Greetings, Internet Stranger, and welcome to a perfect London foodie tour. It used to be that London had famously bad food. If you wanted to go on a London foodie tour that wasn’t all about sweets and puddings, you were liable to be extremely disappointed.
Fast forward to today and London has become an amazing city fit for any foodie. Join me as I take you on one of my favorite food tours, teach you all about the history of London, and then take you to one of the coolest restaurants in the city. Let’s not waste any more time!
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London Foodie Tour
Where Do I Stay?
London’s a massive city, so there’s a gajillion choices available for hotels for your London foodie tour. I can recommend my favorite choice for the budget-conscious traveler. (London’s gobstoppingly expensive, so we might all be a little budget conscious when we visit here, unless we are the King.) I’ve stayed at and enjoyed the oddly named 72QT.
72QT is right on Hyde Park, on the other side of the park from Buckingham Palace, near Paddington Station. So you can go say hello to Paddington Bear’s statue in Paddington Station if you stay here. You can even leave him a jar of marmalade. Click here if that sounds appealing to you and you like saving money.
If you’d rather explore other hotel options in London, you can find about a billion and three excellent deals for every budget by clicking here. This search engine will help you find the perfect place to stay during your plans for your London foodie tour. With plenty of options to choose from, I’m sure you’ll find something for your schedule and budget.
London Foodie Tour
Morning: Shoreditch Food Tour
Of course, you can’t have a proper London foodie tour without an actual food tour, and that’s where I come in. I’ve taken many food tours in London, and one of my favorites was this excellent Secret Food Tour of Shoreditch.
On this tour, we’ll experience some of the best food in a really cool part of the city. We’ll hit up some of the amazing food stalls in Spitalfields Market, and we’ll be able to try so many more dishes than we would if we were on our own.
You can go ahead and book this delicious tour easily!
Check rates and availability by going here.
Then get ready for…
Approximately Top 5: London Foodie Tour
1) It’s Beigel, Not Bagel
I’m from New York City, and we consider ourselves the world’s great expert on bagels. However, before I came to London, I had no idea that you could get bagels here. Or that they spell it “beigel” and not “bagel”.
Our guide Jenny told us that there’s another beigel place next door to this one and that their beigels are identical. However, everyone wants to come to the spot that we visited, for some reason. Popularity is a strange monster.
In New York, we would be most likely to top our bagels with lox and cream cheese. However, here we had it topped with salt beef and mustard. It was so filling and flavorful–the perfect way to start the morning.
2) Choco-holics Anonymous
Our next stop was at a beautiful chocolate shop. This made perfect sense because the beigels were rather filling, so it was nice to have a smaller stop afterwards, so our stomachs could breathe a bit.
This chocolate shop started as a market stall but was able to expand into a brick and mortar storefront. They are famous for their chocolates with pipettes stuck in them. These pipettes are filled with boozy cream, and you just squirt them inside the chocolate when you are ready to eat.
I selected the Irish cream for my Irish mother and the gin and lime because it felt so English. They were both delicious, but everyone on the tour enjoyed all the flavors, so I really think you can’t go wrong at this stop.
3) Fish and Chips
Of course, it’s not a proper London foodie tour without fish and chips, innit? We went to a London institution called Poppie’s and got ours piping hot. You’ll notice that the fish and chips look like they’re served in newspaper, which used to be the tradition.
However, it was eventually banned because it’s not healthy for ink to get in people’s food. So Poppie’s prints their own newspaper, but this is not a real newspaper, so no ink can possibly get on your fish and chips.
Jenny also gave us a side of mushy peas to eat with our fish and chips, which is properly British. Some of the Americans on my tour didn’t like peas, but I enjoyed mine and could feel myself growing more and more English as I ate them.
4) Spitalfields Market
Our next food stop is at the charming Spitalfields Market. While Jenny got our food ready, we had a few minutes to shop around here, so I bought a pair of hand-sewn earrings and a set of coasters that look like old movie stars. I hope you’ll find souvenirs that are equally delightful.
