The 20-cover café will serve British breakfasts, pies, toasties and plenty of Quince’s brown butter buns
Award-winning pastry chef Anna Higham will open Clementine, a new all-day British café, in Islington on Saturday 10 October.
Situated directly opposite Higham’s popular Quince Bakery, Clementine will expand the bakery’s offering into breakfast, brunch and lunch. The 20-cover café will open from Wednesday to Sunday, with a menu rooted in British baking traditions and seasonal produce.
Breakfast will include porridge with Ivy House cream, panela sugar and apple compote; tattie scones with scrambled Cacklebean eggs; Scotch pancakes with Abbey Farm butter and poached plums; and Staffordshire oatcakes with Gothelney Farm bacon and Appleby’s Cheshire cheese.
Local butcher Stella’s is also producing a bespoke sausage using Quince breadcrumbs and a little quince paste. It will appear in Clementine’s sausage sandwich, served on the bakery’s batch bread with homemade brown sauce.
Those unwilling to wait until lunch for cake can stop by for warm scones with cream and jam or Quince’s much-loved brown butter buns.
Later in the day, the menu moves on to dishes including a Westcombe cheddar toastie, chicken and tarragon pie, seasonal vegetable soup and a ploughman’s lunch of Kirkham’s Lancashire cheese, Gothelney ham, pickles and country bread. Oat cookies and figgy meringue cake will join the scones for the afternoon offering.
Coffee will come from Allpress and Red Bank, while a changing cordial menu will feature seasonal combinations such as fragola grape and damson or peach and fig leaf. Postcard Teas will supply the tea selection, including a special blend created exclusively for Clementine.
Leading the kitchen is head chef Marcus Westlake, formerly of Forno and east London restaurant Brawn. Westlake is developing the opening menu with Higham before taking charge of the café’s kitchen.
“The goal at Clementine is to continue the community feel we have built at Quince Bakery with a similarly joyful and creative menu,” said Higham. “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.”
Designed by Dan Wilson Studio, the team behind Quince, Clementine takes inspiration from Shaker design and the Arts and Crafts movement. Oak joinery, slate worktops and a tiled fireplace will give the café the character of a home kitchen, while its exterior will be painted clementine-leaf green and topped with a clementine-coloured awning.
The café was partly funded by the people already queuing for Higham’s baking. A crowdfunding campaign launched earlier this year raised more than £30,000 towards the fit-out, following a similar community-backed appeal used to open Quince in 2024.
Clementine opens in Islington on Saturday 10 October 2026 and will trade Wednesday to Sunday.