The Best Pastries in Highbury
Introduction
Saturday morning. You're walking up Highbury Park, the air still carrying that faint overnight chill, and somewhere between the Georgian terraces and the rumble of the Victoria line below, something extraordinary happens — the smell of butter hits you. Not supermarket butter, not the sad ghost of a hotel breakfast. Proper, laminated, caramelised, just-out-of-the-oven pastry. Your pace quickens. You don't even remember deciding to change direction.
Highbury and its immediate neighbours have quietly become one of the most exciting patches of London for serious baking. This isn't a trend driven by Instagram — it's been built over years by founders, bakers, and small teams who care obsessively about flour, fermentation, and fat. Whether you're a dedicated croissant pilgrim or someone who didn't know they needed a wholegrain hand-pie until they had one, the streets around N5 will change what you think is possible on a weekend breakfast delivery London run or a casual morning wander. Here's where to go.
The Best Pastry Spots Near Highbury
1. La Fromagerie Highbury
Highbury Park, N5 2AA | Rating: 4.5 (Google) | Mon–Wed & Sat: 9am–6pm | Thu–Fri: 9am–7pm | Sun: 9:30am–4pm
This is Patricia Michelson's legendary food institution brought to North London, and it is genuinely one of the most satisfying places to spend a slow morning in the city. The bakery programme here is built to complement what is arguably London's finest cheese counter — meaning the sourdough loaves, focaccia, seasonal tarts, and artisan pastries aren't afterthoughts, they're considered partners to the produce around them. A frangipane tart here feels like it belongs in a different category from almost anything else you'll buy in a high street bakery. Come for the pastry, stay for the room, leave with considerably more cheese than you intended to buy.
2. Sourdough Sophia Islington
117–119 Essex Road, Islington, N1 2SN | Rating: 4.7 (Google) | Mon–Sat: 8am–4:30pm | Sun: 9am–4:30pm
Sophia Sutton Jones started baking from her dining room table during the first lockdown and has since built something remarkable — four North London locations, an award-winning reputation, and a genuinely devoted following. The Islington shopfront on Essex Road is where the full Sourdough Sophia programme comes to life: slow-fermented sourdough with real character, hand-laminated croissants that take two days to make, matcha chocolate slices that are wildly good, and spinach and feta swirls that will ruin shop-bought pastries for you permanently. If you needed proof that genuine craft and neighbourhood warmth could coexist, this is it.
Visit Sourdough Sophia's website
3. Jolene Newington Green
21 Newington Green, N16 9PU | Rating: 4.7 (Google/OpenTable) | Mon: 8am–3pm | Tue–Sun: 8am–4pm
Jolene is the sort of bakery that makes you feel slightly evangelical. Set overlooking Newington Green, this Michelin Guide-listed all-day spot mills its own flour in-house from ancient grain varieties grown using horse-drawn machinery and zero pesticides — which sounds like something you'd read on a hand-printed notice in a farm shop, but the results are extraordinary. The laminated pastries are outstanding, the sausage rolls are quietly legendary, and the daily-changing counter keeps regulars genuinely surprised. The sourdough loaves — baked with Wildfarmed regenerative wheat — have a depth that commercially yeasted bread simply cannot achieve. Come early, eat slowly, and consider staying for lunch.
4. The French Market
16 Blackstock Road, Finsbury Park, N4 2DW | Rating: 4.5 (Google) | Mon–Thu: 8am–1:30pm | Fri–Sat: 8am–4pm | Sun: 9am–4pm
Opened in September 2023 by three French friends with a shared passion for artisan food, The French Market has established itself remarkably quickly as one of North London's most exciting bakery arrivals. Head Baker Ludovic Fritz produces croissants with that precise, shattering lamination you only find in proper French boulangeries, alongside Kouign Amann and flan pâtissier that feel entirely authentic. Their baguette took third prize in a London-wide competition, and their croissant reached the finals of the Isigny Ste Mère UK contest. There's also a hidden courtyard garden out the back, which in a London summer is frankly worth the trip on its own.