When the food was ready, we got to feast on our bings, which are a type of Chinese street food. They’re made fresh to order, which was why we had some extra shopping time, but these spicy and flavorful hot pockets were absolutely worth the wait.
5) Humble Crumble
Even though English food hasn’t always had the best reputation, the English have been renowned for their puddings as long as I can remember. And we get to sample one classic English pudding on this tour: the crumble.
Jenny said that this dessert became popular because of rationing during World War II. It takes a lot less flour and sugar to make than a pie does. All you need is a bunch of fruit on the bottom and then just enough sugar and flour to make the little crust on top.
Our humble crumbles were made with rhubarb and lashings of custard, which is my favorite way to eat any British dessert.
6) Beer O’Clock
For most people on this tour, this will be the final stop. (We will get one more stop, which I’ll explain shortly.) Of course, you can’t say that you’ve been on a London foodie tour without stopping at a proper pub, and the Ten Bells is a real classic.
This historic pub has been around since the Great Fire of London in 1666. Some people think that Jack the Ripper himself drank here, but I don’t see how they could know that because they never caught the Ripper…or did they? So you can drink in peace here because Jack the Ripper is definitely long dead…or is he???
24 Hour Treat: Brandy Alexander
Two other ladies and I got to continue our tour because we had ordered the bonus drink upgrade. So Jenny took us to the adorable English Restaurant for Brandy Alexanders. This drink is made with Cognac, creme de cacao, and cream. It’s quite sweet and delicious, like a boozy milkshake.
This cocktail might have been invented in London, but no one is entirely sure. However, it is sure that it was John Lennon’s favorite drink, which makes it British enough for me. Cheers!
24 Hour Tip
Those are all the secrets of the London foodie tour that I can share for now. You’ll have to go ahead and book the tour to find out the rest!
Check rates and availability right here!
London Foodie Tour
Afternoon: Museum of London
Now that we’ve eaten our way through London history, it’s time after our London foodie tour to learn more about the city the old fashioned way: by examining the bones of its pets. And there’s no better place to do that than at the Museum of London.
Like most of your finer museums in London, the Museum of London is free and the docent tours are free. Plus it’s open every day, so even if you’re in London on a Monday, you’ll have plenty to do.
At the Museum of London you’ll learn how London developed from a hunting ground for troglodytes into one of the grandest and most powerful cities the world has ever known, if you don’t take dental care into consideration.
three fun facts about london: museum of london
1) how old is london?
I mentioned that the Museum of London has daily docent tours for free. Each one is on a different subject. The only one available during my London itinerary was on prehistoric London, which I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know about. Boy was I wrong! We learned about how there were Bronze Age settlements around London thousands of years ago. (Obviously it wasn’t called London back then. I imagine its name was something more like Ugh.)
During the Bronze Age, elaborate burial rituals began to develop. One of these rituals involved burying beloved animals like this guard dog. I sure hope that dog was already dead when it got buried!
At the end of the tour, our Museum of London docent said that examining artifacts from prehistoric settlements of London showed that London had always been a special place even before it was officially named London. I got a bit choked up at this terribly British show of emotion. (At the time I was visiting, London had recently been the victim of a terrorist attack.)
2) was it always called london?
The first people to truly settle London were the Romans. They called it Londinium, though no one is sure exactly why. The site was chosen in part because of its strategic location on the Thames River. (There’s a reason all old cities are on the water. Water is necessary for life, Internet Stranger! Go drink a glass right now.)
Class stratification was alive and well back in Roman London. Above you can see a Museum of London recreation of a lower class Roman home…
And this part of the Museum of London shows how the I percent would have lived back in Londinium. When I imagine life back in Londinium, I can’t help but visualize all the Roman peasants with Cockney accents even though I know it’s anachronistic. I must have seen My Fair Lady one too many times!
3) Is London Burning?
Eventually London grew into the megalopolis that we know and love today. The one problem is that the buildings, like the Rose Theater pictured at the Museum of London above, were largely made of wood. And all it takes is one little spark to bring the city down.
