North London Food & Culture

In Pictures: Alma Street Fair 2015

Another flawless day of live music, ace streetfood, tons of stalls - and lashings of real community spirit

With all the bad press that London’s been getting recently, Kentish Town’s annual festival yesterday seemed to shine more than ever.

Without a merchandise stall this year to keep us on the straight and narrow, we careered across the criss-cross of streets, plastic pint glasses in hand, perusing the arts, books, bric-a-brac and crafts for sale. Streetfood stayed classy: buttermilk chicken from the Grafton, bangers from Top Dog, wiener schnitzel burgers at Boopshi’s, Bob’s tasty avocado bruschetta and prawn summer rolls dished up by Carrots + Daikon. There was probably a cupcake in the mix at some point, too. And when the sun came out, it really was sweltering.

Lubrication was provided by potent rum cocktails from Flaxon Ptootch – and, of course, lashing of Hells, dispensed from the brewery’s neat van; but it was also nice to see pints of Camden now on draft at Map Studio Cafe, although a hiccup or two meant a slow-moving queue.

As usual, live music and DJs filled three stages – with crowds packed out for the ‘skareoke’ especially – but our particular favourite was the more cerebral Grassy Knoll, which boasted all manner of entertaining poetry, prose and acoustic performances. And Michael Kiwanuka? Wow.


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In short, this yearly gem challenges all those prophecies of doom, and is to be cherished. It really is a defiant snapshot of a diverse and creative London community coming together.

What were your favourite moments? Share below.


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The award-winning print and online title Kentishtowner was founded in 2010 and is part of London Belongs To Me, a citywide network of travel guides for locals. For more info on what we write about and why, see our About section.