Tucked just behind Parliament Street, the area surrounding Newgate Market is the perfect destination for anyone in search of an alternative way to shop. We’re talking food here, and there’s lots of it.
To begin with, look past the cutesy tea shops and fudge emporiums on the Shambles and you’ll find some reasonably priced but, more importantly, award-winning butcher’s shops. Home-made sausages and pork pies are worth investing in for an amazing picnic or just plain gluttony, while valuable cooking advice from people in white aprons stained with blood always satisfies a weird lust I have for feeling more connected to the food I’m eating.
The Shambles has always been the butcher’s street in York. Apparently, one of the main reasons it survived demolition in the Victorian times was because it was so filthy no one wanted to set foot there. Vaguely ironic considering it’s now one of York’s most popular tourist attractions.
If you’re bumbling about in town after an early-morning lecture, you’d do well to check if the elusive Shambles bakery Via Vecchia is open. Situated close to the top of the street, in true boulangerie fashion it’s rarely open after noon. Often, if you walk down the Shambles at night, the lights will be on, signifying that some top-secret dough preparation is taking place. If you’re lucky and it’s open, you’ll find a rather pleasing selection of herb- or tomato-studded focaccias, cheesy rolls and various freshly baked loaves. And the sign on the door hints that Friday is cake day.
The little sales room is dusty, stacked high with baking trays and sacks of flour. The bread itself is cheap, at about £1.50 a loaf and has a lot of flavour to it. Heavy and buttery, it’s just gagging to be toasted and piled high with some garlicky mushrooms or fried tomatoes for an amazing brunch. One thing to be aware of, though, is the rather alarming collection of “artistic” nude photographs behind the counter. Now, I’m all for freedom of expression but the combination of mildly sexy photos in conjunction with bare-handed pudgy dough-kneading is a rather off-putting image. I just hope they wash their hands thoroughly…
And finally we come to Newgate Market. Open every day of the week from about 8am to 5pm, the market has some cute booths housing yet more butchers’, as well as a fishmonger’s. But it’s the fruit and veg stalls that really take the biscuit. Literally bursting with colour, the food here is always perfectly ripe and within budget. Come after three in the afternoon and you’ll hear stall owners vying with each other over prices. Juicy cherries for a pound a bag, mushrooms 50p a bag… In-season food takes centre stage here, locally-grown asparagus and Jersey Royal potatoes are dirt cheap and more importantly, amazing to eat.
This is a close community of old-school traders, the likes of which I’d assumed had died out long ago. But look closely and you’ll see it’s still active, and vibrantly so. These people care about the food they’re selling, far more so than those benevolent chaps in the Morrison’s adverts sporting cheeky boaters. So if you fancy a change from the usual pre-packaged, lifeless grub the supermarket has to offer, nip into town and feel closer to your