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Pot-roast chicken, focaccia, fennel with romesco and herbed potatoes from The Clarence Tavern, with the chicken in a Dutch oven and the other dishes surrounding it on white plates Lucy Schofield

Where to Eat in Stoke Newington

N16 dining takes in Turkish excellence, two of the city’s best cafes, and much more

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Here they are: the best restaurants in N16.

This guide is plotted according to the boundaries found on Google Maps. Newington Green has its own restaurant guide, while businesses within the boundaries but which define or name themselves “Dalston” will feature in a later area guide to Dalston.

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Roti Stop

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A reopened north London institution, Roti Stop’s history of doubles, pholourie, and, uh, roti runs deep in Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington. It plays the hits, with curry goat or jerk chicken on the bone, pumpkin channa, and calaloo with saltfish filling its pristine wraps, while anywhere that will put “deep fried tasty dough” on the menu for eighty pence deserves the highest praise.

The Clarence Tavern

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Having brought in an extensive pub shop and heat at home service in the first lockdown, this relatively new arrival to Stoke Newington is back open for dining in. Sunday’s menu takes in the likes of roast brill, beef, and slow-cooked lamb for sharing, as well as tidy. clever ideas like a chanterelle and Tunworth cheese “tartiflette,” while the large garden and menu indebted to its ties to gastropub royalty (The Anchor and Hope) makes it a perfect neighbourhood boozer.

Esters is a cafe and a brunch location that, out of principle, does not serve avocado. In other words, it’s a cafe with a little more ambition, one that verges into restaurant territory. So chef Jack Lloyd-Jones might scatter some herbs and nutritional yeast over poached eggs, whipped cod’s roe, broad beans, and buckwheat; or serve a sweet corn soup with nectarine, curry leaf, and crème fraiche. Saturdays bring a meat-for-breakfast policy that eschews bacon for confit duck, lamb shoulder, or pork belly. A signature miso and white chocolate cookie, the creation of co-owner Nia Burr, is almost reason enough to visit. So too are coffees made with the same care and precision as the food, and house drinking vinegars and sodas in technicolour hues.

Bake Street

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Bake Street’s real flexes might arrive come 11 a.m. on weekends, when the specials — birria tacos; a makhani fried chicken burger — steal the show, but don’t sleep on the weekday staples (Thursdays and Fridays) or the baked goods for earlier risers and the rest of the week. Stalwarts include a Bajan-style fish cutter bun; an halloumi bun with za’atar and barbecue sauce; and a Yangyeom Korean-fried chicken number. Meanwhile, baker Chloe-Rose Crabtree turns out pastelitos de guayaba on weekends, crème brûlée cookies Friday to Sunday, and more changing specials, to complement weekday stalwarts like chocolate chip cookies and salted caramel brownies. (The kitchen reopens 20 January 2022.)

The Best Turkish Kebab

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This is Stoke Newington’s Best Turkish Kebab. There are many like it, but this one is Stoke Newington’s. Per the mantra of Bake Street’s Feroz Gajia: Doner wrap, pickled chillis, chips, salad. Say no more.

Alexis Noble’s Australian-ish restaurant has elegantly sustained its hybrid guise since early 2020, opening when it can and persisting with an inventive “Wander at Home” menu that changes according to whim and any calendar milestones. Dishes tend to lean fragrant and delicate, even in hardier seasons, with decent homemade pasta and reliably interesting desserts.

Akdeniz Stoke Newington London

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Turkey has perhaps contoured the influences of London’s dining scene like no other country, and its baking traditions abound in cafes, supermarkets, and well, bakeries all over the city. Künefe specialists like Neco in Enfield may make restaurant destinations, but this Stoke Newington bakery and Yasar Halim on Green Lanes are the best places to go for breads, baklava, and pastries of all Anatolian stripes.

Vicoli di Napoli Pizzeria

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Formerly the first London opening for L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele, and then Pizzeria Stokey after licensor and licensee went their separate ways, Vicoli di Napoli is the third name for what is actually a very consistently good pizza restaurant. Neapolitan style, simple, well-seasoned crusts with good blistering and unintrusive toppings. Everything a neighbourhood could want from its pizzeria,

Trattoria Da Luigi

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Sometimes culinary buzzwords and archetypes need to be wheeled out, not in the service of laziness but because they must always come from somewhere. So when reading that this Sardinian lynchpin is rustic, traditional, unpretentious, and all that, please don’t be afeared. Wheels need not fear reinvention from generous plates of pasta — particularly anything with a showering of bottarga — but that’s entirely the point.

Romeo & Giulietta Artisan Gelateria

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The belief that it’s “never too cold for gelato” is a good place from which to open a gelato shop in London. So it is with Romeo and Giulietta, where it’s best to lean towards the most Italian flavours: fior di latte; hazelnut; extra dark chocolate sorbet that conjures memories of Neri in Florence, and ricotta with caramelised figs.

Micky's Chippy

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There are more famous fish and chip restaurants in east London, but in the spirit of local chippies, Stoke Newington residents could do worse than Micky’s Chippy on Pellerin Road, a neighbourhood fixture that has been serving the community for over 25 years. Having changed hands somewhat back in 2018, the team has stayed on and the quality hasn’t dipped. The fish is fried to order, the oil clean, the mushy peas their proper, unnatural hue, the saveloy skins so taut they could take an eye out, the curry sauce correct, the banter on point (and also sometimes in Greek and Turkish.) Is it the best fish and chips in the world, or even in London? No, but it is competitive with many more famous names in east London, gets the spirit right, and does so for £8.90.

