A slice of Paris in Crouch End: Bistro Aix reviewed

There is a wonderful cognitive dissonance to Bistro Aix. It thinks it is in Paris but it is really in Crouch End, the flatter twin to Muswell Hill, a district so charismatic it had its own serial killer in Dennis Nilsen. (He killed more people in Willesden, but Willesden doesn’t receive its due: here or anywhere.)

We pick our way through the Versailles of north London, past Little Waitrose and the clock tower

I have never thrived in Paris. My sister says I always go with the wrong men, which is unfair, because it was a school trip and I had no choice about the (very small) men. I prefer the Paris of my imagination, which is quite a lot like Bistro Aix in Crouch End.

I love the grubbiness of Crouch End, which no moronic gentrification or French restaurant of any quality – and Bistro Aix has quality – can scrub out. It’s a desolate piece of north London, but everything is relative. My Polish grandmother lived near here, in Avenue Road, and Crouch End is Versailles when you consider what the Nazis did to Lodz. (Lodz. Not Lolz.) There is a Gail’s bakery, which I forgive since it has become a bready symbol of Zionist Organised Government (ZOG) in danger of being chased out of Walthamstow by idiots before it arrives. They are fools. ZOG pork sausage rolls are rather good and if that confounds the ZOG critics – well, what doesn’t?

I thought I should review a suburban restaurant, because one cannot snipe at the monied indefinitely, and if I like a suburban restaurant I cannot keep it all to myself. (I recommend the Paradise on South End Green, Hampstead. That is my only secret.)