Twelve places to eat in and around Borough Market, five of them carrying a Michelin star or a Bib Gourmand, and one of them still refusing to take your booking after ten years of queues.
The market has changed more in the last two years than in the ten before it. A Greek restaurant above Bedale Street won London’s first Greek Michelin star. A French bistro on Stoney Street was named the best restaurant in the city. Two more places picked up Bib Gourmands. Meanwhile the stalls have lost Turnips and are about to lose Bread Ahead, and the whole place is shut on Mondays, which catches people out every week.
This is the current list, checked this month. We have kept it to twelve and given each one a specific thing to order and a specific time to turn up, because the hard part here is not finding food, it is not wasting the one meal you have.
Maria’s Market Café and Roast both make our list of the best breakfasts in London, and Maria’s is the only counter here open seven days.
Quick answers
- Is Borough Market open on Mondays? No. Tuesday to Friday 10am to 5pm, Saturday 9am to 5pm, Sunday 10am to 4pm. Restaurants around the edges keep their own, longer hours
- Which is the best? Camille for the cooking, OMA if you want the star, Agora if you want to spend under £20
- Where can I walk in? Padella, Agora and the market stalls. Everywhere else, book
- Cheapest good meal? A £6 chicken skewer at Kolae or £9.50 tagliarini at Padella
- Most expensive? Camille, at around £100 a head with service
- What should I not bother looking for? Turnips restaurant closed in 2024 and Comptoir Gourmand is shut for now
Where to eat
Padella
Still the one people queue for, and still worth it. The pasta is made downstairs, the menu fits on a postcard, and the cheapest bowl on it, tagliarini with dried chilli, garlic and pangrattato, is £9.50. Ravioli of Westcombe ricotta and sage butter is £14, wine starts at £7 a glass, and it holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Our full Padella review has the rest.
Our order is the pappardelle with fennel sausage ragu, pictured above, which is the best thing we have eaten in this postcode. A warning we have earned the hard way: do not fall for the trick of thinking you can order loads because it is cheap. You will end up spending more than you meant to. Save room for the tiramisu instead.
There are no bookings. Scan the QR code at the door to join the virtual queue, then go and have a pint in one of the market pubs and come back when they text. After 7.30pm on a Friday your chances of a table that evening are close to nil. Lunch is the easy shift. More pasta options in our guide to the best pasta in London.
Where: 6 Southwark Street, SE1 1TQ. Lunch daily 11.30am to 3.45pm, dinner Monday to Saturday 5pm to 10.30pm, Sunday 5pm to 9pm. Walk-in only
Camille
Time Out named this the best restaurant in London for 2026 and it came twentieth in the National Restaurant Awards the same year, which for a small French bistro on Stoney Street is quite a year. It comes from Clare Lattin and Tom Hill, who ran Ducksoup in Soho, with Elliot Hashtroudi cooking after a training that went through St John and P Franco.
The dish we would send anyone here for is the potato: a deep-fried brick of it, laid up in dozens of thin layers, buried under crème fraîche and more chopped chives than looks sensible. It is the best £10-ish thing on the list and we have never managed to share one politely.
The rest of the menu is doing something quieter and cleverer. A chicory salad arrives with plums and capers cutting through it, and the specials board changes daily and is usually where the interesting cooking is, so read it before the printed menu. The room is small, red-panelled and served on green and white transferware, and it feels considerably older than 2024.
The two dishes it gets written up for are the pâté en croûte and the grilled ox heart with Café de Paris butter. Mains run £22 to £30 and you should expect around £100 a head with service, which makes this comfortably the most expensive entry here and the one to save for something. Book, and take a card, because they hold one. More in our Camille review.
Where: 2 to 3 Stoney Street, SE1 9AA. Bookable, with a daily specials board
OMA and Agora
One address, two restaurants, and the most decorated cooking in the market. Upstairs is OMA, which in February 2025 became the first Greek restaurant in London to win a Michelin star and kept it in 2026. It comes from David Carter of Smokestak and Manteca, and it is built on live fire and raw fish. The spanakopita gratin at £15, creamed spinach and feta over flatbread, is the dish everyone writes about; lobster-bisque börek is £12 and oxtail giouvetsi £29.
