London's best baklava

Where to find the sweetest sugar-hits

Baklava ice cream sandwich from The Lacy Nook

19 July 2017

Baklava is a mix of the delicate and the toothsomely rough-hewn. Wafer-thin sheets of filo pastry are soaked in syrup and layered up, sandwiching a knobbly honey and nut mixture. The result is a fragrant, multi-textured dessert. It’s often cut into diamond shapes, small enough appeal even after a Mediterranean feast. The colours — golden, syrupy pastry studded with pistachios — add to the draw.

Now London is serving baklava as a main event, combining it with ice cream, incorporating it into frankencakes with muffins and even filling it with bacon (look it up on Instagram).

The Lacy Nook, a new Balkan restaurant in Stoke Newington, has a cool take on the sweet — a baklava ice cream sandwich. Nutty baklava is sliced in half and packed with flor de latte ice cream handmade in Highbury by Nonna’s Gelato, strawberry mango compôte and mint. The combination of nuts, sugar, the zing from the fruit and cool flor de latte is a balm to the most frazzled of summer tempers. Not convinced about the combo? Think of it as a Middle Eastern take on apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice.

Persepolis, a restaurant in a yellow Peckham corner shop, does a fruit-free version. Its baklava sundae is unabashed hedonism — sticky sweets, clouds of vanilla ice cream and lashings of hot chocolate sauce.

For a comprehensive sweet survey, head to #CookForSyria’s #BakeForSyria charity bake-off on Columbia Road next Saturday. From 10am until 5pm, London’s master bakers will go head to head with their best takes on Middle Eastern baked goods, with proceeds going to aid in Syria. Judges include Lily Vanilli, who makes towering cakes, and Bake Off contestant Chetna Makan. Fatties Bakery, Violet Cakes, Brick House and Pavilion Bakery are all taking up the challenge. Fatties is known for chocolate and caramel-heavy confections, so bring a sweet tooth.

The Good Egg will be there too. Ottolenghi alumnus Joel Braham is known for his Middle Eastern food, both savoury and sweet (queues form early on Stoke Newington Church Street for his babka).

London's best bakeries and cake shops

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If you can’t make the event, there are plenty of other sweet spots. Honey and Co makes mamool cookies with date and pine nut filling. These are semolina biscuits perfumed with orange blossom and rose water and filled with walnuts, cinnamon and dates. Meanwhile, Arabica Kitchen in Borough Market has a selection of crisp and buttery baklava, with plenty of cashew honey syrup.

Of course there’s always Edgware Road and Green Lanes in Haringey — try Antepliler here and accompany your baklava with strong Turkish coffee and a scoop of thick home-made ice cream in lemon or rose flavour. This is a multi-layered dessert.

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London's best bakeries and cake shops