London / Borough Market / Multiple
Spanish food importers — chorizo rolls from the Borough Market stall, jamón ibérico, and the tapas bars that bring Spain to London.
Best for Chorizo rolls, jamón ibérico, Spanish imports.
Craft guide
The Gourmet & Pantry in London Issue
ORBISGOURMET & PANTRY IN LONDON8 shops in the atlas.Illustration
Gourmet & Pantry in London
8 stores · curated ORBIS register
Lina Stores combines fresh pasta and Italian ingredients at its Brewer Street deli, continuing the shop established in 1944. Its restaurant pairs hand-rolled pasta with natural wine, extending the business from provisions into meals served at the table. Postcard Teas offers micro-farm loose-leaf tea labelled with the maker's name, tracing its origins to East Teas at Borough Market.
Visit official site ↗London / United Kingdom
Jing Tea was founded in 2004 by Ed Eisler, who first tasted loose-leaf tea at 16 in an Asian teahouse and set off across mainland China more than two decades ago with an empty backpack, looking for something better than a supermarket teabag.
Best for Single-garden loose-leaf tea sourced directly from named growers Ed Eisler
Jing Tea was founded in 2004 by Ed Eisler, who first tasted loose-leaf tea at 16 in an Asian teahouse and set off across mainland China more than two decades ago with an empty backpack, looking for something better than a supermarket teabag. He came home with it full — teas from family-run gardens, some tracing back generations, bought directly from the growers rather than through a trading chain.
That direct-sourcing habit became the company's structure: Jing works with single-origin, single-garden teas and describes its approach as sourcing "from source," knowing the growers personally and paying them fairly rather than buying anonymous lots by country of origin. The company holds EcoVadis Platinum certification, a third-party sustainability rating, and has been recognized with Great Taste Awards.
Jing's teas are on the list at five-star hotels and served by chefs who treat tea pairing as seriously as wine pairing, but the company's own account of itself still starts with the same image: a 16-year-old's first cup of proper loose-leaf tea, and the backpack trip across China that followed from wanting more of it.
Visit official site ↗London / Soho / King's Cross
Brewer Street's 1944 deli — fresh pasta, Italian ingredients, the green façade, and the restaurant that pairs hand-rolled pasta with natural wine.
Best for Fresh pasta, 1944 deli, green façade, Italian.
Visit official site ↗Newby Teas
Hidden GemLondon / United Kingdom
Newby Teas was founded in 2000 by Nirmal Sethia, a Master Tea Taster who began working in tea at 14 and returned to the category decades later, after building a separate business career, specifically to raise its standards.
Best for Charity-owned luxury tea served in Mandarin Oriental and Aman hotels
Newby Teas was founded in 2000 by Nirmal Sethia, a Master Tea Taster who began working in tea at 14 and returned to the category decades later, after building a separate business career, specifically to raise its standards. The company is substantially owned by the N. Sethia Foundation, a British-registered charity, so its profits route back into charitable work rather than private return alone — an unusual ownership structure for a luxury goods brand.
Newby sources from Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade certified gardens and runs a carbon-neutral Preservation Centre in Kolkata, putting environmental and sourcing standards on the production side rather than treating them as retail messaging. The brand is served in hotels including the Mandarin Oriental, Aman, JW Marriott and Belmond properties, and sold through Harrods and Selfridges, alongside its own boutiques in London and Gstaad.
One further detail sets it apart from most tea houses: Newby maintains the Chitra Collection, close to 2,000 pieces of historic teaware described as the world's largest such collection in private hands — a museum-scale archive sitting behind a company that still calls itself, plainly, in the business of good tea.
Visit official site ↗Paul Rothe & Son
Heritage House35 Marylebone Lane, London
Family deli since 1900 — jams in white coats, sandwiches made by Rothes for four generations; London’s gentlest institution.
Best for Preserves & the salt-beef sandwich
Visit Instagram ↗London / Belgravia
Elizabeth Street's pink cake shop — the façade, the cupcakes, and the queue for the prettiest cakes in London. Instagram-for good reason.
Best for Pink façade, cupcakes, London's prettiest cakes.
Visit official site ↗London / United Kingdom
Postcard Teas traces back to 2000, when Tim D'Offay and Alex Fraser began trading as East Teas from a stall at Borough Market.
Best for Micro-farm loose-leaf tea labeled with the maker's own name
Postcard Teas traces back to 2000, when Tim D'Offay and Alex Fraser began trading as East Teas from a stall at Borough Market. D'Offay's own interest in tea had formed years earlier while he was living in Kyoto, then deepened across trips to Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and China — travel that gave the eventual shop its name and its black shopfront on Dering Street, near Bond Street, where it operates today as Postcard Teas.
Two decisions define the business more than any tasting note. In 2008 it became, by its own account, the first tea company in the world to put the maker's name and location on every one of its teas — turning a bag of leaves into a traceable relationship rather than an anonymous blend. In 2012 it went further, dropping plantation-grown tea from its shelves entirely in favor of sourcing exclusively from micro-farms under fifteen acres, on the argument that small growers serve their communities and land better than estate agriculture does.
For a shop built on provenance as its organizing idea, those two dated commitments are the proof, not just the pitch.
Visit official site ↗London / United Kingdom
Direct-trade loose-leaf tea sourced by the Tea Lady herself, blended for kitchens from Noma to Claridge's.
Best for Direct-trade loose-leaf tea sourced by the Tea Lady herself
Rare Tea Company was founded in 2004 by Henrietta Lovell, who left a career in corporate finance and became known publicly as "the Tea Lady." The business started with, in its own words, just a handful of devoted customers and built outward from there on a direct-trade model: buying harvests straight from farmers rather than as a commodity through brokers, so the value of the tea stays with the people who grew it.
That sourcing discipline is built on three stated criteria a tea has to clear — superior taste, no pesticides, herbicides or unsustainable packaging, and fair payment to producers. It has carried Lovell's blends into some of the world's most scrutinized kitchens and bars, from Noma in Copenhagen to Claridge's in London, relationships built on pairing tea with food the way a sommelier pairs wine.
Two decades on, Rare Tea is still independent and still London-based, run on the same premise it started with: that quality and fair sourcing aren't in tension, they're the same decision made twice — once for the cup, once for the farm it came from.
Visit official site ↗