The historic Islington pie and mash shop M. Manze in Chapel Market is to reopen as a low-intervention wine bar serving British small plates by Alex Pashby of street-food trader The Beefsteaks.

The pie, mash and jellied eels shop closed down in 2019 after 108 years in the face of steep increases in rent and business rates, and its original interior was wrecked by squatters while it lay empty.

Alex, whose lease on a railway arch in Bermondsey was coming to an end, took over the site and before lockdown and has restored the old wooden booths.

His long-term aim is to run the site as a traditional steakhouse, as funds and improvements permit. But first, he is opening it this spring as a “kitchenless pop-up”, serving dishes such as steak tartare, smoked eel flatbread, crab toast, cured and torched mackerel and oysters.