Jolene Bakery & Restaurant
The mill runs in the room every day, across roughly fifty ancient varieties, and co-owner David Gingell describes it with the line
It smells a bit like a hamster cage(Alexandra Dudley interview, 2020).
Why go
Jeremie Cometto-Lingenheim and David Gingell opened this in 2019, after Primeur down the road in 2014 and Westerns Laundry in 2017. They built it around a supply deal with farmer Andy Cato, whose chemical-free crops come off two farms, one at Goodwood in Sussex and Priory Farm in Norfolk (Hot Dinners, 2018). That flour does three jobs: the bread, the viennoiserie, and the pasta rolled for the restaurant menu, so a plate of tagliarini here starts as whole grain a few meters away. The room switches character through the day. It is a bakery counter from 8am, then a daily-changing lunch and dinner menu that The Good Food Guide rates Good, running from ajo blanco to skate with brown butter and capers (The Good Food Guide).
Order this / avoid
- Order: the bread, since it is the reason the mill exists, then the marmalade shortbread, which The Infatuation singled out as
particularly good.
4 At dinner, take whatever pasta is on the blackboard. - Avoid: treating it as a value lunch. Jake Missing's line in the same review is that dishes come in "slightly over what you'd expect to pay considering the portion-size," and £8 for a cheese and ham toastie is his example.
What locals & experts say
- David Gingell, co-owner (interviewed by Alexandra Dudley, May 2020): on running it their way,
We are not business men. Sometimes we have to make decisions that aren't good for business but they're good for people,
and on the flour, of the fifty-odd ancient grains,I couldn't name them all.
1 - Jake Missing, The Infatuation (22 January 2022, scored 8.1):
It's sort of homely but healthy,
with the caveat on price and portion above.4 - The Good Food Guide (rated Good, ££):
It's a lovely spot, especially when the glass doors are opened out onto the pavement facing the Green.
3 - Time Out London (June 2026): 14th in the city's best bakeries, filed as
A hype-y bakery and restaurant chain across north and east London.
5 - Local rec: on Jeff's list as a bakery pick, his words below.
Good to know
- Timing: bakery every day 8am to 4pm. Restaurant Tuesday to Saturday 12pm to 3pm and 5.30pm to 10pm, Sunday 12pm to 3pm and 5.30pm to 9pm. There is no restaurant service on Monday.
- Sitting in: all day Monday, but only until 11am Tuesday to Sunday, after which the tables go to the restaurant service.
- Booking: walk-ins taken, reservations advised for dinner.
- Price: most plates under £20, wine bottles from £45.
- Which branch: this is the original at 21 Newington Green and the only one with a full restaurant. The group also runs counters on Redchurch Street, Colebrooke Row and Hornsey Road, plus a Soho site inside the Aries store on Bridle Lane that opened on 23 April 2026.
- Dietary: no allergen, gluten-free, celiac or vegan statement is published. The kitchen mills wheat on site, so flour is airborne in the building; ask before you commit if that matters.
- Hygiene: FSA rating 3, Islington, inspected 22 August 2024, with hygienic food handling and management of food safety both at Generally satisfactory7.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "Best bakery nominee" REAL. The specific award could not be pinned; Time Out has it 14th on its June 2026 best-bakeries list.
Verdict
should-visit — Worth the detour for the mill. Almost no London bakery grinds its own grain daily, and Jolene does it from two named farms growing chemical-free crops, across roughly fifty ancient varieties, then runs that flour into bread, pastry and fresh pasta in the same room. The Good Food Guide rates the cooking Good and The Infatuation scored it 8.1, which is strong for a neighborhood room but short of a career kitchen. Portions run small for the price, and there is no award to point at, so it stops below a must.