Borough Market is one of the great pleasures of this part of London — and a fairly intense one. Several hours of standing, sampling, queuing, and eating things you've never eaten before, usually in a crowd, often after a long journey.
Most people have a wonderful time. A few have a wonderful time and then spend the evening regretting one particular decision. This guide is about staying firmly in the first group.
Qrystal Pharmacy is about five minutes' walk from the market at 301 Borough High Street, and we see the aftermath often enough to know what actually goes wrong.
Eating well at a food market
British food hygiene standards are high and Borough's traders are, on the whole, extremely good at what they do. A few habits still help:
- Check the hygiene rating. Every food business in England is rated, and the scores are public. You can look up any trader on the Food Standards Agency's rating site before you commit.
- Hot food should be hot, cold food cold. The risk zone is food that has been sitting lukewarm. Freshly cooked and steaming is a good sign.
- Wash your hands before eating. Obvious, and routinely skipped at markets because there's nowhere convenient. Carry a small hand sanitiser — you're touching money, railings, and shared surfaces between mouthfuls.
- Pace yourself with the unfamiliar. Raw shellfish, unpasteurised cheeses, and heavily fermented foods are all perfectly safe for most people, but eating four new things at once makes it impossible to know what disagreed with you. Unpasteurised products are best avoided entirely if you're pregnant or immunosuppressed.
If you have a food allergy, read this bit
This is the single most important section for anyone with a diagnosed allergy, because a market is a harder environment than a restaurant.
Food businesses in England must provide allergen information for the 14 major allergens. For food that isn't pre-packed — which describes most market stalls — that information can be given verbally, so you have to ask, every time, at every stall. There's no label to read.
Practical rules:
- Ask directly and specifically. Not "does this have nuts?" but "does this contain, or is it prepared near, any [your allergen]?" Cross-contamination in a small stall with shared surfaces is a real risk, and traders will tell you honestly if you ask honestly.
- Carry your adrenaline auto-injectors — both of them. The advice is two, always, and a market is exactly the setting where you'd need them.
- Know the signs of anaphylaxis: swelling of the lips, tongue, or throat; difficulty breathing; a sudden sense of something being badly wrong. Use the auto-injector first and call 999 — never the other way round.
- Antihistamines are for mild reactions only. They do nothing for anaphylaxis and delay should not be spent looking for them.
If you've never had allergies formally investigated but suspect you react to something, our allergy testing service is a starting point — considerably more useful than years of guesswork and elimination.
The NHS overview of food allergy is worth reading if any of this is new to you.
When your stomach objects
Sometimes it's a genuine bug; more often it's simply too much rich, unfamiliar food in a short window. The two feel similar for the first few hours.
Most cases settle by themselves. The priority is fluid, not medication. Small, frequent sips beat large drinks. Oral rehydration sachets are genuinely useful and we keep them in stock.
Anti-diarrhoeal medicines have their place — a long train journey home, for example — but they're not always the right call, particularly with fever or blood. Ask us rather than guessing; it's a two-minute conversation.
Seek advice — through your GP or NHS 111 — if there's blood in your stool, a persistent high fever, signs of dehydration (very little urine, dizziness on standing, confusion), or if symptoms last beyond a few days. The NHS pages on food poisoning and diarrhoea and vomiting set out the thresholds clearly.
Be more cautious, and seek advice earlier, for young children, older adults, pregnant women, and anyone immunosuppressed.
Visiting from outside London — or outside the UK
A pharmacy is the most accessible part of the health system for a visitor, and the most underused.
You don't need to be registered with us, or with any local GP, to come in and speak to a pharmacist. We can advise on symptoms, supply what's available over the counter, and tell you plainly whether something needs escalating and where to go.
Forgotten or lost medication is the classic traveller's problem. If you've left essential medicine at home or had it stolen, don't wait until you've missed several doses. A pharmacist can, at their professional discretion, make an emergency supply of a medicine you take regularly — we'll need to establish what it is, the dose, and that it's genuinely yours, so bring a packet, a photo of the label, or a repeat slip if you possibly can. Come in as early in the day as you can manage.
For common conditions, our Pharmacy First service covers same-day assessment and treatment of sinusitis, sore throat, earache, infected insect bites, impetigo, shingles, and uncomplicated UTIs. Ask us and we'll confirm what you're able to access.
If you're heading off somewhere further afield after London, our travel clinic handles vaccinations and travel health advice — though ideally that's a conversation you have weeks before flying, not days.
If you're managing a long-term condition
A day out is a disruption to routine, and routine is what most long-term conditions run on.
- Diabetes. Market eating is unpredictable — irregular timing, unknown carbohydrate content, a lot of walking. Carry your usual hypo treatment, test more often than you would at home, and don't assume a big lunch will behave like a big lunch at your kitchen table. If you use insulin, plan for the walking as much as the food.
- Coeliac disease. Gluten-free claims at market stalls need the same specific questions as any other allergen, especially where fryers and surfaces are shared.
- Anything with a fixed dosing schedule. Set a phone alarm. A day of standing, queuing, and conversation is exactly when a midday dose gets missed.
- Take your medicines with you, not back at the hotel. The point of a day out is that you're not near your bag for hours.
If you live locally and manage a condition long-term, our guide to ongoing care in SE1 covers medication reviews, the New Medicine Service, and repeat prescriptions in more depth.
The unglamorous problems: feet, heat, and hydration
Borough Market involves far more standing than people plan for, usually on top of a full day of sightseeing.
- Blisters. Cover them before they burst, not after. Hydrocolloid dressings are much better than ordinary plasters for this and we keep them behind the counter.
- Dehydration. Easy to miss when you're eating constantly and drinking very little. Carry water; London has more public refill points than most visitors realise.
- Heat. In summer, a crowded covered market gets genuinely hot. If someone becomes dizzy, clammy, or stops sweating, move them somewhere cool and get fluids in — the NHS guidance on heat exhaustion and heatstroke explains when it becomes an emergency.
- Sun. Southwark's riverside is more exposed than it looks. Sunscreen is worth carrying between May and September.
When it's more than a bad lunch
Call 999 for difficulty breathing, swelling of the face or throat, chest pain, collapse, or a rapidly worsening state — in a food setting, allergy is the thing to think of first and fastest.
For anything urgent that isn't life-threatening, NHS 111 is free, 24 hours a day, and will route you to whatever is actually open. We've written a fuller guide to urgent care options near Borough if you'd like the detail.
Where we are
301 Borough High Street, London SE1 1JH — roughly five minutes' walk south of Borough Market.
- Borough Underground (Northern line): about 2 minutes from our door.
- London Bridge (Northern & Jubilee lines, National Rail): about 8 minutes' walk.
- Southwark Cathedral, Guy's Hospital, and the Thames Path: all within a short walk.
- Buses: frequent routes stop directly on Borough High Street.
We're open Monday to Friday 9:00–18:30 and Saturday 9:00–14:00 — which covers the market's busiest days.
Before you set off
- Call: 020 7403 2237
- Visit: 301 Borough High Street, London SE1 1JH
- Get in touch if you're not sure whether we can help with something
Borough Market rewards enthusiasm. It just rewards it more reliably if you've asked about the allergens, carried some water, and know there's a pharmacist five minutes away who'd rather see you early than late.
