‘Can I ever forgive Fisher?’ Have you ever been swimming with eels? A nightmare for some, a strange fascination for my friend and me. We spent last night sampling treats and tipples in the “Buckingham Palace of pie shops”. The year is 1862: the Cooke family built a temple to pies and eels just down from the newly built railway ...
‘Claustrophobic tables, admirable agility and warmth’ A forgotten London is glimpsed as you dip away from Liverpool Street and into the warren of snaking streets. Rain and a light fog add to the medievalism, although our destination is far from archaic. Or perhaps it is, in this fast-moving world of London restaurants? In 2014, Harneet Baweja and his wife Devina ...
‘Fantastic weaving of culture, fun and fandom’ You think you know Mexican food? And Dalston’s culinary attractions? Wrong on both counts, I’m afraid! I have a little gem you’ve most likely missed, but without which your life would be poorer. Let me explain. All Good (and their sister venue, Hackney Downs’ All Good Beer) is a bottle shop/bar just around ...
‘One for the die-hard pie fans’ What makes these boys ‘bad’? I wonder. Grand larceny? Familial neglect? Harbouring weapons of mass destruction? Whatever it is, these four friends created a society in antithesis of standard university life in Southampton, enthused by a local bar offering free pizza with every pint. Discounted student meals, international tours, pizza parties, pop-ups and local ...
‘Well-realised wine, disappointing food’ In every duo there is light and shade, yin and yang, a Blake Lively and a Ryan Reynolds. Oddly, in my relationship I am the more positive one, considering my job. This will all become clear as Adrian and I battle through a theoretically romantic evening at a three-month-old wine bar on Hackney Road. Rapidly becoming ...
‘fairly-priced drinks and passionate bar staff’ Something divine is happening on Paradise Row. Sounds like the start of a bad 1930s novel, doesn’t it? But between these five or six arches just around the corner from Bethnal Green station, there is a cohabitation of flavour and feeling being busily curated. Having reviewed Tasca at CAV earlier this year, they cover ...
‘still magic’ I will be honest, as I always am with you, dear reader, West London is sadly not my usual stomping ground. A little better-washed, better-behaved, and silkily billowing than my Soho/East London bedfellows. But when you are invited to a bastion of Indian cuisine in London, one that predates your own existence by a decade, you dust off ...
‘So romantic, so artfully curated’ Some restaurants luxuriate in a hushed soup of calm when you walk in. Like sinking into a bog of beige and tastefully muted lighting, you surrender yourself to their good taste and presumably eye-watering prices. You allow them to close around you, submerge you, sublimate you. Kokin (古今, meaning ‘past and present’) hovers on the ...
‘Big stupid grins’ Imagine this. You drip out of Dalston Junction station, London thumping in the primal roar of a heat wave. Everywhere, beer is sloshing, noses are pink, and people are actually smiling. Across the road, you spy a winking wine bar and an antique shop-cum-brunch-spot, but you turn and, on the corner, an old boozer holds itself grandly, ...
‘Stuffed after six slices’ When is a pizza joint not a pizza joint? No, this isn’t a Schrödinger’s domed oven deal. It’s more of a question on the nature of the food scene, answered audaciously by Bing Bong Pizza. You Call The Shots (YTCS) is an egalitarian bar that has been rebranded and open since January. It is crouching across ...