Ok so another faux-Italian deli cum café, I guess I can’t get enough of these places. Distressed furniture and walls adorned with shelves of jars and Italian produce are two themes I always plum for and like gastro pubs, London has no shortage of them. I’m just picking out a few of my favourites. [...]

Beyond the gridlock of baby buggies and over-gentrification, Stoke Newington Church Street has many positive points, one in particular being the Blue Legume. It’s comforting to think that if it weren’t for the bourgeoisie element of this area a place like this probably wouldn’t be here. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love this place. [...]

Upper Street may have a lot of restaurants but good ones it does not. Ottolenghi however is excellent and has the most delicious selection of cakes, pies and other desserts. The windows are piled high with colourful meringues (which I have never seen anyone actually eat), cupcakes and little custard tarts. They have all kinds [...]

Like Voltaire said; “He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided of course he really is dead.” A nice alternative to the sight of blinding white flesh and badly dressed office workers on their lunch break, a reminder of the few sunny days we get here in London, I would recommend a [...]

I could not be more enthusiastic about this cinema. I consider myself an expect as I have pointedly been to every independent cinema in London and the Everyman Hampstead comes at the top of the list. For not much more than you would spend at a regular multiplex cinema you get your own chair, you [...]

The appeal lies in the bright garnet-coloured walls and vast menu of delicious Russian dishes. Looking over the menu I realise that like Mexican, Russian food appears to be basically more or less 10 different ingredients in 40 different combinations. The food comes quick and it’s simply cooked yet totally delicious and super cheap. I’m [...]

Situated on Hampstead High Street, this little Hungarian patisserie has been here since 1963 and so have the waitresses. Staffed by a troupe of old ladies from behind the Iron Curtain they are Hungary’s finest export of communist charm. They briskly usher you to a table (if there is one, otherwise you are sharply and [...]

You can’t really go wrong with the Breakfast Club: it does what it says on the packet. It does good lunch too – sandwiches, toasties, baked potatoes, salads and smoothies. It has a country kitchen feel, although somewhere hot and mental, like Brazil and it’s unpretentious and relaxed. If you don’t want to make a [...]

Perhaps a bit out of the way, but if you’re in London on a sunny day then it’s worth a trip up to Primrose Hill for a cup of tea and a cupcake. Half 50s tea room half old fashioned sweet shop, the American retro furniture and cabinet of cakes including cupcakes of every kind, [...]

Don’t start, I know this isn’t an authentic caff but it’s going for the look of an authentic caff, so it qualifies for my ‘caff’ section. The food here isn’t great value for money, its expensive for what you get, I come here for the novelty of the place, I love the way it looks [...]