London Trip Report

Regional Dining Discussions U.K., Ireland
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There’s a lesson learned there. Never, ever, order fish & chips in a pub unless you’ve heard, from more than one source, that it has a good reputation for the dish. It’s just asking to have a crap meal. Many foreigners think of F & C as our national dish but it really is much easier to find an absolutely vile version than one even halfway good. And that’s even in the north. Goodness knows what the ratio must be down south.

It is funny how we must have different national tastes in coffee. I’ve been visiting the States periodically since 1980 and cannot recall having a decent coffee. It’s always been either thin and watery or overly bitter for my taste (but then Starbucks in the UK has overly bitter coffee - so much so that we won’t now go there). And, no, I’m not a tea drinker - awful stuff, can’t stand the flavour.

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thanks but I think I’ll stick with my original premise which is we have excellent fish and chips in nyc, no reason to order it in London. It does leave one in a bit of a quandary about what to eat that’s local to England, perhaps we made a mistake not ordering steak and kidney pie? The beer has been fantastic, so there’s always that.

I hear you on the coffee front, actually we don’t like starbucks either but there does indeed seem to be a divide in what our respective countries look for in coffee and cappuccino drinks. And it is impressive that with all the great NYC steakhouses that Hawksmoor NYC is booming, so looks like there’s common ground around red meat and, as you’ll see in my next post, Indian food.

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I like Fish & Chips a lot. I have ordered excellent Fish & Chips in Nova Scotia, PEI, Newfoundland, Ireland and England, as well as local-to-me Fish & Chips made with Lake Erie perch or Lake Huron pickerel. I’ve had excellent Fish & Chips in London, Devon and Cornwall, and plan to try more Fish & Chips next time I visit Cumbria and Scotland.

I probably haven’t ordered fish & chips in NYC since I lived there a very long time ago.

While North American Fish & Chips can be excellent, I will still seek out Fish & Chips once or twice on every visit to the UK.

It’s a priority thing. I don’t seek out Chinese, Indian, Italian, burgers or steak when I visit London. I like those foods, but I can find good versions in Toronto, NYC, Italy, etc.

London has so many excellent restaurants, might as well focus on what you think will be a treat.

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I think that’s even more difficult if you’re in London. I think that, because it’s the capital and such a large city, it imports food from all over the country, not just England, so you don’t get as much sense of local as you might in other parts of the UK.

As anywhere, seasonal is the key to good eating. So, for example, lamb, rhubarb, purple sprouting brocolli would be things to look out for in March and should be readily available in restaurants. By way of illustration, we had dinner at a restaurant on Wednesday - it mentioned that the lamb was from the Herdwick breed, which is only raised in one county in the UK, here in the northwest, and the bread had Lancashire cheese baked in to it. Provenance would be the other key, so look out for other descriptions of product - whether Galloway beef, Goosnargh chicken or Gressingham duck - if a restaurant is so committed to its sources, it’s likely to be good.

Seafood is always an oddity here - bearing in mind we’re such a small island (with none of us living more than 70 miles from the coast). My understanding is that much of what is landed in the UK goes for export, whilst the seafood we like to eat here tends to be imported. It is utter madness. Even in coastal restaurants, it’s not always a guarantee that you’d be served locally landed seafood. That said, there are parts of the country, such as the southwest of England or Northern Scotland, where local seafood is rightly a Big Thing.

We have a Hawksmoor in the metro area. It was the first the chain opened outside London. First couple of times we went, it was OK. Next time, it was awful - steak so tough I complained. It was not only comp’d but they also offered a free one next time I went. So, a few weeks later, we went back. Another tough steak. So, we stopped going. That was 2018. But, in Janaury, we decided to give it another try. Food was OK but only OK we’ve no need to go back again.

All that said, I note your usual operating procedure is to go for immigrant cuisine in the form of Indian and Chinese, and avoid white people’s British food. Could be a good call if that’s more to your taste. I certainly like both cuisines and have four Indian (and one Chinese) places on our “regular visit” list. My only advice would be to make sure that you are actually visiting a restaurant run by Indians, rather than one of the very many places which might call themselves Indian but are Bangladeshi owned serving very Anglicised South Asian food.

Can’t advise on the beer as I don’t drink alcohol.

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18

Im way out of date on London but have generally had best luck with indian, malaysian/singapore and carefully selected british grub there (Sweetings in the City comes to mind) . And of course more recently Ottolenghi outlets! Have enjoyed fish and chips but from chippies, not pubs. Definitely not. Fond memories of eating my fried skate wing on a tombstone somewhere in essex many years ago. Eater has a list dont know how good it is. https://london.eater.com/maps/best-fish-and-chips-london. We did have some fantastic french seafood plateaus and an amazing upscale lebanese dinner when on a business trip once…the large population from the Middle East, including every economic range makes for great food opportunities https://www.timeout.com/london/food-drink/best-restaurants-in-london-middle-eastern… We have never had good luck with Chinese, but its been quite a while since we tried, too.

Hope your luck improves!

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19

British food

BRITISH - Fall 2020 (Oct-Dec) Cuisine of the Quarter

I love the foods I’ve tried in Britain.

I had a thread on Chowhound going back to 2004, trying regional traditional baked goods as I visit more and more of the UK.

