Small restaurant on Highbury Corner that started off focusing on (basically) posh kebabs, but which is now producing some of London's most innovative dishes, focused around unconventional meats, cuts, and breads. Not often you can eat incredible food while listening to heavy rock and metal, but Lee Tiernan has nailed a winning formula.

I go to the Heath every weekend (often via the wonderful Waterlow Park which skirts Highgate Cemetery) and during the week too if I’m working from home; it helps to put things in perspective when I’m thinking about my work. It’s great in the summer for obvious reasons but I love it the most in autumn and on those rare days it snows so much London grinds to a halt (which doesn’t take much). Everyone heads up there to make giant snowballs/cats/creatures and surf down Parliament Hill on anything they can get their hands on. Grown ups turn into kids for the day. My husband and I made this snow yeti last year, it was sad to leave him behind but he soon made friends and even made it into the Camden New Journal.

My favourite park in town. They have a small Japanese garden and areas marked off for joggers. Well organised space.

A walled secret garden, the Physic Garden is like a time capsule, founded in 1673 to allow apprentices of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London to study the healing properties of plants, it is now a living museum. Tours are offered by volunteers with immense knowledge of botany and the cultural history of the garden or visitors can wander the grounds alone and spot odd and fascinating plants such as the mystical Mandrake.

best family run sushi i can find in London.  Not flashy but that not the point.  Its a small honest run place.  Its great.