Safia Shah

According to London food writer and critic Sejal Sukhadwala, the shop is located inside what used to be Henry VIII's artillery ground, where soldiers once practised archery and musketry, and is close to Nicholas Hawksmoor's impressive 18th-century Christ Church, Spitalfields. The area is infamous for Jack the Ripper's serial murders, and the Great Fire of London.

In May 2018 Shah's design workshop and child-friendly café, Bootmakers Workshop at Wincanton in South Somerset won the Muddy Stilettos Somerset "Muddy Award 2018" for best children's business.

‘Brown Bag’ is a short story included in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology 4, and has been regarded as "A short and sharp and very English story from Casablanca-based Safia Shah, that captures something of the zeitgeist of our modern, Internet-focused age. The storytelling is adequate throughout, but the real triumph comes right at the end, where it’s sudden and completely unexpected." It describes the main character's reflections on her mother's passing, as well as on incidental memories from the past. The 20 stories collected in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology 4 were selected from more than 2,000 entries for the 2011 Bristol Short Story Prize.

Shah's latest work, Carnaby Street's Great Uninvited, a children's book, was released on 23 October 2013. It is a children's picture book and was illustrated by Mark Reeve, known for his work on Spitting Image. The book features what Shah calls "endangered words," or words that used to be commonly used in the English language but which have slipped from regular use. Along with the Carnaby Street book, Shah created a series of ebooks that focus on numerous endangered words. These books include: As Clear As Mud Volumes 1 and 2: The Brabbler's Guide to Idioms, and A is For Anonymuncle: The Brabbler's Endangered ABC.

In November 2013, she released Twice Sifted, a collection of six short stories, which focus on stress-induced anxiety and the many ways in which it is manifested in the characters' lives. Twice Sifted is the first of three volumes of short stories to be released by Shah.

In an article picturing Safia Thomas standing outside her shop, and written a few months prior to the Economic crisis of 2008, the London Evening Standard stated that it was championing the capital's independent shops. With the world increasingly dominated by vast supermarkets and chain stores, London had lost over 7,000 individual or family-owned shops between 2002 and 2008 and small businesses were struggling to survive.

A. Gold, which is described as "the village shop in the heart of London", has a lengthy feature in 'The Good Old Days' section of Jane Payton's book, Fabulous Food Shops (2006). The shop was among The Independent's "50 Best Food Shops" with Lulu Grimes, food director of olive magazine and Good Food magazine recommending its sausages, cheeses, sweets and Somerset brandy.

Safia Shah (now Safia Thomas) and her husband Ian Thomas left the world of television journalism in April 2000 to found and run the traditional delicatessen and grocer A. Gold selling traditional British fare, in Brushfield Street, opposite Spitalfields Market, not far from Brick Lane, famous for its curries, in London E1. Selling the likes of Banbury cakes, Campbell's Perfect Tea and elderflower wine, it was their desire to prove that British food was something we should be proud of. The business has received local, specialist and national press coverage.

Safia Nafisa Shah (Persian: سفیا شاه ‎, Gujarati: સફિયા શાહ ; born 16 November 1966), now Safia Thomas, is a British writer, editor, television news producer and member of the Afghan-Parsi Shah family.

Built in 1780, the four-storey Grade II-listed house has been home in the past to diamond-cutters, furriers, boot makers, drapers and Amelia Gold, a Hungarian who ran a French millinery (hat making) business. Her 1880's shop sign is still emblazoned across the frontage and Safia and Ian Thomas have kept the name and painstakingly restored the historic building. As a result, A. Gold is handsome and old-fashioned looking, while keeping the modern efficiencies of a deli.