I can taste a foodie revolution

Simple food, freshly made that night, just feet away in the kitchen. Even more amazing, this was being served in a tiny Italian in Archway, round the corner from my street. It's called Cinquecento and boasts a chef who trained with Jamie Oliver and Gennaro Contaldo.

Last month, after my trusted restaurants let me down en masse, I wrote here bemoaning the lack of good grub in my neighbourhood. Since then, a gastronomic miracle has occurred. Top chefs, smart bistros and pubs serving great food are popping up by the day. It's nothing short of a foodie revolution on my doorstep.

On top of that, thanks to fiercely loyal locals, I've had to eat my words. First the emails started, then the phone calls and finally the letters. Had I never tried El Molino, the Spanish restaurant on Holloway Road, run for the past 30 years by the same family and loved for its paella and patatas bravas?

What about La Voute, the chic new cafe on Archway Island of all places, which doesn't just serve a mouthwatering selection of patisserie and fresh cooked food, but has a lovely back garden — unheard of in my 'hood.

Friends recommended pubs — the Junction Tavern in Tufnell Park, the Swimmer in Hornsey — and I couldn't even get a table at Del Parc on lairy Junction Road. More a mini-Moro than a standard tapas restaurant, Del Parc opens at hours that suit the owners and cooks up dishes such as lamb with figs and pickled lemon at the open kitchen in the middle of the room. It's always rammed.
Last weekend, over brunch in the Bull and Last — a sunny pub near the Heath — eight near-neighbours debated where to get the best meal in N19. If the brunch was a fair indication, it may well be at the Bull and Last, just reopened with a Michelin-starred chef and serving beetroot-cured gravadlax, fresh‑baked soda bread and homemade blackcurrant jam.

It turns out where to eat is a local obsession. I live in one of those London areas that's jam-packed with professionals edged out by the property boom to the parts of north London without established restaurant quarters. But we're a culinary bunch, used to eating out two or three times a week, and keen to turn our home turf into a dining destination. There's certainly the appetite for it. My neighbour even dreams of setting up a sourdough bakery along the road; just what Archway's missing.

Until then, a single question is on the lips of Holloway residents: "Have you eaten at Cinquecento yet?"

There's only one problem. It's always fully booked.