London Cambridge Heath Restaurant Guide

2022 Review: “No fuss, not a lot of choice but solid food and good-value wine list” – that’s the deal at this 30-cover, bistro-esque venue, in a light-filled room on the first floor of Bethnal Green’s Town Hall Hotel.

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”.

2021 Review: “This crisp, clean, chic warehouse” with “big industrial windows” in Cambridge Heath is, say fans, the “perfect, perfect, perfect spot for a lovely weekend brunch” or a “lush lunch with oysters and Champagne”. A hipster haven for 15 years, it still rates well for its “delicious food” and an atmosphere boosted by live music.

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”.

2022 Review: A late 2020 arrival in Hackney – this new haunt bills itself as ‘a neighbourhood oasis in east london’. It’s a large space (200 covers), complete with bar made out of recycled materials and garden courtyard. Everything is ‘curated’ including the craft pizza. No survey feedback as yet, but the general social buzz about the place is a good one.

“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.

2022 Review: The wild and wacky French chain opened this eclectically designed 194-room hotel in late 2019, complete with clashing fabrics, retro gaming machines, füsball and karaoke rooms. The loungy restaurant offers an easy-grazing selection of dishes to suit the tastes of globe-trotting hipsters: initial feedback suggests it's better than you might expect (given all the competing attractions).

“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”.

2022 Review: In Hackney’s Broadway Market and next to the Regent’s Canal, this Japanese street food and ramen bar opened in December 2019. It’s smallish – 45 seats – mixing communal seating and some individual tables. Early reports suggest it’s an OK standby – not enough feedback for a more hearty endorsement at this stage.

2021 Review: “As close as you can get to Buenos Aires without leaving London” – this Argentinian parrilla is one of hip Broadway Market’s longest-serving foodie hotspots, and serves “amazing steaks, and a great wine list for reds”.

“A first-choice Asian restaurant” – say fans of this “friendly, buzzy” chain serving “delicious” Taiwanese filled buns that can constitute “a quick bite for lunch, or a longer meal with friends”. Launched as a street-food stand in 2012 by Erchen Chang, her husband Shing Tat and his sister Wai Ting Chung, the group is now backed by the all-conquering JKS Restaurants and opened its sixth venue in Battersea Power Station in 2023. Top Tip – “beef with black pepper sauce and rice is a must-order at King’s Cross”.

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’.

2021 Review: A 140-seater ‘craft bar and kitchen’ near some soon-to-be developed railway arches in hip Bethnal Green that opened in June 2019, too late for any survey feedback. It’s open from breakfast on – at lunch and thereafter the main menu offering is pizza.

“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.

In Hackney's Broadway Market, a Scandinavian-influenced venture from a couple (Holly Spencer & Charlie Sims) who have both worked in Copenhagen. There's a focus on natural and low-intervention wines, while the dairy cow tartare/croque monsieur combo is an early hit dish.

“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.

2023 Review: Above a new branch of Dumpling Shack in the basement, John and Yee Li’s ground-floor operation in London Fields will host this new outlet based on spicy burgers (‘The Sichuan’, ‘The Vegan’ and ‘The Hot and Mala Mapo’) in potato rolls plus ‘shake shake’ fries, as road-tested over a couple of years at Spitalfields Market.