The Best Brunch Spots in Highbury and the Surrounding Neighbourhood
There is a particular kind of Saturday morning magic that belongs to North London. It begins somewhere around 8am, when the smell of butter hitting a hot oven drifts out of a shopfront, the coffee machine starts its first reluctant splutter, and a small queue forms on the pavement — people clutching tote bags, slightly bleary, entirely committed to the prospect of a very good pastry. If you live in or around Highbury, you are, it turns out, extraordinarily well placed for this ritual. The neighbourhood sits at the centre of one of London's most exciting concentrations of artisan baking talent, with weekend breakfast delivery in London increasingly on the rise for those who'd rather the croissant came to them. But first — the spots worth lacing your shoes up for.
The Best Brunch Spots Near Highbury
1. La Fromagerie Highbury
Highbury Park, N5 2AA | Rating: 4.5 | Mon–Wed & Sat: 9am–6pm | Thu–Fri: 9am–7pm | Sun: 9:30am–4pm
Patricia Michelson's legendary food institution needs no introduction in serious food circles, but the Highbury Park outpost is worth revisiting on its own terms. Yes, the cheese counter alone is reason enough to visit — but the bakery programme running alongside it is genuinely exceptional. Sourdough loaves with proper crust, focaccia, seasonal tarts, and artisan pastries that are made to sit happily next to a slab of aged comté rather than a flat white. This is the kind of principled, beautiful food shop that other cities wish they had. Go for brunch, leave with half the deli counter.
2. Sourdough Sophia
117–119 Essex Road, Islington, N1 2SN | Rating: 4.7 | Mon–Sat: 8am–4:30pm | Sun: 9am–4:30pm
Sophia Sutton Jones started her micro-bakery from her dining room table in the first lockdown of 2020, which makes the fact that she now runs four North London sites all the more remarkable. The Essex Road shopfront brings her full repertoire to the heart of N1: slow-fermented sourdough loaves with extraordinary depth, hand-laminated croissants, matcha chocolate slices for those who want something a bit more unexpected, and spinach and feta swirls that have no business being as good as they are. The sandwiches are worth noting too — thoughtfully constructed and not an afterthought. An award-winning neighbourhood bakery in the truest sense of the phrase.
3. Jolene
21 Newington Green, N16 9PU | Rating: 4.7 | Mon: 8am–3pm | Tue–Sun: 8am–4pm (lunch and dinner from Tue–Sun)
Jolene is the kind of place that makes you feel good about where food is heading. Overlooking the green at Newington, this beautifully designed all-day bakery mills its own flour in-house from ancient grain varieties — some grown using horse-drawn machinery with zero pesticides — and bakes its sourdough on the premises using Wildfarmed regenerative wheat. The result is bread with a flavour complexity that most bakeries simply cannot replicate. The daily-changing bakery counter delivers outstanding laminated pastries, sausage rolls, and palmiers, while evenings transform the space into a candlelit restaurant. Listed in the Michelin Guide and championed by the Good Food Guide — and rightly so.
4. The French Market
16 Blackstock Road, Finsbury Park, N4 2DW | Rating: 4.5 | Mon–Thu: 8am–1:30pm | Fri–Sat: 8am–4pm | Sun: 9am–4pm
Opened in September 2023 by three French friends with a shared obsession for artisan food, The French Market is exactly the kind of bakery that a neighbourhood didn't know it needed until it arrived. Head Baker Ludovic Fritz turns out sourdough loaves, buttery croissants, Kouign Amann, and flan pâtissier — all classics, all done with real conviction. Their baguette earned third prize in a London-wide competition, and their croissant reached the finals of the Isigny Ste Mère UK contest. There is also a hidden courtyard garden, which feels like a genuine secret given how many people pass Blackstock Road without looking twice. One of North London's most exciting recent arrivals.
