Newcastle eats like the working port it was: stotties and pease pudding from the Grainger Market, kippers off the Northumberland coast, fish grilled over wood on Tynemouth sand, and a brewing scene that took over a 1929 palace and a railway works.
Richard Grainger's 1835 covered market trades Mon–Sat 9am–5.30pm: George Payne's butchery, Matthew's Cheese, the Weigh House and Pumphreys, roasting coffee since 1750. A bacon stottie and a flat white comes in under £6.
Held on the Victorian Armstrong Bridge over Jesmond Dene on the first and third Saturday of each month, roughly 9.30am–2.30pm: Northumbrian cheeses, Craster kippers, Turkish gozleme and pastries across around 40 stalls.
The department store's food hall stocks Doddington's Cuddy's Cave cheese, Northumberland honey and Craster kippers, with an oyster and champagne counter, a sushi bar and a butcher selling dry-aged Northumbrian beef.
Wylam's taproom occupies the 1929 Palace of Arts in Exhibition Park, pouring Macchiato oatmeal stout and Jakehead IPA straight from the 30-barrel brewhouse visible behind the bar, with a wood-fired pizza kitchen alongside.
The community bakery on Stoddart Street that revived the stottie — a dense, flat, hearth-baked loaf turned once on the oven floor — and started Stottie Week. Mornings bring warm stotties, singin' hinnies and Northumbrian scones.
Two shipping containers on the sand at Tynemouth, cooking fish landed at North Shields Quay over a wood-fired oven: monkfish wraps, whole grilled plaice, flatbreads and mackerel, eaten under blankets on the beach terrace.
A seafront restaurant on East Parade built around Northumbrian home cooking: panackelty, pan haggerty, corned beef pie, fish and chips in beef dripping, and singin' hinnies with rhubarb for pudding. Two courses run about £22.
A Michelin-starred counter for around 14 diners on the Side, serving one tasting menu a night built on North East produce — Lindisfarne oysters, Northumbrian lamb, sea buckthorn — cooked and plated in front of you.
A converted glassworks in the Ouseburn valley doing brunch until mid-afternoon — chorizo hash, shakshuka, house sourdough and strong coffee — with rotating local art on the walls and a yard that becomes a gig space by night.
Robert Stephenson's 1823 locomotive works behind Central Station hosts Boiler Shop Steamer street-food weekends under its cast-iron roof: banh mi, Goan curries, smash burgers, dumplings and Northern Alchemy beer on tap.
A stack of shipping containers on the Gateshead bank beneath the Tyne Bridge: HWKRMRKT traders on the lower deck, Träkol's live-fire grill above cooking everything over charcoal, and the brewery's own Blonde and Pale next door.
A plain 1890s pub on the bank above the Ouseburn with ten cask lines, Northern pork pies and pease pudding stotties kept on the bar, and a beer garden looking straight down the river at every bridge in the city.