London Stroud Green Restaurant Guide

“Is it an expensive sarnie, or cheap fine dining?!” – Either way, fans tip pundit ‘sandwicher’ Max Halley’s Crouch Hill café for its “inventive, premium sandwiches”. And it’s also a “great little place that’s relaxing and a bit different”.

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”.

“It’s always busy” at this welcoming Vietnamese restaurant, north of Finsbury Park as you head towards Crouch End, thanks to its “friendly staff and authentic cooking” (including a good number of options for veggies and vegans). Top Menu Tips – pho noodle soups and the bun cha (grilled pork with vermicelli noodles).

Open in June 2024 (after our annual diners’ poll had concluded) in the former, family-run Finsbury Park chippy that provides its name: a Spanish-inspired seafood spot from Four Legs, the team behind The Plimsoll nearby. Expect casual drinks and standing bites at the front bar and restaurant seating at the back.

On Finsbury Park’s Stroud Green Road, this Japanese-style curry specialist is a new (October 2023), slightly larger sibling to an older, more ‘hole-in-the-wall’ style sister operation at Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross. No survey feedback as yet on its choice of three sauces (beef, mild chicken and lentils) to accompany its signature breaded chicken katsu, but when Hideaki Yoshiyama’s original branch opened, it attracted the interest of The Financial Times’s Tim Hayward who found its “stretched and battered foodway, reconstructed with the kind of rigour I find irresistible”.