I decided my next stop had to be to Scotchtails, whcih specializes in scotch eggs, a quintessential British dish. Unsurprisingly, the combination of a jammy egg (honestly extraordinarily impressed they were able to accomplish this), savory and perfectly cooked sausage meat, and a crunchy breadcrumb coating was extraordinarily tasty. Also not sure why these aren’t a thing in America yet. They should be.

Next I headed over to Horn Ok Please, a vegetarian Indian food stand. I had the moong daal dosa, which is basically a savory crepe made of lentils, and filled with spicy potatoes. The crepe was crunchy at the edges, and the ideal vehicle for the perfectly cooked potatoes, which were surprisingly not too spicy for me(I have a stupidly low spice tolerance). It was served with channa chaat, which (I think?) is a chickpea dish that’s served with yogurt and crunchy chickpea noodle-bits(I think?) are called sev.(Please don’t attack me, I got this off of google) I’m not a big fan of chickpeas, but this dish might have converted me. The tangy yogurt, crunchy sev and whatever else was in there turned chickpeas into something I could see myself enjoying again.

A stand I passed by. This market is absolutely enormous. It completely puts smorgasburg to shame. Sorry, I had to say it.

Then I decided it was time for a sugar break at 3Bis gelateria. I chose eton mess and strawberry balsamic, and I was very pleased with my choices. The strawberry balsamic struck the perfect balance between sweet and sour, and the eton mess tasted like the ice cream equivalent of a bright summery day. I’ve always liked gelato better than ice cream, since it seems more creamy and thick than ice cream, and this place reminded me why I love it so much.

After the brief sweet stop, I decided to stop at Brindisa for the chorizo roll, which also contains sweet peppers, and some arugula(or rocket) generously dressed in olive oil. I had heard a lot about this sandwich, so I had pretty high expectations. While I enjoyed the soft and slightly charred red pepper, as well as the crispy, greasy sausage, the sandwich overall was just okay, as the arugula was kind of dry, and the sandwich seemed to be sorely lacking a creamy element.

For my grand finale, I decided on La Tua Pasta, because I can never turn down freshly made pasta. Also, the famous Padella had way too long of a line. But I didn’t really feel like I was missing out after I had La Tua’s freshly made burrata and truffle tortellini, with generous amounts of olive oil and grated parmesan, since I didn’t want to pay extra for a special sauce. But honestly, olive oil and cheese was all the pasta needed. The perfectly cooked tortellini was filled with creamy, slightly gooey cheese, and a hint of black truffle.

Alas, my stomach only has so much space, and I had only so much time at Borough Market before I had to move on. But if I could, I would’ve spent the rest of the day slowly making my way through every stand at Borough Market. Regardless, if you go to London(when it’s finally safe to travel internationally, of course), make sure to set some time to visit Borough Market for some of the cheapest, tastiest food you’ll ever have.