The food blog: adventures on Maltby Street
I’d heard so much about Maltby Street Market, I recently made it there early one Saturday morning.
I arrived to find a narrow alleyway under the arches teeming with stalls and people selling everything from Peckham-made gin to organic chorizo sausages and home cured salmon. Much of it was being sold among splendid old furniture and fittings from the LASSCO showroom and there was something decadent and thrilling about tasting gin at 9am.
Then I spotted the doughnut scoffers, a trail of people licking their lips joyfully as they walked past me, so I followed them round the corner to the source of their joy: The St John Bakery on the other side of the arches on Druid Street.
Happy to join the queue and spend £2 on one doughnut, I wouldn’t even let the girl serving me put it in a paper bag. I just took the big, fat, golden ball, still faintly warm, crisp on the outside and lightly dusted with sugar and bit straight into it.
Fresh custard cream, flecked with real vanilla, sweet, rich and cool, oozed out thickly on either side, making this doughnut one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten in my whole life. Worth the queue and worth every penny, but only if you eat it on the spot.
For details on where to buy St John doughnuts, visit stjohngroup.uk.com/bakery/doughnuts/
