N5 Kitchen opens in former Sylvanian Families shop

The self-taught cook and business partner Suzie Bliss run a catering firm serving film and photo shoots featuring the likes of Naomi Campbell, Florence Pugh, Rita Ora and Loyle Carner.

But it was a shoot for a cooking show with Ottolenghi and Nigella Lawson that caused Milly the most anxiety.

"He is my idol so it was 'oh god, no pressure'," she says.

"I spent lots of time thinking about what I was going to cook for him, in the end it was one of our salad boxes with sausage rolls, spanakopita and clementine cake - I only remembered as I made it that it was Nigella's recipe.

"I thought 'is this a good or a bad thing?' Hopefully she recognised it as her own and liked it."

Milly and Suzie outside their cafe in Mountgrove Road which was formerly and independent Sylvanian Families shop (Image: N5 Kitchen)

Milly started N5 kitchen in 2018 in her mum's Highbury kitchen and was soon joined by university friend Suzie - catering mostly for fashion shoots: "People often have very odd dietary requirements but it's really important that the people doing the lighting and hair on a shoot get really good food on set," she says.

They deliver tailor-made meal boxes super early so never met their customers - until they acquired a bricks and mortar site in Mountgrove Road, Finsbury Park when the owners of London's only independent Sylvanian Families shop retired.

Aware that they were replacing a piece of North London history, they bought a toy cafe set before it closed, and the manager gifted a tiny chef and maitre d'.

Fig, frangipane and hazlenut tarts are served in both the cafe and to catering customers (Image: N5 Kitchen)

"We have it set up like a little shrine by the coffee machine," says Suzie.

"People loved that shop. So many people come in and talk about their memories of bringing their kids in."

Now children can now enjoy N5 Kitchen's cookies (chocolate and orange, brown butter, oat and white chocolate), savoury pastries, and fresh bakes including a Tarte Tropezienne - a brioche cake from France, stuffed with orange blossom cream.A salmon lunch box at N5 Kitchen counter and deli (Image: N5 Kitchen)

"What we cook depends how we feel on the day, what's in season, what we feel like eating," says Milly.

The catering business operates from a commercial kitchen in the basement and there's a ground floor counter and deli serving coffee and take-away daily changing lunch boxes ranging from a pulled pork salad with salsa, to a grilled tuna steak with green veg - using ingredients sourced from the local suppliers

Open 7.30 to 3.30pm Monday-Friday the kitchen celebrates the weekend by giving away a free doughnut with every lunch.

After a refurb the cafe has a commercial kitchen in the basement and a take-away deli and cafe counter upstairs (Image: N5 Kitchen)

"I have always lived around this area," says Milly, who grew up in Camden and the South of France, and now lives in Canonbury.

"We were making such lovely food but we never saw anyone enjoy it. We wanted to meet people from the local area and become part of the community.

"The experience of interacting with our customers is quite personal, we've got to know our regulars and their dogs and it's really lovely."

Both in their 30s, they start "extremely early to get breakfast out", which has played havoc with their social lives.

Suzie says: "When we started the business, it stopped us from having any life outside it. Now there are six of us, we each try to have a lie in once a week and we can now have holidays."

"But if we are out with friends we still don't like to stay out past 9pm!"