One of the lovely things about having lived in, focused on, and written about this part of London for so long now, is witnessing local success stories unfold over lifetimes.

Last week, I had a back-to-back reminder of how positive it can be to view the unpredictable evolution of a neighbourhood through the slow-burn narratives of its locals.

It began over a coffee with Omar Shah, the Kentish Town Rd restaurateur who has just opened his eighth eatery, all within a few yards of the one he grew up helping his parents to run, nearly 40-years ago.

Then I dashed up the road to my former school, William Ellis, intrigued to hear how 15-year-old young men attempt to navigate today’s world, and the podcast series they’ve made all about it, (see below).

“This is a people business, not a food business,” says Omar, unequivocal about the secret behind his steady takeover and reinvention of seemingly unpromising swathes of lower Kentish Town.

Behind him, at least 20 staff are animating the open-plan kitchen of Bunso, his latest venture, which has transformed a former hairdressing academy (and before that, motorcycle shop) off the main drag, on the seemingly incongruous new frontier of Hawley Road.

Two mins from here, Omar began washing dishes and taking orders at 10-years-old, remembering the cloying, eye-watering pre-smoking ban fug of the late 80s at his parent’s small-but-popular ‘pan Asian’ spot, Bintang.

Now, his daughter, sister, nephew, nieces and many neighbourhood friends from through the years are all part of this hive of hospitality. And while putting people first is clearly what his empire is built upon, serially savvy business decisions have ensured it’s steady expansion.

Having spent time “doing my own thing, studying business and working as an accountant,” he sensed an opportunity to build upon his neighbourhood restaurant knowledge in the mid 2000s as London’s food scene began to go stratospheric.

As a son of a Catholic Filipino Mother and Muslim Bangladeshi father, fusion menus have become an obsession, however so has being far more overtly proud than his parents dared to be about the Filipino styles and ingredients at the heart of the food they loved most.

With Omar back, Bintang dropped its vast continent-sweeping menu to focus on silog rice and adobo stews, while later offshoots, such as opening Mamasons Ice Cream next door, brought heavenly new flavours like the purple yam, ube, to the unsuspecting people of NW5.

When I was speaking at conference in Manilla on the topic of local media and placemaking a couple of years ago, I was able to impress our hosts at the British Council with my rudimentary ‘knowledge’ of Filipino cuisine, which was basically only down to having Omar’s ventures doing them, with great panache, a lot closer to home.

From the Filipino-Japanese noodle bar Ramo Ramen, to the Filipino-French bistro Belly, he has managed to explore the tricky act of flavour fusion that is genuinely exciting and tasty, unlike so many rather odd menus the come and go down in Soho.

Alongside the cheffing acumen, the marketing content and bold stylising of all his opening have also been super-sharp and creative, a world away from the average neighbourhood joint, and inevitably some of the concepts trailed first on the high street have translated into Soho mainstays now themselves.

Next, Bunso is looking towards Italy, offering Filipino-influenced pizzas, but this is as much born of London’s ever-increasing overheads squeeze as it is Omar’s need to keep innovating.

“I’ve had this property for a while now, and had all kinds of ideas,” he tells me of the unusual space, which was originally going to be his industrial unit and office. “We looked at a bakery café concept, but the number still didn’t make sense. We needed to work out what it could be between 5 and 11pm, and use the same equipment - dough production.”

So the café by day, pizza by night stage was set. Omar’s preference for real, New York-style slices with that twice-baked crunch, his love of hifi and vinyl, plus the building’s rather unique low, long window, which reminded him of the iconic Edward Hopper painting, Nighthawks, all helped shape the ultra-stylish space that has just opened.

I’ve yet to try the food, so won’t attempt to suggest how good it might be quite yet, but his 3-day fermentation process, poolish dough base and clever way of emulating the double baking of NYC slices in a restaurant setting certainly sounds seriously tasty.

“I wanted to make sure any pizza-heads who come in aren’t just into our toppings, but are into the base just as much,” he says.

Meanwhile, the beautiful, listen bar stylised DJ console and oversized soundsystem packs a particularly warm punch, and seeing diners sitting at the Hopperesque counter under big globe lights already makes this corner look very cool and buzzy indeed now the dark winter nights are descending.

Omar’s journey is a proper Kentish Town story. Happily, it also feels like one that has many chapters to come - he’s already thinking about offering ramen pop-ups at the Bunso counter and even opening a ninth space in the ‘hood - so we’ll be watching closely. And eating our way through everything, too, of course.

As he waves me off, the vibe of the kitchen and the energy out front make it all look so easy, but the trials and tribulations of what goes on behind the scenes have made for some riveting social and blog content, including floods, delays and personal dramas aplenty.

We’re just lucky that they’ve pushed on and delivered yet another hot table, right here on the same, now richly serviced food strip, where it all started back in the 80s.

Not half an hour later and I’m joining well over 100 guests at the launch event of the From The Boys podcast - listen to all the episodes here (and all other pod platforms).

