Best Restaurants, Bars and Things to Do in Camden, London

About Camden

Camden's reputation as a market destination has sometimes overshadowed its quality as a place to eat and drink. The market itself contains genuinely excellent street food from traders who have been operating there for years, but the more interesting restaurant scene is in the streets that run off Camden High Street and in the calmer residential blocks between Camden and Primrose Hill. This is where locals eat, and the quality reflects it.

The canal is a defining feature of the neighbourhood's geography and its character. Walking along the Regent's Canal from Camden Lock toward Primrose Hill or east toward King's Cross, you pass a shifting landscape of converted warehouse buildings, independent cafes and bars that have made use of the waterside setting in a way that feels natural rather than forced. The towpath has its own food and drink ecosystem that operates somewhat separately from the High Street.

Lets Discover creators who cover Camden know the full breadth of the neighbourhood — from the best market trader for a weekday lunch to the restaurant in the back streets that has no sign on the door and takes three weeks to get a table.

Camden High Street and the market buildings directly off it contain the highest density of food options, with the Stables Market particularly strong for international street food ranging from Japanese and Korean to Ethiopian and Peruvian. Chalk Farm Road, running north from the market, has a more settled restaurant character with independent openings that have been trading for years in the converted Victorian buildings on both sides of the street. The streets around Delancey Street and Parkway, heading toward Primrose Hill, have a quieter neighbourhood feel with some of Camden's better destination restaurants. Primrose Hill village, technically adjacent, has its own cluster of excellent neighbourhood restaurants and cafes on Regent's Park Road that are worth the short walk. The canal-side development at Hawley Wharf has added a new dimension to the area's food and drink offer with a mix of restaurants and bars overlooking the water.

History and culture in Camden

Camden's development as an urban neighbourhood followed the arrival of the Regent's Canal in 1820, which made the area a significant industrial and commercial hub for moving goods into the centre of London. The canal brought warehouses, boat yards and the associated trades that gave Camden its industrial character for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Camden Market began in the 1970s in the converted canal-side warehouse buildings and grew through the 1980s and 1990s into one of the world's most visited markets, attracting a counterculture of punk, goth and alternative fashion that became synonymous with the neighbourhood's identity. The music scene that developed around the Roundhouse venue — which opened as a locomotive engine shed in 1847 and was converted into a concert venue in the 1960s — and the Electric Ballroom, Koko and the Dublin Castle helped establish Camden as the centre of British alternative music, with bands including The Clash, Madness and Amy Winehouse all closely associated with the area.