Off to Church.

Mercato Mayfair is in a church, and to get the ecclesiastical puns out of the way right now, theirs is a religion I can get on board with immediately (sorry). Built as St. Mark’s Mayfair, in 1825 and deconsecrated in 1974, the building was given over to Mercato Metropolitano in November 2019. Clearly someone upstairs wasn’t too happy about the kitchens and bars moving in, as the place closed a few months later when the pandemic hit.

Long-term fans of street food courts, and having discovered Mercato Metropolitano in Borough only recently, we needed to make up for lost time and visited their digs near Bond Street posthaste, using a 6pm showing of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice on a rainy late summer’s afternoon to get some pre-Tim Burton posh nosh.

Owing to the miserable weather and Mercato Mayfair’s unfortunately convenient location just off Oxford Street and near a huge tube interchange, half of London had the same idea as us. It was by luck more than judgement that I bagged a table, throwing my gym bag onto a two-top on the balcony as soon as a well-dressed old couple, tipsy on wine, staggered away from it. Having grabbed a very expensive percentage of a pint from the bar downstairs on the way to find a table, I settled in and waited for The European.

From my perch, I was able to survey the setting, the multitudes of food pilgrims (sorry), and grub options. Make no mistake about it, this is as pretty an eatery as they come, rivalling church-based restaurants such as La Chapelle. The only detractors are the tables and chairs downstairs that take the place of where the pews would normally be. They’re a hodgepodge mix of lurid canteen tables painted in primary colours and look absolutely vile. There are nooks in the apses, off to the left and right, with comfier and more intimate seating, as well as a crypt, that seems more suited to drinks than food. There’s also a roof terrace, but we didn’t go up there as we only discovered it on the way out.

There’s a heavenly (sorry) aura of conviviality in Mercato. Everyone is having a ball. Big groups on the clown tables huddle around Marks and Spencer birthday cakes and flutes of bubbles. Upstairs, couples laugh and joke, and all the stallholders are friendly and happy to walk you through their offerings. It was thanks to the jolly guy at Beast & Field that led me to selecting them as my meal for the evening.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m aware through professional connections that Mercato vets the people operating concessions until every ‘t’ is crossed and ‘i’ dotted. My bavette and fries were divine, a soft sliced blanket of grass-fed British beef slathered in sharp chimichurri that even got The European smiling. Her vegan nachos from Club Mexicana were the star of the show. Despite not using real cheese and therefore kind of not deserving of the honour of being called nachos, they were heaped with pickles, an admittedly lovely cheese-like sauce, and plant-based beef… and were very, very good indeed. “Not enough topping“, she cried, but I can assure you, my special lady is an exceptionally greedy specimen. You could have emptied a bucket of chili-beef-cheese mess all over the table, and it wouldn’t have been enough.

Bellies bursting, we waddled back downstairs and ordered dessert. Matcha Metropolitano was a little bit of a letdown, with matcha ice cream that was too sweet and hot baked cookies that were too dry. A forgivable sin (sorry), in the grand scheme of things.

Less forgivable are the prices Mercato Mayfair charges. Food starts at around £fifteen and only goes up; Beast & Field had steaks on offer for up to £hundred, which is high-end steakhouse pricing, venues you get additional benefits like a less chaotic atmosphere and not having your shoulders bumped by lost lambs (sorry) wandering the aisles in search of seats. Much to my chagrin was the bar’s approach to charge almost £seven for a beer, which came in a glass that almost certainly couldn’t hold a pint of liquid.

To be honest, all the pricing does is turn Mercato into a destination that you won’t visit with the same regularity as, say, Market Halls (Cargo) in Canary Wharf, which has more price points and serves actual pints of beer for the same money. Mercato Mayfair is a worthy and unique place in its own right, and dare I say, the best place to line your stomach if you’re suffering through Oxford Street, a level of hell only a holy book could dream up, and a juicy steak or plate of nachos can cure.

(Sorry).

Difficult to put a price on the fun, but expect to pay around £thirty per head for food and drinks.