This market stall shucks plump, fresh oysters at a fraction of restaurant prices. It feels both decadent and entirely grounded to eat half a dozen whilst sat on the kerb, with just lemon, tabasco or vinaigrette to cut through the brine. [OTG]

Bovine behemoth Hawksmoor refurbished a warehouse to the rear of the Market with characteristic aplomb. A pioneer of London’s proper steak joints, Hawksmoor gets the job done: British beef, decent sides, great service, excellent cocktails and wine list. [R]

Maybe Bao’s coolest restaurant to-date. This restaurant, bar, and karaoke venue takes as much inspiration from Tokyo as it does from Tapei: a triumphant interpretation of those cities’ nightlife culture. Design-minded operators — Erchen Chang, Shing Tat Chung, and Wai Ting Chung — have created the most original restaurant space and drinking venue so far in 2019. As well as Bao classics and the unmistakable parade of delightful gua bao, there are small plates of beef, rice, and egg yolk; pork jowl with raw young leeks, and Sichuan oil. A new hatch offers rice boxes with aged beef or pork and buckets of Taiwanese fried chicken.

Owner James Walters began trading spices and Levantine sweets at Borough in the early 2000s. His stall has now morphed into an excellent restaurant which merges Middle Eastern spices and dishes with British meat and veg. Good for drinks, too. [R]

Did the oyster stall catch the attention, but it’s closed for the day or prefer table service? Head to Wright Brothers on Stoney Street, where as well as bivalve molluscs, diners should look for dressed crab, beef and oyster pie, and seafood platters.

Quality pasta, cooked al dente and served with seasonal sauces at a fair price. Ideal. The praise is deserved and draws a queue — which is perfectly manageable and relatively speedy outside peak hours. Aim for two plates per person, plus some antipasti. [R]

One of the first genuinely good tapas restaurants in London. If after a steady interpretation of the classics (padron peppers, quality jamon, tortillas and garlic gambas) and authentic Spanish bustle to boot, head here. But perhaps more pressingly, it has brought back its chorizo roll stand outside the deli deeper into the market: deep red sausage; piquillo pepper; rocket; olive oil. Simple, excellent, easy.

Borough Market has moved the majority of its hot food traders to a curated, purposely built dining space complete with long tables; essentially a food hall, just one without walls. Long-standing favourites remain, not least Brindisa’s chorizo, pepper and rocket rolls; Horn OK Please’s spicy potato-filled chickpea dosas; and La Tua fresh pasta. Elpiniki, formerly Gourmet Goat’, is an established highlight as well, with goat kofta pitas, slow roast veal on bulghur pilaf and seasonal salads, all of which merge Cypriot flavours with sustainable British ingredients. But the hit is probably Kubba, Philip Juma’s tribute to Iraqi street food.

Some time before “street food” became a Thing in London, Bill Oglethorpe set up a cheese toastie and raclette stall at Borough Market. At first, that was an occasional table outside Neal’s Yard Dairy, where he worked as a cheesemonger and from where he sourced his cheese — notably the crucial combination of punchy Montgomery’s cheddar and Ogleshield, which is a British raclette-like oozy cheese named after him. Later Kappacasein morphed into an always-busy trolley in the Market, and more recently a permanent stall at the top of Stoney Street. In 2005, the esteemed American food writer Ruth Riechl described Bill’s sandwich as ‘the Platonic ideal of toasted cheese’; and it remains towards the top of London’s on the go pantheon. His excellent raclette — with potatoes and pickles — now showcases London Raclette, a cheese Bill now makes close by at his Bermondsey dairy.

Borough Market is panoply, Borough Market is international, Borough Market is tourism; Borough Market is workplace, Borough Market is local, Borough Market is community. Come to this longstanding caff — even now, under new ownership from nearby Terry’s — order a bubble and bacon sandwich, and understand that this place contains multitudes.

The lines stretching out of this bright, open café space are testament to a very busy market with but one coffee shop, it’s true. But they’re also testament to the status of Monmouth as a London institution: brewing single origin filter coffee way, way, way before it was cool through the filter cones lined up like sentries reporting for duty. The flat whites and all are good too, but drip is king.