London Clerkenwell Restaurant Guide

2021 Review: “Lush surroundings” set a stylish tone at this “trendy”, six-year-old venue on a “hard-to-find” Farringdon corner, not far from Exmouth Market. It’s a ‘multi-faceted’ venue – a jumble of bar, café, restaurant, club, and private dining space – from a design team whose portfolio includes Pizza East and Riding House Café. “Fab cocktails” are maybe its most reliable attraction, although the food is consistently well-rated too.

“A firm favourite for years” – Sam & Sam Clark’s Exmouth Market stalwart helped put the area on London’s foodie map and maintains a huge fan club with its “vibrant” and “deliciously spiced” Spanish and Moroccan influenced dishes, “alongside an excellent list of Spanish wines and sherries!” That there’s “nothing poncy about the place” is much of its enduring appeal, although “what with all those hard surfaces, it’s always a bit noisy” (sometimes deafeningly so). There is a small minority who feel the experience here is “not quite what it was” in days gone by. Even they can feel it’s “still worth patronising”, though, and most reporters would go much further – “Every time I go, I vow to go more often!”

“Really enjoyable” rustic Italian in Exmouth Market, which serves authentic Neapolitan cuisine, including pizza served ‘al metro’ and panuozzi – a variation from Gragnano, further down the coast next to Pompeii.

“Keep the tapas coming” – “top Spanish food”, with North African inflections – say fans of this little bar in Exmouth Market, which “still holds its own against its larger siblings” – the original Moro a few doors away, and the Hackney Morito. Some punters rate it even higher: “why go to Moro when Morito is just as good and cheaper?”. “The new extension at the back makes it easier to get a table”, and “they take young kids in their stride”.

“Fabulous starters and dips with full-on heat and unmissable shawarma (both meat and vegetarian)” is the run-down on Josh Katz’s Tel Aviv-meets-North Africa grill in Exmouth Market. Here and at his original venue from 2015, a Haggerston railway arch, Katz and his team conjure up a “reliably great range of quality melanges” – he’s not fussy about where he’ll find ideas and ingredients (the Balkans, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Yemen are all mentioned on his menus). It’s all very more-ish – “so good I went twice in one week!”.

2019 Review: “Welcoming service” in particular has helped make this prehistoric taverna a popular fixture off Exmouth Market for more than 50 years, and old-timers say “nothing has changed” over the years (“although one brother retired”, apparently). But if “it’s a wonder this place survives, look at the price of the set lunch” – £7 for three courses! (which fans insist is “always reliable and great value”).

“Quality pizzas served by nice people in a bustling, energetic atmosphere. What’s not to like?” It’s a formula that’s winning massive, post-pandemic expansion for the Elliot brothers’ chain, which is adding eight London sites this year. Perhaps inevitably with such fast growth, it no longer enjoys the stellar ratings of yesteryear, but to an impressive degree also evades criticism: “always decent…”, “I can’t speak for the authenticity, but they’re tasty as hell”. Top Tip: “their pizza home delivery kit is great fun”.

“Exceptionally fine beef” from the Italian Fassone breed in the valleys north of Genoa is theatrically presented – as if in a butcher’s shop – at Roberto Costa’s growing group of steakhouses, where the “superb cuts are butchered in front of you”. “I finally went to try out what looked like magnificent beef, from the haunches in the window. I wasn’t disappointed – it delivered magnificently.” The South Ken branch in Old Brompton Road remains the most popular. There are others in Fitzrovia, Exmouth Market, Union Street and Battersea. (The latest to open in summer 2021, in the West End’s Theatreland, is called Il Teatro del Carne – see also).

“OK I guess, but could be so much better” is an increasingly common view on this once-groundbreaking chain, where the feeling that “it seems to have gone off a bit” is most prevalent at the well-known Granary Square branch, which risks becoming “a cheerless, so-so, fast-turnaround experience”. At its best, though – mostly to be found at the EC1 original, with its “great outside seating area and very relaxed atmosphere” – the group remains popular for its “innovative and delicious breakfasts”: “great sharing plates” and “something for everyone” (which includes “a good set of vegan and vegetarian alternatives”).

“The service is always excellent – really warm and welcoming”, at this “nostalgic” and loveable Victorian relic in Clerkenwell: a ‘Progressive Working Class’ institution, established in 1869 and lovingly restored from the 1990s onwards by a succession of owners, of which the latest are Will Lander and Daniel Morgenthau. In line with the subtle updating of its ancient and boothed interior, the “classic” cuisine has been “modernised and amped-up a notch” and it offers an attractive combination of “tradition and sheer flavour”. Top Tip – “mince on dripping toast cannot be beaten!”

2019 Review: Good ratings all round for this year-old modern gastropub on a corner by Clerkenwell Green, under the same ownership as The Culpeper, nearby. Top Tip: “the £15 two-course lunch menu is a steal”.

2021 Review: “Our local – we’re so lucky!” Near the foodie mecca of Exmouth Market, this “busy” Clerkenwell corner-boozer receives a consistent thumbs-up in reports: “the standard of the food is high”.

“It may be the original gastropub but there’s no resting on its laurels” – 30 years since founding chef David Eyre chalked up a blackboard menu and launched a revolution, this Farringdon institution still serves up “tasty rustic food and great beer – what more could you want?”. The Mediterranean-leaning menu “changes daily”, and the “quality of produce is only heightened by how it is cooked”. It’s also “very reasonably priced, with a fun and lively atmosphere – all a gastropub should be”.

The “great breakfast” means “long queues” at Aussie celeb chef Bill Granger’s “Notting Hill hot spot” – “the best brunch place in town”, say fans – and its spinoffs in Chelsea, Clerkenwell and King’s Cross. The “Asian-Pacific-Antipodean” fare served later in the day is generally considered “competent rather than exceptional” – “it’s never quite as good as the menu suggests”.

2021 Review: This “excellent local” bistro in Primrose Hill – “there should be one on every high street” – has a “good buzz” and does “a nice line in deconstructed versions of French classics”. The original La Petite Ferme near Exmouth Market is a “lovely little” venue “offering brilliant value”.

Name-checked in Oliver Twist by Dickens – and until the 1920s one of the largest courthouses in the UK – this Grade-II listed Clerkenwell pile now incorporates an events space and a restaurant on the fourth floor; a 60-seater with a 20-seat terrace and rooftop pool. Planned since 2019 and open from September 2021, both the lofty, distressed Victorian interior and the Med-inspired food from chef Florence Knight (ex-head chef of Polpetto, et al) have delighted early press reviewers.

2019 Review: Chef Radoslaw Nitkowski combines high-welfare, fully halal, British ingredients with non-alcoholic drinks (mocktails, handmade cordials and rare tea) at this innovative, inclusive small restaurant, near Sadlers Wells. It doesn’t inspire a huge volume of feedback, but such as exists is very positive.

“Lovely”, converted 1790 pub in a “quiet street in Farringdon” – with an “unexpectedly beautiful dining room upstairs” and a “garden out the back” – that makes the perfect setting for its menu of “classic” dishes. But marks have dropped sharply amid grumbles of “inconsistency” following the departure of highly rated Henry Harris, the ex-Racine chef who launched The Coach as chef-director of Harcourt Inns.

2021 Review: Promising initial feedback on this tiny, wine, cheese, charcuterie and tapas yearling in Clerkenwell, whose backers include wine buyer Anthonin Charlier (formerly at Cellar and Club Gascon). French and Spanish flavours are to the fore – “a really happy discovery: both food and wine are great, but the service makes the place”.