Before visiting London I had never heard of Brick Lane Sunday markets before. Brick Lane is located in East London next to Shoreditch (where we stayed.) Our first visit was on a Sunday after the Flower Market on Columbia road. The first thing we noticed was all the curry restaurants, many of them claiming to be the “best” on Bricklane. Many had a big banner saying “voted best on TripAdviser,” and “voted best on TripAdvisor 2016” or 2010, 2011, etc., usually referring to the same year as other restaurants. We saw at least seven restaurants saying they were voted best in TripAdvisor for 2016, which seems unlikely. We soon found out Brick lane has a big Bangladesh community (Banglatown) and the road is know as the curry capital of the UK. If you remember from a couple posts back it also has a huge street art scene.
If you love shopping and street food, you will love Brick Lane on Sundays. Even though the lane is full of restaurants and shops open every day, it really comes alive on Sundays. It gets super busy with locals, tourists, and people selling street food, vintage clothing, artwork and almost anything you could think of. There are over 200 stalls throughout the street that we would spend hours exploring. A LOT of people brought their dogs to the event, many of them well behaved and off leash. I chose to always carry Coco so he wouldn’t get stepped on by the crowds. If I were to choose to always carry him everywhere he would be totally cool with that. He loves sitting in the sling I bought for him and people watching.
At the beginning of our walk on the lane, we came across a tequila festival where many brands we giving out free drinks! Man we love London. We definitely had a nice buzz going on before continuing down Brick Lane.
Here are some of the tequila stalls. They gladly let me bring Coco into the event. We even had a few locals that we met not know they could bring their dog so they went back to pick them up to meet Coco.
Free Patron you say? Yes please! All of the stalls had mixers as well.
Ohhhh what’s over here?
Next to the tequila festival was this awesome band playing in their van.
How cool is the Black Cab coffee co. Did I mention how much I love London?
Some of the first stalls we came across were selling clothing and electronics. You can get a really great deal on leather goods including leather jackets, shoes, and purses.
I bought some really great leather lens holders for my camera from this stall. Two for five pounds.
I couldn’t pass on these freshly made juices!
The next stalls we came upon were mostly selling street food. It’s very diverse and we found many different cultures of food here including, German, Asian, Jamaican, Chinese, Indian, Italian, etc.. With many vegan and gluten free stalls as well. We decided to have sausages.
Barbecue for the meat lovers.
Next to the food stalls we came across a large vintage Backyard Market. I saw some amazing cashmere sweaters, leather jackets and vintage dresses for a very cheap price.
Looking through the leather jackets.
Here is another food stall tucked away off of Brick lane.
Walking a little ways more down Brick lane we discovered another huge market with dozens of stalls inside a building. The stalls included street food, handmade jewelry, artwork, posters, clothing and some very nice cashmere scarfs which Daniel stopped at to buy one. They didn’t have any problem with me bringing Coco inside, so I carried him in his sling. The smell of food overwhelmed us as we stepped inside and smelled amazing. The smell of meat in the air was making Coco drool and I have never seen him so interested in anything as I did bringing him here.
We bought this Bao almost every time we were here. It was amazing!
Stall selling some amazing brick lane vintage and new posters.
At the end of the event you can get a tarot reading from an eccentric fortune teller in a bright green skirt, a red velour jacket, coon skin cap, and cowboy boots, if that is your thing.
