In the Harrow area of north-west London, unofficially known as the United Kingdom’s “Little Romania”, the smell of Romanian smoked meats blends daily with the bustle of a large Romanian community. Here, among shops with signs written in Romanian and conversations that flow naturally “just like back home”, stands the Stejarul brand — four Romanian stores built step by step by Claudiu Baroti, a young man who left the commune of Oituz, Bacău County, at just 16 years old.
Claudiu moved to England in 2010, before finishing high school. He was still a child when he made one of the hardest decisions of his life, Anunțul UK reports.
“My parents had left for England years earlier to work, and I stayed behind in Romania with my grandparents. They missed me, I missed them, and in the end I didn’t wait to finish high school — I left for London as well,” Claudiu told Anunțul UK.
After arriving in the UK, he continued his studies and completed high school in London. A few years later, he took the step into entrepreneurship, opening his first Romanian shop. Today, Claudiu Baroti owns four stores operating under the Stejarul name, all located in the Harrow area — a neighbourhood where Romanians are so numerous that Romanian is the second most spoken language, after English.
The Stejarul brand includes three general stores and a Romanian butcher’s shop located at 331 Kenton Road — the core of the business. Here, Romanian tradition is not just a marketing concept, but a daily reality, visible in the well-stocked displays and in the conversations among customers.
“We’ve already entered the winter holidays rush. Our best-selling product at the moment is tobă. It’s a high-quality product, and roughly one in five Romanians who walk into the shop wants to buy tobă,” Claudiu says.
Interestingly, it’s not only Romanians who are drawn to these flavours of home: “Greeks and Bulgarians who come into the shop are big fans of kaiser and smoked sausages.”
The Stejarul butcher’s shop produces a wide range of meat products based on traditional recipes: smoked pork fat (slănină), specialty cuts, kaiser, smoked pork knuckle, smoked sausages, pastrami and many others. Ahead of the holidays, the display is completed with caltaboș and pork rind — products which, for many Romanians in the diaspora, mean more than food: they are a direct link to childhood and to the Christmas table back home.
Claudiu Baroti’s story is one of longing, hard work and perseverance. From the child in Oituz who left his grandparents behind to reunite with his parents, to the entrepreneur who feeds an entire London community with Romanian flavours, the journey has been a long one. And in every slice of tobă or piece of slănină sold in Harrow, a small part of Romania quietly lives on.
