My hotlist: chef and author Ed Smith reveals his top picks of London’s design and foodie hotspots

Ed Smith, chef and author of The Borough Market Cookbook, gives us a tour of his favourite foodie and design hotspots in London.
Ed Smith
Patricia Niven
Liz Hoggard16 January 2019

Ed Smith is the author of The Borough Market Cookbook, the official cookbook for the famed foodie heaven in SE1. Smith gave up his job as a City lawyer in 2011 and retrained as a chef, hosting supper clubs around London. His first recipe book, On The Side, was a sourcebook of 140 inspiring side dishes.

WHERE I LIVE

I live in Islington, on the edge of De Beauvoir or Dalston, depending who’s asking. I lived in Newington Green when I first moved to London in 2007. I think there’s something about the first place you live in London that will always feel like home. It feels like a proper neighbourhood with cafés and parks.

My wife bought a property here before we got married and I moved in. It’s a flat in an old Victorian school building, with lovely big high ceilings. Our kitchen is within the living room so when I’m doing recipe development, I have to be quite tidy.

My design London: hotspots where designers find their inspiration

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MY DÉCOR

It’s quite plain, with white walls and wood floors. All our beds, tables and desks are from Unto This Last in Brick Lane. It sells slightly Scandinavian, slightly classic-looking items. Everything’s laminate and pieces come in many different sizes. We have lots of bookshelves dividing rooms and within rooms. My wife, Laura Mucha, is a writer as well.

BEST HOMEWARE STORE

Borough Kitchen has really nice utensils and ceramics; there are branches in Hampstead and Chiswick as well. Our dinner plates are classic white from German brand Kahla. I used them for the supper clubs. And I’m lusting after wineglasses designed by wine critic Jancis Robinson. She worked with British designer Richard Brendon. This is a “one glass shaped for every wine” concept — red wine, champagne, sherry — which is useful when we have such space in our cupboards.

Best for homewares: Borough Kitchen, with stores in Borough Market, Chiswick and Hampstead
Photo by Ståle Eriksen

BEST MARKETS

Food markets are my catnip. Borough Market is a one-stop shop for speciality ingredients. There aren’t really any other places stocked with so much British and international produce. For the new book, I spent a year walking round the market, interviewing traders and creating recipes inspired by market produce that are easily cookable at home. It’s such a convivial, bustling part of London and we hope the images and stories in the book go some way to capturing the essence of the place.

Best markets: Southwark’s renowned Borough Market, a “one-stop shop for speciality ingredients”
Jeremy Selwyn

I also rate Growing Communities in Stoke Newington, which has an organic farmers’ market every Saturday. Marylebone Farmers’ Market is a properly good, well-supported market, as is Parliament Hill. Broadway Market is also great for food and there’s a terrific knife shop, Kitchen Provisions in Netil Market, where you can also find tempting street food.

FAVOURITE GALLERY

In Canonbury Square there’s the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art which recently had a brilliant exhibition of Campari posters.

SECRET SHOP

Present & Correct is a stationery shop with great little pencils and pads and good scissors, round the back of Sadler’s Wells Theatre in Clerkenwell.

Secret shop: Present & Correct, for office sundries and iconic stationery in Arlington Way, Clerkenwell

BEST DESIGN STUDIO

There’s a couple of east London ceramicists, Jess Joslin and Skye Corewijn who have a little shed called Klei in Netil Market, just off Broadway Market selling really nice ceramics that are not too overdesigned, not too rustic that they’re going to be out of fashion in a year’s time. I have their breakfast bowls and coffee cups, and use their ceramics for photo shoots.

Best design studio: Klei in Netil Market, E8, for rustic ceramics by Jess Joslin and Skye Corewijn 
Stephen Makin

AMAZING ARCHITECTURE

I think what’s particularly good about London’s architecture are the accidental vistas — things you see when you stop for a moment and look up.

One example, is when standing in Stoney Street looking through to one of the entrances to Borough Market. Above the sign there’s the train tracks, and then the Shard poking out from behind.

I try to remember to look up at the cathedral-like glass ceiling when in the middle of Three Crown Square, too, and to pause at the curled wrought-iron frontage to Brindisa restaurant that was originally from the Royal Opera House.

As an ex-lawyer I also like walking from the Royal Courts of Justice down Fleet Street, dipping into Inns of Courts, and have a soft spot for the Goldman Sachs’s Art Deco building [the former Daily Express Building].

  • The Borough Market Cookbook: Recipes and stories from a year at the market is published by Hodder & Stoughton, priced £25
  • Follow Ed Smith’s blog at rocketandsquash.com

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