Downstairs is Agora, which has a Bib Gourmand of its own and is where we would send most people. It is a wood-burning rotisserie and souvla bar with a front that rolls up onto the market, so you can watch meat turning on the spit from the pavement. A chicken thigh skewer is £6, lamb adana flatbread £11.50, Cornish lamb souvla £17. It is largely walk-in, which in this part of London is worth a great deal.
Where: 2 to 4 Bedale Street, SE1 9AL. OMA upstairs, bookable. Agora on the ground floor, mostly walk-in with limited bookings
Kolae
Southern Thai grilling over three floors of a former cheese shop on Park Street, from Mark Dobbie and Andy Oliver of Som Saa. It has held a Bib Gourmand since 2025 and came thirty-third in the National Restaurant Awards.
The thing to order is the kolae chicken, a bamboo skewer coated in coconut curry marinade and grilled over flame, at £6 each. Order two. Grilled mussel skewers are also £6, a hogget chop is £8, and the southern gati curry of minced prawn and betel leaf is £16.50. You can eat extremely well here for under £50 a head, and the skewers alone make it the best cheap lunch in the market.
Order beyond the grill too, and specifically the biryani rice crackers, which arrive stacked up in a bowl under fried shallots and coriander and are the best texture on any menu in this postcode. They are built to be broken apart with your hands rather than admired, so do that. Ask for a table upstairs, which is quieter, and see our Kolae review for the rest.
Where: 6 Park Street, SE1 9AB. Bookable for up to six, walk-ins first come first served
Akara
The newest accolade in the area: Akara took a Bib Gourmand in the 2026 guide, the only new one round here. It is West African, from Aji Akokomi of Akoko, and it is built around the thing it is named after. Here is the bit their own menu tells you and nobody else does: the akara is a black-eyed bean fritter from West Africa, and it travelled to Brazil, where the same thing is eaten as acarajé.
The room is a Borough Yards railway arch done properly, brick and exposed ducting overhead, a long counter down one side and tables opposite, and it is the counter you want because the kitchen is open to it. Forty covers, so book.
Order the akara themselves and order more than one kind. The BBQ prawn is around £10, the crab kulikuli around £11, and the BBQ celeriac, which is vegan, around £7 and not the consolation prize it sounds. Before those, the rice pancake with black-eyed bean hummus is about £5 and the fried chicken bites with sosu kaani about £7. Ask for a Chapman rather than a cocktail: it is the Nigerian soft drink, it is about £6, and it is the correct thing to drink with fritters.
Then get a pot of rice to share. It arrives in cast iron with a charred aubergine laid across the top and a wooden spoon in it, and it is the dish that turns a round of snacks into dinner. There is very little else like this within a mile, which is the argument for the four-minute walk under the arches. Our Akara review goes further.
Where: Arch 208, 18 Stoney Street, SE1 9AD, in Borough Yards. Bookable
El Pastor
Under the arch on Stoney Street, and the most fun room on this list. Tacos come three to an order at £14.50, on tortillas pressed in house from heritage corn. The Al Pastor is the one the place is named after, pork shoulder marinated and grilled with pineapple, and it lives up to it.
Our own pick is the Cochinita Pibil, the slow-cooked Yucatan pork, which is almost too good to share, although sharing is the whole point so do it anyway. The prawn tacos arrive with five different salsas. The margarita list rewards reading properly rather than defaulting to the house pour. Small dogs are allowed inside and larger ones on the terrace, which is rarer than it should be.
It now takes reservations, and the covered terrace is bookable, but the bar stays walk-in and at peak times the wait has run to two hours. They take your number and text you, so go and look at the market rather than stand there. It is loud, and it is not trying not to be. Our full El Pastor review has more.
