Best street food in London

Locations in Soho, Tooting and Hoxton. theorangebuffalo.com

Vietvan

Catch Vietvan at both the East Dulwich and Crystal Palace food market, serving Vietnamese street food fare from fresh banh mi to crunchy rice noodle salads. Bright and beautiful, banh mi is not to be missed, filled with either 12-hour slow cooked shoulder of pork with a chilli and lemongrass homemade rub or chilli and pepper tofu marinated in a homemade rub and shallow fried. Fillings are complimented with Asian slaw (carrot and mooli), julienned cucumber and coriander, mint, sriracha sauce, fried shallots and fresh chilli. vietvan.co.uk

Pockets

Head to Netil Market in East London for your lunchtime Pocket fix (and thank us later!). This little falafel stall delivers on big flavours, with its soft and springy pittas fit to burst with layers: think crispy hot falafel, cabbage salad, lashings of sauce and hummus. The final topping comes in the form of a potato slice, coated in batter and fried. instagram.com/pockets_uk

Humble Crumble

Find Humble Crumble at Spitalfields and Borough Market selling pink pots of artisan hot crumble to the masses. Choose from apple or rhubarb (or both), then layer with either classic or vegan shortbread. For toppings, choose from vanilla custard, whipped cream, blowtorched marshmallow and dark chocolate drizzle, with free extras including dried rose petals, crushed meringue and edible glitter. humble-crumble.com

Meltsmiths

Meltsmiths is famous within the street food scene for its oozing, Instagrammable grilled cheese concoctions. Go for the ‘Spicy Boy’, Meltsmith’s cheese blend with lashings of sriracha, jalapeños and crispy onions. Pair with a side of tater tots – loaded with mayo, stilton and Frank's Hot Sauce – for a proper cheese-themed feast.

Catch Meltsmiths at Victoria Park Market every Sunday. meltsmiths.co.uk

Mother Clucker

Mother Clucker started serving tea-brined, buttermilk-soaked, twice-battered fried chicken from a converted US Army ambulance at the Truman Brewery in 2013 (think fried chicken breast with shredded lettuce, American cheese, pepper sauce, and lime mayo inside a brioche bun). It’s made serious moves since then, including collaborations with Honest Burger and multiple expansions across London and the rest of the UK, with their first permanent site set to open at the end of April 2022 in Islington. motherclucker.co.uk

Guasa

Guasa is bringing a Venezuelan food experience to the London street food scene. Try its popular artisan Venezuelan arepas made with naturally gluten-free white corn, with fillings spanning teriyaki-style jackfruit, marinated chicken, buffalo beef and more. Yuca fries, served golden and crispy, also grace the menu, as well as Venezuelan rum and cocktails with a twist. guasagroup.com

The Bagel Guys

Open every Thursday-Sunday at Netil Market, The Bagel Guys will satisfy savoury cravings with its impressive offering of hand-rolled, New York-style sourdough bagels. Expect everyone’s meaty favourites, including its take on the Reuben with thick-cut pastrami, sauerkraut and melted Swiss cheese, as well as the classic salmon and cream cheese combo, with Severn & Wye smoked salmon, in-house quick pickled cucumber and red onion. It’s also ventured into pizza bagels, with margherita and pepperoni iterations on the menu. thebagelguys.co.uk

Da Fish Ting

Da Fish Ting serve its mouth-watering barbecued fish offerings across Greenwich, Crystal Palace and Walthamstow, with standout dishes including ponzu-glazed river trout skewers, tacos loaded with grilled prawns, salmon and mackerel and a meaty ponzu-glazed salmon burger cooked over charcoal with greens and wasabi tartare sauce, steamed in a charcoal bun. dafishting.com

Pasta di Grazia

Maria Grazia founded Pasta di Grazia in 2012 after she struggled to buy fresh filled pasta in London shops. Ten years later, you can still find Pasta di Grazia serving fresh, handmade pasta at Brockley Market, Victoria Park Market and Crystal Palace Market, boasting a number of loyal customers, too. Think pasta rings filled with stracchino and honey, tortellini salmon and mascarpone cheese and pumpkin and sage mezzelune. pastadigrazia.co.uk

Eat Lah

Malaysian street food stall Eat Lah is based across a handful of London street food markets, including Design District Canteen, Victoria Park and Brockley Market. The bright blue stall is famous for its hot fresh nasi kerabu, a blue-hued rice salad topped with plenty of veg and garnished with herbs, grated coconut, fish crackers and its own spicy sambal. eatlah.co.uk

Sonora Taquería

You can always expect a queue to form at Sonora Taquería and for good reason, with loyal customers referring to it as the best tacos in London. Its barbacoa tacos, using homemade flour tortillas, are loaded with strong, tangy and juicy beef, melted cheddar and toppings including coriander, onion, lime and red salsa. It’s a messy affair, but one definitely worth partaking in.

