Open Sundays 10-2p at Moxon car park

My name is Helen Manis, and I’m a lawyer who lives in London. I love to bike around and listen to music at the same time, lethal though it is. I also love yoga, jogging and cooking. I am not particularly good at any of these things.

Farmers Market Update: Marylebone, London

by Helen Manis (photos by Michael Blyth)

Last Sunday I visited one of London’s larger farmers markets in Marylebone. Marylebone is actually called Marylebone village. Non-Londoners: if a place in central London is called a village, this means that it is expensive. The pretty high street is famous for coffee houses, restaurants and high-end interior shops. As well as the boutiques Marylebone also holds its weekly farmers market in a car park on a Sunday. I have always loved the relaxed feel of Marylebone and can happily spend a couple of hours with a coffee wandering around the stalls picking up the weekly groceries.

Marylebone Farmers Market

It’s worth getting to the market early. Unlike the more famous (and more expensive) Borough Market, the locals still outnumber the tourists, but the market can and does get busy and many items sell out by closing time. Its not surprising to see why—Marylebone has a huge range of artisan breads, fresh vegetables, dairy, organic meat and hot food. The stall owners are knowledgeable and friendly and many of the prices are not too bad all things considered. All of the food is sourced locally and the stalls are independently run.

One of the things that I love about Marylebone is the unusual food that you can pick up.  If you go, try and head to the Alham Wood Organics, which sells buffalo milk and cheeses. Almham is a really friendly family run organic farm who sell at a lot of the London farmers markets. The milk is amazingly creamy and tastes really clean. Their buffalo mozzarella is used at one of my favourite London restaurants – Franco Manca pizzeria in Brixton market.

Cheese

Less unusual but equally tasty are tomatoes. Call me unoriginal but tomatoes are my absolute favourite and I eat them pretty much every day in salads, roasted or as a base for sauces. I usually go to the Isle of Wight tomatoes stall. You can buy fresh tomatoes or their additive and preservative free products, which have won awards galore (for good reason).

Tomatoes

My best friend Stuart and I are having a bit of a love affair with fresh beetroot in salads at the moment so I pick up some for dinner together with heaps of fresh salad leaves from Dr Adrian Izzard’s stall.

Beetroot

The breads and home-made cakes are completely out of this world. I try and make my own bread (once it comes out of the oven I usually finish the entire loaf in about 20 mins) but some of the speciality loaves at the old Post Office Bakery are too tempting and I buy a date and walnut loaf. Obviously I pick at it on the way home.

Bread

Spring has truly sprung when the tulips are out. Tulips are one of the best flowers—they are cheap and simple but so pretty. I put them in a little Le Creuset milk jug.

Tulips

As always I could wander around for longer but life gets in the way. If you do find yourself in central London on a Sunday morning you could do worse than spend a couple of hours at Marylebone Farmers market.

What did you find at the market this week?