The Best Pastries in North West London

There is a particular kind of Saturday morning magic that belongs entirely to North West London. It starts with the smell — butter, warm dough, caramelised sugar drifting from a doorway on Belsize Road or threading through the Victorian terraces of Queen's Park — and ends with flour on your coat and crumbs on the pavement. NW London's artisan bakery scene has quietly become one of the most exciting in the capital, a patchwork of heritage institutions, Michelin-listed newcomers, and obsessive small-batch specialists scattered from Camden Town to Golders Green. Whether you're hunting for a flawless laminated croissant, an innovative kosher pastry, or London's finest cinnamon bun, this is the postcode to explore. If you're planning a weekend breakfast delivery London route of your own, consider this your essential guide.

The Best Bakeries for Pastries in North West London

1. Hart & Lova — Kilburn, NW6

Location: 213A Belsize Road, Kilburn | Rating: 4.7 (Google) | Hours: Wed–Sun 7:30am–5pm

If there is one bakery in North West London that can genuinely claim the title of neighbourhood treasure, it is Hart & Lova. The passion project of Andrea Hartlova and master baker Nicolas Juaneda, this small Belsize Road shopfront has quietly established itself as the destination for French-style pastries in NW6 — and arguably across a much wider stretch of the city. The croissants here are the kind you find yourself thinking about on Tuesday; flaky, deeply buttered, perfectly honeyed in the interior. Pain au chocolat, cinnamon rolls, artisan tarts, and beautifully constructed sandwiches round out a counter that rewards early arrival. With a 4.7 Google rating from over 738 reviews, this bakery draws morning queues from across Kilburn, West Hampstead, and beyond — and every one of those customers would tell you it is worth it.

2. Don't Tell Dad — Queen's Park, NW6

Location: 10–14 Lonsdale Road, Queen's Park | Rating: 4.5 (Google) | Hours: Mon–Sun 8am–4pm (bakery)

One of the most talked-about openings in North West London in recent memory, Don't Tell Dad arrived on Lonsdale Road in January 2025 as a tribute from Coco di Mama founder Daniel Land to his late sister Lesley — and it has been drawing devoted queues ever since. Head Baker Keren Sternberg, formerly of the acclaimed Layla bakery, runs an open kitchen with real technical brilliance: the madeleines are already being cited as some of the finest in London, the savoury croissants are deeply satisfying, and the seasonal pastry programme shows genuine creativity. Listed in the Michelin Guide 2025 and featured in Wallpaper, Time Out, and Country & Town House within months of opening, this is a bakery with a clear sense of purpose — and the pastry to match.

3. KURO Bakery — Notting Hill, W11

Location: 95 Notting Hill Gate, Notting Hill | Rating: 4.8 (Google) | Hours: Mon–Fri 8am–4pm; Sat–Sun 8am–5pm

KURO Bakery is the kind of place that stops you mid-stride on Notting Hill Gate. A boutique pastry specialist with a singular focus on laminated excellence, it has built a formidable reputation in a short space of time. The almond croissant is frequently named among the finest in London — dense with frangipane, crackling with caramelised sugar — but the real signature is the Sākuro: a croissant roll filled with chocolate or vanilla cream and encased in a flaky, sugar-dusted shell that you will absolutely eat standing on the pavement. If your pastry standards are high, KURO will meet them.

4. Layla — Notting Hill, W11

Location: 212 Portobello Road, Notting Hill | Rating: 4.7 (Google) | Hours: Daily 8am–4pm

Founded by Tessa Faulkner with the explicit ambition to bring to West London what East London's artisan bakers had been doing for years, Layla on Portobello Road is built around wild grains, Wildfarmed flour, and a genuine philosophy of waste reduction. The result is a pastry counter that is quietly radical: sausage rolls made from leftover croissant dough and HG Walter pork, peanut chocolate cookies using Wildfarmed grain, rhubarb cardamom pastries that change with the seasons. This is a bakery where the ethics and the flavour are inseparable — and where arriving early is firmly advised.

5. Kossoffs — Kentish Town, NW5

Location: 259 Kentish Town Road, Kentish Town | Rating: 4.6 (Google) | Hours: Mon–Sun 8am–6pm

What happens when a 100-year-old Jewish baking dynasty is revived by a fourth-generation Le Cordon Bleu graduate who cut his teeth as Head Baker at Ottolenghi? You get Kossoffs — one of the most compelling bakeries in North West London. Aaron Kossoff has taken the family's Eastern European heritage and folded it into something entirely contemporary: miso and chive swirls, twice-baked hazelnut croissants, and kimcheese claws sit alongside exceptional sourdough loaves and the kind of traditional breads that would have made his great-grandparents proud. Open seven days a week from the Kentish Town Road site, this is a bakery with genuine depth of story and skill to back it up.