Find Sonora at Netil Market, open Friday 12-4pm and Saturday to Sunday from 10am-4 pm, or until they sell out. instagram.com/sonora.ldn

Utter Waffle

Utter Waffle sells lip-smacking sweet and savoury waffles from its flagship food truck, a 1975 vintage Ford Transit, across multiple London spots. Try the chorizo, pepperoni, tomato passata & mozzarella-stuffed waffle, topped with rocket, tomatoes, parmesan & your choice of basil mayo or hot honey. For a sweet treat, get the warm waffle topped with fresh banana, peanut butter crémeux, Belgian chocolate & honeycomb. Alternatively, check out its permanent site in Herne Hill. utterwaffle.co.uk

Bokit'la

Bokit’la brings the ultimate Caribbean street food to London. The bokit, created by working class French Caribbeans, is soft, deep-fried dough stuffed with silky aubergine, salt fish or chicken, all marinated in a secret blend including lime, garlic and sweet chilli. Bokit’la trade on Thursdays at Lyric Square, Hammersmith, Wednesday-Saturday at Oval Farmer's Market and Sundays at Alexandra Palace Farmers' Market. bokitla.com

Nonna’s Gelato

The Nonna’s team creates imaginatively flavoured gelato from its family-run north London kitchen. Using traditional Italian techniques with British produce, Nonna’s mouth-watering flavours include rich espresso sorbet, mint choc chip and an Eton mess concoction. We’d particularly recommend the chocolate ripple made with porter from Hackney-based Five Points Brewing Company. Nonna's trade at Broadway Market in Spring/Summer. nonnasgelato.com

Sugoi JPN

Venezuelan chef Felipe serves Japanese-Latin fusion street food in South Wimbledon, Soho, Shoreditch and Stockwell. Signature noritacos wrap a mash-up of Japanese and Latin ingredients in a crisp tempura seaweed shell. Fillings include sushi salmon and tuna with pico de gallo, and Mexican-style chicken teriyaki with soured cream and avocado. Crisp gyozas come slathered in yuzu dressing and sriracha, and katsuobushi flakes dance atop yuca fries. sugoijpn.com

Only Jerkin'

Jess Olson and Luke Dawes set up Only Jerkin’ in 2016. Choose between jerk chicken nuggets in ginger beer batter and sweet potato fries, or jerk fish fingers with chilli mango aïoli. Stay updated with their latest market news on Instagram: @onlyjerkin

Yorkshire Burrito

Yorkshire man Henry Preen is bringing the Great British roast to the streets of London with his stall, Yorkshire Burrito. Choose between roast chicken with lemon and black pepper in white wine gravy, rare breed beef brisket in red wine gravy, or slices of roasted pork belly with crackling and apple sauce, before its wrapped into a giant Yorkshire pudding with rosemary-roasted potatoes, greens, sage and onion stuffing and plenty of gravy. There’s also an indulgent veggie option of roasted cauliflower cheese served with all the trimmings. Look out for Yorkshire Burrito at Camden Market and on Leather Lane. yorkshireburrito.com

We met the man behind Yorkshire Burrito and chatted to him on our podcast, here are his tips for the best roast dinner.

Claw

The guys at CLAW take sustainable fishing seriously – that’s why they only source crab and lobster from Salcombe. The menu is shellfish-heavy, obviously. Warm brioche rolls are filled with crab or lobster and lemon mayo. Fries coated in smoked paprika, sesame seeds and shallots come with sweet white and brown crabmeat and samphire. The stall hibernates until spring, before springing back to life for a season of food festivals & events nationwide. claw.co.uk

Mama’s Jerk Station

It now has permanent sites at Pop Brixton, Deptford Market Yard and Canary Wharf, but the roots of Mama’s Jerk Station go back generations, to Jamaica. There, in her kitchen garden, owner Adrian Luckie’s great grandmother, Mama Charlotte, used to grow the ingredients that went into her jerk marinade, a secret family recipe which today puts the sweet, aromatic heat into Mama’s 48-hour marinated BBQ chicken wings or its chicken wraps with fried plantain and tropical mayo. A jerk marinade usually includes fresh thyme, allspice berries and scotch bonnet chillies among other ingredients, but Mama’s goes that extra mile in its barbecuing, by mimicking the pimento tree wood that is the traditional BBQ fuel in Jamaica, “We add pimento flavour to the coals and wood in the drum smokers to give the food an even more authentic flavour,” says Adrian. mamasjerk.com

Fancy street food but want to sit in and enjoy it? Jennifer Joyce also share her top street food restaurant secrets here.