Church st

This is a fantastic market for great cheap veges and food. Open every day, but with more stalls on a weekend, its where to come if you want to buy bowls of veges for a pound a bowl. You can also get seafood, packaged food, bags, clothes, childrens toys, homewares, makeup all at bargin prices! it gets a little cramped at the weekend but it all adds to the atmospere, though beware of pickpockets as the stall hoders will remind you. All over a great place to shop and interact with your local community!

Church St is the show piece of Stoke Newington.
It’s the kind of place where you might say Let’s go out on Church St Like you might say let’s go out in Camden meaning that the area has so many choices that you can decide exactly which bars or restaurant you’ll go to based on how things feel when you arrive.
The people of Church st are its best asset. I think it feels like a kind of east meets west point, where the people of the Hackney estates mingle with the Islington spill over middle class. You are in far more danger of being run over by a pram than being mugged.
The range of food options is excellent. From café, to pizzaria, to Indian or Thai, the unifying factor seems to be that they are smallish, independent, and striving for excellence within a very competitive market.
The bars are not as diverse as the restaurants, being mostly variations on traditional English pubs. The best thing about them though is there strong focus on live music. There would be three or four options for live music on any given Friday or Saturday nights and many other gigs during the week.
The shops on Church St are I guess quite Bohemian. Lots of alternative fashion, but also second hand book shops, organic food, small bike shop and a guy that seems to sell, repair and make, cellos, double bases and violins. (What could be more Bohemian than that?)
Wen you add to this two parks a Library and an inpressive Victorian Church, I think that Church St Stoke Newington is clearly one of London’s coolest streets.