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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

Afaik there are no agricultural fields surrounding London nor there is any fresh see-food to speak of. I've visited London only once 10 years ago but I don't remember any fishermen bringing their catch in the morning in downtown London and I'm pretty sure things have not changed since then.

Later edit: Please do substantiate your point in what you think makes London food great, with some examples, maybe I've been living in the dark all this time in thinking that a place that glorifies "fish and chips" cannot be the "culinary capital of Europe".

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For catering and restaurants:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Spitalfields_Market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billingsgate_Fish_Market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield%2C_London#Market

You have to arrive at these markets extremely early in the morning. This is the case with any b2b market, e.g. Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukiji_fish_market

I've just google image searched for the Spitalfields Market, apparently people in here believe that plums and avocado grow just outside of London (because that's what I saw in those photos).

What I'm saying is that London cannot compete with countries/provinces where plums or what have you grow just a 15-min van drive away from said restaurants, and as such calling a city like London "the food capital of Europe" is a joke. Anyway, also calling Napoli the "food capital of Europe is a joke" because of its size and population density, I can assure you that a 2- or 3-hour drive to the South can get you to some random Calabria small town with way better food than you can get in most of Napoli.

But the food-mania is high with many people who think that just because a place happens to have money it also has good food.

> I've just google image searched for the Spitalfields Market, apparently people in here believe that plums and avocado grow just outside of London (because that's what I saw in those photos).

London is only 35 miles away from the sea, how far do you think it is to a field.

As to your Van Drive: For example, Brixham (160 miles) is a popular place to get high quality seafood for the posher end of the restauraunts, this is ~3hr30. Getting fresh ingredients to london is a completely solved problem.

Plums grow in England. I don't know where you got the idea that they aren't possible to be local produce or the idea that you cannot run a good restaurant more than 15 minutes drive from a plum tree. I think the food mania is in the room but it's not coming from me.

I was really confused by this comment because Spitalfields market as far as I know isn't really a food market, or at least isn't these days; but what they're probably referring to is New Spitalfields Market, i.e. not the one in the City. I wonder why they chose the same name as the old market, super confusing.

There are two Spitalfields Markets - one near Shoreditch and one near Hackney (the "New Spitalfields"). This is probably leading to some confusion

Smithfield market is a really interesting place, and if you can believe it smack dab in the middle of the market is a fantastic cocktail bar – Oriole[1]. Unfortunately they're closed now due to the coronavirus, but once they reopen I highly recommend a visit.

In the meantime if you're into cocktails the bar manager of Nightjar (same owners as Oriole) has some great videos online: https://www.diffordsguide.com/g/1151/tonys-cocktails

I am not affiliated with Oriole or Nightjar in any way, just a huge fan. (So much a fan that I've flown in to the UK on several occasions just to go to these places, can't praise them enough!)

[1]: https://www.oriolebar.com/

Fish and Chips is a staple of the working classes, it's not supposed to be fine dining.

What do the poor eat where you come from?

Also, "I've visited London only once 10 years ago but I don't remember any fishermen bringing their catch in the morning": Restaurants will be stocking up roughly when dawn breaks, and not through the front door.

> I've visited London only once 10 years ago but I don't remember any fishermen bringing their catch in the morning in downtown London

Billingsgate fish market opens at 4am and closes at 8am. Peak is 4am to 5am (by which time all the best fish will have been sold); if you want a bargain you wait until 7am.

https://www.intotheblue.co.uk/blog/2017/06/26/billingsgate-f...

This conversation is a bit weird. There's plenty of terrible food in London. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. But there is also a lot of very good food in London. I guess it depends what you mean by good food, but there are over 60 restaurants with Michelin stars. (3 with 3 stars, 10 with 2 stars).

(I upvoted you. I think you're wrong but you're polite and adding to the conversation.)

I downvoted it, since the comment is completely ignorant, even stupid. That just derails the discussion.

that is a huge generalisation!

London has the largest fish, meat, and veg markets in the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_markets_in_London#Whol...) sourcing fresh every day

you don't need to right be next to a field to have fresh produce every day and yes, there are plenty of farms near London

> you don't need to right be next to a field to have fresh produce every day and yes

You kind of have, because frozen produce is not the same as real fresh stuff. Yes, better-off people living in metropolises like London or NYC (like many of the users in here) probably lie to themselves in thinking that their money can purchase better food compared to a peasant in Turkey who lives just between an orchard and the Aegean See, but that is not the case.

What do you imagine does surround London? Empty moors and badlands? Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billingsgate_Fish_Market

Is it fish caught in that same day like you can get in any Greek taverna in the Cyclades? Or frozen fish brought in from half a continent away?

> What do you imagine does surround London?

Suburbia? Is there anything else for a radius of 50-60 km?

> Suburbia? Is there anything else for a radius of 50-60 km?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Green_Belt

You can also hit the sea in that distance from London.

> Is it fish caught in that same day like you can get in any Greek taverna in the Cyclades?

Yes

>Or frozen fish brought in from half a continent away?

You can get that too.

The negative response you are getting from users is because you are completely wrong about inability to get high quality, same day picked/slaughtered/fished food in London.

edit: in regard to frozen fish, I trust that the Japanese (who regularly freeze the absolutely highest grade Tuna during transit) know what they are doing.

You're absolutely mad - this has no relation to reality at all.

> Is it fish caught in that same day like you can get in any Greek taverna in the Cyclades?

The UK has some of the richest fishing waters in the world. We have so much that we export worldwide. Of course it's available in London.

> Suburbia? Is there anything else for a radius of 50-60 km?

How big do you think the suburbs of London are? It's not LA. Draw a 60 km radius circle around London and take a look at the expanse of rural England for yourself.

> I've visited London only once 10 years ago

Clearly.

>Is it fish caught in that same day like you can get in any Greek taverna in the Cyclades?

Yes. There's huge amount of fish bought in from inside the UK from Cornwall/Brixham etc etc. Never mind all the stuff that's air freighted here.

>Or frozen fish brought in from half a continent away?

All fish in the EU is frozen anyway [1].

1. https://www.food.gov.uk/business-guidance/freezing-fish-and-...

Northeast of London you have East Anglia which two of its counties are really only known for their agriculture. Suffolk [1] & Norfolk [2]. Southeast you have the flower garden of Kent [3]. I live Southwest next to a train line called the Watercress Line [4] that was named such as it ferried fresh watercress into London.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffolk#Economy

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk#Economy_and_industry

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watercress_Line

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