Fed up with London

The capital metropolis of Britain serves up the entire vast world on a plate

Over the previous few weeks, Bunny and I’ve eaten in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, China, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Türkiye, Jamaica, Argentina and Brazil.

And we’ve been to all these locations, food-wise, with out transferring out of Central London. When we first got here to London in 1972, Britain was the butt of a lot snarky humour due to its moist, gloomy climate and its stodgy meals.

In the years since then, there’s been a sea-change in Britain, and in London particularly, which has grow to be a multicultural and multi-culinary society, because of successive waves of immigration from far-flung corners of the globe. 

While the climate by and enormous stays as determinedly damp and downcast as ever, up to date London serves up a smorgasbord of worldwide delicacies to rival that of NYC, famed for its gastronomic cosmopolitanism. 

During our first week in London’s Camden Town we had steaks a la Argentina, which transported us to distant Buenos Aires, City of Beautiful Breezes, magically relocated to a diner a 15-minute stroll from our residence. 

The subsequent day we strolled one other quarter-hour to Vietnam to savour pho, a gently flavoured noodle soup that the nation is justly famed for. 

A brief bus and Tube trip will get us to Brazil, transplanted to Brixton Market through our pal Lee whose café specialises in savoury crepes with a South American aptitude imparted by the biquinhos, small crimson peppers, that give a tang of tropical solar to London’s leaden skies. 

Pedro and his Mum, Elisabetta, welcome us to Lisbon of their Camden restaurant, which does a number of tempting takes on bacalhau, the mainstay of Portuguese menus. 

Chef Roger’s kitchen, two minutes from us, carries us to the Caribbean with its curry goat and plantain fritters, Andy’s always-crowded taverna opens a gateway to Greece, with its kleftiko, and in an eatery named after a Mamak (Uncle) named Don, we go to Malaysia by way of an irresistible Nasi Goreng. 

London, which serves up the planet on a plate, has us, because the saying goes, completely fed up and fulfilled.

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