Empanada Shop Near Me at London Bridge: Porteña in Borough Market

Porteña has been selling baked Argentine empanadas from Stoney Street inside Borough Market since 2009, and it keeps longer hours than most of the market: Tuesday to Saturday from 9am to 10pm, Sunday from 9am to 4pm, closed on Mondays. Borough Market lists the stall at 7A Stoney Street, SE1, a five-minute walk from London Bridge station. If you searched for an empanada shop near me anywhere between the river and Southwark Street, this is the counter with the pastries stacked in the warmer.

The name means a woman from Buenos Aires, and the founders built the menu around the street food of that city rather than a restaurant version of it. Porteña's own history page says the business started from scratch as a small stall in Borough Market in 2009. Seventeen years on it has a second shop in Brixton Village and, since the most recent expansion, its own empanada factory at 30 Druid Street in Bermondsey, which now bakes for both the market stall and the Brixton counter.

That factory matters to anyone who eats here regularly: the company says the move was meant to let it make more empanadas with the same care, so the fillings, the dough and the crimping for the market now come out of one Bermondsey site a short walk east of the stall. The team still writes a blog in English about Argentine food habits, from why porteños eat dinner after nine to how provoleta became a grill staple, with posts dated as recently as September 2026.

The empanadas are baked, not fried, and sealed with the rope-like repulgue edge that tells Argentines what is inside. The beef version is the one regulars point to: minced beef with green olive, potato, red pepper, onion and chopped hard-boiled egg, a mix one reviewer in summer 2026 called phenomenal. Chicken, chorizo, ham and cheese, and spinach with ricotta round out the usual line-up, and the spinach one is the safest bet for vegetarians.

Do not leave with empanadas alone. The Argentine steak sandwich is the stall's most-mentioned item in Google reviews, cooked to order with cheese, tomato and lettuce, and choripán, the grilled chorizo roll, sits beside it on the board. For afterwards, Borough Market's own trader profile singles out the alfajores, shortbread biscuits sandwiched with the stall's sweet, gooey dulce de leche. Jars of dulce de leche, chimichurri and yerba mate are sold to take home too.

There is no booking and no table service. You join the line at the counter, point at the warmer or name your fillings, pay, and take a paper bag of hot pastries. If you want the steak sandwich, say so first, because it is cooked fresh while the empanadas are handed over straight away. A few stools and a covered outdoor area sit beside the stall, and one winter visitor noted the outdoor seats are heated, which makes this one of the better cold-weather stops in the market.

Lunch between 12:30 and 2pm on Saturday is the crush hour for the whole market, and Stoney Street becomes a slow-moving stream of tote bags. Weekday mornings after 9am are the calmest time, when the first trays are out and office workers have not yet arrived. Because the stall stays open until 10pm from Tuesday to Saturday, an early-evening visit after most produce traders have packed up is the easiest way to eat here without a queue.

Recent Google reviewers describe themselves as first-time market visitors who smelled the oven and stopped, and as regulars who come back for the beef empanada and a beer at the stall. Many mention quick service and friendly counter staff, and the 870-plus reviews on the stall's Google listing average 4.5 stars, with the steak sandwich named in close to a hundred of them.

An honest note: skip the idea of a sit-down meal here. The seating is limited and exposed to the market crowds, so this is a stall for eating standing up or on the move, not for a long lunch. If you want a proper table with Argentine wine, take your empanadas home or head to a restaurant instead.

The stall's own site gives Tuesday to Saturday 9am to 10pm and Sunday 9am to 4pm, and Borough Market's trader page shows the same hours. Monday is the trap: Porteña is closed even though some of the market is open, so a Monday lunch plan needs a backup. Sunday's 4pm close also catches people out, because the rest of the market winds down around the same time.

Southwark Cathedral is a minute away, with its churchyard garden facing the market, and it is a quiet place to eat out of a paper bag if the stools are full. Walk north to the river and you reach the replica of the Golden Hinde in St Mary Overie Dock, then turn west along Clink Street past the ruined rose window of Winchester Palace. Coffee people head the other way, to Monmouth Coffee at 2 Park Street on the market's edge.

If the queue is out past the neighbouring stalls and you only have a lunch hour, buy alfajores or a jar of dulce de leche, which come straight off the shelf, and come back for empanadas after 5pm. When the stall is closed on Monday, Porteña's second shop in Brixton Village is the nearest place to get the same pastries, at the Brixton end of the Victoria line.

Address: Porteña, 7A Stoney Street, Borough Market, London SE1 9AA, according to Borough Market's trader directory; the stall's own website footer still prints 34A Stoney Street, so follow the market signage for Stoney Street rather than a door number. Nearest station: London Bridge on the Jubilee and Northern lines and National Rail, about five minutes on foot. Contact: contact@portena.co.uk or Instagram @portenauk. Allergens: the stall says its products may contain or touch gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, nuts and shellfish, so ask at the counter before ordering. For an evening with more Argentine choices, ask Karpo in the Karpo APP what else is open near London Bridge.