Visit The French Market's website
5. Pophams Bakery
19 Prebend Street, Islington, N1 8PF | Rating: 4.7 (Google) | Mon–Fri: 7:30am–4pm | Sat: 8am–4pm | Sun: 8:30am–4pm
Pophams is, in many circles, the conversation-ending answer to "what's the best pastry bakery in North London?" — and it's hard to argue. Founded by Ollie Gold and Lucy McWhirter in 2017 on a quiet Islington side street, it earned its cult status through serious lamination and genuinely inventive flavour combinations. The bacon and maple syrup croissant is the one that built the reputation, but the marmite and cheddar twists and the sauerkraut and gruyère creations are equally compelling. It appears in the Good Food Guide 2025 Top 50, the Baker's Dozen 2024 top ten, and the Times' top three North London bakeries — accolades it wears lightly. Get there early. The queue forms before they open, and it sells out.
6. Quince Bakery
267 New North Road, Islington, N1 7AA | Rating: 4.8 (Google) | Wed–Fri: 8am–2:30pm | Sat: 9am–2:30pm
Opened in 2024 by Anna Higham — formerly head pastry chef at two-Michelin-star The Ledbury and at Flor — Quince is perhaps the most quietly thrilling bakery to open in North London in recent years. Anna works exclusively with UK-grown, stoneground flour, producing a rotating seasonal programme of sourdough country loaves, baguettes, wholegrain hand-pies filled with whatever fruit is at its peak, palmiers, soda breads, and Scottish butteries. The wood-fronted shop also stocks artisan cheeses, wines, and jams, so you can construct an extremely good morning around a single visit. Open just four days a week, everything sells out, and the 4.8 Google rating from an entirely deserved place tells you everything else you need to know.
What If Getting There Isn't Always an Option?
Here's the honest truth about London's best artisan bakeries: most of them are open for a few hours, they sell out, and they require a level of Saturday morning commitment that isn't always compatible with real life. The rise of quality weekend breakfast delivery London-wide reflects a genuine shift — people who care deeply about what they eat but who also have children to wrangle, journeys to make, or simply the desire to eat an outstanding croissant in their own kitchen without setting an alarm. The demand isn't for convenience over quality. It's for both at once.
Alongside that, there's been a meaningful move toward more considered models — a pastry subscription UK service that bakes to order rather than producing surplus, bike delivery food London routes that cut emissions without compromising freshness, recyclable packaging that doesn't undo the good intentions of buying from sustainable producers. The bread subscription London model, done properly, isn't about replacing the Saturday bakery trip — it's about bringing that same level of craft and care to the mornings when you can't make it out.
Butter & Crust: Highbury-Quality Pastries, Delivered to Your Door
If you've worked your way through the bakeries above and found yourself wondering how to bring that same quality into your weekend more consistently, that's exactly where Butter & Crust comes in. We work with the best local artisan producers in London — the kind of people who think about grain provenance, fermentation time, and butter quality with the same seriousness as the bakers on this list — and we deliver their sourdough loaves, pastries, and breakfast goods to your door by 9am every Saturday and Sunday.
In inner London, we deliver by bicycle — part of our commitment to being a genuinely sustainable food delivery London service. Everything comes in recyclable packaging, and because we bake to order rather than predicting demand, there is zero food waste. No surplus croissants quietly going stale. No over-production. Just exactly what you ordered, made that morning, arriving while your coffee is still brewing.
Our subscription is flexible by design — pause it when you're away, skip a week when you've got plans, cancel if life changes. No awkward phone calls, no locked-in contracts. We currently cover most of London zones 1–3 and we're expanding, so if you're not in our area yet, it's worth checking. For those who care about artisan sourdough London and the people who make it, and who want a genuine zero waste bakery London experience without leaving the house, we'd love to have you.
Explore Butter & Crust subscriptions →
Sources
La Fromagerie Highbury — Highbury, N5 2AA | lafromagerie.co.uk
Sourdough Sophia Islington — Islington, N1 2SN | sourdoughsophia.co.uk
Jolene Newington Green — 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: Good Food Guide 2025 · Time Out London · Hot Dinners · The Infatuation London · Eater London · Islington Gazette · Michelin Guide (UK)