6. Fabrique — Notting Hill, W11

Location: 212 Portobello Road, Notting Hill | Rating: 4.6 (Google) | Hours: Daily 8am–6pm

Stockholm-born Fabrique — which has 19 locations in its home city — has brought its Scandinavian baking tradition to Portobello Road with characteristic confidence and minimal fuss. The menu is focused, as it should be: cinnamon buns that are consistently ranked among London's very best (fragrant with cardamom, slightly chewy, with that essential Scandi restraint on sweetness), vegan chocolate slices, fudge cookies, and an honest Scandi-style rye that holds its own against far more ambitious competitors. The lesson Fabrique teaches is that doing a small number of things with absolute conviction beats a sprawling menu every time. Featured in Time Out as one of London's finest cinnamon bun destinations, it deserves every column inch.

7. Boulangerie Bon Matin — Hampstead, NW3

Location: 9 Flask Walk, Hampstead | Rating: 4.4 (Google) | Hours: Mon–Fri 7:30am–5:30pm; Sat–Sun 7:30am–6pm

Tucked down Flask Walk — one of Hampstead's most beautiful cobbled side streets — Boulangerie Bon Matin has occupied this almost implausibly picturesque spot since late 2017 and has never given its neighbours any reason to look elsewhere for their morning pastry. The husband-and-wife team behind the Finsbury Park original have created something that feels genuinely Montmartre in atmosphere: freshly made croissants and pain au chocolat produced each day, sourdough baguettes with proper crust, and a wide selection of viennoiseries and cakes served in a café that is warm, unhurried, and exactly what Saturdays should feel like.

8. Camden Bakery — Camden Town, NW1

Location: 94 Camden High Street, Camden Town | Rating: 4.4 (Google) | Hours: Mon–Sun 7am–7pm

Amid the cheerful chaos of Camden High Street, Camden Bakery has become one of North West London's most reliably excellent artisan bakeries — a welcoming shopfront that opens earlier and closes later than almost anyone else on this list. The daily counter covers sourdough loaves, indulgent pastries, croissants, cinnamon buns, and generously filled sandwiches, made with quality ingredients and real craft. In a neighbourhood known more for street food and market stalls than precise laminated pastry, Camden Bakery occupies an important space: the trusted local that happens to be genuinely good, featured in Time Out for exactly that reason.

9. Coco Bakery — Golders Green, NW11

Location: 20 Russell Parade, Golders Green Road, Golders Green | Rating: 4.4 (Google) | Hours: Mon–Thurs 9am–8pm; Fri 9am–1:30pm; Sun 9am–8pm

A family-owned kosher bakery in the heart of Golders Green, Coco Bakery freshly bakes its entire range on-site daily — and the ambition of that range is genuinely impressive. Their innovative kosher doughnuts have developed a devoted following: Ferrero Rocher and white chocolate and pistachio fillings are not the timid product of a bakery playing it safe. Add an artisan sourdough programme, beautifully braided challah, enriched breads, and a full celebration cake offer, and you have a bakery that anchors the culinary identity of NW11's Jewish community with both skill and generosity. Kedassia certified and closed on Shabbat.

10. Crazy Baker — Kensal Green, NW10

Location: 697A Harrow Road, Kensal Green | Rating: 4.5 (Google) | Hours: Mon–Fri 6am–2pm; Sat 7:30am–4:30pm

While newer names attract the headlines, Crazy Baker has been quietly getting on with it in Kensal Green since 2009 — making it one of North West London's longest-established artisan operations. Founded as a combined wholesale and retail bakery, the daily production of handmade sourdough, country loaves, rolls, and pastries is made on the premises using long fermentation and quality ingredients. If NW10 has an original artisan bread institution, this is it — the bakery that shaped the neighbourhood's standards before the rest of the city caught up. Open from 6am on weekdays, which, for the truly dedicated, is not a drawback.

What if Getting There Isn't an Option?

North West London's artisan bakery scene is extraordinary — but it does require effort. Many of the finest bakeries on this list open only at weekends, or Wednesday to Sunday, or sell out before 10am on a Saturday. Queue culture is real, and while it is a pleasure when the sun is out and you have nowhere to be, it is considerably less romantic in November. The shift towards quality-at-home delivery has been one of the most significant changes in London's food culture over the last few years: Londoners who discovered the joy of a proper artisan sourdough or a genuinely flaky croissant during lockdown have not been willing to go back to supermarket bread, and a growing number of artisan breakfast delivery London services have emerged to meet that demand.

Alongside that shift has come a growing awareness of what quality at home actually means — not just the food itself,