London, June 7-10, 2024

Written By Gary Wong

#LondonMets

We’d known for some time that the New York Mets would face the Philadelphia Phillies in the London Series. We just didn’t know when (for sure). When the 2024 MLB schedule dropped and we saw where on the calendar when it would fall, plans were set in motion to make sure we got there.

Around Thanksgiving 2023, Virgin Atlantic had a sale on award flights so for the measly sum of 43,500 Virgin Points (transferred from a few credit card points stashes), $976.60, and £393.79 (basically $1500 total in cash) , I booked a round trip with the outbound red-eye flight in Upper Class and the return daytime flight in Premium. That’s not a bad deal, especially in light of how they’d eventually move from a fixed award chart to a dynamic one where these kinds redemption amounts are less likely for a June flight.

I realize I haven’t actually discussed a Virgin Atlantic flight in a trip report and I won’t do it here as this was my second time ever flying in Upper Class with the first time a few months before this trip in April when I ran the London Marathon. I’ll save my thoughts on Upper Class for that trip report - that’s gonna be a… fun one.

My return flight in Premium was the first time I flew in that class but, more importantly, the first time I flew westbound from LHR in a class that qualified for entry in the Virgin Clubhouse there and it is everything people hype it up to be. This is is despite the fact that the post-COVID experience is devoid of some of the amenities that really made it stand out (RIP haircuts and Pelotons). The space is incredible (apologies for lack of photos of said space) and the food options on offer were quality with plenty of variety (shout out to the cold station with made to order charcuterie plates and salads). If you go up the stairs to the second deck and then another set of stairs tucked away in a corner, there’s even an outdoor deck where you can do some solid plane-spotting. It was a really nice way to cap off a wonderful long weekend in London.

The Food and Drinks

No Michelin stars on this trip as I was actually working remotely one of the days and the other was built around the Mets game and I didn’t want to be locked into anything meal-wise. That said, a group of us Mets fans had a solid large-format Indian meal at Gunpowder in Shoreditch where we just absolutely feasted. Other food highlights included my old standbys in Kanada-Ya for ramen and Koya for breakfast udon, as well as new-for-me Taco Padre in Borough Market for, well, tacos.

One of my favorite places to hit up in London was P. Franco in Hackney and it devastated me when it closed in early 2023 before I had a chance to revisit post-COVID. Thankfully, the former manager was able to raise the funding necessary to reopen months later as 107 Wine Shop & Bar and, on this trip, I was finally able to revisit and old-new favorite. Some great wines from Vino Di Anna and solid bites by Ed Wilson later, I walked out tipsy, full, and happy.

I made it out to five breweries over three days, four of which I hadn’t been to until this trip. Of those new ones, I’d gladly revisit all of them but I definitely dug one more than the rest - that would be Hackney Church Brew Co. I really liked all of their beers I had on that visit and, spoiler alert, all of their beers I would have in future visits. As I visited on a Sunday, they were doing a Sunday roast which, if I hadn’t already had lunch at 107, I would’ve gone for. Something I’d file away for a future trip to London, one which was not all too far off.

I’d had Fortitude Bakehouse on my list of bakeries in London to hit for some time. I figured I’d stop in on late Monday morning, thinking maybe the queue wouldn’t be so bad on a weekday morning. LOL, was I wrong. Some 15-20 minutes of queuing later, I was in possession of some precious pastries for the flight home later that evening. Both pastries, however, had dairy which meant I had to finish them before I landed in the US as I couldn’t bring them off the plane. That’s rough, having to house two pastries in a seven-hour span but I was willing to do so… for research, of course.

Let’s Go Mets

As someone who comes to London often to watch Tottenham Hotspur football matches, it was wild to come out here to see baseball in stadium not purpose-built for the sport. Thankfully, even though it’s now the home for West Ham United, London Stadium started as an Olympic Stadium so its pitch had more surface area than one purpose-built for football. Seeing it configured for baseball was interesting - the depth felt off counter-clockwise from third to first with it feeling really weird closer to and behind home plate. All told, though, it was a solid construction even if our seats were facing outwards towards the outfield rather than inwards toward home plate like you would normally encounter.

As for the game itself, it was a thrill to see the Mets’ hype video ahead of the teams taking the field, befitting their status as the home team for this game. Also a thrill was seeing the Mets score the first run of the game. The rest of the game? Eh, the less said the better as it quickly got away from them, ending with the Phillies winning 7-2. Still, this was a new, different, and ultimately fun experience - seeing the Mets abroad is one that I can check off on my list. This loss would end their modest three-game winning streak after they hit rock bottom (24-35) up to that point in the 2024 season, leaving them with a 27-36 record. Another experience I’d like to experience some day is seeing the Mets in enemy territory during a Postseason series but it was seeming like 2024 would not be the year where it happened. At least, not on June 8…

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Gary Wong
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