Split market: exactly where Diocletian used to grow cabbage

On the sunny Dalmatian coast of Croatia is where the Roman emperor Diocletian famously retired to grow cabbages. Inside and around his former palace sprawls Split's fresh market...

 

Splitsko tržište

Billingsgate Market: London's freshest

o say that I am crap in the morning is to say nothing. All too oft, it takes about two hours for a huge mug of coffee, a handful of Chinese herbal pills, a round of Kundalini breathing exercises, an invigorating contrast shower and upbeat music throughout the commute to yank me out of lethargy into some semblance of functioning humanity.

It sure takes a promise of something really special to get me up at 3AM and drag my vehemently uncooperative body across dark and cold London. This time it was the perspective of a sightseeing session that worked the miracle. My group mate Tom used to work for an Italian restaurant and Billingsgate Market is where they used to buy fresh pesci spada and gambas and he promised us a tour. Nice.

Being the wholesale fish and seafood market of the capital of the country that has only recently started shedding its ichthyophobia, Billingsgate is sure not Tokyo's Tsukiji Market. A lot of the produce that will later be featured on the menus as "fresh catch of the day" is in fact hauled in refrigerator trucks. Well, how else then would you ship anything fresh from the tropical expanses of the Indian Ocean to a cloudy island in the North Sea?

At any rate, the choice is incomparably larger than the pathetic hike and pollock of my childhood's fish shops. The high turnover makes sure that the gifts of the sea are affordable to the gluttonous masses in the Big Smoke.

Speaking of prices, they are not that much lower than at my Brixton Market fishmongers, so a couple of quid difference is definitely not worth the tribulations of an hour-and-half night bus trip.

A lot can be said by the food cooked in the market. Grilled seafood in Barcelona's La Boqueria Market was superlative. The only ocean-derived item we found in Billingsgate Market's café was this grilled scallop bagel with bacon and cheese. It tasted just the way it looked.

Sunday (Up)Market World Food Fair

unday Up-Market World Food Festival for me is perhaps what a brothel is for a sex addict. From Brazilian to Tibetan and from Greek to Ethiopian, every weekend an indoor parking space in Brick Lane turns into a fiesta of world cuisine at affordable prices. I could wallow my way through the rows of steaming pans and drown myself in a pot of Thai curry, like Duke of Clarence in a barrel of Malmsey wine.

 

Pro's: Choice. Price.
Con's: No sitting facilities. Open only on weekends until 5PM.
In a nutshell: All authentic local foods of the world in one place.

Address: The Old Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Lanee, E1 6QL