Cavendish Square
Cavendish Square, London
When the sun is out, even if it is just barely out, people swarm out of their office buildings for a lunchtime picnic. You would think the sun never shines here. Or something.
FOOD-ON-THE-GO / LUNCHES
The grocery stores do a great job of providing affordable prepared foods such as sandwiches, salads and fruit that area actually really tasty. However, I head toward sandwich shops like Pret, Eat and even the department store food halls for those one-off cupcakes or other speciality. Buying food-on-the-go here isn’t like settling for a dry, stomach pain-inducing 7-11 ham sandwich. You will actually enjoy eating a ready-made sandwich in the UK (90% of the time, at least)! These are the takeaway food shops I frequent during lunch breaks:
- Pret Good coffees, tasty sandwiches (you select what you want from the pre-made options then bring it to the register), good pre-made salads. The brownies are better than the chocolate cake (in case you’re of that persuasion). I highly–highly–recommend the mozzarella and tomato (say: tomahto) croissant. That and a “strong (2-shots), skinny (non-fat) cappuccino” is my breakfast du jour. There are locations almost everywhere.
- Eat. The good soups here are the ones you order from behind the counter; the chicken pot pie soup is a classic. You will wish they put more pie crust in it. (I avoid the giant soups in the fridge that you pick up and they fill with broth at the register. Bland.) Sandwiches are pretty good, but they put butter in a lot of them (something my grandmother used to do, but not a common practice in the US).
- Itsu A friend of mine likes the hot dumpling soups (again, you pick up the container in the fridge and they fill the broth behind the counter when you pay). I’m partial to the pre-made sushi boxes, simple and fresh.
- Abokado Sushi, noodle soups and wraps. The sushi here is tasty and the soups (same broth-behind-the-counter system) are good.
- Wasabi On a scale of 1-10 for take-out sushi only, Wasabi is an 9.25, sometimes a 7 when you get there after the lunch and dinner crowds and find little is left. Each piece is individually wrapped so you take a little paper tray and pick and choose whatever you like. Bring it to the register where they count it all up and you invariably end up paying more than you expected. Wasabi also serves hot food served over rice. I’m not a fan but they often have a queue for the hot stuff, so…
- Marks and Spencer This place is super busy at lunch and after work. I’ve already spoken about it above, but M&S food is really good. For lunches they have prepared sandwiches (huge selection), weird sushi for 1 pound (I don’t buy it because it’s not really sushi but my colleagues swear by it on those budget days), salads and just a ton of other stuff. They also sell little packs of chocolate covered toffee popcorn by the check out. Fantastic stuff.
(For more info on buying food in London, visit the Shop > Food section of this website)
