Borough Market

By Nyla Robotham, Fall 2024 ICLC Student, October 9, 2024

Nyla's visit to Borough Market

In the beginning days of my visit to London, I decided to make my Solo excursion to get some food. I opened Google for something within walking distance and found what I thought was a food place, called “Borough Market”. Content with this result, I set out on a walk across London.

What awaited me was a unique experience that I will be returning to as often as my wallet permits.

Borough Market, as the name suggests, is ACTUALLY a market in a borough off the London Bridge, NOT Tower Bridge. It was really refreshing to walk through the city, across the bridge, and down into this bustling marketplace which could be overlooked by one who doesn’t know it's there.

Already, I was impressed. Being that I’m from NYC, I’m no stranger to farmer’s markets, food festivals, and anything in that realm. However, this one was already exceeding my expectations.

First off, this was more market-focused than a commercial food festival like Smorgasburg, where there are hundreds of stalls in which you can purchase food from multiple vendors from across the city it’s located in. There were stalls selling spices, cheese (SO. MUCH. CHEESE.), hot sauces, coffees, teas, dairy products, and essentially anything you could think of was being sold at a stall here. For a while, I just wandered about in awe. There was a fish stall that reminded me of a fish market my mother and I would go to back home and I was very tempted to buy some salmon to make myself.

I ended up buying a handmade Tortelli from a stall called “La Tua Pasta”. With my excellent bargaining skills, I managed to haggle off a few pounds if I ended up buying a tomato sauce.

I wanted to do some more walking around, but being that I am in the UK everything closes obnoxiously early (5pm)! I begged my mother, who is here for 6 weeks to help get me settled and visit our extended family that we haven’t seen in 10 years, to come visit with me next weekend. She visited Italy just last year and was infatuated with the markets there, so I knew she’d love to check it out.

You would think she was the kid with how she was wandering around and investigating every stall!

I felt so accomplished seeing my mother, the woman it is IMPOSSIBLE to impress, be stumped on what types of cheese to buy since she didn’t want to overload herself with more than she can finish in her stay. She has such a refined palate that I was proud of myself for finding somewhere that would cater to her curated taste.

We also discovered this vegetable and fruit stand named “Hickson & Daughter” where I will be buying ALL produce from! While there is a mini grocery store on the first floor of my flat, the prices here are amazing! Usually, in America, you have to sacrifice quality for a decent sale price, but not here! Just look at these lemons: Would you believe me if I told you they were 2 for the mere price of just £1?

Yes, they are actually that big.

My mother picked up some equally massive Naval Oranges to make some Aperol Spritz later, along with a head of cabbage and spinach for my renown salads. All of these came out to a lovely £8!

Lastly, we stopped and bought these salmon steaks from these fishmongers named “Furness Fish Markets”. I got 4, freshly filleted in front of me, for £28. He even showed me each cut as he was doing it to ensure it was to my liking. He did, however, ask me what such a young teenager was doing making these purchases in the market himself and was shocked to find out that I am not 15 but in fact 20… curse of being small with a young face.

Being that I have already made two trips to this market, I absolutely recommend making the journey over. Even if you aren’t looking to buy anything, the ambiance is so lively and unique to this continent. I have never seen anything like this in the States, and I wish they existed!