Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in London Whitechapel
Hardens guides have spent 31 years compiling reviews of the best Whitechapel restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 55 restaurants in Whitechapel and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Whitechapel restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Whitechapel Restaurants
1. Smokoloko
BBQ restaurant in Tower Hamlets
Old Spitalfields Market, Bethnal Green Road - E1
“Consistently great meat at a very reasonable price, given the quality of product” again wins the highest marks for Cleo Vizioli’s street market hit, known for its rolls loaded with smoked cuts. Just look out for the old steam locomotive, and you can watch your meal roasting away in the boiler!
2. Boisdale of Bishopsgate
Scottish restaurant in City
Swedeland Court, 202 Bishopsgate - EC2
This Caledonian-themed branch of the Belgravia-based chain comprises a ground-floor wine bar and basement restaurant, with echoes of the mothership in its meaty menu, quality wine list and business-friendly set-up. It is still ‘temporarily closed’ as we go to press in September 2021, but we’ve listed it on the basis that it is likely to re-open as the City gets its mojo back.
3. Cinnamon Kitchen
Indian restaurant in City
9 Devonshire Sq - EC2
Vivek Singh’s “interesting and innovative” Indian duo still inspire their numerous fans with “delicious” Indian dishes; and the EC2 branch also has the benefit of a “lovely ‘outside’ space” (in fact within a large atrium) that’s “unexpected” given its Square Mile location. Its three-year-old sibling is within the new Battersea Power Station complex. Even some fans, though, have found both locations “less interesting that they were” of late, with incidents of “atrocious” service a particular drag on the general mood. Hopefully, this is a temporary post-pandemic blip – the historic performance here has been consistently good.
4. The Duck Truck
Burgers, etc restaurant in Spitalfields
Lamb Street - E1
“A little truck in the centre of the city serving nothing but duck and chips”: parked up permanently at Spitalfields Market, it’s “the Nando’s of duck!” – “delicious and very affordable”, providing “generous portions of very good duck, plus excellent duck-fat-fried fries and slaw”. “If I worked locally, I wouldn’t be able to fit into my suit after coming here every day!”.
5. Mr White's English Chophouse
British, Modern restaurant in Whitechapel
103 - 107 New Road - E1
Mr. White’s English Chophouse By Marco Pierre WhiteMarco Pierre White was the first and youngest British chef to achieve three-Michelin stars. His good looks and devilish behaviour led to the media dubbing him ‘the original rock-star ch...
6. The Stable
Pizza restaurant in Whitechapel
16-18 Whitechapel Road - E1
2018 Review: Expanding, 17-strong national chain, with recent openings in Whitechapel and in the new riverside development right by Kew Bridge. Fans like the “beautifully crafted thin bases and wide variety of craft ciders and beers”, but there’s some concern “quality is dropping now the roll-out to the capital has begun”.
7. Townsend @ Whitechapel Gallery
British, Modern restaurant in Whitechapel
77-82 Whitechapel High St - E1
“Lovely food and fantastic staff” feature in many reports on this – the latest in a series of impressive incumbents at Grade-II listed Whitechapel Gallery, which has (since early 2020), seen Nick Gilkinson (ex-Anglo and Lambeth’s Garden Museum café) and Joe Fox (ex-head chef at Petersham Nurseries) create ‘a modern British dining room’ whose thoughtfully conceived dishes have also won it solid plaudits in the press. It’s a smallish but sympathetic space, whose name references the gallery’s architect, Charles Harrison Townsend.
8. The Buxton
British, Modern restaurant in Tower Hamlets
42 Osborn Street - E1
2021 Review: From the team behind the nearby Culpeper, this new (June 2019) gastroboozer occupies a cleverly rebuilt seven-storey site near the foot of Brick Lane, whose redevelopment has allowed the addition of 15 bedrooms. It opened too late for survey feedback: The Standard’s David Sexton found the ground floor bar a little “cramped” and “not for lingering”, but a good value, if “lonely pioneer of bourgeois taste” in this grungy ’hood.
9. Emilia’s Crafted Pasta
Italian restaurant in Tower Hamlets
77 Alie Street - E1
2021 Review: This three-year-old in the picturesque surroundings of St Katharine Docks is “still serving great, home-made pasta”. It’s had a spin-off nearby in Aldgate since February 2019: “a welcome addition to the original (where you can’t always get a table), with the same fab food”.
