Run, don’t walk, to Gail’s artisan bakery, there are many dotted around the city, some take-out, others sit-down. Never have I tasted such scrumptious baked goods; not even in Paris. I visit the one on Fulham Road in south-west London. Thirteen years ago I lived and worked in London for a year. It was wonderful. A girlfriend of mine named Maya rented out her house to me; she was in Kenya for a year and didn’t want to leave the house empty. So we agreed on a “prix d’ami“, a friendly rate, and I paid her a modicum rent of only £300. a month (for an entire house in fashionable Fulham, unheard of!) I signed on with a temp agency and had interesting short, medium and long-term temp jobs working mainly in law firms in central London and The City. I also enrolled in an evening photography course at Central Saint Martins, the arts and design college. Back then, it was located on Charing Cross Road in central London.

Nights, after my course at around 10 pm, I’d jump onto the number 14 bus and climb the stairs to the top deck. From my front seat up top, London by night would unfold before my dazzled eyes: Piccadilly Circus, Hyde Park Corner, South Kensington, the Brompton Cemetary, the FFC (Fulham Football Club) and all along the very long Fulham Road. Those were happy times. Unfortunately, Maya died young of lung cancer in 2011, just after selling her house on Munster Road for nearly one million pounds. Her Polish parents, after emigrating to England in the early 1950s, had scraped their money together and purchased that house for a thousand pounds.

Over a decade later, I still visit that area because I have happy memories of the place (mingled with sad memories because Maya is no longer around.) If you walk or take the bus to the very end of Fulham Road and head towards Putney Bridge, there’s a beautiful sprawling park called Bishop’s Park. It has large old trees, a beautiful church called All Saints’ Church, and a lovely rose garden. Running alongside the River Thames is a riverside walk that I did often on Sundays. I loved it there.

Here’s Gail’s located at number 341 Fulham Road. I had porridge served with date molasses and a “flat white” coffee. Yummy-yum!

Now, if you can believe it, there’s an even yummier place further down the road, much further, you’ll need to jump on the bus to get there. Located at 640 Fulham Road, it’s called LOCAL HERO.

I had this memorable breakfast which I’m going to re-create this weekend: smoked salmon and smashed avocado on lightly toasted Danish rye and topped with rocket (arugula), sun-dried tomatoes, lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil (not sure what the seeds were.) All of the ingredients are high quality, and with two cups of “flat white” coffee, the meal was divine.

It’s a small local place, and the best reason to go there is because it’s INDEPENDENT and not part of a chain. Sit inside, out front, or out back where there’s a really nice terrace.

In Paris, you just don’t find this sort of inventive food, or at least, I’ve never seen it.

Across the road is an independent bookshop called Nomad Books.

Here’s a charming and very English B&B in the Fulham area, located just down the road from where I lived, and near the river:

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