Islington

Islington has spent most of its history feeding the City whatever it needed: water down the New River, cattle down Liverpool Road to Smithfield, and now a steady stream of people who work there and would rather you didn't bring it up at dinner. Every other Georgian terrace has a blue plaque, every other one has a residents' parking sign, and the locals treat both with the same reverence. Upper Street has more places to eat than any one street needs, and every one of them expects you to have booked. People say they ended up here by accident, and the prices suggest nobody did.