10. The Culpeper
British, Modern restaurant in Aldgate
40 Commercial St - E1
A “really beautiful spot, with a great buzz” – this handsome old boozer on a Spitalfields corner has been cleverly refurbished as a multi-storey venue with a spectacular rooftop garden, chic bedrooms, impressive first-floor dining room and “good gastropub food”.
11. Chez Elles
French restaurant in
45 Brick Ln - E1
“Like a rip in the fabric of space-time, transplanting a perfect Paris bistro to Brick Lane” – just the job for a quick French onion soup or plate of snails.
12. Treves & Hyde
British, Modern restaurant in City
15-17 Leman St - E1
2019 Review: At the foot of a new aparthotel near Aldgate East tube, this year-old venture comprises a coffee shop and terrace downstairs, and a restaurant and bar upstairs, which – under seasoned chef George Tannock – tries harder than you might expect in this location: “a welcome, local, go-to business lunch place, with an excellent and varied menu and staff who are efficient but welcoming”.
13. Pilpel
Middle Eastern restaurant in Tower Hamlets
60 Alie St - E1
2019 Review: “Pittas of pleasure” – “Mediterranean/Israeli street food of the best type (vegetarian, fresh and bursting with taste)” – keep office workers healthy and happy at these City-based “pitstops”. “No wonder there’s always a queue at lunchtime.”
14. Som Saa
Thai restaurant in Shoreditch
43a Commercial St - E1
“Food just like you get in Thailand” – “the quality and the range of flavours are superb” – can be found at this “amazing and very cool” five-year-old in a former factory near Spitalfields Market. “Zingy and authentic”, “each dish looks and tastes like it’s comprised of ingredients you’d be hard-pressed to source yourself”. “Vegan options are plentiful”, and “one price for ‘eat as much rice as you want’ feels generous”. There’s also a serious list of drinks that can cope with such highly flavoured cooking – including a “great Riesling menu”.
15. Amber
Middle Eastern restaurant in Whitechapel
21 Piazza Walk - E1
2019 Review: This bright, attractively decorated, new Middle Eastern café opened in Whitechapel in early 2018. No survey feedback yet, but its modern take on Moorish cuisine looks promising.
16. Xi'an Biang Biang
Chinese restaurant in Tower Hamlets
62 Wentworth Street - E1
2021 Review: “Oodles of noodles… and fun, too”: this “bustling, happy-making eatery” – year-old sibling to Highbury’s Xi’an Impression – occupies a canteen-style space in Spitalfields and “specialises in spicy, hand-pulled noodles”; “yum!”.
17. Andina Spitalfields
Peruvian restaurant in Spitalfields
60-62 Commercial Street - E1
2021 Review: “Quite stunning food at a consistently high level”, led by “fresher-than-fresh ceviche” and other “flavoursome dishes”, earns improving ratings for Martin Morales’s small Peruvian group, inspired by the cooking of the Andes. “Fabulous to visit” – “the room is permanently sunny – or is that just the pisco sours?”. The Notting Hill venue includes a bakery.
18. Tayyabs
Pakistani restaurant in Whitechapel
83 Fieldgate St - E1
“An institution and rightly so.” “You don’t come to this 500-seat BYO in the East End for the dining experience: you come for the amazing Punjabi food.” “Still up there with the best” – the lamb chops in particular “are to die for”. “Terrible service but great buzz and great food.” “Such a brilliant place to take out-of-towners. Not fussy: fully authentic.”
19. The Halal Restaurant
Indian restaurant in Aldgate
2 St Mark Street - E1
East London’s oldest Indian (established 1939 in Whitechapel) briefly found fame in late August 2020, when it was reviewed by Marina O’Loughlin for The Sunday Times. Run by four generations of the same family – and with somewhat antediluvian decor – it’s not the place to uncover the latest in food fads; or as Marina eloquently put it: “it tastes like the past, deliciously”. Reports please!
20. Bubala
Middle Eastern restaurant in Tower Hamlets
65 Commercial Street - E1
“Tel Aviv café food of gourmet quality and with strong, delicious flavours” is to be had at this Middle Eastern three-year-old, near Spitalfields. Staff are “so welcoming” and it is “a find” in particular for non meat-eaters: “one of the tastiest and best-priced vegan feasting menus I’ve ever had!”.
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