Leave by the Bishopsgate doors and turn right, not left. Two minutes east, across Bishopsgate, the City stops and Spitalfields starts, and with it a different set of prices: Artillery Passage and Brushfield Street will feed you properly for £12 to £20, where the bars and dining rooms on the Bishopsgate side of the road start at about £30 a head and climb.
Liverpool Street is the best-placed of London's terminals for food, and the reason is an accident of history. On one side is the Square Mile, which empties at seven in the evening and closes almost completely at weekends. On the other is Spitalfields, which was a market and a garment district for three hundred years and never stopped being busy. The boundary is a single road.
Knowing which side you are on is the whole skill. Our guide to Liverpool Street station covers the building, the exits and the Elizabeth line platforms. Brick Lane's curry houses belong to our page on Brick Lane and London's curry scene, and the markets themselves to Old Spitalfields and the Brick Lane markets. This page is about the streets in between.
Which side of Bishopsgate
- Best value
- Artillery Passage, two minutes east: seven places in a 40-metre alley
- Best pub
- Widegate Street, three minutes, in a lane most commuters never turn into
- Best market food
- Brushfield Street and Old Spitalfields Market, four minutes
- Most expensive
- Bishopsgate itself and the Broadgate offices behind the station
- Dead at weekends
- Everything west of Bishopsgate. Everything east is at its busiest
- Open at 03:00
- The Brick Lane bagel bakery, eight minutes north-east
The ten-pound line, and where it runs
The difference is not quality. It is rent, and who pays it. West of Bishopsgate the customers are people on expense accounts at lunchtime and after work, and the restaurants are priced accordingly: a main course from about £24, wine by the glass from about £9, and a service charge on top. East of Bishopsgate the customers are people who live in Tower Hamlets, people working in the market and visitors, and the same amount of cooking arrives for a good deal less.
The other half of the difference is the calendar. Broadgate and Bishopsgate are built on the weekday office lunch and the Thursday evening drink. On a Saturday or a Sunday, a great deal of it is shut, and the shutters go down on some places at Friday teatime. Two hundred metres away, Sunday is the busiest day of the week. Our page on the City of London explains that rhythm across the Square Mile.
Cross Bishopsgate at the Middlesex Street lights, not at the station. The pedestrian crossing directly outside the Bishopsgate entrance funnels every commuter in the City into one island, and at 18:00 you will wait through three phases. Walk fifty metres south to the Middlesex Street corner instead and you are across in one, with Artillery Passage and Widegate Street immediately in front of you.
Artillery Passage: the best forty metres near any London terminus
Artillery Passage is a narrow, cobbled cut-through between Artillery Lane and Sandy's Row, so tight that two people with bags cannot pass, and it holds seven food businesses. It is two minutes from the station and thousands of people walk past the end of it every day without turning in.
- Mudmee at 12a is a Thai restaurant with about a dozen tables and a menu that goes beyond the green curry. Rated 5, March 2025. Our guide to Thai food in London explains the regional dishes to look for.
- Donburi and Co at 13 does Japanese rice bowls quickly and cheaply, and Yeye's Noodle and Dumpling at 14 does hand-made dumplings. Rated 5, January 2026 and June 2026.
- Enoteca Super Tuscan at 8a is a tiny Italian wine bar with food, and Grapeshots at 2 to 3 is the old-fashioned City wine bar at the Bishopsgate end. Rated 5, February 2025 and December 2024.
- Jen Tea at 16 is the bubble tea and dessert stop. Rated 5, September 2025.
One address in the passage held a hygiene rating of 1 at an inspection in September 2026, so we do not name it. On a lane this short, glance at the stickers.
Artillery Lane, which the passage runs off, has two more worth knowing. A Malaysian roti counter at 4 to 10 serves the same flaky bread and curry as its Euston original, rated 5 in August 2025 and covered in our page on Malaysian and Singaporean food. And at number 50 is the Spitalfields branch of the Middle Eastern delicatessen group, rated 5 in July 2025, which is the best place nearby to buy something to carry.
Widegate Street and the pub nobody finds
Widegate Street is a short lane three minutes from the station, running between Middlesex Street and Sandy's Row. At number 14 stands The Kings Stores, a tall, narrow Victorian pub on three floors, rated 5 in April 2026. It is a hundred metres from one of the busiest stations in Britain and it is usually possible to get a table.
Beside it at 1 to 3 is a Japanese udon counter where the noodles are made on the premises and a bowl costs under £12, rated 5 in February 2026; see our page on sushi and ramen in London for how udon differs from ramen. At 18 is a fried chicken shop, rated 5 in March 2026.
One national burger chain has a branch on this street that was rated 2 at an inspection in April 2026. A familiar name on the fascia is not a hygiene guarantee, and that is worth remembering anywhere in London.
Brushfield Street and the market
Brushfield Street runs along the south side of Old Spitalfields Market, four minutes from the station, and it is the most obvious place to eat in the area. That makes it busy rather than bad.
The Gun at number 54 is the pub, rated 5 in August 2026. At 38 is a falafel counter, rated 5 in September 2025, which feeds half the market at lunchtime for under £10. Inside the covered market itself, a Caribbean kitchen that has traded there for years was rated 5 in January 2026, and there is a bagel stall. Two addresses on the street held a rating of 1 or 2 when we checked, which is the usual reason to look up rather than to avoid a whole street.
Commercial Street, the market's eastern edge, holds the two places people travel for. At 94 to 96 is the bread-and-wine room attached to one of the most influential British restaurants of the past thirty years, where a plate of bone marrow and toast has been on the menu since the 1990s; rated 5, February 2025. At 157 is one of the city's best-known steak rooms, in a former brewery, where a rib of beef for two runs well past £100; rated 5, May 2025. At 43a a Thai kitchen serves northern and north-eastern dishes at about £18 a plate; rated 5, November 2024.
