The changeover
By day Borough Market is a crush: queues at the bakeries, samples on cocktail sticks, visitors photographing cheese. Late in the afternoon the traders begin packing away, and within the hour the covered lanes are swept, the stalls shuttered and the green ironwork overhead lit against the dark. Trains still rumble across the viaduct above, heading for Charing Cross and Blackfriars, but underneath the place turns almost private.
A market has traded at this end of London Bridge for centuries, feeding whoever crossed the river. The evening version is newer and smaller, a ring of restaurants and pubs around the empty stalls, and it is at its best on a weekday, after the day crowd and before the late trains.
Tables inside the market's footprint
The most theatrical seat belongs to Roast, a dining room raised above the market inside the Floral Hall, the iron and glass portico that once stood at Covent Garden and was rebuilt here piece by piece. Its windows look down on the stalls and across at the trains, and on a winter evening eating there feels like sitting inside a lantern. On Stoney Street, Wright Brothers keeps an oyster bar whose shellfish list follows the season, and Brindisa's Spanish plates are a minute or two away.
For steak, Hawksmoor has a room on the market's edge, dark wood and serious cuts. For pasta, Padella on Southwark Street has made its queue part of the local scenery; it has long preferred walk-ins to reservations, so arrive early or send someone ahead. Most of the others take bookings, and on a Friday you will want one.
Pubs that kept market hours
The pubs here were built for porters and carters, and it shows. The Market Porter on Stoney Street is known for opening at dawn for the traders and carrying on into the evening, when its drinkers spill across the pavement. The Globe on Bedale Street is the corner pub whose upstairs windows film fans know from Bridget Jones's Diary. The Rake, one of the smallest bars in the district, pours beers most pubs have never heard of.
The one to know is The George Inn, off Borough High Street, London's only surviving galleried coaching inn, with wooden balconies over a cobbled yard and floorboards that answer every step. It belongs to the National Trust and runs as an ordinary pub, which is precisely its charm. Thea rates it the most straightforward room in London and will argue the case over a plate of something hearty.
The old road south
Borough High Street was for centuries the only road into London from the south, and everything arriving from Kent and the coast came up it to cross the one bridge over the Thames. Inns lined it to serve those travellers. The Tabard, where Chaucer's pilgrims gather at the start of The Canterbury Tales, stood a few doors from The George, and Talbot Yard still marks its site. When the gates of the City were shut at night, travellers who arrived too late slept here and crossed in the morning.
That history explains the shape of the place. Yards open off the main road through narrow passages, the old inns sit behind the street frontage rather than on it, and the market fits itself into whatever space the railway left over. It is a district made for arriving, pausing and moving on, which is more or less what a good evening here involves.
Walking it after dark
Once the stalls close, the lanes around the market make one of the best short walks in the city. Southwark Cathedral stands beside the market, its churchyard lit and still, and on many weekday evenings a choir sings evensong inside while anyone who wishes sits at the back. Along Clink Street, the stone wall and rose window of Winchester Palace survive from the medieval bishops' house, and round the corner the Golden Hinde, a full size replica of Drake's ship, rests in St Mary Overie Dock as though it had just come in on the tide.
Two more minutes bring you to the river path at Bankside, with the lights of the City across the water. The whole loop takes twenty minutes at an easy pace and returns you to the market in time for a second table or a last drink.
Shaping the date
The easiest plan meets at the cathedral gates or the door of a pub rather than inside a restaurant, so the first ten minutes happen on foot. From there, a two hour booking at £500 covers a drink and a plate somewhere informal. The four hour riverside dinner date at £900 allows a proper table at Roast or Hawksmoor, the walk to the river and time left over.
Afterwards, the hotels are close. London Bridge Hotel is five minutes on foot, the Shangri-La rises directly above the station, and Hilton London Bankside and citizenM Bankside are ten minutes west. The Borough page lists them with their nearest stations, and the fee for every length sits on the rates page.
Company for the market
Milena reads a steakhouse board in under a minute and will have chosen the bottle before you find your glasses. Thea prefers the pub yard to anything with a tablecloth. Sonya begins at the cathedral and moves on to a quiet supper; her hours run from five until ten, which suits this early evening shape exactly. Lucy knows the market by daylight, and the coffee queue on Park Street, better than most of the traders do.
Milena and Thea are among the curvaceous companions, and Sonya and Lucy both appear on the petite page. If you would rather see the stalls in full swing, our Maltby Street guide covers the smaller weekend market ten minutes east.