London Crouch End Restaurant Guide

With an all-day menu that bounces happily from the Caribbean and Mexico to the Isle of Man and Thailand, Juliette Banner has provided up-beat service in Crouch End for more than 30 years. “A Banners breakfast is the perfect cure for a hangover” – and you can also earn one with the “great cocktails”. The “authentic American-style burgers” must have attracted Bob Dylan, the bard of Americana, whose 1993 visit is commemorated with a plaque – you can even book the table he sat at!

This “cosy and vibey” tapas bar has a strong local following in Crouch End, and celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. ‘Esteban’, its founder, is in fact Glasgow-born record producer Stephen Lironi, a long-time fan of Spanish cuisine; chef Pablo Rodriguez is from Barcelona, while manager Naroa Ortega is from Bilbao.

“Big flavours and lots of spice” characterise the “inventive sharing plates of seafood” from the British Isles, prepared with influences from around the world, at this “lovely” (if “cramped” and “noisy”) Crouch End three-year-old, where “there’s always a great vibe and staff are super-friendly”. Top Tip – “fabulous squid-ink bread and whipped butters”.

2022 Review: In the heart of Crouch End, this modern bar/brasserie (which opened in early 2019) offers an affordably priced selection of modern European dishes plus bar bites. Too limited feedback for a rating, but all of it enthusiastic.

“Genuine Neapolitan pizza” is what they strive for at this 10-year-old Kensal Rise spot and its “compact” Crouch End spin-off – and it earns them higher marks for food than most competitors, year after year.

2021 Review: A “long-time, local favourite” – this “relaxed”, retro bistro brings the classic flavours of France to Crouch End. Chef-proprietor Lynne Sanders and her team send “reliably good food” out from the kitchen.

“A favourite Turkish spot” – this well-run Crouch End local offers a “reliably delicious range of vegetarian, meat and fish dishes”, and “treats regulars as old friends, eating at a ‘home from home’”. It’s “not as cheap as the majority of Turkish/Kurdish restaurants in nearby Green Lanes, but the standard is higher and well worth the extra pound or two”.

This new Italian in Muswell Hill has an “interesting selection of tasty and well-presented small plates”, with a “focus on quality and taste”. The chic modern interior makes for a “nice buzzy atmosphere”, and locals are encouraged to use it as a wine bar – there are more than 100 bottles in stock, most of them Italian.

“Tasty and reasonably priced plates of Mediterranean food” make this yearling from Télémaque Argyriou “a nice new addition to Crouch End”. “How rarely do you get authentic Greek cuisine in London? Mostly you find Cypriot food (OK, but not at all the same thing) or tourist stuff. This is the real Greek in a London bistro style – wonderful!”. (The ingredients are real, too – led by olives and oil from the patron’s family farm in Greece).

“A great wallop of France at its best – superbe!”. This Crouch Hill newcomer from a pair of industry veterans is “everyone’s new favourite for good reasons” – “chef Robert Reid and his friend Jean-Christophe Slowik, who have worked at Michelin-starred restaurants in the past, have created a rural French bistro that is low on snobbery and pretence but has a genuine Gallic ‘je ne sais quoi’ that feels effortless. The food is delicious, the atmosphere is very pleasant and the worry is that it will soon become impossible to book here”.