Lunch near Old Street: where to eat inside an hour

For lunch near Old Street, go to Whitecross Street Market on a weekday, south of the roundabout in EC1Y, where street food stalls trade at lunchtime. If you want to sit down, Padella on Phipp Street, EC2A, does fresh pasta from £9.50 and keeps counter seats for walk-ins, and Blacklock on Rivington Street is five minutes from the station with a grill that starts at noon. Below are the places that work inside a lunch hour, with real times and prices.

Whitecross Street Market

Whitecross Street Market runs along Whitecross Street between Old Street and Fortune Street and calls itself one of London's oldest markets. In the week it is known for street food from around the world, alongside clothes, jewellery and household stalls. Islington's listing gives 11am to 2pm Monday to Thursday and 9am to 6pm on Friday. Other listings put the food stalls at up to 50 traders at weekday lunchtimes, so the earlier you go, the more choice you get. Bring your own container; the market asks shoppers to cut waste.

Padella, Phipp Street

Padella Shoreditch at 1 Phipp Street, just off Great Eastern Street, serves lunch from noon to 3.45pm, Monday to Saturday, and straight through from noon to 9pm on Sunday. The pasta is rolled daily in an open kitchen. On the menu for Saturday 31 October: tagliarini with dried chilli, garlic and pangrattato at £9.50, pici cacio e pepe at £13.50 and pappardelle with 8-hour Hereford beef shin ragu at £16.50. You can book up to four weeks ahead, or walk in for the kitchen and bar counters or the heated terrace. When it is busy, join the virtual queue on the Dojo app from within 2km.

Blacklock, Rivington Street

Blacklock Shoreditch at 28-30 Rivington Street is a chop house in a former East End furniture factory, a five-minute walk from Old Street station. Lunch runs noon to 3pm Monday to Friday, and Saturday is open all day from noon. The meat is grass-fed from Phillip Warren in Cornwall, cooked over charcoal. Walk-ins are always welcome, and if there is a wait you can have a drink at the bar.

Shoreditch Grind and Ozone

On the roundabout itself, Shoreditch Grind at 213 Old Street runs an all-day menu until 5pm and pizza Tuesday to Saturday, opening at 7.30am on weekdays. A few tables are always kept free for walk-ins. Just off the roundabout on Leonard Street, Ozone serves breakfast and lunch from a kitchen open until 3pm, with a seasonal menu, and you can book on weekdays. Either one is the answer when lunch is also a meeting.

Dishoom, Boundary Street

Dishoom Shoreditch at 7 Boundary Street, E2, is mostly a walk-in cafe, and its own site says there is little or no queue at breakfast and lunchtime, which is the opposite of the evening. It opens at 8am on weekdays. Groups of any size can book during the day. There is an outdoor verandah.

Rochelle Canteen, Arnold Circus

Rochelle Canteen at 16 Playground Gardens, E2, is the long lunch: open since 2004, in a walled garden set apart from the streets around Arnold Circus, with a seasonal menu that changes daily. Lunch is noon to 2.45pm every day. Book through the website; this is the client lunch, not the desk lunch.

A set lunch at The Hoxton

At The Hoxton, 81 Great Eastern Street, Il Bambini Club, the hotel's Italian trattoria, serves a set lunch Monday to Friday from noon to 4.30pm, which is the latest weekday lunch on this list.

Boxpark

For a group that cannot agree, Boxpark Shoreditch on Bethnal Green Road opens at 11am daily with Korean fried chicken, dry-aged steak, a gluten-free toastie kitchen and more than a dozen other traders, and you can order from your table. Full details are in our Boxpark guide.

Booking or walking in

Of the sit-down options, Padella, Blacklock and Dishoom all take walk-ins at lunch, and Padella and Blacklock also take bookings. Rochelle Canteen is the one to book ahead, because lunch is the main event there and it only serves until 2.45pm. Ozone takes weekday bookings for its kitchen. If you are a group of seven or more, Padella serves a three-course set menu for up to 22.

Quick answers by time

• Twenty minutes: Whitecross Street Market, or a takeaway from Boxpark.
• Forty-five minutes: Padella at the counter, or Dishoom.
• An hour or more: Blacklock or Rochelle Canteen, booked.
• Late lunch: Il Bambini Club at The Hoxton until 4.30pm, or Padella until 3.45pm.