Shoreditch, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

2023 Review: “Superb food with a real eye for detail and quality” – Ruth Hansom’s “outstanding modern cuisine” is really “going places” at this well-established gastroboozer, just off Great Eastern Street. The pleasant-enough dining area is quirkly located on the mezzanine, up a spiral staircase from the main bar: choose from either a five-course or eight-course tasting menu.

On a quirky Shoreditch corner-site, this “relaxed” haunt offers affordable and interesting small plates, “good wine” and just the kind of “buzzy” ambience you’d hope for in these hipster environs. But for slaves to ‘Le Guide Rouge’ and their grading system there’s a problem. “It’s a really good restaurant. It’s just not a Michelin star place – its star is a distraction”. (“If this was a Michelin ‘bib gourmand’ it would be spot-on, and it absolutely deserves that sort of grade. But the star creates an expectation of something more special than this place delivers. That’s the only criticism. It is a cracking spot, but someone at the tyre place got a bit carried away”.)

The UK’s leading position on World’s 50 best has helped underpin the longevity of this mould-breaking icon, which opened 10 years ago to phenomenal acclaim in the incongruous hipster surroundings of Shoreditch Town Hall. Fans “love the vibe of the room”; and say Isaac McHale’s “awesome and imaginative” cuisine “just gets better and better”. Even they, though, can concede that with the tasting menu now costing £195 per person it is “getting a little expensive now”. And then there is a minority for whom it’s not only “overpriced” but “vastly overrated and living off the PR” (“I adore fine dining and was fully prepared to spend on a fantastic meal. But the food, while technically fine, felt over-thought and overly fussy, with scant imagination or soul”).

2022 Review: We have Tracey Emin and Madness front-man Suggs to thank, along with the rest of the OPEN campaign, for saving this iconic (for once the word is merited) Shoreditch landmark north of Liverpool Street, which – after its original launch in 2000 – became a seminal venue for emerging hipster East London. It closed in 2014 when it was about to be flattened for a skyscraper, but this 5,000 sq ft former rail power station (built in 1893) reopened in April 2021, initially with its terrace in operation. This was followed in May and June by its ground-floor ‘Engine Hall’ bar and restaurant and first-floor ‘Timber Loft’. Survey feedback was too limited for a rating, but all-round extremely positive.

“Simple things are done very, very well on a smoking fire and every dish is a wow!” at Tomos Parry’s Shoreditch superstar, which – now five years old – has proved “a superb addition to the London dining scene” .“It’s casual in style, but the truly original cooking” and “enthusiastic and informed staff” generate “a real buzz about the place” and create a “cosy” atmosphere in what might otherwise might seem a “somewhat lacklustre” and tightly packed space (on the first floor, above Smoking Goat downstairs). As well as the signature turbot for which the restaurant is named, many dishes here are praised in reports (“spider crab toast to die for…”; “clever duck rice, like paella…”; “beautifully flavoursome and light Basque cheesecake”).

“Never wavering in its excellence” – James Lowe’s acclaimed canteen sits at the foot of Shoreditch’s ‘Tea Building’ and his seasonal modern British cooking is nowadays something of a benchmark (having achieved a listing for numerous years on the World’s 50 Best). At lunch, small plates can be ordered tapas-style, whereas in the evenings there’s just a single tasting option. “Individual dishes look simple: actually this belies a great deal of underlying complexity, and fantastic tastes”. Service is informed and passionate too: “you do not think they are temps!” The post-industrial space it inhabits is “hard-surfaced, buzzy, and hence can be very noisy” (and there were a few more reservations this year that the overall effect can end up “slightly cold and soulless”).

2021 Review: This pair of “casual”, well-located all-day brasseries serve an “eclectic menu” from breakfast on, but it’s the “friendly ambience that’s a real winner”. The Sloane Square branch is “very Chelsea” – “great for lunch” and “wonderfully convenient pre- and post-show for Cadogan Hall or Royal Court”.

The “excellent meat-driven menu” at this “busy bar opposite the Barbican” is led by British game in season, backed up by prime cuts of beef and such treats as Herefordshire snails. “It’s not simple pub grub, and you do pay for it, but it’s worth it”, say fans. It’s also “particularly useful pre- or post-events in the nearby arts centre”.

Melanie Arnold and Margot Henderson’s (wife of St John’s Fergus) not-so-secret venue near Spitalfields was converted in 2006 from the bike sheds of a former school. Aided by its hipster credentials, it has long been a regular inclusion on top-10 round-ups by food journalists. Feedback this year, however, invariably came with a catch: “good, but not quite as good as expected…”, “food went downhill after the scrummy starters…”, “overhyped and too cool for school…”.

A glass-roofed atrium dining room that’s part of a new boutique hotel (created from six Georgian townhouses) on the City/Shoreditch fringes, that opened last year. No survey feedback as yet, but it looks well styled and potentially a useful option in the area either for a cocktail, or for a meal with a flexible all-day menu served: first a breakfast selection; later in the day of small and sharing dishes. (There’s also a restaurant here serving South East Asian food called Quercus).