It’s not often that when you ask a child what their favorite part about London was that they go into an animated dissertation on the “Food Hall” in Fortnum and Mason. Basically, this historical department store, which serves as grocer to the Queen, is like Tiffany’s for food. From the décor and displays, to the gold wire shopping baskets and beautiful ceramic containers, everything was elegant. The gorgeous aqua blue accents combined with the long-tailed coats of the very formal, yet friendly personnel, set the stage for our culinary journey.

Now I’ve raised all four kids the same way. I have three that will eat anything and one that will eat nothing. It’s this one, that discovered fine cheeses in London. He has told anyone that will listen about the “triple cream” cheese (actually from France) that he loves. Of course, this is quickly followed with information about the baked tarantulas, chocolate covered ants and ostrich jerky.

This is a very famous store, of which I had never heard. I had always heard of Harrod’s, but frankly, with kids we rarely have enjoyable shopping outings. We only discovered this store because it was the meeting point for a tour that I had booked. I find tours very valuable when arriving in a large city. We chose Context Travel because I loved their philosophy of taking the “intellectually curious traveler off the beaten path.” Armed with the information about our family (lively, short attention span, enjoys history and snacks), Context Travel was able to create a perfect tour led a local expert.

Of course, we needed to taste all the wildly unique foods that we bought. So, we picnicked across the street in the lovely courtyard at the Royal Academy of Arts (with a fun water fountain that my toddler loved). After tasting, we continued to meander our way through the city, delighted to have a local show us around. All in all, our tour met many goals, but best of all it took led us to Fortnum and Mason! It is this food mecca that my children will remember!

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Topics: England, Europe, London, Tips, United Kingdom