Where: 7A Stoney Street, SE1 9AA. Monday to Saturday noon to 11pm, Sunday noon to 10pm. Reservations and walk-ins
Elliot’s
A wine bar and small plates room on Stoney Street that cooks over a wood fire, and the one we go to when we want to sit down after two hours of eating our way round the market rather than commit to dinner.
Order the Isle of Mull cheese puffs, £9. You will be back for a second plate, so factor that in. Beyond those, the Cantabrian anchovy toast is £10, white crab with fennel and melon £17, and the pork chop, now served with lardo and agrodolce greengage, is £36 for the small and £45 for the large. The wine list is resolutely contemporary, so do not come looking for classic vintages, but the floor staff know it inside out and will steer you if you ask. Groups of seven or more have to take the £55 feasting menu.
Everything is cooked over English wood and charcoal and served family style, and the menu lists its suppliers by name, several of them stalls in the market a few feet outside the door. That is the argument for eating here rather than in any other wine bar: the shortest supply chain in London, and a room of bare brick and zinc-topped tables that fills up loudly by eight.
Where: 12 Stoney Street, SE1 9AD. Monday to Saturday noon to 10pm, Sunday noon to 8.30pm. Bookable up to 60 days ahead, walk-ins subject to space
Parrillan
Two minutes the other side of the market in Borough Yards, from Hart’s Group, who also run El Pastor up the road. The format is Catalan: pintxos, charcuterie and rice cooked over coals, and in warmer months a terrace where every table has its own small grill built into it so you cook your own over the coals. That is a genuinely unusual way to spend an evening and worth timing a visit for.
Inside, the thing to order is bread and fat: pan con tomate at £8.50, the ham croquetas at £8.50 for two, and whatever is on the board with toast. Squid ajillo is £9, a prawn pintxo with fino and soy £12, and the rice dishes are the big-ticket items, £30 for the seasonal one and £42 for the octopus. Do not overlook the cava, which starts at £11 a glass and slips down a little too easily.
Two warnings. It is shut on Sundays and Mondays, which matters because the market is shut on Mondays too, so Borough Yards on a Monday is a wasted journey. And there is a £1 per person cover charge for the water, on top of 12.5 per cent service. More Spanish cooking in our guide to Spanish restaurants in London.
Where: 4 Dirty Lane, SE1 9PA, in Borough Yards. Tuesday to Friday noon to 3pm and 5pm to 9.30pm, Saturday noon to 9.30pm. Closed Sunday and Monday. Bookable
Applebee’s Fish
The market’s fish restaurant, trading here since the late 1990s, and not the place it was when we last wrote about it. It closed through January 2025 and reopened for its twenty-fifth anniversary with Frankie van Loo in the kitchen after thirteen years with Jason Atherton, a redesign, a fresh fish counter at the door and counter seats over a live-fire grill. The sourcing now runs through Brixham.
Hand-dived scallops with black pudding and caramelised cauliflower are £19 and the right order. A Maldon rock oyster is £5, fish and chips £25, Dover sole £36, and the hot seafood platter for two is £120, which is a lot of money and best approached with a bottle of something fizzy and no plans afterwards. The heated terrace out front comes with festoon lights and blankets, which makes this the outdoor option here in November.
Where: 5 Stoney Street, SE1 9AA. Monday to Friday 11am to 10pm, Saturday 10am to 10pm, Sunday 10am to 9pm. Bookable
Tapas Brindisa
The original, on the Southwark Street corner, open since 2004 and still the best of the group. Brindisa has spread across London since, and we have eaten in most of them, but eating tapas within earshot of the market the ingredients came from is something the newer sites cannot replicate.
The tortilla Española arrives properly soft in the middle rather than overcooked into rubber, which is a lower bar than it should be and one most places miss. The croquetas de jamón are the sort of bar snack that has you ordering a second plate before the first is finished. Gambas al ajillo, six king prawns with chilli and garlic, are £16. If you have never had arroz negro, have it here. Our full Tapas Brindisa review goes further.
