London Dalston Restaurant Guide

Italian and Japanese cuisines are combined on multi-course ‘kaiseki’ (10-course) and ‘omakase’ (4-course) menus to intriguing effect at this ambitious haunt in Dalston. Its highly rated again by reporters this year, despite a couple of experiences where service went awry (“we received the same dish twice, which we did not refuse as it was enjoyable!”)

2021 Review: A short stroll from Hackney Downs station, this year-old sibling to Ducksoup operates as a ‘fermenting kitchen and eatery’ (and you can buy the results by the gram or bottled as part of their The Picklery range). It also operates as a kitchen from breakfast on, serving a short menu, which varies throughout the day (you might have squid risotto, or steak in the evening); and it’s later in the day that its “great list of natural wines” comes to the fore. “It feels very relaxed, serves lots of pickled stuff and the food’s all good: it’s a bit like going around to a friend’s house, who’s a very good cook and has a lot of very nice wine”.

2021 Review: ‘Pickled’ author Freddie Janssen launched a Kickstarter campaign for this new, August 2019 venture in hip Dalston – an all-day café sitting alongside a co-working space and urban farm, and delivering a funky-sounding menu which reads like a ‘pick ’n’ mix’ of global inspiration.

“The burgers and crab ’n’ chip sarnies are great” at chef Tom Oldroyd’s “brilliant local” with “charming staff” where Dalston meets Haggerston – “but be warned, you’ll get messy!”. (“I hope its sibling Oldroyd [in Islington, which closed under 2020 pandemic restrictions] returns as that was a perennial favourite, but until it does I’m happy to support the pub version!”)

Investment a few years ago turbo-charged this ‘100% plant-based’ chain, whose stalwart original Soho branch (est 1988) suddenly spawned a handful of “airy” and “jolly” (somewhat “crammed”) modern spin-offs across town. To this number, a new, two-floor Covent Garden branch opened its doors in February 2022 with 120 covers. The expansion has gone well and its “earnest” and “flavourful” cooking is not just favoured by veggies: “I was taken not entirely voluntarily as a dedicated meat-eater but have changed my tune after dining here!”

This Dalston two-year-old from MasterChef: The Professionals 2019 semi-finalist Arbinder Dugal is a “very solid representative of the by-now-not-quite-so-new wave of modern Indian restaurants – probably the best in this part of town”. Named after the owners’ home village in the Punjab, it serves a short menu of tasty north Indian dishes.

Luke Findlay launched his first 15-cover restaurant on Hackney Road in March 2020, only to close just a few days later due to the first lockdown. This Dalston 20-seater with open kitchen is the hard-fought-for sequel and opened in September 2021. Feedback in our annual diners’ poll remains surprisingly limited given the rave-review delivered on opening by The Evening Standard’s Jimi Famurewa: “a verve, simplicity and slurpable magic that feels, thrillingly, like the future”.

One of Hackney’s better-known culinary destinations, this unassuming little spot wins high marks from everyone who reports on it for our annual diners’ survey, on the basis of its “lovely tasting menu”. On the downside, “the space is small so feels crammed” and – given all the excitement that’s been whipped up over the years – the odd reporters find it “very good, but a mite underwhelming compared to the rave reviews”.

“What a brilliant bakery!” – “the bread (especially the potato sourdough) is to die for”; “the pastries are also incredible” (“amazing sticky buns”), and “they serve a very decent filter coffee”. “The sandwiches are massive and always filled with interesting and delicious things”. Given that it’s a social enterprise, providing job training and mentorship to at-risk young people, “this small chain (branches in Dalston and Haringey) deserves all the praise it gets”.

This industrial-style space in Dalston, with an 11-metre Carrara marble bar, serves a “great range of well-prepared and presented” modern British dishes – notably char-grilled steaks. The business celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, and moved to its current site in 2016 – a “cavernous place” that made it an ideal location for the Bafta-nominated film Boiling Point, shot in one take on the day before the first national lockdown in March 2020.

“So good – I’m still daydreaming about it”, say fans of “the most delicious fried chicken burgers” served up alongside sour cocktails and local beers at this former pop-up with branches in Haggerston and Covent Garden, and an evening-only take-away outlet in Whitechapel (Fri/Sat/Sun). Top Menu Tip – “best is the K-Pop burger with spicy Korean-style coleslaw. Yom!”

“Not prioritising form over substance” – Adolfo de Cecco’s well-reputed three-year-old is “fairly un-smart for a foodie hotspot” but “cosy and romantic”, especially in the “covered back garden, which is gorgeous as the sun sets (a very ‘London’ setting)”. “Outstanding food is brilliantly and passionately served” from an “eclectic tasting menu” (“and they’ve lightened up since Grace Dent accused them of being too serious a couple of years ago!”)

“Intriguing twists on the kebab theme” (plus “good beer brewed on site” at the Kraft Dalston branch) continue to win consistently good ratings for this expanding chain, which in September 2022 adds a 20-seater in Brixton to its roster of locations. See also Kebab Queen.

“Great value and unusual tasting menus, nice wines & lovely service” win all-round applause for this yearling in a Hackney Downs warehouse from Anthony Lyon (of Lyon’s in Crouch End). Head chef Giuseppe Pepe (ex-Pidgin and Marksman) is responsible for the seasonal, minimal-waste menu, and his “food is beautifully presented and served”.

“Mangal 2 has reinvented itself during the pandemic” with Ferhat and Sertaç Dirik (the sons of the founder), “transforming it from its previous incarnation as just another of one of the (good!) pile-’em-high Turkish restaurants on the Dalston/Stoke Newington strip into a totally new venue: still Turkish, but more small plates now than giant platters”. All reports agree it’s a successful switch, “standing on a solid par with the other good small-plates-and-wine joints around Hackney, while still doing something quite different”. “The noisy room is a little Spartan, but the exciting and interesting food transports you” – “the Turkish influence is not that obvious” but the menu delivers “good ingredients very well cooked” (although “the wine list is a bit too natural, with no other conventional options)”.

2021 Review: “Try and snag a corner banquette for great E8 people-watching” if you visit this quirky venue – the dining room of a Dalston (technically speaking Shacklewell) events venue where ex-St John chef Chris Gillard delivers some excellent, gutsy dishes. On nights when the venue has a noisy gig though, it can fall down as a foodie experience: “they need to decide if they’re a bar and disco, or a restaurant, because diners don’t want both at once: the waiters were sidetracked mixing cocktails and the DJ an irritant”.

2021 Review: This “buzzy”, well-known Italian (in the Arthaus building near London Fields) continues to inspire relatively limited feedback. Pizza is the most popular option foodwise, and reports say it “ticks all the boxes” for a good time. Its sibling Lardo Bebe is no more.

Vegetables are centre-stage at Andrew Clarke and Daniel Watkins’s vibey Dalston BBQ, which – with its mostly outdoor set-up in a former car park, live-fire cooking, impressively bearded chef, and extensive microbrewery beer selection (40FT Brewery’s Steve Ryan is a partner) – reads like a checklist of East London clichés. It opened in April 2022 too late to generate feedback in our annual diners’ poll, but all the newspaper press critics are impressed, with The Evening Standard’s Jimi Famurewa declaring: “It has the spirit, soul and craft of a serious restaurant, coupled with a vibrant, veg-heavy menu that feels like pyromaniacal Ottolenghi.”