If Dalston is the new Shoreditch and Peckham is the new Dalston, then what does that make Stroud Green?

Such was the game of urban dominoes that resulted this weekend from an invitation, offered in a mildly apologetic, but hopeful tone, to dinner in the Zone 2 blur that is Finsbury Park and Stroud Green.

“If you don’t mind schlepping up to North London, you can see how Stroud Green is the new Dalston.”

I was, to put it mildly, sceptical. Though to be honest, I can’t wait until some other neighbourhood absorbs the human trash that invades Shoreditch on Friday and Saturday nights. But still, a couple of construction sites do not make your neighbourhood the latest frontier of gentrification. (I travel in circles where people embrace, rather than decry, gentrification. Sue me.)

But really, Stroud Green? Have you ever been been on Stroud Green Road? The street’s most prominent presence is the triple-fronted Pak’s Wigs, offering a full line of wigs, hair extensions and cosmetics.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is what urban living has come to: a wig shop is precisely the ironic benchmark against which your neighbourhood’s progress will be measured. Pak’s Wigs is to Stroud Green what Mary Shoes is to Shoreditch. If it weren’t for Pak’s Wigs, there would be nothing to gentrify from. Its sprawling, vibrant-green storefront is an urban touchstone. The demise of Pak’s Wigs, should it ever come, will be the sign of Stroud Green’s arrival. It’s the sort of place that one day people will suck their teeth over and say “remember when Pak’s Wigs used to be here?”

By then, of course, it will be an artisanal cheese shop with a queue out the door.

Early signs of change are elbowing their way between the kebab shops and the money transfer agents. The Park Theatre‘s lobby bar is one tattoo away from becoming a gay wine bar. Plaid shirts and carefully curtained hair sip merlot at unstained wood tables. Enough said? Check.

A few strides up Stroud Green is The Deli at 80. It’s named after its address, get it? The logo is sans serif. Simplicity defined. Check.

Why, is that a new Italian salumeria just up the road? Are those shelves heaving with panettone made of unfinished pine? Check.

And is that a… Hang on. Stop. A Viennoiserie? A fucking boulangerie? Whatever happened to learning to walk before you run? Stroud Green, all jumped up now, isn’t it? Finsbury Park running amok, I tell you.

Pak’s Wigs is doomed.