Living in Dalston

Dalston is loud, crowded and busy at almost every hour, and that is exactly its appeal. Ridley Road Market, with its fruit, vegetables, fish, fabrics and hair products, runs most days just off Kingsland High Street, while the stretch of Kingsland Road and Stoke Newington Road to the north is lined with Turkish and Kurdish grill restaurants, many open late into the night.

The nightlife is among the most concentrated in London. Bars, small clubs, music venues and late-opening restaurants cluster around Kingsland High Street and the side streets, and weekends bring large crowds from across the city. The Rio, an art deco cinema, and the Arcola Theatre add some culture. The Eastern Curve Garden, a community garden built on an old railway line behind the high street, is a small, much-loved green refuge.

Transport is all Overground but covers a lot of ground. Dalston Junction is on the north–south line through Shoreditch and Whitechapel to Canada Water, Crystal Palace, Clapham Junction and New Cross, and Dalston Kingsland, a short walk away, has trains west towards Camden and Willesden and east to Stratford. For the tube, residents typically take a bus to Highbury & Islington or Old Street.

Housing ranges from new-build towers around Dalston Square, near the Junction station, to Victorian terraces and conversions and substantial council estates, with the handsome squares of De Beauvoir Town a short walk south-west. Many flats are close to busy roads and nightlife, which means noise is a genuine consideration, and green space nearby is limited, with the nearest large parks being Clissold Park, London Fields and Hackney Downs. Dalston suits young people who want food and nightlife on their doorstep, and who value that over quiet or a leafy street.