Print Send via e-mail GPS 
Facebook 
Twitter Bookmark Get directions from | to | via this address
Market (Camden)
Stephen Lawrence-2010-02-02
Take a look at the restaurant’s website and you’ll find the following description…Market is a modern British restaurant which opened in Camden Town in November 2007. We provide quality, wholesome food in informal, relaxed surroundings, using the freshest, seasonal produce.
And that’s about it as far as the website goes. No press pictures, no Flash, no flabby PR speak extolling the virtues of the chef and the produce. No unnecessary, frills, bells, bangs and whistles. They don’t even have a menu on show. Not even one of those annoying PDF versions that takes twenty minutes to download. Nothing! It’s almost as if they’re determined to surrender as little information as possible. Market’s website is a bit like its food and I mean that in a good way. Simple, honest, refreshingly unfussy and to the point. A real breath of fresh air.
In this era of ubiquitous pizza and pasta chains, Market is the kind of place that you can only dream will open on a high street near you. But I wouldn’t hold your breath. Neighbourhood joints of this calibre are few and far between. Market is a previous winner of the local restaurant of the year category at the annual London Restaurant Awards and it’s easy to see why.
Front of house operations are also slick. I’d read the odd on-line grumble of discontent regarding temperamental service but the staff were well-informed and the service genuinely bright and cheery. The food is seasonal, robust and delivered in a classic, modern-British way with some refined, French country-cooking flourishes. Options are limited to five or six starters and mains but you really are spoilt for choice. Think devilled kidneys on toast, roasted pork belly stuffed, chicken and ham pie and salted lamb and you’re on the right track. A word of warning. Just looking at the menu at this place can add an inch to your waistline but, trust me, it’s worth every guilty, postprandial minute you may suffer. Mains are all priced around the £10 - £12 mark which represents pretty good value, given the quality of what’s on offer.
It all takes place in a very nicely put-together dining room of exposed brickwork, stripped floorboards, zinc topped tables and mismatched chairs that look as though they’ve been shipped in from one of the local comps. There’s also an open kitchen which adds to the buzzy vibe of the place. There is nothing not to love. It’s a simple, unassuming, little restaurant that punches well above its weight and could teach some of the snooty, self-important establishments in and around the bright lights up west a thing or two about giving the public what they want.
Market
43 Parkway
NW1 7PN
Reservations
Tel: +44 207 267 9700
