Cafe Helen

Bread? Good! Chicken? Good! Green pickles? Good! Garlic sauce? Good!
Shawarma? The best!
I am an incredibly picky shawarma fan and from all the ones I’ve tried in London, Café Helen’s is the only one that comes close to the mark. I was raised on real Saudi shawarmas and you would be surprised how difficult it is to find anything as good when you leave. For me, the perfect shawarma has to fulfill five requirements: yummy bread, yummy chicken, yummy green pickles, yummy garlic sauce and yummy french fries. Sadly, no one in London puts french fries in shawarmas, but I am thrilled that Café Helen does the other four. Like other London shawarma restaurants, they also put in salad and tomatoes and spicy sauce and who knows what else, but in my opinion they are still the best shawarma place in London with the most authentic shawarma and that is saying a lot.
They are not cheap, but it is good value as their shawarmas are massive! They are also open late and very quick, although there is not much seating and their style is more takeaway. Their shawarmas are so damn good that I am getting hungry just thinking about them and writing this review…

i doubt the comments before me are real. i just had the worst experiences at this place. so from the start —
we got there, it was pretty crowded so we thougt its gonna be a good place.
i’m gonna save you the details of how the bad service began (we got asked what we want and then ignored while telling it) and skip to the main problems.
what we ordered:
Hallumi (out of stock .)
2 lamb kebabs with onion and sauce, without salat or anything
2 chicken kebabs with tomatoe salad sauce ect just no spicey
what we recived:
1 lamb kebab with salad tomatoes pickels sauce ect
3 chicken kebabs with spicey. nothing else.
thats not the end of the story yet. it was me (22 year old austrian female) with a friend (28 year old indian), the only english speaking in the place, so i already felt a bit uncomfortable. right at the moment we got our kebabs (after waiting for a lifetime), i felt a hand on my butt. not only touching it, a guy next to me seriousley grabbed and squeezed my butt. i turned around totally shocked and he just said ‘i’m sorry’ and rushed out of the place. i was so surprised by what just happened i couldnt belive it, so i could not react quick enough. people were looking because they saw my reaction and how the guy just ran away.
yes thats maybe not the restaurants fault but all in all this place was just a really bad experience and i will never go back there again.
rude staff, wrong and not tasty food, and even worse other customers.

Quality wraps at a quality price, doesn’t look like much from the outside but best shawarma in the area. Go for the large chicken.

If you wake up at 3 am and decide that you Need a Shawarma now, you can relax because Café Helen is open and they have the shawarma sizzling hot and ready, but get in line because its crowded and full of hungry men ²⁴⁄₇.

According to the BBC, the British are renown for queuing and doing it very well. That’s exactly what I did when I saw the massive queue extending outside well into the Edgeware road at this amazing Shawarma house to help ring in the new year! Here, not only did i enjoy delicious food, but I was surrounded by the friendliest crowd of cosmopolitan adventurers who were anxious and vying for a chance to taste the delicious, spicy, garlic kabobs! I had the ‘mildly spicy lamb kebob’, which was out of this world delicious! Owner, Helen, is super delightful and she has a huge following of regular customers, but also has plenty of room to add newbies, like me, to the growing list of FANS! Happy 2014!!!

Came all the way from LA and this has got to be the best late night shawarma spot I’ve ever tried. Gonna try to grab lunch here before my flight out today!

Living down the street from this establishment in 2004 was one of the greatest times of my life, and Café Helen helped that happen. This place was a late-​night food staple for the group I lived with, and no other shwarma could satiate us after experiencing the perfection that is Café Helen. All the sauces, large mixed shwarma still makes my mouth water. In my opinion, anyone who gave this place a bad review due to the food quality simply doesn’t like this type of food, or even meat in general.

Lamb shawarma was excellent. Probably the best I’ve ever tried. Service was quick. I wouldn’t recommend this place if you’re looking for a sit-​down restaurant, but it is a great place to get a quick bite to eat especially late at night

I’m seeing a lot of four and five stars and I don’t understand why. This place was average. The shwarmas we used to get next to the Mission Ale House in downtown San Jose, CA, were 10 times better than what we got at this place.
My husband picked up take out from this place and brought it back to the hotel for us and the kids. He said the service was non-​existent. You get it the way they prepare it and don’t ask for napkins or anything else. He compared it to the Soup Nazi. «No Shwarma for you!»
The Angry Eater (aka my 8 year-​old son) wanted me to give it minus six stars.
I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat here again.

Best Shwarmas on Edgeware Road. They only do one size now for £4 which is plenty filling enough.
Meat is succulent and delicious. A cut above every other place I have tried, you can really taste the quality. This combined with their special garlic sauce really cements Helen’s reputation in my book.
Not 5 stars because they charge a £1 for a warm coke. Sort this out and offer ice cold soft drinks for 50p and you will be on to a winner

When it comes to kebabs, Café Helen has some of the best. It’s really a shawarma which is the tastier less greasy and less dodgy form of a kebab which makes it even better.
They are open incredibly late and this makes them perfect for a post-​lash food stop. The other benefit is that the shawarmas taste fantastic and the meat is fresh and crunchy every time you go there.
I’d recommend getting extra sauces (there is chilli and a garlic mayo) and personally I think the lamb is juicier.
Growing up in Saudi, I’ve had more than my fair share of shawarmas but I think this place is right up there.

it was just too good!!! definitely in the top 3 tastiest shawarma i have tried…
went around 5 am in the morning after a heavy drinking session… ordered 10 chicken shawarmas with all the sauces (extra chilli and garlic) to feed my hungry friends and myself… it was definitely worth all the wait…
u must try if you are travelling to London!

