A Pondicherry fish curry in a French bistro, basmati rice from remote Piemonte flatlands and a raft of six pale ales all made from different Kiwi hops – all part of a delicious dash for freedom from the crush of Saturday afternoon Borough Market.
OK, I should have known better with a few daylight hours to spare in London. A wonderful Waiting for Godot with Ben Whishaw and Medieval Women: In Their Own Words at The British Library had quenched my cultural cravings. Now for quality time with gourmandise.
On my last capital visit I’d found much to admire at Camille at 2-3 Stoney Street opposite the food mecca, so Gallic symmetry demanded I check out Café François further along at 14-16 (restraining my urge for my habitual pint of Harvey’s Sussex Best in The Market Porter at no.9). The pub was heaving anyway, like the inside of the Market, which I had made the mistake of trying to traverse untrampled.
Overtourism is a buzz word of the moment, but who would wish to revert to earlier times at Borough Market? Maybe not the 12th beginnings on this site when bartering turnips for gruel was trade. No, before 1998, when the old fruit and veg market was on its knees, undermined by the power of the supermarkets. Then the decision was made to switch upmarket into a bazaar of artisan foodstuffs to tantalise the tastebuds of the chattering classes. A plan that has worked so brilliantly that it is wise to choose your moment to duck the tourist hordes. The prices, though, remain on the ambitious side, even if you roll up on a Tuesday morning. Weekends are just mayhem as the queues for average ‘street food’ stretch as long as, well, a street.
A parade of fine new restaurants is a reason to brave the Borough overload
In contrast, a big plus at Borough in recent times has been the arrival of proper restaurants on the edge of the market. Also on Stoney Street, stripped back Sri Lankan diner Rambutan, which I eagerly anticipated and then enjoyed immensely.
The most hyped recent arrivals have been Akara, https://www.akaralondon.co.uk/ a West African cuisine sibling of Michelin-starred Akoya in Fitzrovia and Oma, https://www.oma.london/ a high end Greek place from Smokestak and Manteca founder David Carter.
A theme here is: big acclaim elsewhere, let’s bite on Borough. Hence Café François, which has sprung from the fancy success of Maison François near Fortnum and Mason. This more casual spin-off is also styled as an all-day Gallic-inspired brasserie and the simple, classic plates sport the joint’s name. More casual it may be but the designers have been given free rein to transform this former Paul Smith store. Stylewise it’s head and padded shoulders above anywhere else in the foodie ‘hood.
Further good news? It’s also fun with exceptional service despite it being flavour of the moment. A well thought out French flavour. Well so is Cafe Rouge. Except the François food is light years better. It’s never going to be Bouchon Racine but it’s not aiming for that crowd (well mine and Jay Rayner’s crowd). Henry Harris’s determinedly old school French bistro above a pub in Farringdon would never run to a glass-fronted dessert kiosk stuffed with patisserie and Paris-Brests. Open from breakfast, Café François is still going strong for mid-afternoon sugar rushes.
Arriving around then I perversely ordered a curry. So should they rename it Café Indienne? Don’t forget there is a very French foothold in the Sub-continent, around Pondicherry. Hence the Vadouvan as their contribution to Indian cuisine – featuring a smoky spice mix and plenty of garlic and shallots. Quite mild this £24 bistro version with plentiful monkfish and a scattering that made an orangey mess as I prised them from the rice.
More colonial influence the presence of a soft shell crab bánh mì on the menu; the Vietnamese love (and supply most of France’s) frog’s legs but the crispy cuisses de grenouille are served with a trad sauce ravigote.
Eclectic touches aside there is a solid bistro/bouchon feel to the menu. A starter portion of exemplary if mustardy tartare du boeuf cost me £18. I drank one of my favourite rosés, Domaine de Triennes from Aix-en-Provence.
Enjoyable but my beating Borough Heart belongs to Camille. It’s a promenade de cinq minutes from La Gare de London Bridge; turn into Stoney Street, veer immediately left and you are in some modest estaminet on the Left Bank back in the Fifties. In truth it’s a plain room, untouched by any cute designer’s hand.
Ignore the melee outside and tuck into escargots, crispy pig’s ear, frisée and apple, and smoked eel devilled eggs, as I did, before Highland Angus tartare with chestnuts and topped with a fluffy cloud of grated Lincolnshire Poacher. A tie on the tartare with its rival down the street.
Chef Elliot Hashtroudi, once of St John, is on top his Gallic game. As dusk dropped and candles were lit I started humming La Vie en Rose. But that was a while back. On this November Saturday it was time to make my escape from Borough Market. One Underground stop away is Battersea. Present Oyster Card.
Hardly the New Frontier but Bermondsey has a pioneering buzz
I had two reasons to go to Bermondsey – the Kernel Brewery Taproom and the Ham & Cheese Co, neither or which I’d made it to previously. Indeed the Taproom is a smart newcomer, opened only in August. Not every venue in this end of town is now confined to an arch.
