Schnitzel Forever, London: ‘A total crowd-pleaser, without crowds’ – restaurant review

Schnitzel Forever, 119 Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16 0UD (020 7419 0022). Starters £7-£10, mains £9.50-£25, desserts £4.50-£6.50, wines from £24

Schnitzel Forever, a small restaurant in London’s Stoke Newington, is the cornerstone of a blossoming high street chain with many outposts across the country. It just doesn’t quite know it yet. This is not damning with faint praise. We are, of course, required to venerate the independent over the mass-produced and cookie-cutter, and we do. Even the very word “chain” makes people twitch. I realised recently that I substitute the word “group” to describe a restaurant brand with multiple outposts that I admire, so as not to smear it with the rancid stench of chain corporatism.