Seasonality at it's Best!

Leila (McAlister)'s shop just off Arnold circus is somewhere you'd love to have have just round the corner. Leila's retails the best seasonal fruit and veg. Beautifully presented at the height of ripeness! Leila's sells a great array of cured meats, cheeses as well as butter by the kilo. Leila also champions some great chutneys and preserves, Leila offers many dry goods to buy by weight, pulses, pastas, sugar and grains all kept in large tins ready to be weighed out. Every time I come here there is something new stealing the show. Yesterday it was rhubarb, previously pomegranates before that asparagus. Leila visits new Covent Garden market herself to collect the best produce for her two shops. Seasonality  is key here and it's why Leila's cafe (next door) is so popular. Selling the same produce as the shop, just simply  prepared into wonderfully fresh and tasty dishes, making this place a great brunching and lunching destination. 

Yesterday, keeping with the season's bounty, there were blood oranges in the shop and freshly squeezed blood orange juice in the cafe. Set in the beautiful architecture of Arnold circus, (social housing done right albeit quite a while ago). it is a throw back to a simpler time. When your fruit and veg wasn't prepacked to a supermarket specified weight and triple wrapped in plastic. At Leila's its brown paper bags and you choose how much. If its in season, you can find the best fresh fruit and veg here, as well as many other tasty offerings!

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