CheMen Cafe & Restaurant

You'll find CheMen tucked along the increasingly vibrant Stoke Newington Road stretch, where it's become exactly the kind of spot locals keep coming back to without needing Instagram to tell them why. Walk in and you're hit with genuine Vietnamese flavours—the kind that don't get mucked about with to suit some notion of what London diners want. Their pho is the real deal: proper broth that tastes like someone's actually spent hours on it, and banh mi that'll ruin shop-bought sandwiches for you forever. It's casual in the best way, the sort of place where you can roll in for a quick lunch or settle in for a proper meal without anyone making you feel rushed either way.