On September 2nd 1666 (the Year of the Beast), that’s exactly what happened. A fire started in Thomas Farriner’s Bakery on Pudding Lane. Of course the bakery was on Pudding Lane. Even giant, death-dealing British conflagrations have something cute about them.
Most of the exhibit in the Museum of London on the Great Fire of 1666 is dedicated to figuring out who started it. Spoiler Alert! It was probably not a cow.
I personally think it was legendary architect Sir Christopher Wren because he profited the most from all the church building that needed to be done after the fire.
24 Hour Treasure
Don’t miss the display of famous events and people associated with modern London. My personal favorite is the photo of Sir Michael Caine. I couldn’t agree more that Mr. Caine, our greatest film Scrooge, is one of London’s finest achievements.
London Foodie Tour
Evening: Dinner at Behind
We spent the whole morning looking for amazing food, but our day isn’t finished yet. Follow me to Behind, a relatively new restaurant that specializes in amazing seafood. It has a Michelin star and no menu because they want you to experience the dinner as a surprise as it comes out.
I can pretty much guarantee that you won’t eat what I ate, starting with prawn and Riesling consomme, accompanied by pea, roe, nori, and apple tart. But I can give you an idea of what to expect.
At the beginning of the meal, the small bites came out fast and furious. It was a lovely way to see all the different types of fish there are in this world. First, there was mackerel served with strawberry along with lavash bread spiced with pink peppercorns. I like to think of this course as pink two ways.
Next, we have skate with onion, served in an onion gin broth. The only thing more British than seafood is seafood with gin.
And here we have crab two ways: white and brown crab with plum and a crab bisque on the side. The restaurant made this a shellfish-a-palooza by adding an English muffin with shrimp butter and mussel tartare. Look at all the different types of seafood we have had, and the meal is only about halfway done. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.
Here we have something a bit more simple: squid and trout with courgette and basil. It was most summery, only don’t forget that courgette is British English for zucchini. I guess they think it’s more refined to speak French than Italian or something.
I hope you’re not disappointed that this next course will have something in it that isn’t seafood. It’s pollock fish with couscous and lemon preserved in sea water, so we’ve got the marine theme going pretty heavily. However, it’s served with a rich chicken sauce. Fish in chicken sauce. What will they think of next?
We’re getting ready for dessert, so let’s cleanse our palate with some refreshing rhubarb, cardamon
Our first dessert is lemon curd with cherries and thyme foam. Between the citrus and the herbaceous thyme, we are easing into dessert with something a little sweet, a little savory, and a little tart–but not an actual tart.
And for a little decadence, we have chocolate with sesame. Just pure luxury!
This last dish was an optional add-on, but was an English blue cheese served with almond plum tart. Two things I can never resist are English cheeses and stone fruits in season. It was a perfectly lovely end to a perfect day.
If you have room in your stomach for the cheese course, I suggest going for it. Maybe they’ll even figure out how to add fish to your cheese when you do go.
London Foodie Tour
Tools For Travel
- A cell charger so that you’ll be able to keep taking photos of your London foodie tour
- The best international travel adapter because if you’re American like I am, you’ll need one to be able to plug in electronics during your London foodie tour.
- My book Get Lost, that I wrote myself with all my best travel tips.
- The most reliable travel umbrella that is small enough to fit in my purse, but strong enough to stand up to powerful winds.
- These great TSA approved clear toiletries bags, so I can always keep spare toothpaste and travel sized toiletries in any carry-on.
- My book Get Lost, that I wrote myself with all my best travel tips. This book will show you how travel can take you on a journey of self-discovery.
That’s a Perfect London Foodie Tour
Did that help you find what to do in London for a day? Are you ready to start booking your hotel in London right now? Please email me at stellajane@aroundtheworldin24hours.com and let me know!
Note: Keep in mind that while this article is about what to do in one London foodie tour, that doesn’t mean you should ONLY know what to do in London for a day with a London foodie tour. If you want to add a London itinerary, try this one.
If you want yet another London itinerary, it’s all yours. And if you want to add on other destinations in the United Kingdom, I’ve got you covered too, right here.