I’d heard about the plans for this project a while back: taking a group of 16 Year 10 pupils on a work placement with Middlesex University where they would conceptualise, record and produce a series tacking themes around boyhood and masculinity.

Here, we heard a selection of extracts, then got stuck in to an epic Q&A, with all the boys on stage fielding questions from the eager and fascinated adults in the audience.

Their answers were often properly revealing.

What was really interesting was how the adults’ prevailing gloom about things like ‘the manosphere’ were not seen as the top issues these days for the boys - the lasting impacts of Covid being something they were far more interested in exploring in the series.

For this particular generation, that lockdown era not only saw social relations move suddenly, entirely onto screens, where they have largely remained, but also birthed the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, which have also had profound impacts for how many young men feel about their role in today’s chaotic, confused world.

There was still, of course, a common thread of social media running through pretty much everything, and it was noticeable how practically any use of the platforms was referred to by all as an ‘addiction’.

Contradiction was also a big topic, specifically the way parents will insist their sons are home after school, to avoid the mean streets and their potential for trouble and stabbings, yet will then swiftly chastise them for conducting their social lives online.

It honestly doesn’t make sense, and we’d all do well to re-evaluate this frustrating modern fear dynamic, especially with the dangers we know also lurk online. There was agreement that providing more places that both adults and their kids considered safe spaces, such as providing more youth clubs, is such an obvious, simple way to get people off the scroll.

It must be very hard that the digital methods young people now have to connect with their friends, experience social joy, find entertainment, listen to podcasts(!) and all the other discoveries of early adulthood, are so universally derided, but with no ‘good’ alternative provided.

With such societal confusion abounding, and the tech companies hardly seen to be doing anything to address the mess, it’s clearly not easy navigating all this as a boy, but as one or two of them neatly pointed out, it’s still likely easier than doing it as a girl.

Making media content has a long, proud history at William Ellis that runs back to the quirky in-school TV studio that was a rather unusual facility in the 1980s.

Thinking back to that time, and the people I knew - and still know - from it, today’s young men seem stunningly well-adjusted to today’s radically different landscape to the way we experienced life at the same school.

I can’t imagine such an honest self-referencing series as this podcast coming out on the black and white tape-based films emerging from that studio by any stretch of the imagination.

This generation of boys certainly brought a lot of optimism to their worried parents, with a willing openness and vulnerability that would have been completely unheard of around this place just a couple of decades ago.

Despite people’s dislike of change, I think these slices of Camden life in 2026, that I encountered up and down the same mile of road last Thursday, highlight that local life does tend towards better, even if external forces often crush our capacity to see it that way.

From neighbourhood restaurants and into schools, gyms, corner shops and anywhere else people are going about daily life, there’s so much good stuff going on; genuine humans being exceptionally nice and trying hard. It makes you wonder why we’re even bothered obsessing quite so much over the evils of social media, crumbling high streets and the other negativities of the modern day.

Granted, I’m someone who is easily inspired, but there really is plenty of inspiration to go around out there.

POP-UP 🎤 To coincide with his massive 50 years of Songs in the Key of Life gigs at the 02 this week, there’s one of the UMusic Shop Camden’s mobbed pop-ups open Mon 2nd - Thurs 5th Nov, dedicated to exclusive Stevie Wonder tour merch, orange vinyl and more, plus a chance to listen to the LP with a special DJ session on Wednesday. JZ popped by his own Camden pop-up himself a few weeks ago, so who knows who might be there… Before all that, you should try to grab one of the last free invites to the launch tonight, Fri 30th Oct, of the brand new in-store Umusic Bar & Listening Lounge, created alongside iconic audio brand Victrola, with welcome drinks from 6pm.

EVENT 📰 Media Revolution aims to transform our billionaire-hijacked media platforms through a week of liberation activism, 2nd-8th Nov, including a special gathering to launch a News Club Network as an antidote to disinformation and division that takes place at Conway Hall this Wed 4th Nov featuring panels, workshops and drinks.

SHOW 🧙🏼 There’s a for-one-night-only dark cabaret show taking place tonight, Fri 30th Oct inside the Grade I-listed splendour of St Martin’s Church in Gospel Oak. Wayward - The Witching Hour includes bold vocals, theatrical storytelling, wicked humour and songs celebrating all the women who are too much, too strange, too loud.

STAGE 🧨 Remember, Remember! is the Edinburgh Fringe smash hit camp musical comedy offering a misinformed, inaccurate retelling of one of Britain's most infamous tales of treason, featuring seasonal protagonist Guy Fawkes, and the voice of national treasure Stephen Fry as narrator. It runs, appropriately enough, from 4th - 14th Nov at The Pleasance Theatre up on North Rd.

CLUB🪩The world’s most infamous, long-running fetish party, Torture Garden is thrown a series of Halloween Balls for London’s best-dressed ravers, with a few tickets left for tonight’s event, Fri 30th Oct at The Scala. The TG crew will be transforming the venue into an homage to all things dark, supernatural and witchy with immersive themed sets, performers, two dancefloors and a dungeon and couples room where things might well get seriously spooky.