19 Numara Bos Cirrik II

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As reliable for a group meal of ocakbasi staples, bread anointed with the drippings from the grill and tart onions as it is for a hastily grabbed wrap or lahmacun, this neighbourhood stalwart is the go-to for the section of the A10 between Church Street and Amhurst Road.

Roti Stop

A reopened north London institution, Roti Stop’s history of doubles, pholourie, and, uh, roti runs deep in Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington. It plays the hits, with curry goat or jerk chicken on the bone, pumpkin channa, and calaloo with saltfish filling its pristine wraps, while anywhere that will put “deep fried tasty dough” on the menu for eighty pence deserves the highest praise.

The Clarence Tavern

Having brought in an extensive pub shop and heat at home service in the first lockdown, this relatively new arrival to Stoke Newington is back open for dining in. Sunday’s menu takes in the likes of roast brill, beef, and slow-cooked lamb for sharing, as well as tidy. clever ideas like a chanterelle and Tunworth cheese “tartiflette,” while the large garden and menu indebted to its ties to gastropub royalty (The Anchor and Hope) makes it a perfect neighbourhood boozer.

Esters

Esters is a cafe and a brunch location that, out of principle, does not serve avocado. In other words, it’s a cafe with a little more ambition, one that verges into restaurant territory. So chef Jack Lloyd-Jones might scatter some herbs and nutritional yeast over poached eggs, whipped cod’s roe, broad beans, and buckwheat; or serve a sweet corn soup with nectarine, curry leaf, and crème fraiche. Saturdays bring a meat-for-breakfast policy that eschews bacon for confit duck, lamb shoulder, or pork belly. A signature miso and white chocolate cookie, the creation of co-owner Nia Burr, is almost reason enough to visit. So too are coffees made with the same care and precision as the food, and house drinking vinegars and sodas in technicolour hues.

Bake Street

Bake Street’s real flexes might arrive come 11 a.m. on weekends, when the specials — birria tacos; a makhani fried chicken burger — steal the show, but don’t sleep on the weekday staples (Thursdays and Fridays) or the baked goods for earlier risers and the rest of the week. Stalwarts include a Bajan-style fish cutter bun; an halloumi bun with za’atar and barbecue sauce; and a Yangyeom Korean-fried chicken number. Meanwhile, baker Chloe-Rose Crabtree turns out pastelitos de guayaba on weekends, crème brûlée cookies Friday to Sunday, and more changing specials, to complement weekday stalwarts like chocolate chip cookies and salted caramel brownies. (The kitchen reopens 20 January 2022.)

The Best Turkish Kebab

This is Stoke Newington’s Best Turkish Kebab. There are many like it, but this one is Stoke Newington’s. Per the mantra of Bake Street’s Feroz Gajia: Doner wrap, pickled chillis, chips, salad. Say no more.

Wander

Alexis Noble’s Australian-ish restaurant has elegantly sustained its hybrid guise since early 2020, opening when it can and persisting with an inventive “Wander at Home” menu that changes according to whim and any calendar milestones. Dishes tend to lean fragrant and delicate, even in hardier seasons, with decent homemade pasta and reliably interesting desserts.

Akdeniz Stoke Newington London

Turkey has perhaps contoured the influences of London’s dining scene like no other country, and its baking traditions abound in cafes, supermarkets, and well, bakeries all over the city. Künefe specialists like Neco in Enfield may make restaurant destinations, but this Stoke Newington bakery and Yasar Halim on Green Lanes are the best places to go for breads, baklava, and pastries of all Anatolian stripes.

Vicoli di Napoli Pizzeria

Formerly the first London opening for L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele, and then Pizzeria Stokey after licensor and licensee went their separate ways, Vicoli di Napoli is the third name for what is actually a very consistently good pizza restaurant. Neapolitan style, simple, well-seasoned crusts with good blistering and unintrusive toppings. Everything a neighbourhood could want from its pizzeria,

Trattoria Da Luigi

Sometimes culinary buzzwords and archetypes need to be wheeled out, not in the service of laziness but because they must always come from somewhere. So when reading that this Sardinian lynchpin is rustic, traditional, unpretentious, and all that, please don’t be afeared. Wheels need not fear reinvention from generous plates of pasta — particularly anything with a showering of bottarga — but that’s entirely the point.

Romeo & Giulietta Artisan Gelateria

The belief that it’s “never too cold for gelato” is a good place from which to open a gelato shop in London. So it is with Romeo and Giulietta, where it’s best to lean towards the most Italian flavours: fior di latte; hazelnut; extra dark chocolate sorbet that conjures memories of Neri in Florence, and ricotta with caramelised figs.

Micky's Chippy

There are more famous fish and chip restaurants in east London, but in the spirit of local chippies, Stoke Newington residents could do worse than Micky’s Chippy on Pellerin Road, a neighbourhood fixture that has been serving the community for over 25 years. Having changed hands somewhat back in 2018, the team has stayed on and the quality hasn’t dipped. The fish is fried to order, the oil clean, the mushy peas their proper, unnatural hue, the saveloy skins so taut they could take an eye out, the curry sauce correct, the banter on point (and also sometimes in Greek and Turkish.) Is it the best fish and chips in the world, or even in London? No, but it is competitive with many more famous names in east London, gets the spirit right, and does so for £8.90.

19 Numara Bos Cirrik II

As reliable for a group meal of ocakbasi staples, bread anointed with the drippings from the grill and tart onions as it is for a hastily grabbed wrap or lahmacun, this neighbourhood stalwart is the go-to for the section of the A10 between Church Street and Amhurst Road.