I know where to find interesting food and delicious traditional regional foods in the UK. I also like seeking out seasonal foods in the UK which are typically better quality than their Canadian and American equivalents. North America doesn’t have asparagus that compares to Wye Valley (or German) asparagus. North America doesn’t have potatoes that compare to Jersey Royals.

Some people don’t want to take their blinders off.

I’m done defending British, German, Russian and Polish food to non-believers. :joy:

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If you’re still there, try this as a guide: https://devourtours.com/blog/traditional-foods-london/?cnt=US

Years ago, when last we visited London, my lasting food memories are of a Sunday Roast (mid-afternoon) dinner, of Indian food at Tayyabs (https://www.tayyabs.co.uk/index.php) & Neil’s Yard cheeses.

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@vinouspleasure thanks for bringing us along - I’ve been chuckling as I read each post

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22

We started buying online from Neals Yard during the pandemic (we knew the shop from trips to London). Great produce. And we now have a cheesemonger who has opened a shop nearby and he uses Neals as a wholesaler, so that’s where we now go to buy cheese. Same Neals Yard quality and variety and we get to support a local small business. Last visit saw us buy Duckett’s Caerphilly, Gubbeen (from Cork in Ireland) and Sparkenhoe Red Leicester. All three are wonderful cheeses.

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23

Conventional wisdom, to which I subscribe, is that you can rarely get decent fish and chips in the south of the country. Of course, there are exceptions. One such is Masters Superfish behind Waterloo railway station. So good it could be northern.

PS: it is possible that folk who write conventional wisdoms are northern. But the first recorded fish & chip shop was in the small town of Mossley, in my metro area, in 1865, so we have a fair old bit of experience oop norf. :grinning:

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24

I am not sure if it’s because of this thread. A seaside town in Kent, with apparently good seafood options, was pushed into my social media feeds this morning. (Whitstable, Kent)

https://www.vcjones.co.uk/

I haven’t eaten too much fish up North. The fish in Cornwall was excellent, as was the fish in Ireland near The Cliffs of Moher. Damn CBS for pulling the plug on Chowhound and my trip reports.

This must be debatable. :joy:
3 h from London:

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I don’t know the town mentioned in your link but the general area forms part of the southwest England that I mentioned upthread for good seafood.

It’s some years since we were last in Whitstable. We used to stop an extra night there when we were crossing back from France on the ferry. This place is very quirky and very good. Whitstable raises possibly the best British oysters.

And then there’s the wonderful Sportsman just a couple of miles away in Seasalter. Lovely local food. Chef makes his own butter and salt and creates his five course tasting menu daily.

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we love good German, Russian and Polish food, relatively difficult to come by in nyc. We’re about a 5 minute walk to schaller & weber and Heidelberg, one of the last surviving german restaurants in yorkville. the other cuisines are a decent subway ride away.

I suppose I’m beating a dead horse here, but if I think about iconic Germán food it might be jaeger schnitzel and bratwurst, polish food perhaps perogy and blintz, russian pelmeni and strognaoff, and Brittish we have…fish and chips which are easily found in ten restaurants/pubs 20 minutes from my apt. It’s not that one can’t find good fish and chips in london or up north, it’s why one would do so when the dish can be found locally.

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28

we have a similar situation in florida around citrus fruit. When my mom first moved to florida 55 years ago, grocery store citrus was uniformly delicious. Today, it’s no different than buying citrus in new york.

Fish can certainly be a mixed bag in nyc, I’m completely convinced a lot of places are simply frying up pre-breaded fillets from restaurant depot, a restaurant supplier. However, some places do get it right. As someone who grew up on the water in a fishing community and still fishes for our family dinner, I like to think I have a sense of fresh fish.

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29

jen, thanks, I did see that eater article. I had the best lebanese meal of my life with a client in london, wish I recalled the name of the restaurant. Also, an amazing kebab/lamb chop meal somewhere or other…my client had to pull me up away from the table :slight_smile:

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That’s exactly why I don’t seek out Italian food when I visit England.

I get it. The fish & chips scene in Toronto is much worse than the Italian food scene in Toronto.

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31

thanks to all who are trying to help us find delicious food in london! sadly, we left two nights ago, not nearly enough time to see or eat everything of interest. i’ll post our last meal in london tomorrow, probably from the plane home from madrid.

one thing i haven’t mentioned to date is that london is much, much cleaner than nyc making it such a pleasure to explore it’s streets and neighborhoods. And though our food experience wasn’t been wholly positive, I noted so many interesting places to try, it does seem like an exciting time to be a foodie in london.

we still have to check wimbledon off our tennis majors list and I believe it runs a fortnight…

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Whilst I have a feast of Middle Eastern places near home, they are all casual places. For a more upmarket experience, I’ve enjoyed meals in London at Ishbilia, Noura and Maroush.

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sorry it took so long to close this out, our last meal in london was at dishoom, convent square and it might have been the best indian meal we’ve ever had, certainly the best chaat. If we have a regret about our visit to london, it’s that we didn’t eat here twice. Thank you @Saregama for the wonderful recommendation.

At some point, after visiting london so many times for work, I thought of Johnson’s quote “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” and wondered indeed if I was tired of life. But visiting London purely as a tourist gave me a newfound appreciation of the city and we can’t wait to visit again!

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