Broadway Market for coffee, cakes and sartorial peacocks
Broadway Market guide
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By Dan Jones. Photography Ed Marshall
Posted: Wed Sep 23 2009 -
Broadway Market's status as a promenade for the East End fashion set is legendary – but it's the high-quality fashion, vintage clothing and independent boutiques that excite the rest of us. Get up on a Saturday to explore one of London's most successful local markets
Broadway is less a market than a meeting place for winsome young men sporting Lord Kitchener moustaches and fey-looking girls armed with the Saturday style supplements and the odd chocolate éclair. It’s notorious for its East End fashion kudos, but it’s the high-quality produce (Broadway is primarily a specialist food market), well-edited vintage clothing and independent boutiques that make it worth perusing on a regular basis.
It wasn’t always like this: after years of decline, in 2004 volunteers from the local traders’ and residents’ association set about transforming their ailing fruit and veg market. Now, Broadway is one of London’s most successful (and most gentrified) local markets with 80 stalls heaving with cheeses, meat and fish, cakes and preserves and a fruit and veg stall that’s traded on the market for the past 50 years.
Much smaller and less frenetic than Brick Lane, Broadway Market is also pleasingly eco-edged, with a ban on plastic bags and a stall selling souvenir cotton totes – perfect for the local trendies. Go to show off (and do your weekly shop at the same time). Feature continuesAdvertisementBroadway’s top stalls
BuddugJewellery makers Jessie Chorley and Buddug Humphreys’s stall is an outpost of their fairy-tale-like shop above Marcus & Trump on nearby Columbia Road. At Broadway Market, look over their trademark enamel pendants and pins (£20), watch-face necklaces and headbands with chubby feathered birds perched upon them (£16).
www.buddug.com
Paul Goby’s vintage
Paul has traded at Broadway for five years, offering high-quality men’s and women’s vintage, all sourced in the UK. Buying large quantities and passing on the discount means that Paul’s stock is well priced, and he seems to have a rather shrewd eye for a label – we spotted a Burberry mac for £15 and more than a couple of stylists rooting through the racks. Look out for Paul’s famous £2 rail that pops up on occasion. Excellent value and friendly service.
Outside The Dove pub.
Ion PatisserieThe majority of Broadway’s cake stalls are excellent, from Violet’s cupcakes (www.violetcakes.com) to the Ion Patisserie, Georgeta Decuseara’s small stall near Dericote Street. Each pastry and cake is fastidiously made and her obscenely huge éclairs packed with vanilla cream are worth queuing ages for.
Trader tips
Don’t miss…
The Dog & Wardrobe, Jane Money and Vishal Gohel’s tiny retro furniture and design emporium hidden just off the market (3b Regent Studios, 8 Andrew’s Rd, E8 4QN; open 10am-5pm Saturdays).
Things to avoid
The impromptu tat stalls at the edge of London Fields selling scratched CDs; fashion students lolling about outside the Cat & Mutton still drunk from Friday night; the public toilets; trying too hard on the fashion front: it may be the closest thing London’s markets have to a catwalk, but you’ve still got to make it home through Hackney afterwards.
Refuel at…
Try Australian-run café Climpson & Sons (No 10), the epicentre of the market (and a tangle of buggies and vintage bikes from noon onwards); the Dove (No 24) with its Belgian beers and portions of chips served in pint glasses.
Broadway Market, E8 4QL (www.broadwaymarket.co.uk). London Fields rail. 9am-5pm Sat.- Add your comment to this feature
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5 comments
The main reason to go to Broadway Market is for the fabulous flower shop 'Rebel Rebel'. I love it. It is every girl's dream of owning a flower shop, all pink and orange and fluffy and slightly eccentric (in a good original way). Also extra stuff to buy like vases, candles and other original things. Friendly, trendy....perfect. What I do is go for a swim at the London Fields Lido when I've got a Friday morning free, walk across London fields to Broadway market, have a coffee and buy some lovely flowers. Perfect!
There are now 4 book-sellers on Broadway Market on a Saturday. Two specialist in art, one in photography and the brilliant generalist Broadway Mkt Books.
Saturday is the only day the market is open. 9-5pm.
They are thinking of opening a friday market as well but that hasn't made any progress.
Can anyone tell me which day would be the best to visit??
Just watch out for the plethora of people with bikes and/or pushchairs!