London Cambridge Heath 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”.

A superb location – on the Regent’s Canal and complete with heated terrace – helps justify the continued inclusion of this Hackney Italian. Feedback is too thin and nuanced for a full rating this year – according to one fan it’s “still good all round, but the ratio of hype to expectations is high”.

“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”.

A “spectacular breakfast” – “the options are hard to choose from, but none are a poor choice” – is the top culinary feature at these Kiwi haunts, whose zeitgeisty vibe and in-house roasting (omg the smell in Shoreditch!) makes them a magnet for a “top notch coffee” at any time of day.

“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’.

“I’m pleased they kept the hanging lights of the former Corner Room” – the previous occupant of this restaurant space within the monumental, erstwhile Bethnal Green Town Hall (nowadays a hotel). Chef Rafael Cagali runs the much-fêted Da Terra next door, and this October 2022 newcomer provides “a simplified version of the Michelin two-star cuisine” at its neighbour. Reports included plus points: “the quality combinations are full of flavour” and service is “decent”, while on the debit side, ambience has sometimes proved elusive and sentiments seem a tad muted: there are no full-on raves at how marvellous and incredible it all is. Top Menu Tip – dulce de leite doughnuts.

“Love the original Koya, sitting at the long counter with a bowl of udon – even if you do have to queue”, say fans of this Soho noodle bar. Top Tip – the “definitive zen breakfast” is well liked, too, both here and also at the Bloomberg Arcade and Hackney spin-offs.