Ham & Cheese is. It does what it says on the label imports the finest charcuterie and cheese from Italy. Plus olives, oil, pulses, rice, capers and much, much more, all sourced directly from producers that genuinely qualify as ‘artisan’. I discovered it through the charcuterie for platters they supplied to Coin in Hebden Bridge down the Valley from us. Regular online orders proved a lifeline throughout the lockdowns. My only caveat you could only buy my favourite Mortadella whole – 2.3kg for £65. They recommend eating it with three days, too and there was a further obstacle – I don’t own a commercial slicer.
Gioia! On the counter at their base in Dockley Industrial Estate there sat a hunk of mortadella to be sold by the 100g and cut wafer thin. Is per favore.
Their source in the Bologna Apennines, Aldo Zivieri, keeps his rare breed Mora Romagnola pigs or free range large whites in 40 hectares of pristine woodland and slaughters them at 14-16 months in his own small abattoir before applying traditional charcutier’s skills.
My prime mission was accomplished too. The new season’s extra virgin olive oil had arrived only five days before from the Abruzzo. It is made from a tough little olive called intosso, which only yields fruit above an altitude of 350m. A labour of love indeed. It has only survived as a varietal thanks to pressure from the Slow Food Movement. When I got home and opened the bottle of Casino di Caprafico the colourswas vibrantly, verdantly green with a huge, grassy perfume. At £42 for 75cl it’s a luxury to be sprinkled sparingly, but when even commercially produced olive oils are soaring price my advice is bugger £10 Berio.
I went for Abruzzo oil and came away with Piemonte basmati
A final surprise package, literally, was – alongside the customary Carnaroli rice for risotto – was Riso Gange with its remarkable back story. Let me quote the Ham & Cheese Co notes on this aromatic basmati style long grain rice also grown in Piemonte by Igiea Adami…
“In 1821 Igiea’s distant relative, Paolo Solaroli, was exiled to India for his revolutionary ideas. There he made his fortune, married an Indian princess, returned to Piedmont in 1867 and bought the tiny hamlet of Beni di Busonengo to grow rice. It is in an area of wild flatlands called the Baraggia, now a nature reserve, where poor, clay soil fed with cold waters channeled straight off the Monte Rosa massif in the Alps provides the perfect growing conditions for rice.”
And it was suitable for the ‘Riso Gange’. Each pack that Igiea sells she donates money to the Indian charity Samparc in Calcutta. Just before I wrote this piece I used it to make a kedgeree and it worked a dream.
The Ham & Cheese store only opens for a few hours every Saturday; the nearby Kernel Brewery Taproom closes Monday and Tuesday but is open up to 10 hours a day the rest of the week.
At least until the end of 2024 Kernel is hosting a kitchen residency with Yagi Izakaya, serving Japanese-inspired comfort food such as gyoza, udon and karaage. It would be intriguing to see how such dishes match with Kernel’s classic dark beers. I couldn’t resist sampling the 7.1 per cent Export Stout 1890 but balked at the 9.5 per cent Imperial Russian Stour, cleansing my palate with one of six individually hopped NZ pale ales. I took my server’s advice and went for the Rakau. It was a resinous treat. Does Kernel ever brew a dull beer? It has been 16 years since Evin O’Riordan started brewing at his original Druid Street site and it remains the benchmark for all the other breweries along the ‘Bermondsey Beer Mile’. Many were lined up in the Enid Street arches (including the London outpost of Manchester’s own Cloudwater) as I walked back to Borough Market, hoping in vain the hordes might have dispersed.
Some special treats to add to your Bermondsey basket
My tip: stop off at the Maltby Street Market on the Ropewalk for your street food, having stocked up at some of the classy food outlets clustered around Ham & Cheese and Kernel on the Dockley Road Industrial Estate. Most of therm do online retail. I liked the look of The Fresh Fish Shop at Unit 8, foraged mushroom and truffle specialists The Wild Room at Unit 3.
In the adjacent Apollo Business Park I recommend Maltby and Greek at Arch 17, a real Hellenic Aladdin’s Cave (sic) from the UK’s leading importer of Greek foods with an impressive wine selection, too, and at Arches 1-11 the cheesy cornucopia that is Neal’s Yard Dairy. Less hectic than the Borough branch, naturally. I rest my case.
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I stayed at the Z Hotel Covent Garden, 31-33 Bedford St, London WC2E 9ED, a delightful bolthole which backs on to St Paul’s Church and overlooks Covent Garden Piazza. It’s a haven of quiet despite being in the heart of the tourist action (you’ve gathered I don’t like crowds). There’s so much to do in this area of great restaurants and theatres, including the Royal Opera House. For my Borough Market/Bermondsey break-out I caught the Jubilee Line at Westminster.