Warning: As ever, this blog is written anonymously, because the internet is a cruel place. If you are a snowflake who is upset easily, I suggest you don’t read this. I am not stupid, but I’m not that smart either. I’m a total fatty that constantly overindulges in food while scouting, which I think makes me well-suited to write this. This article is not written about anyone in particular and is simply a highly subjective view. Any hospitality owners seeing this, please feel free to buy my meal next time. Any pint recommendations are for days when you get the tube or have finished work and are NOT DRIVING!
As ever, thanks for all the complaints last time, https://www.locationhq.co.uk/blog/the-comrade-budget-2025-film-crew-survival-guide/ . I had no idea so many people would be offended by an image of a goblin. Let’s call it goblinophobia.
Where to begin! Ah, I know: we don’t have time for lunch, but fuck it, get up earlier and try to have a bit of a life. If we mentally implode, who will we be? The person who was the busiest in the graveyard?
Geography: I have done this by the Boroughs we visit most. I have been unfavourable to South London because I dislike driving across the river , and frankly, I need a translator to understand them!
Choices: As we all know, given our profession, sometimes I will sacrifice the best drink or plate for a good view. I have assumed that you agree. My daily punishment is trying to find a good location which serves good food, which is bloody hard. Try to avoid chains and keep the independents going, especially the old school London classics. Baristas, chefs and management change and sometimes I’m not in the area for up to 6 months. Let me know if somewhere has gone downhill or if we missed somewhere great.
Let’s start with the most important question: “Who pays for lunch?” These are my running rules:
- If you work hard, produce good results, you will be given rope.
- If in London, you cover it.
- If you are in London and working like a dog, production pays for coffees.
- If you are starting to roam away from the M25, production pays for lunch.
- Don’t take the piss, don’t get steak. Once Accounts flags you, they will look at everything you do in detail.
- Never put booze on the bill; you will get flagged, and then they will question everything.
- The HOD pays for lunch and beers once a month, and don’t be afraid to remind them. You look after them, they look after you. Taking them for a pint when you are both out of work also goes a long way; this time you pay.
Who pays for lunch when you have the grown-ups with you, ie the designer and director?
- You pay, and you charge it back to production.
- Have an honest conversation with the production manager, line producer, HOD, and unit production manager. Grumpy designers and directors will not like your locations if they are not well fed. The better the day out they have, the better the results. You need them to want to go on recces. Pro tip: Keep snacks and water in the car. Lunch is cheaper than a protracted recce.
- Per diem: £25-£50 a day when you start to roam beyond the M25. I never ask for it, I just prefer to expense things. That said, you ask when you do your deal, and then you still have leverage.
Pro tip: Always do a signed deal memo to whoever employs you; people have selective memory recall when it comes to saving a few quid.
Pro-tip: Always get everything in writing.
Troubleshooting:
I have had some receipts questioned over the years:
Grown-up recce lunch bill push back from Accounts: “I’ll happily bring it up with the director that you think his consumption of rib eye is excessive.” That ends it, bill paid.
Grown-up recce lunch bill push back from production: Just have a chat beforehand, they are usually pragmatic and will get it, many graduated from the Location Department.
Push back on your lunch bill from production (said politely with a touch of comedy): “No worries, I’ll happily charge you overtime for the 16-hour day I did today instead.” That ends it, bill paid.
Always remember: Based on the hours worked, you are excellent value. Never work out what you get paid per hour, you will cry.
Push back on your coffees: As above.
Some hard and fast rules for the car:
- Keep glass-bottled water in an old bottle crate in your boot. Never plastic. I like glass-bottled Highland Spring. NEVER drink the half-drunk water in the car from yesterday or days before if it is in plastic.
- Eat well for breakfast and lunch, skip dinner to avoid a truck driver’s belly as you sit on your arse from too much driving.
- Snacks in the car, protein, no junk.
- I have a guilty secret: On Friday mornings, I eat a McMuffin, the coffee is great in McDonald’s and excellent wifi for an upload.
How This Guide Is Structured (and How to Use It)
This isn’t a food blog. It’s a working guide.
On the days you are going near yummy shops, bring cool boxes with ice for the boot.
🍳 Breakfast
Early doors only. Good light, calm rooms, no noise.
☕ Coffee
For a visual reset as much as for caffeine. Sometimes for a takeaway, sometimes for a quick laptop open.
🍽 Scouts Lunch
Sometimes for the view, sometimes for the food.
🍽 Grown-ups Lunch
Must be yummy, ideally with a decent view. You will be judged if you can’t manage a decent option or at least acknowledge there are no decent places to eat locally.
🍺 A Pint
A beautiful pub, a proper ale.
➕ Side quests
Extra intelligence.
Note: Just click on the name for a link to directions
Hackney
Coffee: Climpson & Sons – Broadway Market – industrial bones, serious machines.
Scout Lunch: Wilton Way Cafe – Unfussy, and calm.
Grown-up Lunch: Lardo
Pint: The Marksman – Solid interiors, excellent Guinness, get the pie.
Tower Hamlets
Breakfast: E Pellicci– They probably know your name already.
Coffee: Campbell & Syme
Scout Lunch: Biegel Bake – Always the beef, if you don’t cry, you didn’t have enough mustard. Hilarious ladies with barbed tongs, theatre and food. Some people buy and freeze, but that isn’t for me.
