Where to go in Portobello Road, the market, the food, the best shops
I’ve been going regularly to Portobello Road market since 2018. During lockdown when most shops were closed I shopped both here and on Facebook marketplace.
Apart from the shopping Portobello is great for local characters and street fashion.
When:
Any market, whether it’s Portobello, a car boot, or Sunbury Antiques market (every second tuesday), is at its best very early or very late. Professionals start early to get the good stuff, but I usually start around 11 am. If you arrive very late you also get some bargains because sellers often don’t want to cart home what they haven’t sold. Sometimes they will even dump stuff on the pavement. I found a gold mirror stacked behind some junk against a lamp post.
Although the market is fully open on Fridays and Saturdays, I prefer to go on Fridays as it is less crowded.
Weather:
Don’t go when it’s raining. But do go when it’s cold or snowing. Stalls will either not bother or shut up early if it’s raining-you can’t sell when everything is soggy. But hardy stallholders will happily suffer below zero degree temperatures.
The stalls
Antiques and bric-a-brac:
I usually start from the ‘unfashionable’ Golborne Road end. A short walk down from Cafe Lisboa you have some very cheap pavement sellers where goods sell from £1 to £10. These guys have a very careless approach: they bring boxes of china, pictures, knick-knacks, often broken in transit, and dump them on the side of the road. But there are gems.
At the top of actual Portobello Road you have the Moroccan stall, with quality rugs, pottery and furniture on the left. As you go down there are a range of sellers on the street from amateurs to posher antiques experts.
Towards the other end of Portobello, the Notting Hill end, you get the antiques shops, sometimes housed in emporiums of inside stalls, such as the Admiral Vernon.
Clothes:
The main clothes section is under the Westway, with specialist vintage clothes sellers, with anything from historical clothes (Victorian and costume) to designer. This place is a boon for any stylist or costumier.
Along Portobello Road nearby there are a couple of knitwear specialist stallholders such as the cashmere stall.
I’ve often found very cheap children’s clothes, little smocked dresses and hand knitted cardigans for £2.
You can also find fabric stalls which also sell trimmings and ribbons - passementerie. I follow this guy Andrew of Wayward Co on instagram, he’s often there and has reasonably priced vintage buttons, trims and cloth.
The Cloth Shop sells gorgeous quality fabrics, ribbons, trimmings and home ware but it is undeniably expensive. They do have a box of off-cuts and end of the line remnants at the back, which is worth rummaging.
At the Notting Hill end there is a button stall, selling vintage buttons sewn in sets onto card. I’ve got to go there to upgrade an Anthropologie coat bought in the sale, black bouclé with Biba-esque tailoring. You can always make cheap clothes look more expensive by changing the buttons.
Of course there is tons of jewellery, vintage and new.
The food
Last week I discovered a Nepalese secret cafe on the ground floor of Admiral Vernon antiques emporium where I had vegetable momos (dumplings) for £9 and a large cup of tea for £2.
At the Golborne end there are two main ethnic communities: the Portuguese and the Moroccans.
I often have a pastel de nata or a sandwich at Lisboa Patisserie. Their coffee is disgusting. I love me a gallau (Portugueses for a large milky coffee) but it’s not good here. Go next door to the empanada place for your coffee. Best coffee in Portobello Rd is at Coffee Plant.
You will find a selection of Moroccan outdoor stalls with seating where you can get a barbecue fish dinner with a whole sea bass or squid rings or grilled prawns or tuna steak complete with chips, rice, salad for around £12. You can sit and eat at one of the checkered cloth tables.
Under the Westway there is an open air street food market. My recommendations are the Iraqi rice woman (‘our rice is more garlicky than the Iranian version of this dish’), the Turkish stuffed gozleme, the gluten-free Venezuelan arepas (I often visit Portobello with a coeliac friend) scraped fresh off the hot plate.
The cocktail stall at the end of this section does decent Margaritas, straight and spicy, and allows you to sit down with a drink and your food.
Next to the street food on the corner under the Westway is a Malaysian canteen style restaurant Makan Cafe, which does some reasonably priced food.
I often visit the Spanish supermarket, R Garcia and Sons, to buy quality tins of tuna, jarred artichoke hearts, hot sauce (they have some Mexican products), decorative paprika tins and frozen churros. Look out for the giant tins of crisps.
The food market stalls are a mix of working class cheap foods that you will find at any market, boxes of chocolates, cut price boxed cheese and biscuits and more gourmet products. I’ll buy fresh wild mushrooms on the stall.
I like the Scandinavian coffee shop Fabrique for a cardamom bun and a hot chocolate. They sell sourdough loaves (v expensive).
There is a good Neapolitan restaurant Sapori Italia hidden behind an ornate garden arcade complex where I had a delicious deep fried mozzarella dish which I must find time to reproduce at home.
There are some upscale restaurants and pubs (Canteen, The Pelican, which are always so crowded on market days I never get a chance to get in.
Last week as the weather was sunny I walked further and had a drink at the Union Tavern pub in Westbourne, where there is a terrace over the canal.
The shops
At the Golborne end there are some interior design and antique shops. I like Miurshin Durkin where I bought some nice chairs recently. Nothing in Portobello is cheap but the furniture in this shop is reasonably priced.
The Moroccan shop Fez sells beautiful bowls, cushions, rugs, leather slippers and glasses. I bought my daughter some striped green and white ceramic bowls for her birthday recently, £25.
Blenheim Crescent
This street is just off Portobello Road with several addresses worth checking out.
The Spice Shop at 1 Blenheim Crescent has a huge selection of spices from around the globe in signature bright yellow packaging.
Books for Cooks at 4 Blenheim Crescent is a famous cookbook shop which does workshops and cooking demos.
There are some nice home ware shops on Blenheim Crescent such as Ceramica Blue 11 Blenheim Crescent.
Eighty-8 studio for nails.
To get your Notting Hill fix alongside many tourists go to The Notting Hill Bookshop at 13 Blenheim Crescent. This isn’t actually featured in the film but is spiritually more the vibe than the real location. But the famous ‘blue door’ in the movie was at 280 Westbourne Park.
Fabulous post Kerstin! So generous to share some insider secrets / things only the locals know! Xxx
Ooh, this is fabulous. A friend and I come down to London 2/3 times a year and we're always on the lookout for somewhere different to mooch. Thanks for the tips!