My favourite London caffs part 3: North and South

The one with the map

Hello and welcome to Wooden City, a newsletter about London. If you haven’t come here via @caffs_not_cafes, I'm a writer called Isaac Rangaswami and this is my new Substack.

This is the final instalment of my three-part caffs guide, focusing on north and south London. 

Part one introduces the guide and covers central London. Part two is all about east and west London. At the bottom of this article is a link to my first ever London-wide caffs map, covering all 50 spots.

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North London

Dory’s Cafe 

Dory’s has everything you could want and more: sepia-toned photos, superannuated chairs and outsized portions of that special brand of Italo-Cockney hospitality that the Pelliccis have made so famous. This is no coincidence: Dorina Cardosi, who was behind the counter here for half a century, was a Pellicci too before she married her husband Tony. Her son and daughter run the place today, and are cousins with E Pellicci’s current management.

But Dory’s is also very much its own thing. A miniscule open kitchen is the soul of the place, churning out the kinds of colossal plates only people who assemble roofs and scaffolding frames for a living could possibly need to consume. Dory’s is to escalope and bolognese what the New York red sauce joint is to the chicken parm, but it’s their ham, egg and chips that is really superlative. Most of all, this is a community centre in its truest sense: full of Barnet gossip and people asking after each other’s mums and dads.

3 St Albans Rd, Barnet EN5 4LN

Cafe Anglais

Like the Wetherspoons down the road, Cafe Anglais is one of your best bets if you’re in NW9 and want to sit down for a while somewhere cheap. The crazy thing is that this place opened in 1936, though that’s not so easy to tell these days. Cafe Anglais has been mid-refurb for ages, but it wears its incompleteness well: chipboard panels and exposed girders blending in with its fixed brown seats. The fry-ups are made with care and the uniformed service is prompt and professional. Four beautifully curvilinear Thonet no.18 chairs guard ⁣the entrance, a hallmark of early European cafe culture and perhaps the caff’s only remnant of a much earlier history.

1-2 Sheaveshill Parade, Sheaveshill Avenue, London NW9 6RS

Bar Linda

The coolest thing about Bar Linda is that it’s actually a Tardis. Step inside and a startling dining room suddenly stretches out to your right, effectively quadrupling this caff’s size. Once you get your bearings, you realise the secret behind this magic trick: while the front windows are painted over, there are plenty in operation at the rear. So somewhere that could be small and dingy turns out to be huge and full of light. It’s in this uncanny back room you’ll find a set of idiosyncratic two-seater booths, perfect for either a job interview or break-up. 

Golders Green Station Forecourt, North End Road, Golders Green Station, London NW11 7RN

Mario's Cafe