Whites Row, one street south of the market, is where the value is. At number 11 an Indian kitchen serving Chettinad and Kashmiri small plates, rated 5 in April 2025, will feed two people well for about £50 including drinks, against £80 or more for the equivalent on Commercial Street. It is a cramped upstairs room with a short menu and it takes bookings, which the Commercial Street places largely do not.
Bishopsgate: the food hall, and what else is on the west side
The one genuinely useful thing on the City side is the large Italian food hall at 135 Bishopsgate, inside the Broadgate development a minute from the station's western exits. It combines a supermarket, several counters and a restaurant under one roof, it is open when the offices are, and it solves the problem of a group who cannot agree. Rated 5, January 2026, and covered in our guide to London's food halls.
Otherwise the west side is what you would expect: sandwich chains at street level, bars in basements, and several sit-down restaurants pitched at people whose employer is paying. If you want oysters and a crustacean counter rather than a curry, our page on seafood and oysters in London covers the City's Victorian fish restaurants, two of which are within fifteen minutes.
Later than the station, and further out
Liverpool Street is the easiest terminus in London to eat near late. Ten minutes north-east, the 24-hour bagel bakery at 159 Brick Lane sells salt beef and cream cheese bagels round the clock; it was rated 4 in October 2025, and the story of that street is in our guide to salt beef, bagels and Jewish London. The bagel shop next door to it held a rating of 2 when we checked, and the two are easily confused, so read the sign.
Seven minutes north, the container mall on Bethnal Green Road has a run of street-food units open into the evening, and eight minutes brings you to the streets in our page on eating in Shoreditch. For what is genuinely still serving after midnight, see late-night food in London.
Going the other way, Middlesex Street is the spine of the Sunday clothes market described in our page on Petticoat Lane and the markets of the City fringe, with a run of cheap counters along it that exist for the traders.
Arriving from Stansted with a suitcase
A large share of the people looking for food at Liverpool Street have just come off the Stansted Express and have nowhere to put their bags. Two things help. The station's left luggage office is open every day from 07:00 to 23:00, at the prices in our guide to left luggage in London. And the walk to Artillery Passage and Widegate Street is flat, paved and short enough to do with a case, which the walk to Brick Lane is not at a busy hour.
If you are heading the other way and need to eat before a flight, our page on Stansted to central London has the first and last train times, and they are earlier and later than most people expect.
Six choices, compared
| Where | Minutes on foot | Kind of food | Rough cost a head | Weekends |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Station concourse and Broadgate | 0 to 2 | Chains, bars, one Italian food hall | £10 to £35 | Much of it shut |
| Artillery Passage and Artillery Lane | 2 to 3 | Thai, Japanese, Italian, Malaysian, wine bars | £12 to £22 | Open |
| Widegate Street | 3 | One Victorian pub, udon, fried chicken | £10 to £18 | Open |
| Brushfield Street and the market | 4 | Falafel, Caribbean, a pub, market stalls | £8 to £18 | Busiest |
| Commercial Street | 5 | British, steak, northern Thai | £30 to £70 | Open |
| Brick Lane | 8 to 10 | Curry houses, bagels around the clock | £6 to £25 | Busiest |
Cost bands are our estimate for September 2026, read from menus displayed at the door rather than taken from any single price list. For the whole picture of the streets east of the market, our guide to Whitechapel and the East End is the place to start.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the best cheap food near Liverpool Street station?
Artillery Passage, a two-minute walk east across Bishopsgate. Seven food businesses sit in a forty-metre alley, including Thai, Japanese and Italian, with most main dishes between £12 and £18. Widegate Street, one minute further, adds a Victorian pub and a udon counter.
Is Spitalfields cheaper than Bishopsgate?
Considerably, and the boundary is a single road. West of Bishopsgate the restaurants are priced for the office lunch and the after-work drink, from about £24 for a main course. East of it, the same amount of cooking commonly costs £12 to £18, because the rents and the customers are different.
What is open near Liverpool Street on a Sunday?
Almost everything east of Bishopsgate, and Sunday is the busiest day there because Old Spitalfields, Brick Lane and Petticoat Lane all trade. Almost nothing west of Bishopsgate: the Broadgate offices and many of the City bars close for the weekend entirely.
Can I get food near Liverpool Street in the middle of the night?
Yes. The bagel bakery at 159 Brick Lane, about ten minutes north-east, trades around the clock and sells hot salt beef bagels at three in the morning. Check the number on the shopfront: the shop next door held a hygiene rating of 2 when we last looked.
Is Brick Lane worth walking to from the station?
For the bagels and the markets, yes. For a curry, read our Brick Lane guide first: the restaurants there are aimed squarely at visitors, and the better everyday Bangladeshi and Pakistani cooking is on Whitechapel Road and further east, ten to fifteen minutes away.
Sources
- Food Standards Agency - Food hygiene rating search (checked September 2026; used to confirm the trading address, hygiene rating and inspection date of every business named here, and of those deliberately left unnamed)
- Food Standards Agency - The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (checked September 2026)
- Excess Baggage (Airports) Ltd - London station left luggage locations and hours (checked September 2026)
- HM Revenue & Customs - Catering and takeaway food (VAT Notice 709/1) (checked September 2026)
- Price bands were read from menus displayed by the businesses in September 2026. We do not link to restaurant, pub, cafe or market-stall websites, because several such domains have lapsed and now carry unrelated content.