Billingsgate Market

It’s not the usual location to venture for food. A fish market in Poplar, East London, but if you’re in the area and can get past the fishy smells in Billingsgate Market and need something to eat. Billingsgate Café is the place to go. It is inside Billingsgate Market, the biggest inland fish market in the UK. It opens 4-8:30 am from Tuesday-Saturday.

Billingsgate Café

People may know Billingsgate Café as Piggy Café but it has made a name change over the years. The café serves up the finest seafood on the menu, sourced directly from the fish market. It doesn’t get fresher than this. If you do fancy something completely different from a full English have a look at the seafood breakfast section.

The café has an alluring charm, black and white photos frames line up the walls of people from the Billingsgate Fish market. You get a real sense of how life was like through the images. The tables are your bog-standard café style ones, with plastic black seats attached to the floor. During my visit, it was the end of a busy Saturday morning run, and a few people were in café having breakfast. If you time the visit wrong you can end up waiting for tables.

The most popular dish from the café is the scallops and bacon roll (£5) for a fiver which also includes a cup of tea. The combination of meat and seafood may sound strange but is insanely good. Salty slices of bacon that’s slightly charred brown on the edges, topped with a very generous portion of pan-fried juicy scallops in a soft crusty roll with melted butter are perfection. It’s good to note that Billingsgate Café operates from 3-10 am and is closed on Sundays.