The Best Brunch Spots in Highgate

The Best Brunch Spots in Highgate

The Best Brunch Spots in Highgate (and the Brilliant Bakeries Nearby)

There's a particular kind of Saturday morning magic that happens in Highgate. The heath is still dewy, the foxes have only just retreated, and somewhere on Archway Road or Highgate West Hill, a bakery door swings open and the smell of laminated pastry and freshly pulled sourdough drifts out onto the pavement. A small queue forms. Nobody minds. This is, after all, the whole point of the weekend.

Whether you're a local after a leisurely brunch or a visitor making the pilgrimage north of the city, Highgate and its surrounding neighbourhoods punch well above their weight when it comes to genuinely exceptional artisan baking. From century-old Jewish heritage revived in Kentish Town to a brand-new Highgate West Hill café that only opened in May 2025, the options here reward curiosity. This is our definitive guide to where to go — and what to order when you get there.

The Best Brunch Bakeries in and Around Highgate

1. Margot Bakery Highgate

📍 Highgate, N6 4EJ · Highgate (Northern Line) · Rating: 4.6 · Daily 8:00am–4:00pm

If you only make one stop on Archway Road this weekend, make it Margot. Michelle Eshkeri's third London location brings the full weight of her Jewish baking heritage to N6 — beautifully braided challah, dark and pillowy babka, sourdough loaves with serious crust, and almond croissants that have become something of a local obsession. The bear claws and cinnamon buns are the sort of thing you'll find yourself thinking about on Monday morning. Warmly welcomed by Highgate's food community as one of the most significant bakery openings the neighbourhood has seen, Margot Highgate is already essential. Featured in Wallpaper and the Jewish Chronicle, and every bit as good as the reputation suggests.

Visit Margot Bakery →

2. Sourdough Sophia Highgate

📍 Highgate West Hill, N6 6JS · Highgate (Northern Line) · Rating: 4.6 · Mon–Sat 8:00am–4:30pm, Sun 9:00am–4:30pm

Opened on 24 May 2025 in the former Creamery ice cream spot on the Swain's Lane roundabout, this is the biggest and boldest of Sophia Sutton Jones' four North London outposts — and it's immediately one of the most characterful café spaces in N6. Communal dining tables, outdoor seating, and a children's play area make it as good for a leisurely weekend sit-down as it is for a quick grab-and-go. Order the hand-laminated croissants, the matcha chocolate slices, or the spinach and feta swirls, and take your time. Featured in Hot Dinners and Another Country, Sophia is widely recognised as one of the great artisan bakers of North London, and this newest location is the most impressive showcase yet.

Visit Sourdough Sophia →

3. Tarn Bakery

📍 Archway, N19 3NB · Archway (Northern Line) · Rating: 4.8 · Tues 8:30am–2:00pm, Wed–Fri 8:00am–3:00pm, Sat 9:00am–3:00pm

If Tarn Bakery were in Paris, there'd be a Michelin Bib and a two-hour queue by now. Opened in December 2023 by Florin Grama — formerly of Pophams, Flor, and St Barts — and Felix Ortona Coles, this tiny Hazellville Road shopfront operates on a short week and a serious commitment to sourcing: UK wheat from Bruern Farms and Gilchesters, dairy from The Estate Dairy, chocolate from Pump Street. The sourdough loaves are magnificent, the cardamom buns are addictive, and the almond croissants are among the finest in North London. Reviewed by the Good Food Guide and feted by Hot Dinners, Tarn is one of those genuinely special small bakeries that makes the slight detour entirely worthwhile.

Visit Tarn Bakery →

4. Astrid Bakery

📍 Muswell Hill, N10 2AH · Alexandra Palace (rail) · Rating: 4.8 · Tues–Sun 8:00am–3:00pm

Charlotte O'Kelly left fashion journalism, retrained at Le Cordon Bleu, and opened one of North London's most enchanting little bakeries on Alexandra Park Road. The results are extraordinary. Pistachio croissants, passionfruit meringue croissants, Italian hot chocolate cruffins — these are not the sort of pastries you accidentally walk past without stopping. The morning queue is a reliable fixture, but it moves, and it's absolutely worth it. Charlotte also donates to Magic Breakfast charity for every breakfast box sold, which makes eating here feel even better than it already does. Featured in Hot Dinners, and rightly considered Muswell Hill's finest artisan bakery.

Visit Astrid Bakery →

5. Boulangerie Pierre Alix

📍 Muswell Hill, N10 3SH · Alexandra Palace (rail) · Rating: 4.5 · Mon–Sat 8:00am–6:00pm, Sun 8:00am–5:00pm

Close your eyes outside Boulangerie Pierre Alix on Muswell Hill Broadway and you could be on any decent street in the 5th arrondissement. Head baker Pierre Alix brings genuine Parisian baking tradition to North London — sourdough baguettes with proper crust and crumb, croissants with the right lamination, pain au chocolat worth the calories, kouign-amann that does exactly what kouign-amann should, and a daily selection of tarts and artisan breads that sets a high bar for the area. A firm favourite among Muswell Hill residents with exacting standards, and one of the finest French boulangeries in outer North London.

