Chigwell, Sandwiches, Cakes, Etc Restaurant Guide

2021 Review: “Sambar curry is super, and a great way to start the day!” at this brunch favourite – a quaint-looking, domed café by the water in Victoria Park, where Sri Lankan options feature alongside full English and vegan breakfasts; there’s offshoots in Colombia Road and Broadway Market.

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.

2021 Review: ‘Pickled’ author Freddie Janssen launched a Kickstarter campaign for this new, August 2019 venture in hip Dalston – an all-day café sitting alongside a co-working space and urban farm, and delivering a funky-sounding menu which reads like a ‘pick ’n’ mix’ of global inspiration.

2024 Review: A “spectacular breakfast” – “the options are hard to choose from, but none are a poor choice” – is the top culinary feature at these Kiwi haunts, whose zeitgeisty vibe and in-house roasting (omg the smell in Shoreditch!) makes them a magnet for a “top notch coffee” at any time of day.

2022 Review: “A lovely local coffee shop” in Highbury – this four-year-old majors on “tasty fresh bread/pastries and delicious coffee” and “also sells a nice range of deli bits/wines etc”. The same team have opened a second site on nearby Gillespie Road.

“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”.

2022 Review: It’s a bit less nook-like than it looks, if you head to the larger basement of this summer 2020 Highbury newcomer: a deli by day and neighbourhood café in the evenings. With a vague connection to Linden Stores (RIP), which it replaced in 2020, there’s a Turkish twist to the contemporary European small dishes and sharing plates. Limited early feedback, but very positive all-round.

This legendary 24/7 East End bakery is “worth the hype, and the queue, for top salt beef bagel action”. Ignore the “grumpy service and horrible interior (please don’t gentrify!)” in the knowledge that “one of life’s great pleasures is noshing a fully loaded salt beef bagel outside the shop while it’s still piping hot”. Last summer, the operation made its first foray into pizzas with a residency at the Hoxton. It also endured a social media panic as news spread that its near neighbour the Beigel Shop (both businesses use the traditional European spelling) had closed due to a family dispute.

2021 Review: “Perfect coffee every time” keeps caffeine fiends crawling back to this small and serious chain. “Baking from Fortitude Bakehouse is a good complement”.

2022 Review: This aptly-named, all-day café in Barnsbury is the local hot-spot for weekend brunch – “if you can get in before the queues”. “Courgette fritters, pancakes, banana bread” all get a shout-out, along with a “seriously good Virgin Mary”. It’s less frenetic during the week, when they take bookings.

2021 Review: “Perfect coffee every time” keeps caffeine fiends crawling back to this small and serious chain. “Baking from Fortitude Bakehouse is a good complement”.

There’s “a real buzz” around Quality Chop House’s “little sibling next door”, where chef Nick Bramham, working solo, knocks out a “short but enticing menu that changes every week” – “how he does it in the tiny kitchen is baffling!”. “You might need to perch but it’s great food and fun to visit”.

2021 Review: “Good coffee… and the food’s OK too” – this Borough Market café remains one of the top caffeine hits in SE1. “It’s great for breakfast” too.

2021 Review: “Could this be the best coffee in London?” – this speciality chain has grown from this Leather Lane site to 15 around the capital in 10 years, and is, by all accounts, “exceptional” – “definitely worth going out of the way for a brew”. “Staff are friendly”, and sandwiches, salads and cakes are prepared fresh every day at a central in-house kitchen and bakery.

2024 Review: Caffeine aficionados beat a path to the Leather Lane premises of “one of the early champions of speciality coffee”, where they imbibe information from the “friendly and knowledgeable staff” along with their brews. It’s a “comfortable refurbished space”, and there are “great pastries” and breakfast/brunch options to munch on.

2022 Review: “You will literally not get a better toasted cheese and onion sandwich in this world!” – so say fans of Bill Oglethorpe’s market stall, which is a mainstay of Borough Market. On Saturday mornings and lunchtime, you can also eat-in at their dairy in nearby Bermondsey.

“The aroma is breathtaking and you will want to linger longer than one cup”, especially at the original WC2 branch of this renowned coffee chain: “a tiny, friendly place where you always share a table with someone interesting”; and with “an exceptional array of coffees from around the world”. “Yes, you will likely have to queue; and no, it is not somewhere to linger with friends. But for the best coffee served by supremely knowledgeable staff in special surroundings, this is still the benchmark, with outstanding pastries too”.

2021 Review: “A wonderful location off Bermondsey Street” – a “quirky”, ancient, tiny shelter originally built for watchmen guarding the graves of nearby St Mary Magdalene Church – helps win fans for this small coffee house (which has since spawned a couple of spin-offs at Tower Bridge and Fetter Lane). It wins many nominations for its “top coffee” too (supplied by Shoreditch roasters, Ozone) and “delicious food”. One quibble: service can be “so laid back, it’s almost horizontal”.

“Smoothly run and charming – the Wolseley’s “grown-up” Theatreland cousin off Aldwych is “another Corbin & King former favourite that seems to be surviving pretty well under a change of management”, a switch that “doesn’t seem to have dented its consistent quality”. The “lovely surroundings are reminiscent of a coffee house in Vienna” and its “well-spaced tables and professional service make it a particularly classy choice for a discreet business lunch”. The Mittel European brasserie fare is “undemanding” and “won’t excite” (“it’s not about the food here”), but the menu provides “a wide choice” and “the overall package is pure quality and not too expensive for what it is”. In particular, “they make breakfast into an occasion” with an excellent selection of choices and coffee. Top Menu Tips – “Fantastic schnitzels”; very pleasant Veal Bratwurst with sauerkraut; or reasonable Chicken soup with spätzle”. At breakfast, “eggs royale is an indulgent choice”; and “you will never taste better kedgeree than theirs!”

Down a cute Covent Garden alley, this tiny Scandi café with a handful of seats outside in summer is sweet in more ways than one: “the renowned Princess Tarta is criminally delicious and can be personalised to order… 100% authentic too!”