5. Pophams Bakery
19 Prebend Street, Islington, N1 8PF | Rating: 4.7 | Mon–Fri: 7:30am–4pm | Sat: 8am–4pm | Sun: 8:30am–4pm
If you have not yet queued on Prebend Street on a weekend morning, you are missing one of North London's defining food experiences. Ollie Gold and Lucy McWhirter opened this tiny Islington shopfront in April 2017 and, in doing so, fundamentally changed the conversation around British viennoiserie. The bacon and maple syrup croissant is the stuff of genuine legend; the marmite and cheddar twists are savourily addictive; the sauerkraut and gruyère creation is one of those things you think sounds odd right up until you eat it. With a 4.7 Google rating from over 1,400 reviewers, a Good Food Guide 2025 Top 50 listing, and a Times Top 3 North London Bakeries nod, the accolades have been entirely earned. Get there early.
6. Quince Bakery
267 New North Road, Islington, N1 7AA | Rating: 4.8 | Wed–Fri: 8am–2:30pm | Sat: 9am–2:30pm
Opened in 2024 by Anna Higham — formerly head pastry chef at two-Michelin-starred The Ledbury and at Flor — Quince is quietly one of the most exciting bakery openings London has seen in years. Working exclusively with UK-grown, stoneground flour, Anna produces a rotating seasonal programme of sourdough country loaves, baguettes, wholegrain hand-pies with seasonal fruit fillings, soda breads, and butteries. The wood-fronted shop also stocks artisan pantry goods: cheeses, wines, olive oils, and jams. It is open just four days a week, which means everything you get is the result of genuine intention rather than volume. One of the highest-rated spots on this list — and one of the hardest to get to before it sells out.
What If Getting There Is Not Always an Option?
The honest truth is that even the most dedicated brunch enthusiast cannot queue on Prebend Street every single Saturday. Life intervenes — early starts, small children, the particular bliss of not getting out of bed until 10am. This is partly why demand for artisan breakfast delivery in London has grown so dramatically in recent years. Londoners who discovered the quality of genuinely good sourdough and hand-laminated pastry during lockdown were never going to go back to supermarket bread without a fight, and a whole ecosystem of small, principled producers has grown up to meet that appetite at the door.
What has changed most noticeably is not just the demand, but the values attached to it. A bread subscription or pastry subscription in the UK is no longer simply a convenience — it has become a considered choice. Customers are increasingly drawn to zero waste bakery models, where everything is baked to order rather than left to languish unsold. Sustainable food delivery in London, particularly via bike delivery, reduces the environmental footprint of getting quality food across the city. The weekend, it turns out, is not just a time to visit a bakery — it is a time when the bakery can come to you.
Butter & Crust: Bringing the Bakery to Your Door
If the idea of artisan sourdough, freshly baked pastries, and weekend breakfast goods arriving at your door by 9am on a Saturday morning sounds like the answer to a question you have been quietly asking — that is exactly what Butter & Crust was built to do. Rather than operating a single bakery, Butter & Crust works as a curated platform, partnering with the best local artisan producers in London to bring genuinely exceptional bread, pastries, and breakfast goods directly to your home.
Everything is baked to order — which means zero food waste, and none of the compromise that comes with bread that was made speculatively the day before. Deliveries arrive by 9am every weekend, with bicycle delivery across inner London and fully recyclable packaging throughout. For those further afield, the service covers most of London's zones 1 to 3 and is continuing to expand. A flexible bread subscription or pastry subscription means you can pause, skip, or cancel whenever life requires it — no awkward cancellation calls, no hidden terms. Just very good bread, delivered sustainably, on the morning you most want it. As someone who cares about where food comes from and how it gets to the table, it is genuinely hard to argue with.
Find out more and start your subscription at butterandcrust.com.
Sources
- La Fromagerie — Highbury, N5 2AA | lafromagerie.co.uk
- Sourdough Sophia — Islington, N1 2SN | sourdoughsophia.co.uk
- Jolene — Newington Green, N16 9PU | jolenebakery.com
- The French Market — Finsbury Park, N4 2DW | thefrench-market.com
- Pophams Bakery — Islington, N1 8PF | pophamsbakery.com
- Quince Bakery — Islington, N1 7AA | quincebakery.co.uk
Editorial sources referenced in bakery recognition:
- Good Food Guide — 2025
- Time Out London — bakery guides (various)
- Hot Dinners — London bakery features (various)
- The Infatuation — North London bakery coverage
- Michelin Guide — London listings
- Eater London — bakery recommendations
- The Times — Top 3 North London Bakeries
