Last Updated on October 14, 2026 by Adrienne
I love discovering a big city through a food tour (I’ve done them in Rome and NYC), and it’s also one of my favorite things to do when traveling with kids. I knew I wanted to build a food tour into our London itinerary and Secret Food Tours, which operates globally but was founded in London, fit the bill perfectly.
London is of course a huge and diverse city, and Secret Food Tours offers tours of several different neighborhoods specializing in different cuisines. Since I was traveling with my 8 year old daughter, we opted for the London Bridge tour, which focuses on classic British foods and seemed like it would be the most approachable tour for a kid’s palate. This tour also included an introduction to Borough Market, London’s oldest and largest food hall, which was great since I knew I wanted to visit there, but it seemed a little overwhelming to explore on our own.
We met our guide Tom King right near the London Bridge Tube station. The meet-up spot was clearly described and easy to find. Tom was very personable and within minutes had our group laughing at his jokes about the negative stereotypes surrounding British food, but he convinced us the tour would change our minds – and indeed, he was right.
We started our tour at Brood, a restaurant on the outer edge of Borough Market where we sat down for a “bap,” a traditional breakfast sandwich with bacon and a fried egg on a soft, buttery roll. I love a bacon and egg sandwich and this was one of the best ones I’ve ever had.
After that great start to the tour, we headed further inside the market and got some fish and chips from Fish! Kitchen. Fish and chips is one of my favorite British dishes and this was an excellent version of it.
After that we had some free time to explore the market and Tom gave us some pointers about what to check out, which was nice since it’s such a large place. When we met back up we tried a sausage roll bite from Northfield Farm, and mead was also served to the 21+ guests who wanted it. There’s a sausage roll place in Borough Market that I’d heard of because it’s gone viral on social media, but Tom assured us that these rolls from a family-run butcher shop were even better. He was right: they were phenomenal and better than any of the sausage rolls I’d tried in the UK so far. Getting this kind of local insight is one of my favorite things about doing a food tour. While we were enjoying the sausage rolls, Tom also pointed out the pub that played The Leaky Cauldron in the Harry Potter movies, which was a big thrill to my HP-fan daughter.
At this point in the tour, we left Borough Market and headed out on a walking tour of the surrounding neighborhood, stopping at Tom’s favorite local pub The George, the original location of the Globe theatre, and some buildings that survived the Blitz, before eventually ending on the banks of the Thames with great views over towards St. Paul’s Cathedral. Often on food tours, the emphasis is more on the food than the tour, so I really enjoyed how balanced this was and that we not only got some delicious food but we also got to really see some of the neighborhood in between bites.
Our final stop of the tour was a sit down meal at The Mug House pub. We were treated to a cheese plate and the most quintessentially British dessert – sticky toffee pudding, which was amazing. There were also alcoholic and non-alcoholic cider options to accompany the food.
srcset="https://destinationsanddesserts.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/IMG_3829-rotated.jpeg 1512w, https://destinationsanddesserts.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/IMG_3829-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://destinationsanddesserts.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/IMG_3829-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://destinationsanddesserts.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/IMG_3829-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https://destinationsanddesserts.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/IMG_3829-45x60.jpeg 45w" sizes="(max-width: 775px) 49.2903vw, 382px" style="width: 382px !important;height: 512px !important;max-width: none !important;max-height: none !important;position: absolute !important;left: 0px !important;top: 0px !important;padding: 0 !important;margin: 0 !important;border: none !important;" title="IMG_3829" alt="Cheese plate at The Mug House on our Secret Food Tours London Bridge tour" />
srcset="https://destinationsanddesserts.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/IMG_3830-rotated.jpeg 1512w, https://destinationsanddesserts.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/IMG_3830-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://destinationsanddesserts.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/IMG_3830-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://destinationsanddesserts.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/IMG_3830-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https://destinationsanddesserts.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/IMG_3830-45x60.jpeg 45w" sizes="(max-width: 775px) 49.2903vw, 382px" style="width: 382px !important;height: 512px !important;max-width: none !important;max-height: none !important;position: absolute !important;left: 0px !important;top: 0px !important;padding: 0 !important;margin: 0 !important;border: none !important;" title="IMG_3830" alt="Sticky toffee pudding at The Mug House pub on our Secret Food Tours London food tour" />As the name suggests, every Secret Food Tour includes a special secret dish. I won’t spoil it for you here, but I’ll say our secret dish was from one of the most popular Borough Market vendors that had been on my “must try” list for a market visit and totally lived up to the hype, so that worked out perfectly. I also really appreciated that Tom gave us the dish to go at the end of our tour — we were pretty full after the tour, but had a full afternoon of exploring London ahead of us, so it was great to have some sustenance for that.
Overall, I felt like this was a really terrific tour that gave us a good introduction to the Borough Market neighborhood and offered very tasty versions of some of the UK’s most famous dishes without leaving us so stuffed we couldn’t eat for the rest of the day. My daughter enjoyed the tour a lot too, and I would highly recommend it to families visiting London with school age kids. My only regret is not doing it earlier in our trip, because I would have liked to go back to a couple of the stops.
Disclosure: I received a media rate on this tour. As always, my opinions are my own, and I only write about experiences I can enthusiastically recommend to my readers. This post contains affiliate links. If you book a tour through my link, I will earn a commission at no added cost to you. Thank you for your support of Destinations & Desserts!