Visit Boulangerie Pierre Alix →

6. Kossoffs

📍 Kentish Town, NW5 2JT · Kentish Town (Northern Line / Overground) · Rating: 4.6 · Daily 8:00am–6:00pm

A 100-year-old Jewish baking dynasty, resurrected by fourth-generation great-grandson Aaron Kossoff — Le Cordon Bleu graduate, former Head Baker at Ottolenghi (at 26, no less), and one of London's most talked-about young bakers. Opened in July 2021 on Kentish Town Road at the family's spiritual home, Kossoffs blends deep Eastern European Jewish baking heritage with genuinely contemporary creativity. The miso and chive swirls are unlike anything else in North London, the twice-baked hazelnut croissants are exceptional, and the kimcheese claws are the sort of invention that makes you wish you'd thought of it yourself. Featured in the Guardian, the Jewish Chronicle, and Time Out. Unmissable.

Visit Kossoffs →

7. Karma Bread

📍 South End Green, Hampstead, NW3 2PT · Hampstead Heath (Overground) · Rating: 4.2 · Daily 7:30am–5:00pm

There's something genuinely grounding about Karma Bread. Founded in 2015 by Tami Isaacs Pearce on South End Green at the foot of Hampstead Heath, this is a neighbourhood bakery in the truest sense — rooted, warm, and deeply consistent. The challah is pillowy and gorgeous, the New York rye is tangy and substantial, the sourdough is reliable in the way only a properly cared-for loaf can be. Everything is handcrafted on-site, daily, alongside artisan pastries and specialty breads that speak to a rich cultural heritage. Now expanded to a second location at Brent Cross Town, but the original remains the soulful one.

Visit Karma Bread →

8. Sourdough Sophia Crouch End

📍 Crouch End, N8 8PL · Crouch Hill (Overground) · Rating: 4.7 · Daily 8:40am–4:30pm

This is where it all began — the flagship Middle Lane shopfront that started as a dining-room pandemic project in 2020 and grew into one of North London's most celebrated micro-bakery operations. The sourdough loaves here are the benchmark against which Sophia's other locations are measured, the hand-laminated croissants are consistently excellent, and the iced cinnamon buns and spinach and feta swirls have their own loyal followings. Featured in British Baker's best small artisan bakeries, and recognised in the Retail Bulletin in December 2025, Crouch End remains the heart of the Sourdough Sophia story — and well worth the short bus or Overground ride from Highgate.

Visit Sourdough Sophia Crouch End →

What If Getting There Isn't an Option?

Here's the thing about North London's best bakeries: they keep inconvenient hours, limited stock, and loyal regulars who get there first. The cardamom bun you planned your morning around may well be gone by 10am. Saturday queues are real. If you have small children, a long commute, or simply the kind of Sunday where leaving the house before noon feels heroic, the increasingly excellent world of artisan breakfast delivery London has an answer for you.

The shift toward quality-at-home has been remarkable over the past few years — and it's moved well beyond supermarket bread and a jar of jam. Demand for genuine pastry subscription UK services, weekend breakfast delivery London, and sustainably run zero waste bakery London models has grown sharply, driven by people who've tasted the real thing and refuse to go back. The best of these services use bike delivery food London models that cut emissions and keep things local, arriving with recyclable packaging and a bread subscription London that actually rivals what you'd queue for in person.

Butter & Crust: The Weekend Breakfast That Comes to You

If the bakeries above have your attention but your Saturday schedule has other ideas, Butter & Crust was made for exactly this. A genuinely brilliant weekend breakfast delivery service, Butter & Crust works with the best local artisan producers in London to put sourdough, pastries, and fresh breakfast goods on your doorstep by 9am every weekend — no queue, no commute, no compromise on quality.

In inner London, they deliver by bicycle, with fully recyclable packaging, operating as a proper sustainable food delivery London service from the ground up. Everything is baked to order — which means zero food waste, ever. The subscription is as flexible as you need it to be: pause it before a holiday, skip a week when you're away, or cancel altogether without drama. They currently cover most of London zones 1–3 and are expanding, which means that exceptional Saturday morning feeling — the pastry, the sourdough, the unhurried pleasure of a proper breakfast — can come to you, wherever you are in the city.

For anyone who takes their weekend mornings seriously, it's rather a no-brainer.

Explore Butter & Crust →

Sources

Bakeries Referenced:

Editorial Sources:

  • Good Food Guide — Tarn Bakery review
  • Hot Dinners — Sourdough Sophia Highgate (2025); Tarn Bakery; Astrid Bakery
  • Another Country — Sourdough Sophia (2025)
  • The Guardian — Kossoffs
  • Jewish Chronicle — Kossoffs; Margot Bakery
  • Time Out — Kossoffs
  • Wallpaper — Margot Bakery
  • Retail Bulletin — Sourdough Sophia (December 2025)
  • British Baker — Sourdough Sophia Crouch End
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