Languishing up in Hadley’s Wood, Thymari is the furthest point of the great Greek exodus north west from Camden and Palmers Green. Here Christine and Paul specialise in meat and seafood grills as well as twists on long-braised dishes such as kleftico in a root vegetable mash. Whatever the order made sure to finish on sweet balls of loukoumades which are made to order.

One of London’s essential pizzerias has an outpost here up in High Barnet where the owners of Hampstead’s L’Antica are introducing slow fermented dough and wet Neopolitan style pizzas to an area fed a diet of British-Italian. Like the original all the pizzas are named after famous Italians and Ninja Turtles: Donatello, Raphael and Sofia Loren. 

No version of souvlaki is left unmade at this grilled meat specialist in High Barnet. Get shaved gyros or chunks of meat in pita (with chips), the lesser seen skepasti which uses two pitas to form a disc sandwich (with chips), the Philadelphia bifteki, a beef sausage oozing soft cheese (with chips) or just a huge mixed grill platter with lots of pita (and chips).

One to add to the rule that the best Vietnamese restaurants always have numbers in their name. There is a Chinese menu here but stick to the Vietnamese side with herbal bowls of pho, Hanoi bun cha and a very decent bun bo hue with pink half moons of sausage.

New Parade in Barnet boasts Rice Terrace, which is slowly establishing itself as the area’s best Thai restaurant (admittedly with little competition). Stir fried dishes are done particularly well, from a pad thai that has the required bounce and elasticity, to Pad Kee Mao Talay, a ho fun stir fry full of huge prawns and mussels. 

Surely named after the Mesopotamian city where Jonah was resident before he became ensconced in the belly of a whale, Ninova is a Turkish restaurant of huge behaviour — a cavernous space with paintings and cameos all of the dining room. The menu holds no surprises — it’s big grills or go home.

Right next to Southgate’s Brunswick Park, Meraki Grill is yet another great Cypriot restaurant hidden in the depths of north London’s outer boroughs. The draw here for Cypriots who care about meat and fish is the quality and size of the cuts Meraki use — best come as a group and demolish whole tomahawk steaks or turbots served on the bone. 

Every person who grew up in Whetsone was taken to Al Fresco or Angelo’s as a child where their love of British-Italian food was cultivated. Angelo’s is like a cosier, less raucous Ciao Bella, a restaurant of the Primi-Pizza-Pasta-Pesce-Carne-Dolce variety where the chequered table cloths match the curtains. It may be a time warp completely immune to trends but it’s an enjoyable one nonetheless.