A very tasty, post-​drinking option. An option that is vastly lacking in Central London, in my opinion. They claim to be open 24-​hours, but I haven’t been around at 6 or 7 in the morning. Although, a recon trip may be in order to find out. Because, well, Central London is lacking in early morning breakfast options as well.

Simple place. Simple review.
For late night, generally after a cocktail or 9, this is the place to go. Long queues await drunken revelers but all agree the wait is worth it. Menu is simple and 90% of people aim for the shawarma … the meats are well done and cooked as expected: tasty, greasy, artery clogging … but worth it.
I love good food but I also love good street food. This will certainly help avoid a hangover the next day. Simply the best I have had in latenight London.

The swarma they cook up out of this 24hr shoebox is amazzzing! I have tried a lot of swarma in my days and this has got to be the best!
Tender meat, soft bread, and tons of extra spicy sauce! Yummm! You can get a coke and a sandwich for under 5pnds!
They usually have a queue at any giving time of day and be prepared to wait longer during latenights and weekends!
If you are lucky there is about 5 seats smushed into a small seating area designed for maybe 2 ppl in the back!
Overall, it’s deeelicious food made fast – ready to eat right away!

I do not like Kebabs. I think it’s important to say that. I have never liked Kebabs. Helens I like. A lot — they’re seriously tasty. The meat sticks twirl in the window salaciously like exotic dancers, drawing you in. The meat, unlike a normal kebab shop, does not look like recovered road-​kill. It appears succulent, juicy and most importantly — it looks like the meat on the label.
Garlic Mayo — check. Chilli sauce — check. Pickles — check. Other stuff I don’t remember because I was slightly drunk — probably. The tastiest thing you’re ever going to eat at stupid-o’clock when everything before seemed like a good idea at the time.

For £4 you can eat about the entire Animal Kingdom in a small pita bread. That’s pretty impressive to say. But the place across the street for one more pound you get all that with Coke and Fries. I’ll pass Helen.

So the question is, what can you expect from a kebab stall? Well, my usual answer would be unidentifiable meat, wilting salad, covered in so much chilli sauce that it doesn’t matter what is being eaten as long as the chilli heat overcomes it.
Café Helen however is a kebab dream, I say this as a regular customer. To be fair it is generally at 3.30 am when I am to say the least a tad beered up. However I have also grabbed the odd shawarma or two here when not completely paralytic, and the verdict is… Still damn fine!
Yes, a place that has kebabs so good that even at 3.30 am you are still likely to have a 10 — 15 minute wait to be served. This would usually be a pain, but the queue is generally friendly and the shawarmas are well worth the wait. Unlike many places you can see good quality meat being carved by some weird shaving machine, the garlic sauce is magic, and if you go for the superb chicken shawarma, it is worth asking for extra garlic sauce and pickles…
As an example of how good the place is, I had a friend come over to stay and (admittedly after a few cheeky pints) we visited Café Helen for a quick feed on the way home, after a ten minute walk and some serious consumption, my mate then demanded a return to Helen for another sweet shawarma before bed!
True the shawarmas are a tad on the healthy (read small) side, but generally they totally hit the spot after a night out on the town! (I’m writing this with a happy belly after a night of drunkeness topped off with a lovely helen’s kebab) and I’m very happy!
Viva Helen!

Let’s keep it real — you come here when it’s late, you’re drunk, and you want a kebab that you can distinguish as decent, even when inebriated (the ones by old street? don’t do it. even when i’m drunk i feel disgusted). The actual taste of the shwarmas, and in particular, the falafels, is pretty good. Just not for £4 for a tiny little thing. But since our judgments are so severely impaired during crucial times of drunkeness… that’ll be an afterthought.

At the mention of going for a kebab, my insides shrink and it’s fair to say it’s due to places like Café Helen.
IIt looks just like any other regular kebab joint, but the chicken and lamb spits were ridiculously huge, which makes me a little dubious as to how long the meat had been on there for as I’m not joking, they looked like elephant thighs! They were super quick at serving the six of us, but when the kebabs were handed out, they were so small, fully sausage-​wrapped in white paper, that for a moment I thought that they were handing out material napkins, then doh I remembered where I was.
The man very kindly showed the kebab novices of the group how to unwrap and eat our tiny packages (peeling round the top like an orange) and although it wasn’t revolting, the meat tasted cheap and fatty. About the best compliment I can give it is mediocre, and that’s only because it definitely had a Lebanese twist to it with different spices and gherkin added, but for £4 it really wasn’t worth it.
The worst part was sitting inside, perched on the few stainless steel stools at the back, surrounded by black bin bags of rubbish that were waiting to be taken outside. I definitely won’t be going back here!