Historical version 2 of Ottolenghi, N1 2TZ (view current version)

Excellent restaurant on Upper St in Islington. There are also branches in Kensington, Notting Hill and Belgravia, founded by Yotam Ottolenghi (who has a vegetarian food column in the Guardian Weekend magazine).

The Islington branch has a narrow, white room with long tables running the length of the space, and a few booths for two people along the side. Chairs are moulded plastic and very comfortable. It gets very busy at peak times (at 11am the place was almost full, but the wait for a table didn't take too long). At the front of the cafe is a shop area with a large selection of divine looking cakes and pastries available, as well as some other products (for example, jams).

In the mornings, they serve a breakfast menu until 1pm (though only noon for the hot food). Toasters are placed at regular intervals down the tables so that customers can toast their own bread. Platters of spreads (butter, marmalade, raspberry jam, and chocolate hazelnut spread) are provided.

The bread selection (£5.50) comes with three large slices of bread and a choice of pastry. Ewan's spring onion & chives waffle (around £8) was very tasty, with a fried egg (just the right consistency), perfect grilled tomatoes and some sour cream on top photo.

Service is friendly and requests are happily accommodated. It's not the cheapest breakfast menu in town, but the food is of the highest quality and is great value.

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Last visited by Ewan and Jo, 5 May 2008. Opening hours taken from website, May 2008.
OS X co-ord: 531707 OS Y co-ord: 184056 (Latitude: 51.539538 Longitude: -0.100648)
This is version 2 (as of 2008-05-06 14:36:08). View current version. List all versions.