Living on the north side of the River Thames, we rarely venture into south London to eat, which is probably why we’d not heard of “Mercato Metropolitano”:https://www.mercatometropolitano.com/ until it was mentioned by a friend.
The huge collection of interesting food outlets, all under one roof, has communal seating and is located halfway between the Elephant and Castle and Borough tube station.
At 12.30pm on a weekday, it was still relatively quiet and so we did a couple of circuits trying to choose what cuisine we fancied. It was so difficult with stalls selling Turkish kebabs, Indian curries, Italian arancini, Lebanese wraps, Mexican tortilla, Japanese Ramen, Peruvian ceviche etc. You can imagine our problem. There were also outlets selling drinks, including German and Italian beers and cocktails, but to try to make things simpler on our first visit, we opted for a French outlet selling raclette, wine and fizz – we were celebrating as we had just finished walking the Jubilee line overground in two days from Harrow and Wealdstone in the north to Elephant and Castle (30km in 7.5 hours).
The raclette, which was basically grilled cheese over roasted potatoes, was absolutely delicious and warming especially as we upgraded to have charcuterie with it (£10).
As time went on, the place really busied up with what appeared to be groups of young office workers from nearby. It was ideal place for groups as it was casual dining, and everyone could have whatever they fancied.
Whilst all the disposable cups, crockery, and cutlery are made of biodegradable materials. we were given glasses for our wine and fizz, which I appreciated – fizz in plastic cups is not the same! Whilst we would have cleared up, staff were going round removing plates etc once you’d finished to ensure the place was kept clean and tidy.
If we’re ever in the area, it’s definitely a place we would return to.
