Turkish food on Hertford Road, Enfield
Hertford Road through Ponders End and Enfield Highway is the spine of the largest Turkish community in the country, with twenty-two restaurants in EN3 alone: grills, kebab houses, pide bakeries and supermarkets serving neighbourhood trade at neighbourhood prices.
How to walk it
Start at Ponders End and walk north along Hertford Road through Enfield Highway toward Enfield Lock. It is a long, straight suburban road rather than a compact strip, so this is a drive-and-stop or a bus route as much as a walk. The restaurants cluster around the junctions and the parades.
What to eat where
The best-value ocakbaşı grills in London are on this road: mixed grill for two with bread and meze at prices Green Lanes stopped charging years ago. Pide and lahmacun from the bakeries at lunch; baklava from the patisseries; and Turkish breakfast at the cafés on weekend mornings, without the Harringay queues.
What makes it different
Hertford Road serves its own community, not visitors. The rooms are plain, the portions are large, the prices are low and the food is as good as anywhere in the country. The supermarkets and butchers are the biggest in the area.
Stops along the way
Ponders End
Grills and kebab houses around the High Street junction.
Enfield Highway
Bakeries, patisseries, supermarkets; the densest run.
Toward Enfield Lock
Neighbourhood cafés and takeaways.