Stoke Newington - Entertainment

Entertainment

Stoke Newington is well known for its good pubs and bars and a lively music scene, including contemporary jazz, and open mic comedy sessions. A few venues such as Ryans on Stoke Newington Church Street, The Others, above the snooker hall on Manor Road, and Bodrums, farther down the High Street on the same side. The Auld Shillelagh on Stoke Newington Church St. is a well-known and celebrated Irish Pub, Lady Gaga reportedly visited there in 2010. The Vortex Jazz Club also used to be on Church Street but has now moved to Dalston.

Stoke Newington Church Street, the central commercial area of Stoke Newington, contains four independent stores/restaurants that each have two branches, each across the street from one another. These businesses are Rasa (Rasa and Rasa Travancore), Il Bacio (Il Bacio and Il Bacio Express), Spence (The Spence and The Spence Cafe), and HUB (Menswear and Womenswear). This is a unique commercial feature of Stoke Newington given its relatively small size.

Since 2010, Stoke Newington has also had its own literary festival, created to celebrate the area's literary and radical history. It takes place in early June in venues across the area and was described in 2011 by Time Out as 'Just like Hay-on-Wye, but in Hackney', by The Times as one of its 'Top 5 Summer of Books' and by Londonist.com as 'a literary festival that's thrown its pretensions in a skip'.