London / England Food Adventures

Our food adventures from our UK trip part I – this was a very gastronomic vacation! Here is the London/England part of our trip. (See part II for Scotland)

We spent 5 days based in London, including side trips to Stonehenge/Bath and Oxford. We then took a train up to York, where we spent a day and night, before going to Scotland.

London had so many great dining options – we tried Fish! (fish and chips), Dishoom (Indian food, pricey but highly recommend), B Bar African British pub, Great Queen Street (great meat options).

I tried the Amorino rose gelato, which you can top with a macaron. This was one of our prettiest desserts (wish we had more rose gelato shops in the USA).  We ate it at Trafalgar square, where we climbed the lions (clearly, everyone ignores the “don’t climb the lions” signs) and saw the National Gallery (the highlight being van Gogh’s sunflowers painting)

We of course had to try high tea, and Tea and Tattle is a hidden hem right by the British Museum (where we saw the Rosetta stone!). It’s much more reasonable priced than other high tea places in London (the “Traditional” is tea for two at just £38, while some other places were double the price). The clotted cream raspberry scones were delicious and our favorite part.

B was super excited about fish and chips – here they eat it with vinegar, not tartar sauce. We ate fish and chips at Fish! in London, as I mentioned above, and but our favorite was Seafoods in Bath because the portions were huge. We also tried a steak and kidney pie (which has real kidneys, not kidney beans as we expected).

We had some meat pies in Bath for dinner – cheap, hearty, and portable. Also in Bath is the best ice cream on our entire UK trip – Marshfield Farm Ice Cream.

We had a proper British breakfast at Browns in Oxford – their traditional breakfast includes bacon/sausages, eggs, baked beans, mushrooms, black pudding, grilled tomato, sourdough toast, and British farmhouse butter.

At York, we took their free walking tour  – highly recommend, and it’s 3 hours learning about the fascinating history of York. Our guide led us to several cute bakeries right outside Yorkminster and the the Shambles downtown, the scenic inspiration for Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley.

York had some great food options in York. One of my favorite breakfasts on the trip was at Pig and Pastry – the almond peach tart was perfect and B had his coffee to keep up with my jam packed itinerary.

Dinner at York was in a pub called “House of Trembling Madness” (we had to check it out based on the name alone). We had meat charcuterie platter and more meat pies. We also tried their mashed peas and some local cider. 

Finally, York is the chocolate capital (home the famous kit kat bar), we went on the chocolate tour, which can’t be missed! There’s lots of chocolate samples on the tour, which B and I happily tried.

Hope you enjoy our food adventures in London / England!