Hatfield, Pizza Restaurant Guide

For 40 years, this local landmark in Golders Green has inhabited the railway arch by the tube. Its simple pizza and pasta formula still wins recommendations for its “cheap ’n’ cheerful” possibilities – especially with kids in tow – but it also gives rise to the odd report of a “very poor and disappointing” experience.

This “brilliant neighbourhood restaurant” in Finsbury Park has plied regulars and blow-ins alike with “great pizza, pasta and cocktails” for more than a quarter of a century – “we’re always welcomed back like long-lost family members!”. “North London has no shortage of excellent pizza places, but this one wins by a crispy crust”.

“Lush pizza” that’s reliably “top-quality” has driven the expansion of this Islington-based group that has developed four different 48-hour ferment bases – including gluten-free and ‘black vegetable charcoal’ versions to reduce stomach gas; so “everyone’s happy”. The eight-year-old group now has nine sites in the capital (including a new one labelled as ‘Chelsea’ but on Fulham Broadway) and one in Reading.

“Reliably excellent pizza” – “better than the other high street chains” – is what you’ll find at this growing Clapton-based operation, now with 12 sites from Balham and Crystal Palace in the south to Tufnell Park (which, as of summer 2024, is the latest to open). They’re perhaps “not smart as places to eat”, but that hardly matters – and the “toppings are interesting without being off-puttingly un-pizza-ish”.

“Reliably excellent pizza” – “better than the other high street chains” – is what you’ll find at this growing Clapton-based operation, now with 12 sites from Balham and Crystal Palace in the south to Tufnell Park (which, as of summer 2024, is the latest to open). They’re perhaps “not smart as places to eat”, but that hardly matters – and the “toppings are interesting without being off-puttingly un-pizza-ish”.

A former lockdown project that graduated via pop-ups to a permanent site in 2023, with an enthusiastic social media following: it features New Haven-style pizzas, cooked at low temperatures for a light crust and with a concise choice of toppings. In her March 2024 reivew, the Sunday Times’s Charlotte Ivers declared herself a fan: It’s only pizza, but this one will remind you the magic is still there.

Outstanding and creative sandwiches, “fresh pastries” and “delicious brews” make this social-enterprise (it supports at-risk young East Londoners) one of the capital’s highest-rated café-bakeries. The “wonderful brunches” mean “it can get very busy round midday”, both at HQ in Dalston Junction and at the Green Lanes, Harringay offshoot. At the former, its street cred is enhanced by a grungy location down a side street from off the main drag. The latter is more civilised, with evening service, pizza and wine.

“There are plenty of pizza options but this is one of the very best” up North London way, with the five-year-old Archway original joined in 2023 by a branch in a pub near Angel. The “hand thrown” sourdough pizzas are “thin-crust and cooked super-fast, with a range of interesting toppings” washed down with “great craft beer”. “The interior is a little basic but always busy and with good reason” – it helps that staff are “super-friendly”.