An awesome day out for the Empty Nest Family at Mercato Metropolitano in London

After a brief heatwave in London, we’re back to yet another bout of unseasonably rubbish weather. So the strappy vests and shorts are relegated to the bottom drawer yet again. As are my delicious rose gold Daisy Roots Wimbledon sandals. So, yearning for a little taste of holidays, we headed for a day out to Mercato Metropolitano.

(If you haven’t seen my review of these amazing sandals, take a look here, and be sure to grab the exclusive 15% off discount code too).

Mercato Metropolitano opened up between Borough and Elephant & Castle in London last year. And, being Italophiles, we went last year for a day out with the kids and they loved it. As most of it is inside, it’s a fun day out even on a cold day – just wrap up warm!

We were meeting up with some friends to finalise plans for their joining us in Italy for a week at half term. So what better place to meet up than in a mini-Italy, right in the heart of London?

What is Mercato Metropolitano?

Lifted straight from their webiste, Mercato Metropolitano is:

…….. the first sustainable and inclusive community market with an Italian soul. Mercato Metropolitano is a playground for food lovers and artisan food producers to meet, talk, relax, shop, eat and share because amazing things happen when you share a meal with your friends

So, if you like great food, artisan products and hanging out with friends in a cool space, with great music, this is perfect for you!

And we do like all the above. So it was perfect for us too.

…despite the slightly miserable weather!

A very unusual garden at Mercato Metropolitano

So desperately eager were we, that we arrived nearly a full hour earlier than our friends. So we had a good mooch around by ourselves first.

New to Mercato Metropolitano is a big red double-decker bus garden. Yep, you did read that correctly. A garden on a double-decker bus!

Rootlabs have created the Farmbus as a really unique pick your own plant and farm shop. They run all sorts of workshops on indoor gardening, creating miniature landscapes and hydroponic food growing. (Take a look here for more information)

 

The kids love a bit of grow-you-own, and are budding foodies, so they enjoyed a little snoop around here. They really loved the tomato plants in the driver’s area.

And we’ll be sure to come back again as the climate-controlled top deck will have pick your own strawberries in June. We can hardly wait!

Something for the beer lovers

I’m not a big beer fan. I know almost nothing about it.

But, if you are, you’ll be pleased to know that they brew their own beer in huge steel vats on site.

So, if beer is your thing, grab yourself some tasty food and wash it down with a pint of very very local beer.

And sorry I didn’t take a picture of the big steel vats. But, trust me, they are big. And they are steel.

What we bought at Mercato Metropolitano

When you head out here for a day out, make sure you take a jute bag or two. You’ll be sure you want to stock up on some delicious goodies at the shop.

Despite promising to take bags out with me in my article on Plastic Reduction, I forgot. But at least they had great quality brown paper bags, rather than plastic bags.

Next time though, I’ll bring some jute bags. I promise. That way, I can buy even more Italian goodies!

Big Boy and Littlest Angel are huge fans of Italy and good food, so they had a whale of a time in the shop. They sampled some of the olives, gave them a big ‘thumbs up’ and added them to the basket.

Plus we picked up some unusual pasta, including the most enormous pasta shells. I’ve got some of my best mummy friends coming over for dinner on Saturday, so I’ll see if I can make something special out of these. (You’ll know if it works out, as I’ll post a recipe here.)

The kids spent a good while sniffing around the cheese counter and the bread area. And they couldn’t resist buying a delicious focaccia bread for tea. They later declared it ‘the best focaccia we’ve had apart from at the holiday house in Italy‘.

We can also highly recommend the luxuriously creamy burrata.

And we’re looking forward to trying out some Sicilian olive oil that we picked up.

And, next time, I’ll bring those heavy duty jute bags and try out some of their tempting wine selection.

What we ate

Now, my interest in Mercato Metropolitano is largely because of its Italian food and community vibe. But it’s a whole lot more than that.

It showcases some great food from all over the world. You can eat some great Indian food. Or Lebanese food. Or Mexican food. Or French food. Or Argentine food. Or Ethiopian food.

…but the kids and I didn’t. We wanted a taste of Italy after all. Just a little taste to keep us going until our next trip.

They were delighted with their very authentic Margherita pizza.

And I was equally pleased with my not terribly photogenic, but very tasty, Melanzane Parmigiana. And my big huge beer. My big huge beer from the huge steel vats.

Why we’ll go back again

A second outing for us to Mercato Metropolitano and we’ve still only scratched the surface. So we’ll definitely have to go back again.

They run some cool-looking cookery classes at the Community Cookery Kitchen which I’d love to try out.

And there’s a whole lot of very tempting-looking wine by the glass which I have my eye on.

And a cinema which sounds really fun.

But next time, we’ll book a babysitter, ditch the kids and head there for an evening of fun, wine and cinema with friends.

Maybe the sun might even shine. And we’ll get to sit outside and soak up a little bit of an Italian vibe right here in the heart of London.