Saturday markets in London

Alfie's Antique Market

Good for: furniture, antiques
Alfie’s is packed to the rafters with handsome twentieth-century home decor, hosting more than 100 dealers in vintage furniture and fashion, art, accessories, books, maps and more. Dodo Posters do 1920s and ’30s ads.

Berwick Street Market

Good for: fruit and veg, lunch
This small, buzzy street market, in a sometimes sleazy area, is one of London’s oldest. These days its home to several good street food stalls so makes a great lunch venue on a sunny day.

Borough Market

• Critics choice

Good for: food, lunch
London’s oldest market – dating back to the 13th century – is also the busiest, and most popular for gourmet goodies. Here, traders satisfy the city’s insatiable appetite for beautifully displayed organic fruit and veg, cakes, bread, olive oil, fish, meat and booze.

Brixton Market

Good for: food, cafés
Compared to the culinary homogeneity of Borough market et al, Brixton is a sensory fiesta. The air is thick with the sizzle of jerk chicken stalls, tinny reggae riddims and yam-based price disputes while the multi-coloured hues of exotic fish displays glimmer like a whiffy rainbow.

Broadway Market

Good for: food
If it’s Saturday, then it must be Hackney’s Broadway Market, at least as far as east London’s fashionably attired food-lovers are concerned. Many of the congregate on the market, picking up well-priced fresh fruit and veg, artisan cheeses, rare-breed meat, luscious cakes and indulging in top-notch snacking options from an array of hot food stalls.

Cabbages & Frocks

Good for: food, clothing
Held in the attractive cobbled yard of St Marylebone parish church, this market was started by food-loving fashionista Angela Cash. The Saturday crowd is drawn to a host of fashion retailers as well as mouthwatering grub.

Camden Market

Good for: clothes, accessories, souvenirs
Camden’s sprawling collection of markets offers a real smörgåsbord of street culture. Wander past loitering goths and punks to join the throng of tourists, locals and random celebs fighting it out at the vast and varied selection of shops and stalls. Saturdays are not for the faint-hearted – crowds craving lava lamps, skull rings, fashion, interiors, music and vintage swarm about.

Covent Garden Market

Good for: antiques, gifts
Although something of a London institution, Covent Garden Market is too commercial and generally too crowded to provide a particularly characterful retail experience. However, the colonnaded 19th-century building is impressive, and occasionally some of the performers and entertainers can even be worth watching.

Chapel Street Market

Good for: fruit and veg
If the bellowing, clattering traders selling a good mix of fruit, veg and tat aren’t Albert Square enough for you, then the frequent presence of a real life ‘EastEnders’ actor on the street might be – it’s not unusual to see locals Martin Fowler or Cindy Beale here picking their way through the apples and pears (“TWO PAND A PAAAAND”). Chapel Market has no airs and graces despite the Islington area that surrounds it having shot up in desirability over the past decade.

Deptford Market

Good for: food, vintage
Most of Deptford Market is your standard south/east London fare: three-pack pants, timber wolf fleeces, Duracells and lighters. Halfway down its length, though, is a distended gut of impacted crap, presided over by two tennis umpires up stepladders who take money, dispense change and guard against pilfering.

Greenwich Market

Good for: antiques and collectibles
There are plenty of stalls selling bric-a-brac, second-hand clothes, ethnic ornaments, CDs, crafts and jewellery galore at Greenwich Market.

Lower Marsh Market

Good for: fruit and veg, accessories
A street market since Victorian times, there’s some quality veg, women’s clothes, decent jewellery and vintage shops.

Northcote Road Market

Good for: antiques
Decent fruit and veg, flowers, ceramics, vintage clothes, plus the Antiques Market (No 155A; 020 7228 6850) and some excellent independent shops.

Netil Market

Good for: food, gifts, lunch
While Broadway Market is clogged with whippet-walkers, busking indie bands and buggies, Netil Market (just a few steps away from the main drag) is an altogether more sedate affair. The small collection of stalls (usually about 15) offer a microcosm of Broadway Market with espresso coffee, gourmet baked goods, bric-a-brac, crafts and even a rotisserie.

Petticoat Lane Market

Good for: household goods
If the promenade of trendies at the nearby Spitalfields Market gets a little overbearing, head a few streets south to the famously salt-of-the-earth Petticoat Lane Market. Wares range from knocked-down toiletries to knocked-off designer clothing: batteries, cleaning products, fabrics, luggage, toys and everything in between are hawked at bargain prices while the area’s multicultural heritage shines through.

Portobello Road Market

Good for: food, antiques
Portobello is actually several markets rolled into one, all penned in by Notting Hill Gate tube at one end and Ladbroke Grove tube at the other. The stalls start with antiques; further up are the grocers; and emerging designer and vintage threads are found under the Westway. Saturdays are manically busy so head out early, especially if you’re serious about buying antiques.

Queen's Crescent Market

Good for: food, household goods
Often overlooked in favour of its bigger, goth-tinged neighbours, Queen’s Crescent is one of Camden’s oldest markets, and within walking distance of Parliament Hill Fields and Primrose Hill.

Ridley Road Market

Good for: food
Everything from domestic and exotic fruit and veg, fish and meat to cheap clothes, household goods, toys, bric-a-brac and fabrics from Africa and India.

Shepherd's Bush Market

Good for: food, haberdashery
While Shepherd’s Bush Market is just a hop and a skip away from Europe’s largest urban shopping centre at Westfield, it’s a world apart in every other sense. At this gritty, multicultural market you’ll find a fantastic range of ethnic foodstuffs (Indian, Caribbean, African and Polish). You’ll also see vivid print fabrics, goatskin rugs, saris, home furnishings, electronic equipment, CDs and DVDs.

Stables Market

Good for: gifts, clothing
A multimillion-pound redevelopment project is currently in the midst of transforming what was the highlight of Camden's sprawling markets, Stables Market. The once boho Stables may soon become something a little more sterile, but for now you can still find vintage threads alongside crafts, antiques and the sprawling, re-housed Proud gallery and bar.

Southall Market

Good for: food
A cross between a traditional market and a visit to India: fresh produce, spices and sari fabrics. The poultry and horse markets have now closed, after 300 years of trade.

Surrey Street

Tufnell Park Food Market

Whitechapel Market

Good for: food, household goods
Stretching between Vallance Road and Cambridge Heath Road, lively Whitechapel Market has every type of speciality Asian ingredient and spice you’ll ever need.

Walthamstow Market

Good for: food
The longest market in Europe, with loads of fruit and veg stalls, a good selection of Asian and Caribbean products, fabric, flowers and more.