Top 5: Doughnuts in London for ChanukahBy Angelica Malin
Celebrating Chanukah in London? Because everyone deserves doughnuts this time of year, we found some winning doughnuts for you and all the family to enjoy. Here’s our top doughnuts in London to celebrate this special Jewish festival:
1. For Traditional Jewish Doughnuts: Carmelli Bakery
What: Mini Doughnuts with jam, caramel, chocolate, custard or cream (50p)
Expect: The freshest breads, desserts and cakes as well as bespoke speciality cakes tailor-made to your every desire. They pride themselves on providing the highest quality produce, with dedicated chefs committed to creating delicious and imaginative treats.
Why: For the last three decades Carmelli Bakery has provided the Jewish Community with traditional and innovative delights and old favourites. They remain faithful to traditional methods and are still baking bagels by hand, giving each one full attention, to ensure that once they leave the stone ovens they are always perfectly bronzed and delicious.
Where: 126-128 Golders Green Rd, London NW11 8HB
2. For a Family Bakery: J Grodzinski & Daughters
What: Yum Yums, jam doughnuts, flavoured doughnuts (from 85p)
Expect: Delicious freshly baked doughnuts in a variety of flavours. The classic jam is our favourite – you just can’t beat it.
Why: One of the oldest Jewish bakeries in London. The bakery had expanded to six locations, and even the original Fieldgate Street location’s demise in a 29 December 1940 German air raid could not halt expansion. By the mid-1960s Grodzinski was the largest kosher bakery in Europe, preparing both fine pastries and a range of breads, and adding to their retail business a thriving wholesale operation distributed through such British institutions as Selfridges, Marks & Spencer and Harrods. Enough said.
Where: 4-6 The Promenade, Edgware HA8 7JZ
3. For a Doughnut Sandwich: BIRD
What: Ice Cream Doughnut Sandwich (£4)
Expect: A scoop of vanilla ice cream, filled with whipped cream, chocolate sauce and caramel, inside a daily-changing doughnut flavour.
Why: BIRD is all about the chicken. All of their ingredients are of the highest quality, and delivered fresh daily – you’d be surprised how rare that is when it comes to fried chicken. ‘Free Range & Fried’ describes our product and how it’s prepared, but it also describes their attitude to what we do – naughty but nice. It’s not Southern fried chicken. It’s not Korean fried chicken. It’s BIRD Free Range & Fried. Go taste the difference for yourself.
Where: 42-44 Kingsland Rd, London E2 8DA
Photo Credit: Paul Winch-Furness
4. For Quirky Doughnuts: Ceviche Old St
What: Picarones from Ceviche Old St (£9)
Expect: Guilty-pleasure pumpkin and sweet potato doughnuts, sticky chancaca honey, cinnamon ice cream.
Why: Ceviche Old St is a gorgeous 130-seat restaurant housed in what was once the legendary and now re-stored Alexandra Trust Dining Rooms. Their menu is inspired by the coast, Andes and Amazon of Peru with influences from Nikkei to criolla, Chifa to fusion using Peruvian superfood ingredients. Alongside fish and meat options, their menu includes many vegetarian options and most of the menu is gluten free.
Where: 2 Baldwin St, London EC1V 9NU
Photo Credit: Paul Winch-Furness
5. Vegan Doughnuts: Crosstown Bakery
What: Vegan Doughnuts (priced individually at £3.80, and can be purchased in both 6-pack (£17) and 12-pack (£30) boxes)
Expect: Vegans of London, listen up. Crosstown have launched their very first range of vegan sourdough doughnuts to sit alongside their current vegetarian selection. A different vegan flavour of the week will be available across all Crosstown locations every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. What cracking news.
Why: Beginning with three of their most popular flavours, Crosstown experimented with different processes, techniques and ingredients to adapt their doughnuts to be vegan-friendly without compromising on taste, texture or quality. There’s everything from Chocolate Truffle and
Strawberry & Elderflower to Vanilla Glaze and Yuzu & Matcha.
Where: Find Crosstown’s vegan doughnuts at: Crosstown Soho / Crosstown Shoreditch / Crosstown Camden / Crosstown Spitalfields (Fri,Sat,Sun) Leather Lane Market / Real Food Market Kings Cross (Fridays only) Broadway Market (Saturdays only).