Grown-up Lunch: Yauatcha City – the macrons from the Soho branch are also yum.
Pint: The Pride of Spitalfields – Run by the same family for decades. Handy if you have just shot around Truman’s or Princelet. Sometimes East End songs on the piano. Be careful on the side streets here after dark.
Camden
Breakfast: Norman’s Cafe – Now closed, included because if we don’t use them, they close them, such a pity.
Coffee: Half Cup – calm.
Scout Lunch and Grown-up Lunch: The Spaniards Very little traffic and parking, so a breeze.
Pint: The Holly Bush : Stand outside.
Shopping 1: Mc Kanna Meats – We must use our butchers, or they will all close. This is one of London’s best.
Shopping 2: The Hampstead Butcher & Providore – Seriously tasty, seriously pricey, but it is Hampstead, and they do probably pay £40-50k a year in council rates, so I forgive them.
Southwark
Breakfast: No idea of the name – The last greasy spoon in Borough Market, southeast side, green cabin. Eat breakfast and watch the organised chaos of the market.
Coffee: Monmouth Coffee – Serene.
Scout Lunch: Dorset Oysters – then a bag of chips.
Grown-up Lunch: Barrafina
Pint: The George Inn – galleried courtyard, which, as we all know, is super rare. Samuel Smith pubs are excellent and decent value. If you ask the barman nicely, they will show you the old prison cells in the cellar.
Night Shoot tip: The Market Porter opens at 06:00 if you are still wired.
Shopping: Borough Market: This is a day to bring the cool box with ice. Neal’s Yard Dairy and then have a roam – better to go early, full of corporate robots at lunch.
City of London
Breakfast: Billingsgate Market Cafe – for those that have never met Sammy the Seal, take some fish to feed him. He likes to hang out around the back. YES! There is a seal that lives in the Docklands.
Coffee: Stop for a posh coffee at Fortnum’s bar at the Royal Exchange.
Scout Lunch and Grown-up Lunch: Sweetings
Scout Lunch and Grown-up Lunch: St Johns – The roast bone marrow with the parsley salad, and a wine to cut the grease a little, is excellent and pretty affordable if you don’t go mad.
Scout Lunch and Grown-up Lunch: George and Vulture – Dine like a Victorian Banker.
Pint: The Lamb Tavern – Stand outside in Leadenhall Market, so much fun – worth going on Pancake Day when they do the pancake run. Watching Investment Bankers run in leather soled shoes is worth a special trip.
Shopping: Smithfields Market – Bring the cool box and load up, this is where your butcher buys before the markup. Enjoy it while you can, they want to turn the whole area into skyscrapers, because apparently, we need more office floors and apartments we can’t afford to buy.
Westminster
Breakfast: Regency Cafe – legendary, I haven’t been since the sale, hopefully they don’t do any interior design changes.
Coffee: Algerian Coffee Stores – Oddly never that busy, get a cup and some beans to take home.
Grown-up Lunch: Rules – They will also let you stand at the front and drink Pride from a silver tankard, if you ask.
Snack: HomeSlice Neal’s Yard – Just ask for a hot pizza slice, which is huge, just a margarita with parma and chilli oil from the counter and eat it in the yard. It is really messy.
Pint: Lamb and Flag – Stand outside like a proper Londoner. Beware the toilet stairs after some beers, they are deadly. They used to have Jazz upstairs every Sunday. I suspect the landlord pays the musicians in beer, but they get better as the night goes on and/or you get drunker.
Shopping 1: Fortnum and Mason (F&M)– Head to the experts to stock up on tea. Pick up macarons if your partner is ready to divorce you because of the hours you work.
Shopping 2: Paxton and Whitfield – 1 minute from F&M – I don’t know a better cheese shop in London.
Shopping 3: Berry Bros – 6 minutes from Paxtons – I am so bad at choosing wine. They have me covered with over 25+ years. Get bubbles, the Quinta … Port, (Sorry I can’t find it online) and a bottle of red. Don’t choose yourself, leave it to the experts, give them a long story about how you like your booze and let them pick some bottles. Give a reasonable budget.
Additional side quest: The film has pissed you off to the maximum, bounced your fuel receipt, you did a 70-hour week, they didn’t say please and thank you all week and asked you to find a stately home in Surrey with a mountain behind it. Chuck in the towel for the day. Berry Brothers for a bottle of red, then head to James J Fox , sit upstairs, drink your wine and smoke a Cuban, and turn off that bloody phone. Sit in the lounge upstairs, open your wine, and give the shopkeeper a glass as payment for a blind eye.
Lambeth
Breakfast: Regency Cafe – legendary.
Grown-up Lunch: Brunswick House
Scout Lunch: Captain Corelli –the food is super tasty, and it is priced very fairly (Strictly speaking Wandsworth).
Grown-up Lunch and Scout Lunch: Pico Bar
Pint: Canton Arms – beautifully kept, proper pour.
Kensington & Chelsea
Breakfast: The Muffin Man Tea Shop
Coffee: My favorite just closed, all recommendations appreciated.
Grown-up Lunch: Colbert
Grown-up Lunch and Scout Lunch: La Famiglia
Grown-up Lunch and Scout Lunch – Fox & Pheasant – Eat in the back.
Pint: Fox & Pheasant – Worth a second mention.
Conclusion
This is a working list, all recommendations appreciated , and I’ll make changes for next time, send to info@locationhq.co.uk
Bon Appétit