Come rain or shine, the vendors at Gloucester Green market always serve up a feast and no matter what you are craving, there will be someone selling something to satisfy your hunger. 

The day I visited was a Wednesday, which is slightly different to the other days in that it also acts as a de facto grocer’s market with stalls selling heaps of fresh fruit and vegetables at great prices, like two punnets of strawberries for £2.50. Then there are the classic jewellery, clothes, and art stalls that litter the square and make for a great post-lunch stroll or a gift-buying haven if you need something unique yet inexpensive.

However, I will always make a beeline to the food stalls; you can smell the sizzling, spiced, rich aromas as you turn into the square, and whatever you thought you wanted will be questioned 10 times over as you peruse all the food options. On the day we visited, I wanted to experience the breadth of the market’s delicacies. So, we opted for a variety of dishes: A curry medley box from the Flavours of Goa, a spinach and mozzarella arancino from Cucina Italiana, some sweet and sour chicken bites from the Hong Kong Kiosk, a Turkish flatbread from Fiesta Gözleme, a halloumi wrap from Greek Street Food and vegetable dumplings from Chinese Professional Dumplings. 

I am a sucker for the dumpling and almost always try to resist and fail their tempting pull. They are just the perfect hit of umami in little parcels of chewy dough. You can opt for 5 for £5 or 10 for £9, meaning you can get them as a side or make them the main dish of your lunch. As always, these were a favourite for me. A few stalls do some good crispy chicken, either with rice or noodles and with different spices and flavours depending on the country of origin. That day I decided to try some fried chicken from a stall I hadn’t visited before — the Hong Kong Kiosk. I opted for the sweet and sour variation as I hadn’t had that in years and gave in to my nostalgic side. I liked how at the stall you could opt for the chicken to be served with rice or on its own, meaning you could also customise this as a main or a smaller portion depending on what you wanted. I decided to forgo the rice on this occasion as I knew we wouldn’t be going hungry with all the food we were ordering. The chicken was great, tangy, and a bit crispy without having that overly fried feeling. 

To counteract all the boldness of the chicken and dumplings, we also tried a spinach and mozzarella arancino from the Italian stall. Another great option for something a little smaller: at £5, you get a big ball of fried rice generously filled with melted mozzarella. As arancini in the UK go, this one is always reliably good, and you can almost feel like you are standing on the streets of Palermo when you take a bite – almost. These can be quite deceptively filling, which makes them even better. They are also a great grab-and-go option if you need to be quick and don’t want to eat your food within the market itself. However, the best value for money option definitely came from the curry medley from Flavours of Goa, with three differentveggie curries piled onto rice for £7 and the option to add a samosa for an extra £2, you will never leave hungry or with too much of a dent in your bank account. A great variety of curries too, from dahl, chickpea and aubergine and a mixed veg coconut curry, you could get a bit of everything if you couldn’t make your mind up about one. 

Another new stall for me was the Fiesta Gözleme, selling Turkish flatbreads and two dips. Going for a safe cheese and mushroom, I was nervous this would be a bit plain, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The flatbread was peppery and the dough a nice mixture of flaky and chewy. We chose tzatziki and hummus as our dips and I was impressed with the tzatziki, it being one of my favourite dips I get disappointed when it is watery or doesn’t pack enough of a punch. But this one was great. This was one of the more expensive of the food options, the dish coming in at £10.90, easily a few pounds more than the rest. Lastly, the halloumi wrap from the Greek Street Food stall has more in it than you would expect, packed with lots of fresh vegetables and a healthy dollop of tzatziki; this was a fresher option if you didn’t feel like curry or fried chicken at lunch. At £8, it was also a great portion-size-to-price ratio, and we even got a free drink with our purchase.

Everything we tried was great, depending on my mood, I would get everything I tried again, and we didn’t even scratch the surface of what the market offers. There were so many more stalls that we didn’t try but are definitely on my list for next time. The market is on Wednesdays to Saturdays and closes at 4pm each day, although some of the food stalls start closing up a little early sometimes, so don’t leave it until the last minute!

Gloucester Green Market, OX1 2BU
Open Weds – Sat 9am-4pm

Bitten were invited as guests, all views are our own