One thing to know: the market noise spills straight in, which either makes the room or ruins it depending on how you feel about crowds. Note too that Brindisa runs a separate shop inside the market, so check which address you are heading for.
Where: 18 to 20 Southwark Street, SE1 1TJ. Monday to Wednesday and Sunday 11am to 11pm, Thursday to Saturday 11am to midnight. Bookable
Casa do Frango
Algarve chicken over coals, five minutes from the market on Southwark Street, and now spread across the ground floor of the building as well as the first. The frango piri-piri, a half chicken with piri-piri oil, is around £16 and is the only thing most people order, correctly.
Round it out with the Iberico pork croquettes, the charred cauliflower and the piri-piri garlic prawns, all of which you will resent sharing. The Port and Tonic is a better aperitif than it sounds. And the detail most people do not know until somebody tells them: behind an unmarked door on the first floor there is a speakeasy-style cocktail bar called The Green Room, hidden inside the restaurant.
It is a loud, group-shaped room rather than a romantic one, so if you want a quiet dinner look elsewhere on this list. Book directly rather than through OpenTable, which does not carry it. Our Casa do Frango review has the rest.
Where: 32 Southwark Street, SE1 1TU. Kitchen Monday to Saturday noon to 10pm, Sunday noon to 9pm. Bookable up to 20, walk-ins taken
And the market itself
Not a restaurant, and still the best lunch in the postcode. The market runs across three areas, Three Crown Square for the bigger producers, the Green Market for the specialists and Borough Market Kitchen for the cooked food, and we have been shopping here for years and still find something new every visit. We have also never once left without buying something we did not plan to.
The order of operations we actually follow: shellfish from Richard Haward’s Oysters on Stoney Street to start, then a raclette from Kappacasein, which is the best cheese toastie you will eat and is entirely defensible at eleven in the morning. La Tua Pasta does the filling middle, with a hot stand in Borough Market Kitchen and a chilled one in Three Crown Square. Elpiniki, which is what Gourmet Goat is now called, is the one to know for something that is not cheese or pasta.
The whole thing is closed on Mondays, and not every trader is there every day it is open. Our full Borough Market guide goes stall by stall, and there is more of the neighbourhood in our Southwark guide.
Where: 8 Southwark Street, SE1 1TL. Closed Monday. Tuesday to Friday 10am to 5pm, Saturday 9am to 5pm, Sunday 10am to 4pm
Names to cross off
Three things older guides will still send you to. Turnips closed on 25 April 2024 after the market trustees revoked its restaurant licence, though the Turnips greengrocer still trades in Three Crown Square. Comptoir Gourmand is shut for now, with no reopening date. And Bread Ahead, at Borough since 2013, has been told its lease will not be renewed, which we have written about separately. It is still trading as we publish.
One to watch in October
Dishoom opens in the west wing of the Hop Exchange on 24 Southwark Street in October, its eighth London site, with a soft launch running 12 to 20 October at half price on food. There is a Keralan pepper chicken that will only be on the menu here.
The London x London Take: the single most useful thing to know about eating here is that the good restaurants sit on the streets around the market rather than inside it, and they keep longer hours than the stalls do. That means the market is lunch and the restaurants are dinner, and trying to do both in one visit is how people end up eating a mediocre sandwich at four o’clock. If you have one meal, make it Padella at noon on a weekday or Agora whenever you like, because both cost under £20 and neither needs planning. If you have a budget and a booking in you, Camille or OMA. And come on a Tuesday or a Wednesday: Saturday is the market at its most photographed and its least pleasant, and Monday it is shut.
Round the corner, our guides to Borough Market pubs, London Bridge pubs and the best bars in London Bridge cover the drinking, and Maltby Street Market is a ten-minute walk away for a quieter, cheaper version of the same idea. Kismet is the current residency upstairs at The Globe Tavern, and worth checking before you go since what is up there changes.
