Borough Market: Where to Eat in London (4.6★)

Lunch beneath the viaducts

Trains heading into London Bridge cross the viaduct directly over your head. The market fills the space underneath. Green-painted cast iron, a glass roof and a tangle of lanes hold stall after stall of cheese, bread, meat and cooked food. Traders have worked on or near this spot for centuries, which makes it one of London’s oldest food markets.

The market is known for British-reared meat and for craft baking and dairy. You’ll see whole wheels of cheese on the counters, sourdough loaves stacked high and butchers’ cases of game and rare-breed cuts. For a hungry visitor, though, the real draw is the hot food you eat on your feet.

What to eat on a first lap

Walk one full loop before you buy anything. The food is made to eat on the move, so three or four small things beat one big lunch. Look out for these:

• Raclette: melted cheese scraped from a half-wheel onto potatoes and pickles
• Toasted cheese sandwiches: pressed on a griddle until the cheese runs out the sides
• Oysters: shucked to order at the fish counters
• Scotch eggs and pies: from the meat and bakery stalls
• Custard doughnuts and other bakes for afterwards
• Cheese tastings: often offered over the counter at the dairy stalls

For coffee, Monmouth Coffee’s shop on the edge of the market has drawn queues for years.

Picking your day and hour

The day matters more than the time. Borough Market is closed on Mondays. From Tuesday to Friday it opens 10am to 5pm. Saturday runs 9am to 5pm, and Sunday 10am to 4pm.

Weekends are hard going. Try not to arrive between 11am and 5pm on a weekend: that’s the busiest stretch, and the narrow lanes slow to a shuffle. The quietest weekend window is 4pm–5pm. That only works on a Saturday, because Sunday closes at 4pm.

The catch with arriving late is that some traders sell out or start packing up, so you’ll have less to choose from. A weekday is the easier bet. If you arrive near the 10am opening, you’ll usually be ahead of the office lunch crowd from London Bridge. Allow one to two hours.

Ordering at the stalls

Each stall is its own business, so you queue and pay separately at each one. Most traders take contactless cards and phone payments. Queues form along the front of the counter. If yours spills into the walkway, keep a gap so people can get past.

There’s very little seating. Most people eat standing at the ledges or carry their food into the grounds of Southwark Cathedral next door. Take a sample if one is offered. Just don’t graze your way along a cheese counter without buying anything. Each stall has its prices on a board, so check before you join the queue.

Getting to Borough Market

The address is London SE1 9AH, on the south bank of the Thames by London Bridge.

• London Bridge station (Northern and Jubilee lines, plus National Rail) is a couple of minutes’ walk away. Follow the signs for Borough High Street.
• Borough station (Northern line) is about ten minutes south along Borough High Street.
• From Tate Modern, walk east along Bankside past Shakespeare’s Globe. It takes about 15 minutes.

Walking off lunch

There’s plenty to see within a short walk. Southwark Cathedral is right beside the market. A few minutes west along Clink Street are the replica Golden Hinde ship and the ruins of Winchester Palace.

The Shard towers over London Bridge station. Cross London Bridge itself and you’re in the City. If you head east along the river instead, you’ll reach Tower Bridge in about 15 minutes.