Golders Green Road is one of London's most extraordinary eating streets, a kilometre of kosher bakeries, Japanese restaurants, Israeli cafés, and Turkish grills that few Londoners outside NW11 fully appreciate.
The food is serious here because the communities it serves are serious about food. Kashrut (kosher dietary law) requires careful sourcing and separation of meat and dairy; the strictness of kosher certification has produced a culture of food provenance that raises quality across the area. The best Golders Green restaurants, kosher and non-kosher alike, have absorbed this standard.
Kosher: The Foundation of Golders Green Food
Bloom's of Golders Green
Bloom's is the oldest kosher restaurant in London. The original Whitechapel location opened in 1920; the Golders Green branch has served North London's Jewish community for decades from its position on Golders Green Road. The menu is Ashkenazi traditional, salt beef sandwiches, chicken soup with kneidlach (matzo balls), gefilte fish, cholent on Thursdays, and is entirely unchanged by food fashion.
A salt beef sandwich at Bloom's is the standard against which all other salt beef sandwiches in London are measured. The beef is brined for several days, cooked low and slow, and served in thick slices on rye bread with mustard and pickles. At lunchtime, the queue extends to the door. Arrive early.
Hours: Sunday to Thursday, 10am-10pm. Closed Friday evening and Saturday.
Solly's
Solly's is what happens when a kosher restaurant decides to take its Middle Eastern cooking seriously. The menu is built around Israeli and Sephardic cuisine: hummus made to order, lamb shawarma carved from a rotating spit, chicken skewers over charcoal, and an exceptional falafel that has been called the best in London. The bread, freshly baked pita delivered in a cloth-lined basket, arrives hot.
This is not restaurant food for tourists. The clientele is almost entirely local, the service is brusque in the way of a restaurant that doesn't need to perform warmth, and the food is consistently excellent. Go for the shawarma platter; order a side of charred aubergine with tahini; finish with a Turkish coffee.
Hours: Sunday to Thursday. Closed Friday evening and Saturday.
Daniel's Bagels
Daniel's on Finchley Road is the bagel bakery for North London's Jewish community. The bagels are made overnight; the shop opens at 6am; by 9am on a Sunday the most popular varieties, sesame, onion, everything, are often gone. The cream cheese schmear is made in-house. There are no chairs.
This is a destination for the bagel alone, which is worth the journey. The salt beef and cream cheese combination that exists in deli mythology reaches its practical peak here on a Sunday morning.
Miriam Goldstein, who grew up in Golders Green and now lives in Tel Aviv, returns to London several times a year. "The first thing I do off the plane is get a Solly's shawarma," she said. "Then a Daniel's bagel the next morning. It's not nostalgia, it's genuinely the best version of these things anywhere. I don't understand why the rest of London hasn't figured out Golders Green."
Japanese Golders Green
The Japanese community in Golders Green is smaller than the Jewish community but has produced some of North London's finest Japanese restaurants. The concentration on and around Golders Green Road is unusual, most Japanese restaurants in London cluster in Soho or Mayfair, and the quality is consistently higher than equivalent West End venues.
Sushi Say
Sushi Say on Walm Lane is the most serious Japanese restaurant in North London. It has been operating since 1982 and has earned a reputation that brings Japanese food enthusiasts from across London, and, reportedly, from Japan, to NW2. The omakase menu requires booking several weeks in advance; the Ă la carte is more accessible but still exceptional.
The sushi rice is made with a specific Japanese short-grain variety. The fish sourcing is from Billingsgate at dawn on the days the restaurant opens. The nori (seaweed wrapping) is imported. These details are not marketing; they are why the nigiri at Sushi Say tastes different from every other restaurant in London claiming to serve comparable food.
Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, evenings only. Closed Monday.
Booking: Essential; minimum two weeks in advance for weekends.
Hana
A more casual Japanese option on Golders Green Road, Hana serves ramen, donburi, and a short but well-executed list of small plates. The shoyu ramen (soy-based broth, chashu pork, soft-boiled egg) has a depth that comes from a 12-hour broth made daily. Lunch service is quick and well-priced; it is one of the better ramen options in North London.
Turkish and Middle Eastern
GĂŒney
GĂŒney on Golders Green Road is the closest North London comes to a proper Turkish ocakbasi, a charcoal grill restaurant of the kind common in Istanbul and Ankara. Lamb chops, chicken wings, kofte, and whole sea bass are cooked over charcoal on a grill behind a glass screen visible from the dining room. The flat bread arrives warm from the clay oven adjacent to the grill.
The mezze selection, hummus, baba ghanoush, ezme, tabbouleh, is served as a long table spread before the main courses arrive. The combination of excellent bread, generous mezze, and charcoal-grilled meat has produced a loyal local following; the restaurant is always busy at weekends and booking is advisable.
