London Haggerston Restaurant Guide

Charlie Mellor’s (ex-Brawn and Elliot’s) cute Hackney wine bar and merchant provides a high- quality fixed-price modern European menu, accompanied by artisan wines from small producers. There’s also ‘The Cave’, for evening DJ sets, behind the off licence.

2019 Review: Hackney oenophiles make a beeline for these this ambitious pair – “I love the wine list!”. The Paradise Row venue, in a railway arch with a large terrace, features an Italian menu, while the Hackney Road wine bar serves snacks and charcuterie. In either case the food avoids criticism, but the liquid refreshment is the main event.

Good, if slightly up-and-down reports this year on Tom Harris and Jon Rotheram’s well-regarded pub near Columbia Road Market, known for its superior gastropub menu and terrific Sunday roasts.

2018 Review: “Interesting wines and lots of garlic” enliven the “reliable” hearty fodder at this duo of Georgian cafés, in Islington and Hackney, which inspire limited but positive feedback.

“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”.

“Outside tables in Columbia Road” help lend an air of rusticity to this former cowshed off Columbia Road Flower Market. The culinary focus is on the south of Italy, and with pasta made daily (including to buy retail), the thrust of our feedback: “what’s not to like?”.

Next to Columbia Road flower market, this East End outpost of the Caves du Pyrène group is “the perfect neighbourhood restaurant” – albeit one which attracts custom from far and wide for its “benchmark small plates” of Mediterranean food and “clever wine list with lots of natural/biodynamic options”. It remains “very hip” after a dozen years, “always buzzing” with “delicious dishes from Ed Wilson’s kitchen, served by knowledgeable and friendly staff” in a “lovely light-filled room”.

“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: You look out from big windows at this bright contemporary café in the environs of Hackney’s busy Broadway Market, where an ex-Salt Yard chef provides an eclectic menu of Mediterranean tapas, plus wine and cocktails. The food is well-rated and prices are not punishing.

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.

“Fishmonger by day and intimate restaurant by night” – this “unique” two-year-old in a quiet mews near Sloane Street is pioneering “innovative techniques such as ageing fish”. The result is a “very interesting tasting menu – expensive but well executed”. Created by the team behind Bonnie Gull in Fitzrovia (RIP), it was joined in summer 2021 by a bigger branch next to Berber & Q in Hackney – a base for their wholesale fish and seafood processing business, with an ‘immersive dining counter’ under chef Leo Carreira. The aim is to create ‘somewhere between art installation, restaurant, laboratory and factory!’

Two Haggerston railway arches will host this September 2021 newcomer – a wine bar, restaurant, club and shop for hipsters keen on a glass of vino. At the stoves, Aussie-born Seb Myers, who made a name for himself at the not-dissimilar P Franco.

“The food is superb” at this Vietnamese canteen with a high reputation against strong competition on Shoreditch’s Kingsland Road ‘Pho Mile’. “You don’t come here for the service, but for the great pho.”

“Casual and inexpensive, but no compromise on the standards” – this Japanese noodle chain has become a firm favourite in London’s “competitive” ramen market, with 14 branches (and counting). “I can’t speak highly enough of the quality of ramen here, absolutely packed full of flavour and at a really good price.” The name is taken from the pork broth used, and the noodles are made daily in-house and cooked, it is said, for precisely 32 seconds.

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).

2019 Review: Atmospheric Broadway Market butchers, where, by night, you perch on stools for a counter-style supper of steaks, grills and a small selection of wines. A funky set-up, but it’s decidedly not cheap, and not everyone goes a bundle on the experience.

“The smell of the coffee being ground in the basement is intoxicating!” at this large, “hipster vibe” Shoreditch coffee shop, whose origins are down-under in New Zealand. “It has the perfect vibe for brunch and coffee”, with exposed brickwork and central island coffee bar – “the hot brunch dishes are decent, but the coffee is outstanding!” In late 2019, they opened a second branch (not counting Auckland and New Plymouth) in London Fields.

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”.

2019 Review: Long hailed as one of the better options on Kingsland Road’s ‘pho mile’ – this “cheap ’n’ cheerful” Vietnamese café only inspired limited feedback this year, but all of it positive.

This family-run Vietnamese quartet has won popular acclaim for 15 years or so on Shoreditch’s ‘Pho Mile’ as well as more recently in Battersea, Fulham and Wood Green. Hardly stylish but very “good value”, they’re “often rammed” with diners attracted by the first-class pho and dishes such as goat with galangal – one of the late critic AA Gill’s all-time favourites.