Dzo! Viet Kitchen, London: ‘Worth your money and your time’ – restaurant review
Dzo! Viet Kitchen, London: ‘Worth your money and your time’ – restaurant review
Share:
This charismatic Vietnamese place stands out, even among all the attention-seekers on Upper Street Islington. Dzo! Viet Kitchen, 163 Upper Street, London N1 1US. Small plates £7.90-£11.90, large and sharing plates £10.90-£25.90, dessert £7.50, Saigon beer £6, wine from £35.
![[Jay Rayner]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2018/01/11/Jay_Rayner,_L.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
You’ll never want for an emergency schnitzel on Islington’s Upper Street. Or a plate of Padrón peppers. Or a charred broccoli salad, heady with the scent of health consciousness. You’ll never want for anything. Some years ago, I walked the road from Angel tube at the southern end to Highbury & Islington tube at the northern, counting places to eat. It was a bit like the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, only for people who have earned their prescription for statins. Back then there were well over 100 restaurants, and many more if you counted those tucked away down sidestreets. It’s a curious place, both profoundly neighbourhood and very much not. Most businesses were sparrows and starlings; a few were garish kingfishers.
![[‘Fried in heaps of garlic and lemon grass’: goat.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1d13634c1c137947f37909c8b94ecbac1d8a703c/0_103_5616_3370/master/5616.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Once, it was home to the hard-edged Granita, where in 1994 Blair and Brown may or may not have made their deal on the Labour party leadership, over the likes of an onion and sorrel tart and chargrilled chicken with spinach and pine nuts. Granita is long gone, but the original Ottolenghi is still here, as is that marvellous old stager, the Turkish restaurant Gallipoli, where they do a mean kofte. Cheery budget sushi places rub shoulders with Thai restaurants and cafés where they do unnecessary things to kale. Restaurant clusters like this can both be good for business and less so. People who want to eat out are drawn to huddles of possibility. But there’s also rabid competition, which risks sparkling gems becoming just an overlooked part of the edible landscape.
![[‘Exploding with foliage like a peacock’s tail feathers’: beef summer rolls.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d3a9a76780d32c995a7b28dc7285910c96b439c4/0_39_5616_3370/master/5616.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
