The Best Place to Eat Cypriot Food in the UK
Alex Mylonas maps the movement of four fine souvlatzidika out of north London and into Potters Bar. Photographed by Michaël Protin.
Welcome back to Vittles Restaurants. We didn’t intend this to be Cypriot week at Vittles, but after Loukia Constantinou’s Wednesday recipe for Cypriot pasta, today we have a review by Alex Mylonas for four souvlatzidika in Potters Bar, the epicentre of Cypriot food in the UK.
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Like many London Cypriots, I grew up on the fringes of north London in a community that embraced its heritage – particularly when it came to food. Eating out usually meant sharing tables full of mezedes in ram-packed north London tavernes, where my grandparents seemed to know everyone. At the time, Potters Bar, a small town across the M25 in Hertfordshire, wasn’t part of our eating habits, and I only came to know it through family friends, and when my grandparents relocated there. As I recall, the two main high streets that run parallel through the town were primarily home to a range of quiet, family-run restaurants, cafés and tea rooms, plus a couple of pubs. Although there was a small Cypriot population, there was no real culinary imprint to reflect it, barring a now-closed Turkish Cypriot-owned Mediterranean fusion spot called Bistro the Walk.
Over the last decade, remarkably, Potters Bar has become a destination in itself for the Cypriot community. It now houses a concentration of four Cypriot souvlijidika (kebab houses), which may seem low but is fairly high for a once-tranquil commuter town surrounded by acres of woodland and farmland. The high quality of these Potters Bar souvlijidika makes it hard to have a conversation about Cypriot food in London without first looking past the M25. During the last 50 years, the epicentre of London’s Cypriot restaurant scene has shifted northwards, from its origins in Camden, through ‘Palmers Greek’, Enfield and Barnet, and now out of London altogether. Many of the old guard of Cypriot north London are now gone – some pushed out by economic headwinds, changing demographics or retirement, others by the increase in north London gang activity.
Over Easter this year, the fabled Vrisaki restaurant on Myddleton Road near Wood Green – once the Cypriot venue of choice for birthdays, christenings and weddings – closed down. Meanwhile, its neighbour and competitor Paneri has changed ownership, losing much of its long-term fanbase, who flocked to it as one of north London’s best takeaways. Across in Finchley, Uncle Tony’s Taverna shut earlier this year, while a few months later, the Vrisaki offshoot Andy’s Kebab House was evicted from its location in Oakwood.
Like everything else in London, restaurants follow the housing market. The presence of Cypriots in Potters Bar goes back to the late 90s, when London’s Cypriots began relocating to its affordable housing and calmer, community-oriented neighbourhoods. The Twelve Apostles Greek Orthodox Church held its first service in Brookmans Park in 1999, while Andreas Antoniou – Mr Vrisaki himself – has lived there for the past 30 years despite operating his restaurant nine miles away in Palmers Green. Relentless rises in housing prices have continued to push London Cypriots into Hertfordshire; my grandparents made the move from Enfield Town to Potters Bar in 2013. That same year, Chris Christodoulou opened Potters Bar’s first souvlijidiko, Tavernaki. I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited about a restaurant opening as I was about Tavernaki, which was the first real Cypriot grill-taverna to land in the neighbourhood. Its honesty, endearing staff and dependable mezes, souvla and souvlakia quickly became a hit among Cypriot locals – so much that it expanded into the neighbouring shop a couple of years later. Today, it is the first among equals of the Hertfordshire Four: a group of Potters Bar souvlijidika that have turned the town into the best place to eat Cypriot food in the UK.
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