Anna Higham to open all-day café Clementine opposite her Islington bakery

This October, pastry chef Anna Higham will open Clementine, an all-day café serving breakfast, brunch and lunch, directly opposite her Quince Bakery in Islington. The 20-cover site will trade Wednesday to Sunday from 8am to 4pm, and extends the bakery’s focus on British seasonal produce into a sit-down setting.

Quince was opened by Higham in February 2024 as a crowdfunded neighbourhood bakery rooted in British and Irish traditions. This new project was also funded in part by a second crowdfunding campaign launched earlier this year, which raised more than £30,000 towards the fit-out. The new venue’s interiors are by Dan Wilson Studio (who also designed Quince) with a scheme references Shaker design and the Arts and Crafts movement, using oak, slate worktops and a tiled fireplace. Carpentry is by Herb Palmer, whose previous work includes Quince, Brawn and Tiella, and the walls are painted in a bespoke colour developed with the British paint brand Atelier Ellis. The façade will be finished in clementine leaf green beneath a clementine-coloured awning, with an illuminated fibreglass clementine to be installed above the door.

Higham, who is Scottish, has previously worked for the Gordon Ramsay Group, Gramercy Tavern in New York, and Lyle’s, The River Café and Flor in London. She published a cookbook, The Last Bite, in 2022. Marcus Westlake joins her from Forno as head chef, having previously worked at the east London restaurant Brawn. He is developing the food offering with Higham before taking charge of the kitchen.

The new eatery’s menu will change with the seasons, starting with an autumn breakfast list that has Scottish classics like Porridge with Ivy House Cream, Panela Sugar and Apple Compote, Tattie Scones with Scrambled Cacklebean Eggs and Scotch Pancakes, Abbey Farm Butter and Poached Plums, as well as options from further south such as Staffordshire Oatcakes with Gothelney Farm Bacon and Appleby’s Cheshire Cheese. Sausages are made to order by local butcher Stella’s, using Quince Bakery breadcrumbs and the bakery’s quince paste, and appear in a Stella’s Sausage Sandwich on house batch bread with a their own brown sauce.

Mid-morning dishes on the Elevenses menu include a Quince Bakery Warm Scone with Ivy House Farm Cream and Quince Bakery Jam, a Brown Butter Bun and oat cookies. At lunch, served from midday to 2.30pm, the kitchen will offer a Westcombe Dairy Cheddar Cheese Toastie, a Chicken and Tarragon Pie, a Late Summer Vegetable Soup and a Ploughman’s Lunch with Kirkham’s Lancashire cheese, Gothelney ham, pickles and country bread. In the later afternoon there are treats like a Devilled Cheese Scone and Figgy Meringue Cake.

Drinks cover coffee from Allpress and Red Bank Coffee Roasters, teas from Postcard Teas – including a blend made in collaboration with Clementine and sold only at the café – and a rotating list of seasonal cordials such as fragola grape and damson, peach and fig leaf, and blackcurrant.

Higham said: “The goal at Clementine is to continue the community feel we have built at Quince Bakery with a similarly joyful and creative menu. We’ll be keeping the same focus on British traditions and working closely with the best suppliers, which is really at the heart of everything we do.”

Food Desk

Clementine opens on 3^rd October 2026 at 190 New North Road, London N1 7AA. For further information, visit the café’s Instagram here.