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Cutting a stylish figure among the bookies and discount shops along Islington’s Chapel Market is this newish café. Very much in the New York Jewish deli tradition, meat-filled bagels are stars of the show here; they do a range, but it’s their salt beef and pastrami – filled with gherkins and mustard – that they’re really pushing. (They also make a big deal of getting their bagels from Brick Lane’s legendary Beigel Bake each day.) There’s a line of build-your-own salad boxes, for those who want to go breadless, as well as fresh smoothies for the health-inclined – and Oreo milkshakes, for the less so.
It’s all decked out very nicely, with an old-school letterboard advertising the wares and Anglepoise lamps along the countertops. The salt beef on caraway rye didn’t quite live up to its £5.90 price tag: it was a little on the small side, and the mustard didn’t hum like it should. And if it all feels a bit faux-kosher, then it’s a welcoming spot all the same, with friendly and chatty staff. The opening hours make it an exclusively daytime destination (it shuts at 4.30pm each day). But it’s a good place to take your laptop and watch the ebb and flow of the market.