What’s in a name? For the tourists pouring out of Notting Hill Gate station in search of the pastel-coloured terraces immortalised on screen in everything from Performance and Paddington to Notting Hill itself, the grim stretch of 1950s high-rises around the tube makes for a misleading arrival. The real Notting Hill lies to the north-west, its summit marked by the junction of Ladbroke Grove and Kensington Park Gardens and its stuccoed crescents curving downwards to Portobello Road — though as few areas embody the process of gentrification in extremis as Notting Hill, “real” might appear to be a fairly loose term in this fairytale corner of fantasy London. The west London district has gone from being a byword for post-war slums to now being home to some of the most expensive property in the country.
Along the way the Caribbean immigrants of the 1950s have been priced out by American bankers while the independent shops flanking Portobello Road Market are being steadily replaced by upmarket international chains. Little Yellow Door, a fashionable cocktail bar, now occupies the site of the Mangrove, the Trinidadian café that was formerly the unofficial head office of the Notting Hill Carnival. The annual celebration of London’s Caribbean community , held every August bank holiday, is in fact the worst time to eat in Notting Hill as most of the local restaurants are boarded up.
For the rest of the year, however, Notting Hill offers some of London’s most essential eati.