Brixton Market, what a gem

I have recently fallen in love with Brixton and more so Brixton Market. As much as I love Borough Market, Brixton is a more authentic experience. People go there as a necessity, its a way of life there. It’s a market where you can get pretty much anything you need from food to music, to tailoring to most importantly Disney towels, oh and not forgetting the mobile phone cover stall, I get all my fly covers from there.

It boasts one of Europes biggest collections of Afro-Caribbean foods and produce, with a selection of fruit and vegetables that I have never even seen before. This gets me excited as I love to discover new ingredients to cook with. The meat and fish is also in abundance at very cheap prices. I bought a giant bag of king prawns the other day for around £1.50, amazing! It’s a great place to stock up on groceries and you leave feeling smug that you’ve only spent £20 and you’ve come away with enough to feed yourself for a good week or two.

My favourite part has to be the indoor market, full of delis and cafes, its almost impossible to choose somewhere to eat. There are delis with a wide range of salads and cakes and pastries, serving up delicious coffee and you can leave with a loaf of sour dough bread under your arm. Wild Caper is my favourite. Of course there is the well known Rosie’s cafe (author of Spooning with Rosie) where you can snack on mackerel on toast or scrambled eggs. Just outside the market on Coldharbour Lane is The Duck Egg Cafe where you can get an amazing breakfast to cure any hangover.

The ultimate place to eat in Brixton market has to be Franco Manca in my opinion. I’ve walked past it many times not even attempting to get a table for the queue trailing down the street, but last Sunday I stumbled out of the rain, frozen through and it was one of the only places open with no queue to be seen. We couldn’t believe our luck so we sat straight down and greedily eyed the menu.

The staff are very friendly and are on hand to suggest the best selection of pizzas to suit you. We ordered a selection so we could try a bit of everything. We had to wait no time at all before they were put in front of us and we literally didn’t make a sound until we’d stuffed every morsel into our mouths. Best pizza I’ve eaten by far.

The beauty of a Franco Manco pizza is the slow rising sour dough base, baked in a wood burning brick oven. It gives the pizza a lovely soft thin crust with a slightly smoky flavour. With ham supplied from Gloucester Old Spot, sweet tomatoes from a group of producers in Salerno, award winning somerset cheeses along with other delicious toppings their pizzas are the real deal. Uncomplicated, unstuffed, not a garlic dipper in sight. It’s ’proper’ pizza, the way it should be.

Caramelized onions, spinach and Gorgonzola

Gloucester Old Spot ham, mozzarella, buffalo ricotta, and wild mushrooms

Tomato, garlic, oregano, olives, capers, anchovies and mozzarella

Along with a side salad (to tell myself I was being healthy) and a delicious glass of cloudy apple juice, we were three very content girls. A real treat and astonishingly cheap! What a delight.