The Aziziye Mosque in Stoke Newington is thought of as one of Britain's most stunning mosques. Muslim Londoners know it well too, for its popular restaurant, one that gets pretty active around the fasting month of Ramadan for iftar.
There's also a halal butchers at the north of the building but it is its unique facade that makes it standout and is a mark of the area's vibrant migrant community, a stone's throw from trendy Dalston. Fortuitously, the exterior remained as it was and the building was reinvented as the Aziziye Camii, a mosque that is so far having a solid run.
The building was converted by Turkish Cypriot architect Oktay Hamit in 1983 after the demise of the Astra, who covered the exterior with decorative and traditional ceramic Iznik tiles. The interior too had Ottoman embellishments, down to the chandeliers, although this reportedly took more than a decade to complete with many of the materials imported from Turkey.
