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.

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.

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.

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,

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.

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.

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.