Restaurant: Del Parc

It was my birthday recently. My 30th birthday. I would have liked a whole month of celebration - one day for every year of my remarkable existence - but nobody else seemed up for that. I did pretty well though, managing to stretch the festivities over a good ten days, starting with papa Heal giving me the shiny thing I had had my eye on for months and buying James and me a celebratory dinner at my favourite local restaurant.

I’m actually quite reluctant to tell people about Del Parc because then they might start going there and I wouldn’t be able to get a table any more. The food is Moorish-influenced tapas of the sort I imagine Moro would serve, but couldn’t tell you for certain because I can’t afford to go there. Del Parc is a fraction of the cost (you can be pleasantly full of delicious things - and share a bottle of wine - for under £30 a head) and the cooking is easily good enough to make it a destination restaurant, yet (fortunately for me) it remains a local secret. Giles Coren mentioned it briefly but otherwise news of the Archway foodie revolution (no, really: 500 - pronounced cinquecento - has also considerably upped the area’s game) has got no further than N19 itself.

Del Parc is run by just two men, one who cooks and one who does front of house. Except it shouldn’t really be called that because the tiny kitchen isn't behind anything, it's right in the middle of the room.

There’s a very relaxing atmosphere: tasteful, neutral colours and the odd, slightly incongruous, Buddha hanging about. The focus is definitely on the food though, which comes as it’s ready. This means you get to enjoy one intensely flavoured dish at a time rather than forking up a mess of tortilla, chorizo and patatas bravas from your plate as you would in many other London tapas joints.

It’s all lovely stuff, but of particular note are the balls of deep-fried goat’s cheese (I never know where to put the apostrophe in that - does the cheese belong to many goats or just to one?) drizzled with honey and the fatayer, a triangular filo parcel filled with spinach and feta but made uniquely delicious with the addition of pomegranate sours. I’ve eaten at Del Parc three times now and this is the dish I actively pine for between visits.

They weren’t on the (seasonally changing) menu this time, but also worth a mention are the baby squid stuffed with chorizo. In so many restaurants squid is just a texture, but here its delicately fishy flavour comes through to balance the paprika hit of the sausage and a piquantly sweet tomato sauce.

If it’s even vaguely sunny, I like to drink pink wine - it makes me feel summery - so we had a bottle of rosé between us too. I finished with a lovely home-made passionfruit ice-cream for pudding, even though I wasn’t remotely hungry any more, because you’re allowed to do things like that on your birthday. Or on any of the days surrounding it.

It really is a gem of a place and I'd urge you to go. But just not too often and not on evenings that I happen to want a table.

Del Parc

167 Junction Road, London, N19 5PZ

0871 3328182