Day 3: London Food Diversity
London, and especially the Covent Garden area, has a wide diversity of food to experience and today we tasted food and treats from Italy, Portugal and Japan, as well as England’s own “Ben’s” Cookies. We started our day at Apple Market again to do some shopping and grab some breakfast since it is just around the corner from our flat. We ended up at Dolce VyTA Cafe. Dolce VyTA was created by a young Italian chef name Matteo Manzotti, who has a passion for pastries. It is filled with classic vanilla Chantilly and then covered in a flavor of your choice (we selected caramel and it was delicious). It is very difficult to eat! Next we stopped in at Venchi Chocolates which are also from Italy. They make amazing gelato, but they are also known for their chocolates. We visited Venchi many times when we were staying in Florence, so we had to stop in for a taste. And we couldn’t leave the market without grabbing a couple of Ben’s cookies that were recommended to us last time we were in London.
After leaving the market, we decided to go for a walk about and made our way down a street called New Row which has a large variety of restaurants and saw a place called “Santa Nata” which sells Portuguese pasteis de nata (custard tarts). We had heard about these tarts on the Lisbon episode of “Somebody Feel Phil” on Netflix. Jimm had to try them so we grabbed one to go. We will definitely be back there for more…so yummy!
Finally, just before sunset, we headed across the Thames to The Shard for our reservation at GŎNG Bar on the 52nd floor of The Shard. It was a nice 45-minute walk which was much needed after all the sugar!! The GŎNG Bar is the highest hotel bar in Europe. It serves Japanese cuisine, other small bites and a list of unique cocktails. We had some sushi and gyoza dumplings, but the real star of the evening was the dramatic view of the London skyline as the sun was setting presenting the Tower Bridge all lit up and majestic on the river.
Of course in London, you do what Londoners do, so we stopped at a pub on the way back for a pint of Guiness and for me a Rekorderlig Swedish cider. The pub was lively with people young and old all abuzz in conversation either celebrating the holiday season or the end of another business day. It was fun just to be in their midst and soak up the atmosphere. A good end to our 3rd day.