Specialties: Queen’s Wood Café is a community café tucked away amidst the peace and tranquility of north London’s legendary Queen’s Wood, 2 miles from central London. We offer a selection of delicious, organic, seasonal food and drink with plenty of vegetarian options, in a child-and dog-friendly environment. Many of our specials are made with organic ingredients grown in our own garden. We use as many local suppliers as possible and have been working for over 15 years to put into practice our deep commitment to putting fair-trade and ethical sourcing at the heart of our business. We are licensed, so you can enjoy a beer or a glass of wine with your meal.

As well as running an award winning café, we are a community hub for a great variety of healing activities, cultural events, art exhibitions, educational talks and supper clubs. We host unique children’s parties using our magical location in Queen’s Wood to offer bespoke adventure quests. We loan out our beautiful venue for adult celebrations too Established in 1998. In 1997 local residents, Murray and Wanjiku Shelmerdine, along with Lucy Roots and Friends of Queen’s Wood mustered a groundswell of community support to prevent derelict Queen’s Lodge from being demolished. Murray and Wanjiku were able to secure funding from the Heritage Lottery Board which paid for architects, surveyors and other ecologically trained building professionals to renovate the Lodge as ‘London’s First Eco-house’ (Evening Standard, Sept. 1998)

In 1998, Diane Fisher, local teacher of organic horticulture came on board. During the autumn and freezing winter, she led a team of very hardy and dedicated volunteers as they cleared away 50 years of brambles and sycamore and created a lush organic garden to grow food for the café. The following summer they began to offer courses in organic food growing and host visits for local school children to teach them about recycling and composting.