Limani
Limani is a Greek-Cypriot restaurant that has been on Golders Green Road long enough to predate the neighbourhood's Japanese food scene. The mezze is generous (21 dishes at the set menu level), the grilled fish is from the daily Billingsgate market catch, and the atmosphere, loud, family-orientated, slightly chaotic, is the antithesis of the studied calm of most North London restaurants.
The set mezze for two or more people is the right order. Start with the houmus and taramasalata, work through the hot starters, and leave room for the grilled main. The honey cake dessert is non-negotiable.
Israeli and Modern Middle Eastern
Elvi's Kitchen
Elvi's sits in a slightly different category from the traditional kosher establishments: it is kosher certified but the menu is modern Israeli rather than Ashkenazi traditional. Shakshuka (baked eggs in spiced tomato sauce) is served at brunch; for dinner, the menu runs to slow-cooked lamb shoulder, cauliflower roasted in za'atar and tahini, and a selection of mezze that references both Israeli street food and the Levantine cooking of the chef's Moroccan-Israeli family.
This is the most photogenic restaurant in Golders Green, the room has good light, the food is plated carefully, and it draws a younger crowd than Bloom's or Solly's. Weekend brunch requires booking a week ahead.
Kosher Kingdom Bakery
Not a restaurant but essential: Kosher Kingdom's bakery counter on Golders Green Road is the best place in London for challahs, rugelach, and hamentaschen. The challahs, braided egg bread eaten on Shabbat, are made on Thursdays and Fridays and sell out by early Friday afternoon. The babka (chocolate-swirled yeast cake) is available most days.
Vietnamese and Pan-Asian
The Vietnamese restaurants on the side streets off Golders Green Road are less discussed than the Jewish and Japanese food but worth seeking out. A cluster around Hoop Lane and Temple Fortune serves pho, banh mi, and bun bo hue to a largely local clientele that has been eating here long enough to remember when the restaurants were empty in the evenings. They are not empty now.
Pho Golders Green (informal name; signage in Vietnamese) at the Temple Fortune end of the strip is the strongest option for pho: the broth is made from beef bones over 12 hours, the rice noodles are correct in texture, and the herb basket is generous.
Planning Your Visit
Getting There
Golders Green station is on the Northern Line (Edgware branch), six minutes from Hampstead. From Central London, it is approximately 25 minutes from King's Cross. Buses 13, 82, 102, 260 all serve Golders Green Road.
What's Open on Shabbat
Many of the best Golders Green restaurants are kosher and therefore closed from Friday evening sundown to Saturday night. This is important to plan around. Japanese restaurants, Turkish restaurants, and Vietnamese venues are not affected by Shabbat closures.
If you are visiting on a Saturday, Hana, GĂŒney, Limani, and the Vietnamese pho restaurants are all operating normally.
A Golders Green Food Itinerary
Morning (Sunday):
- Daniel's Bagels at 8am for a sesame bagel with cream cheese
- Walk the length of Golders Green Road to Temple Fortune and back
Lunch:
- Solly's for a shawarma platter and falafel; arrive by 12:30pm to avoid queuing
Afternoon:
- Kosher Kingdom Bakery for a challah and rugelach to take home
- Walk north to Golders Hill Park and its free zoo for a circuit of the grounds
Evening:
- GĂŒney for charcoal grill and mezze; book for 7pm
This loop covers approximately 2km of walking, three distinct food cultures, and constitutes one of the best food days in North London.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are all the restaurants in Golders Green kosher?
No. Roughly half of the restaurants on Golders Green Road are kosher certified. Japanese, Turkish, Greek, and Vietnamese restaurants are not kosher. The street accommodates both without conflict.
Can I mix milk and meat in kosher restaurants?
No. Kosher law requires complete separation of meat and dairy. Meat restaurants serve no dairy products; dairy restaurants serve no meat. Pareve (neutral) restaurants serve neither meat nor dairy and can accommodate both. Solly's is a meat restaurant; many of the bakeries are pareve.
Is Golders Green safe to visit?
Yes, entirely. Golders Green is a residential area with a strong community character. The security presence you will notice, particularly at Jewish-associated venues, is a standard feature of Jewish community life in the UK and reflects a precautionary community approach rather than any specific threat.
When is the best time to visit?
Sunday morning is the most alive time in Golders Green: the bakeries are at their freshest, the restaurants open for brunch, and the street has the energy of a community food market. Late Thursday is also good, the restaurants are full of pre-Shabbat energy and the challahs are fresh.
Golders Green is not on the tourist route. It has no landmark that appears in guides to London. What it has is 100 years of a community feeding itself well, and a food street that rewards the fifteen-minute Tube journey from Central London with experiences that most visitors to this city never find.
