Bread — Dusty Knuckle
The Dusty Knuckle makes really, really good bread, as well as using that bread to make excellent sandwiches. My favourites are the Potato Sourdough and the Focaccia although the sweet things, coffee and new weekend pizza (at the Harringay location) are all delicious, too.
Bagel — Papo’s
This small Dalston shop looks nondescript but Papo’s bagels are, unquestionably, the best bagels being baked in London. There are no gimmicks here, no New York pastiche deli counter, newly-purchased old-timely menu boards, or slick staff uniform. Papo’s bagels are simply very, very good. My bet is an everything bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese, and as many sesame bagels as you can carry (to half, toast, and eat with an equal weight of salted butter).
The best “traditional” bagel shop is, for my money, the Hendon Bagel Bakery, which also sells huge boxes of sticky, syrupy Rugelach, to eat on the journey home.
Cake — Primrose Hill Bakery
The Primrose Hill Bakery is the long-time favourite of north London’s mothers and their children alike. The cakes come in all forms: giant cupcakes, huge celebration cakes, Black Forest gateaus, and even the 90s throwback fever dream that is the Barbie cake (for those not in the know, a Barbie Cake has a Barbie stuck in the middle, the iced cake functioning as its skirt). They also have cupcakes, mini-cupcakes, and my personal favourite, the Mars-bar-chocolate-cornflake-cake. They’re nostalgic—like something you might bake at home, but much, much better.
French — Maison Bertaux
The eponymous Maison Bertaux was founded in 1871, by Monsieur Bertaux, and has been on Soho’s Greek Street ever since. It is not necessarily the most French bakery in London (the endless trays of scones cooling in the staircase are testament to that) but it is the first, the most charming, and—for that reason—the best. I can think of few better afternoons to spend in central London than one at a corner table upstairs, with a pot of earl grey and a chocolate éclair.