Cambridge Heath, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

Rafael Cagali provides “precise, innovative and fully-flavoured” Brazilian-influenced cuisine that’s “some of the best food in London” at his acclaimed Bethnal Green venture – a site in the area’s former town hall which has housed a number of the capital’s most notable restaurants (The Typing Room, Viajante) over the last fifteen years. “The lovely setting is very good as it is intimate but still allows you to see the kitchen and how they prepare your food”.

“Wow! Terrifically innovative, technical cooking and a lovely supper club concept of common tables, complete with a welcome and farewell from the chef” inspires ongoing acclaim for Gabriel Waterhouse’s excellent Bethnal Green venture (which relocated a couple of years ago to an airy new space). It’s £155 for his 10-course menu with drinks pairings (and on Wednesday nights and Saturday lunchtimes a shorter selection is served for £100): “for this standard of cuisine, it’s a great price when so much London serious ‘fine’ dining is nowadays just unaffordable”.

“Cool places rarely fit the hype… but this one does!” Max Rocha’s “low key and informal” Hackney two-year-old is going from strength to strength. “A light airy space by the canal, it’s great for a relaxed meal”, with service that – “though achingly hip – is very good”. The “slightly unusual” food is all about small portions of intense flavours and “super-fresh seasonal ingredients”, and results are “excellent”. “Bonne chance getting a table!” Top Menu Tip – “the Guinness bread is very tasty”.

This “cool hangar of a restaurant in Hackney” (part of the design-conscious Barworks group) sits in a repurposed and eclectically decorated 1960s office block and also incorporates a coffee shop, deli, barber and tattoo parlour. “Recommended for large groups – the food is very good for the price” and includes a range of global favourites plus sourdough pizza, to be eaten in the spacious ‘Open Kitchen’ or the cosier ‘Dining Room’.