Gourmet Goat
Goat dairy farms have billy kids they cannot milk and the industry answer is to kill them at birth; Nadia and Nick Stokes built a Borough Market business on cooking them instead (Borough Market).
Why go
The market's own account is blunt about the founding: the pair discovered that goat dairy farms sending their billy kids straight to slaughter, without a thought for utilising the delicious meat, they were outraged. Out of that outrage, Gourmet Goat was born.
2 They traded outdoors at Borough from 2014, on pitches at Stoney Street and Green Market, and outgrew them fast enough to take a fixed indoor unit on Rochester Walk in March 2016 (Harden's).
The recipes come from Nadia Stokes's East Mediterranean heritage and the supply is British throughout: kid goat and rose veal from UK dairy farms on high-welfare terms, pickles made from waste vegetables, mature halloumi. The kofta is ground and made fresh each day. The slow-roast shoulder and leg goes in with white wine, oregano, bay, thyme, garlic and lemon zest. Both come with Greek pita or an East Med salad of organic wheat berries, plus tzatziki and green chilli salsa the kitchen makes itself.
The fixed kitchen let them add seasonal specials, and the one worth waiting for is kid goat stifado: sweet slow-cooked onions, a Greek red wine vinegar reduction, cinnamon and bay, with giant couscous and grated anari, the Cypriot hard cheese made from the whey left over from halloumi. Nothing gets thrown away at either end of that dish.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the kid goat kofta pita, with the tzatziki. The slow-roast shoulder and leg if you want the aromatics rather than the char. Stifado when it is on the specials. Take the East Med salad instead of the pita if you would rather taste the meat than the bread. Whatever small sharing plates are up, since they change weekly.
- Avoid: Monday, when the unit is closed. Turning up late, because it shuts at 4.30pm most days and 4pm on Sunday. And do not go looking for an outdoor stall, because it has been indoors on Rochester Walk since 2016.
What locals & experts say
- Heidi Lauth Beasley, The Infatuation, June 2019, deliberately unrated because the site does not score stalls, but clear about the order:
Although they serve everything from slow roast veal salads, to bulghar wheat pilaf bowls, to breakfast yogurt pots, the kid goat kofta pita is what you really want to get involved in. We challenge anyone to come here and try this bad boy without entering a very serious, entirely sincere, slightly obsessive conversation about tzatziki.
3 - Borough Market, on why the menu is what it is:
The Greek-Cypriot approach to cooking means simple, seasonal ingredients that are cherished. Nothing is wasted.
And on where it went next:The menu has since expanded to accommodate other underappreciated meats, along with a whole host of vegetarian and omnivorous eastern Mediterranean dishes.
2 - Harden's, March 2016, dating the move indoors:
After two years of trading outside at Borough Market, this rising street food star has opened a new fixed indoor unit on one of the iconic market's main byways Rochester Walk.
1 - The awards, and a caveat. The venue lists eight: three stars from the Sustainable Restaurant Association, an SRA Waste No Food award, Slow Food Best London Eatery, a BBC Food & Farming award for street food, two Urban Food awards, Great Taste stars for two entries, and a Catey's finalist place for Best Newcomer. None of them carries a year on the venue's page, and one outside account describes the SRA award as a shortlisting rather than a win, so they are reported here as the venue's own claims rather than as verified accolades.
Good to know
- Where: Rochester Walk, inside Borough Market SE1 9AF. Sources disagree about the unit number, so look for the sign rather than a number.
- Timing: closed Monday. Tuesday to Friday 9am to 4.30pm, Saturday 9am to 5pm, Sunday 9am to 4pm. It serves breakfast as well as lunch.
- Booking: none. You queue and you carry it.
- Hygiene: two clean Food Standards Agency registrations at this postcode, both rating 5. Unit 27a Rochester Walk was inspected 3 May 2025 (FHRSID 927144) and a second unit was inspected 10 February 2026 with a perfect zero on all three components (FHRSID 1737227).5
- Diet: the market describes the menu as carrying a range of vegetarian eastern Mediterranean dishes alongside the meat. Ask at the counter about anything stricter, because no dietary statement is published.
- Also on the counter: local wines and ales, direct trade coffee and tea.
- Who runs it: Nadia Stokes, whose Greek-Cypriot heritage the recipes come from, and her husband Nick.
Verdict
should-visit — Make the detour, and understand it before you order. Goat dairy farms produce billy kids they have no use for, and the industry's usual answer is to kill them at birth. Nadia and Nick Stokes started cooking them instead, first from outdoor pitches at Borough Market from 2014 and then from a fixed indoor unit on Rochester Walk that opened in March 2016. The recipes are Greek-Cypriot, from Nadia's own heritage, and the supply is entirely British: kid goat and rose veal from UK dairy farms, pickles made from waste vegetables, mature halloumi. That is a whole-animal position taken at the supply end rather than the menu end, and it is rarer than nose-to-tail language on a chalkboard. The cooking proves it. The kofta is made fresh daily from lean kid goat mince and goes into a Greek pita with tzatziki and green chilli salsa, and The Infatuation's line on it is the right one: "the kid goat kofta pita is what you really want to get involved in." The slow-roast shoulder and leg is cooked with white wine, oregano, bay, thyme, garlic and lemon zest. When the stifado is on, it comes under grated anari, a Cypriot cheese made from halloumi whey, which is the same not-wasting-anything instinct applied to dairy. It holds at should-visit rather than higher because the only bylined review is unrated and six years old, and because the venue lists eight awards without dating a single one.