The last weekend in August was my eleventh London Meatopia1. Increasingly, it is not just a food festival, but a festival of friends. Across Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I had the good fortune to try around 15 or so different dishes.

If you want to join us next year, message me on the WhatsApp and I’ll include you in our group – tickets for 2026 are likely to go on sale in Q4 of 2025.

These were my highlights of 2025, in no particular order.

Meat Market Barbeque (UK)

Sadly, Josh Carvell does not yet have a pemanent outlet: after cooking at Smokestak for a very long-time, he now works at various markets around the UK. His ‘white trash taco’ was oustanding, because the extremely long cook time allows you to easily bite into the meat.

Holy Smoke BBQ (Sweden)

I feel that a lot of places this year had fruit-based sauces, rather than dairy. Holy Smoke BBQ brought both. It was outstanding.

Instagram. Website.

The Laundry (Brixton, London)

Melanie Brown brought outstanding fruity lamb ribs.

Camille (Borough Market, London)

The grilled Hereford Onglet was super lean, so Elliot Hashtroudi added plenty of Café de Paris butter to make it outstanding.

Instagram. Website.

Black Bear Burger (London)

A burger with 35% fat is absurd. But it works, so there’s that.

Quince (London)

Anna Higham brought outstanding Fig Leaf French Toast from her very trendy Islington bakery to Tobacco Dock. I think this was vegetarian.

More photos

I took more photos throughout the weekend.

  1. It wasn’t held in 2020 due to the COVID; I missed 2021. ↩︎

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Michael Josem is a long-term consumer advocate, most prominently as a global leader in combating fraud in the online gambling industry. He was in part the inspiration for the 20th Century Fox Movie, Runner Runner, starring Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake.

Josem has over a decade of experience as a senior business leader working across various high-tech and online industries, and takes action to build a better community. His primary volunteer roles include service for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and Graih, the homelessness charity.