North London Food & Culture

Drummond Streatery: now open for covered dining

A stylishly designed outdoor unit now hosts 14 restaurants along the historic NW1 street - handy when the rain hits

Drummond Street has long been an underrated spot where you can find authentic, well-priced world food in a hype-free setting. It’s home, for example, to Diwana, the first South Indian vegetarian restaurant in Britain, having opened in 1970. Thus it’s perhaps the opposite of all things Insta-friendly or hipster.

But that may well change with a latest attempt at raising its profile amongst Londoners. The Drummond Streatery project is a vibrantly colourful construction, one that’s as seductive to locals who might casually walk down the street as tourists stumbling out of Euston station.

A collaborative effort between Euston Town BID, Drummond Street traders, Jan Kattein Architects and Camden Council, its aim is quite simply to bring an injection of new life to this longstanding, rather embattled food street.

Drummond Streatery
Drummond Streatery Photo: Gary Street

The eye-catching social-media-friendly design is by Jan Kattein Architects, drawing inspiration from carnivals and parades from South America and South Asia, in an attempt at celebration, following years of disruption from HS2 construction. After all, this is an area that sure needs a bit of cheer: a walk down here from Camden Town this week along Hampstead Road proved a grim, noisy experience dodging construction sites and bollards.


LOCAL ADVERTISING


And it’s a positive way to remind us all how culturally diverse the immediate neighbourhood’s history is, with its South Asian, African, Turkish and Chinese roots.

The flexible carnivalesque space seats 64 and hosts 14 participating restaurants and cafes, including many of the capital’s oldest South Asian restaurants. The stretch is part-pedestrianised, too.

Drummond Streatery
Drummond Streatery. Photo: SE

Food-wise, you can choose between – say – a samosa chaat from Shah Tandoori, a thali (or tuck into the mega-popular £7.95 buffet) from Ravi Shankar, above, or, for the sweet-toothed, gulab jamuns from Guptas. And, of course, so many more eating options, too. Best to wander up and down first and then take a seat.

Fancy a pint before? Sole boozer, the rather elegant Grade II-listed Crown & Anchor (137 Drummond Street), has also enjoyed a post-lockdown makeover, and is right on the corner by the Streatery.

So will the beleaguered thoroughfare become overrun with 2021’s rollcall of micro-influencers? Perhaps not, but this project is a welcome way to underline a unique London stretch, and is well worth a weekend stroll. If the apocalyptic rain ever stops, of course.

The Drummond Streatery, Drummond Street NW1 is now open for diners to visit, usual dining hours apply for each restaurant, with a carnival later this summer.

Main image: Gary Street

Please support us if you can

If you enjoyed reading this, perhaps you could help out? In November 2021, Kentishtowner will celebrate its 11th birthday. But with the sad demise of our free independent monthly print titles due to advertising revenues in freefall, we need your support more than ever to continue delivering cultural stories that celebrate our neighbourhood. Every contribution is invaluable in helping the costs of running the website and the time invested in the research and writing of the articles published. Support Kentishtowner here for less than the price of a coffee – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.


Leave a Comment

Leave a Comment

About Kentishtowner

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.