Berwick Street Market and the street around it: where to eat

Berwick Street Market is one of the oldest street markets in London, and the best place in Soho to eat lunch standing up. It runs down the east side of Berwick Street from Monday to Saturday, and the street behind it has filled up with new places to eat. Here is the history, the stalls and where to go when you want a seat.

Tomatoes, silk stockings and a petition

Street trading here goes back to the late 1770s, and the market was officially recognised in 1892. As This is Soho tells it, the French, Greek and Italian families who filled Soho in the nineteenth century opened eating houses, and the market traders stocked whatever they needed. The fruiterer Jack Smith claimed to be the first in England to sell tomatoes, in 1880, and grapefruit, in 1890. Between the wars the stalls sold chintzes, satins, furs and silk stockings to the theatres and cabarets, and Berwick Street was one of the first markets in London to light its stalls with electricity. In the 1950s, when olive oil was something you bought at the chemist, Elizabeth David and Fanny Cradock came here for ingredients nobody else sold. By the 1990s the traders were still shouting "Fill yer boots with bananas, 19p a pound" down the street.

It has had close calls. By the mid-1990s there were more than 80 stalls, but from 1995 the council kept the market to the east side of the street and let the pitches fall to 41. In the middle of the 2010s Westminster City Council considered handing it to a private operator, and dropped the idea after a campaign and a petition of 37,000 names, with Joanna Lumley and Stephen Fry among them. It is still run by the council, with around 40 traders.

The stalls

The market is open from 8am to 6pm, but not every stall trades every day, and lunchtime on a weekday is when it is at its fullest. A handful of fresh produce stalls hold on, and the rest is street food. When The Nudge walked it, the choice ran from burritos and samosas filled with Afghan curry to falafel pittas and goat curry with rice and peas. Traders come and go, so walk the whole length before you choose. Our rule: join the longest queue of office workers, and order whatever they are having.

The Duck and Rice

When you want a table, go to The Duck and Rice, which has been on Berwick Street since 2014. It is two things at once, an English pub with stained glass and tank Pilsner Urquell, and a Chinese kitchen with dim sum made to order. The roast duck has been on the menu since day one. Walk in for the ground floor, or book upstairs. Order the roast duck, a basket of dim sum and a pint of Pilsner Urquell.

New on the street

Berwick Street has had a busy summer. Tokkia, the Korean matcha house from Covent Garden, opened its second branch at 40 Berwick Street in July, and this one is built around a bakery, with salt breads in flavours from matcha cream to doenjang corn. Order a salt bread and the agave matcha lemonade, which you can only get here.

At 3 to 4 Berwick Street, Saltwater is a fresh sushi bar from the team behind Milk Beach, with handrolls, nigiri and donburi to take away or eat in. Grab a seat if there is one and order the handrolls.

Before or after

Berwick Street is also the home of Soho's record shops. Reckless Records at number 30 is open every day from 10am to 7pm, and Sister Ray is further up at number 75. At number 31, Chris Kerr has been making bespoke suits since 1960, and calls itself the oldest tailor in Soho. Eat at the market at one, then spend the afternoon in the racks.

How to do Berwick Street

Come on a weekday between twelve and two. Walk the market from end to end, buy lunch from the stall with the queue, and eat it standing up. Then a matcha at Tokkia for pudding, an hour in the record shops, and a pint at The Duck and Rice to finish.