There isn’t a queue outside Londis when I arrive.

There often is though.

Locals of Stoke Newington, North East London, come for Anju Patel’s homemade, chiefly Gujarati dishes, which in recyclable cardboard tubs are sold next to the more traditional corner shop products on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Growing up, my local Londis—in Surrey, the culturally detained basement of London—was a place to buy refrigerated Twirls and cans of Fanta. Items were varied in how fat and sugar were put together but singular by design. I get the impression this trend has continued for the most part. A zesty looking Pinot Grigio might be the most approachable wine and there are always questionable ready meals and pork-based architecture in tins.

At the Londis on Fountayne Road, the aisles are improbably eclectic. The Patel family, who have run the shop since the late ‘70s, haven’t buckled to gentrification—it has not become an earnest wine bar with small plates of whey covered carrots and slivers of cured mackerel under some sort of luminous herb oil. Instead, they have diversified to accommodate a broader audience but retained the callings of the original. There are craft beers next to bottles of Stella. There’s fresh bread from a nearby bakery but also sliced white from the famous Happy Shopper range.

Most detached from the norm are the curries. Depending on the day, and what Anju decides to cook, there might be palek, matter, or methi malai paneer; kadhai tofu; spiced black beans; aubergine with potatoes and peas.

There are so many dals. The one I try is inky and fragrant and slips delicately onto soft bread. I’ll return for the idli sambar with coconut yoghurt chutney and the black chickpea curry with puri. Any which way, the list is long and rewarding and deserving of trips to a part of London without a Tube stop.

More recently, Anju’s two sons, Priyesh and Alpesh, who took over the running of the store a few years ago, have sought to expand the menu and have added snacks. As well as veg samosas, and vada pavs where the potato patties have been dry rubbed with coconut and chilli, is a bread pakora filled with green chutney in one half and tomato and garlic chutney in the other. The whole thing is then battered and fried. If you think that sounds like an Instagram marvel you’d be right—trust me, before long, Londis N16 will smash beyond its 1,500 followers. All they need is an influencer being giddy on Stories, possibly a quick TikTok moment or two, and boom, welcome to Dal Town.

***

“My grandparents opened the shop in the late ‘70s,” Priyesh tells me, as we walk through aisles of noodles and tinned beans. “They were Gujarati and moved here from Zambia and lived above the shop. My parents Anju and Mayank took over from them, and now my brother and I are in charge.”

“As a family, we’ve been here for 40 years. The area has changed massively. My parents introduced new things, refurbished the space and modernised, but they retained tradition. We’ve tried to do the same but ten years on.”

“My parents instilled strong community values into us. It’s difficult to say whether the changes in Stoke Newington are good or bad. There used to be skinheads back in the day, which was difficult for my family.”

Priyesh, 28, tells me he has long felt the Gujarati ‘food scene’ in the UK is lacking, at least when it comes to a mainstream lens. The interest and demand, though, is evident—an increasing number of people in Britain no longer sweepingly say “Indian food” and are eager to learn how regional cuisine shifts from north to south, east to west.

“We just want to be a welcoming place for everyone, and we want to have something for the people who live here. My brother has got really into natural wines, so we stock those now. And craft beers. We also have low-cost food for people who need that. We stay open late sometimes for Hasidic Jews who need to come at a certain time.”

Londis N16 today is a bastion of the regionality London is calling for. The traditional corner shop has an equal identity as a takeaway of sorts, where £2.50 pots of veggie and vegan Gujarati dishes are sold to heat at home. Priyesh says he and Alpesh sell almost 200 orders every week.

As a Londis franchise, the brothers have the freedom to do it, so long as they buy a certain number of goods from the company directly. They just about have the capacity to take the idea further, too.

“We’re still a corner shop in every sense of the word with competitive prices and groceries and basic food items,” Priyesh says.

“Our aim is to be accessible and convenient but also modern. My mum has always loved having a place to sell her food”.

““Our aim is to be accessible and convenient but also modern.””

— Priyesh Patel

All this has been orchestrated by Priyesh and Alpesh but really it is Anju who I have to thank for the spiced black beans, and for a garlic and coriander chutney so zingy and satisfying I wish I’d bought more than one pot.

She says she’s wanted to start selling her food for many years: “This is something I’ve always wanted to do. My brother, in Vadodara, has a restaurant, and we are a food orientated family. I love it.

“Every year, there’s a fair in the local park, and I would cook something. It was always very popular, so I thought I could do something more. It supports my family and I feel my work is more rewarding.”

Anju explains her food is Gujarati but says it transcends styles and isn’t constricted to the region alone.

“I do a lot of paneer dishes, dals, and people love anything with aubergine. It’s traditional family food and mainly Gujarati, but we also cook with pulses and beans you wouldn’t normally eat in Gujarat but are readily available here. Some dishes are also influenced by my in-laws’ upbringing in Zambia, and we also offer some Punjabi things.”

Outside the shop, it is busy with people popping in for snacks and beers. Before I rush off to the pub to catch the Wednesday night football, Priyesh tells me the family is planning to enter the world of food pop-ups and supper clubs: “We’re ambitious,” he says. “At some point, we might get a hot food licence, so we can sell takeaways to eat rather than warm at home, or serve food in-store with some of our more interesting wines and beers. I guess what we’re doing is quite a novel thing. I also think it’s pretty cool.”

I’m inclined to agree. Here is a classic convenience store with an ever-changing, compelling menu full of home-style Gujarati dishes that might not be available in traditional British curry houses. By far the most important facet to this is the host: Londis. It will introduce new people to a new cuisine. It will embrace and navigate a distinguished kind of hype.

Anju is pragmatic, too: “For the moment, I’m happy with the output. I would like to start serving hot food—like chaats, things I can’t offer in takeaway containers.”

“Then maybe in the future, we’ll start to do more. But I want to take my time with this to make sure it’s done well. I just want to keep it interesting for me and the customers. We all would like this to last, and for it to be sustainable so we don’t want to rush into things and crash and burn.”

Priyesh agrees. “We do want to take it further, although we’re not in a rush. We’ll see. As long as people like the food and come, then we’re happy.”

I, along with many others I’m sure, hope Londis N16 is in it for the long haul. It is an original concept worthy of acclaim. And that garlic and coriander chutney, well. Go and get some.