london restaurants

kinda secretive from the outside

I understand you can get a booth in Bob Bob Ricard but I've never been in and I suspect that may fail on the expense front. But you can conspire in a booth, for sure.

Bistrotheque or A Little of What You Fancy for the 'conspiratorial' vibe.

Shit that looks like an onion article etc etc

the food in bistrotheque is pretty bad imo. plus i've seen a mouse there as has another mate.

also that quite nice bar they have promises a certain amount, then the bar staff can barely serve two people at once, let alone make anything even approaching a decent cocktail.

Moro: YES

steamed clams and artichoke hearts were divine, all the meat main courses were solid and hearty, totally recommend their yoghurt cake if you have room for dessert

Last time I ate in Moro I could barely move by the end of it.

Yes, Moro: YES. Though weirdly my main memory of the place is of amazing chickpeas.

Quo Vadis feels quite conspiratorial. Excellent food and drink, too.

Does anyone have any recommendations for where to get a good Bloody Mary in Dalston or Hackney?

Went to Morgan M on Friday, the food is amazing (they do weirdly excellent things with savory sorbets - tomato with one course, red pepper with another), but the decor is offensively bland and the place is really short on atmosphere.

went to brasserie zedel for lunch: it's marvellous just to be in it, as it's such a staggering recreation of the brasserie it wants to be. The food is very good (maybe not worldstopping, but definitely delicious) and really not pricey but it is the sheer effrontery of the place for existing that I liked the best.

and its 'american bar' looks amazing, who wants to go and drink one cocktail there very slowly with me?

did everyone hear mason and taylor is becoming brewdog shoreditch in a few weeks?

kinda pleased i guess, just for the sake of a change. good to hear they're keeping the same staff too. on the other hand i fear brewdog's brand may attrack more "rock" twats.

attract... that was freudian as hell

i guess it'll be nice for them to have a space that's bigger than the camden bar, which gets ridiculously crowded. and maybe if they've more pump handles they might deign to serve something under 5% on the regular!

Shame, I liked M&T and I'm not really a big Brewdog fan.

agree

i love their beers, but not them as a thing. m&t was good but the space isn't very nice.

anyway the cock tavern is my new regular spot, so i'm happy enough for a change at m&t.

i am hoping that the m&t people will be moving onto an interesting new place/project like they said on twitter? otherwise i will be like all the other online blowhards who have been going 'cannot believe this INDEPENDENT is being swallowed up by a CHAIN PUB, man'

it does all of a sudden give brewdog that feel. also to be fair their bars do sell lots of other beers and judging by their twitter it's at least as interesting a selection as m&t, possibly more interesting.

i think brewdog are a lot more than meets the eye, they have so many beers besides the main ones.

i like brewdog beers but haven't been to any of their pubs, all that aesthetic all in one place seems like it would be a bit much.

yeah i am a bit concerned about the clientele. there are so many craft beer pubs in east london now though that i'm no longer depending on m&t as my main place, though stll a regular.

anyone been to http://thisbrightfield.com/ ? i edited a VVVV positive review of it today.

i finally went to the euston tap last weekend. awesome company aside i did not like it. i asked for the wine list and they laughed at me :(

I understand there will be more M&T action soon, somewhere! Which is good news, I think.

the euston tap has nice beer but it is like a little hut basically, imo, not v pleasant.

wouldn't usually post about food stalls in here but there's a new scottish one doing the rounds at hackney food fair, chats rd mkt etc called deeneys and the toasted haggis sandwich (with cheese, onions etc) they made me was seriously amazing

https://twitter.com/deeneys

Haggis! Poncey twitter street food! Hackney! It's like all my stars are aligning!

If you're anywhere in or near South London I'd also rep for Babur in Brockley which does FANTASTIC modern Indian food and is well worth making the trip for and is now quite easy to get to on the ELL. I had quail last time I went there.

― Matt DC, Sunday, November 6, 2011 3:08 PM (10 months ago)

Now the best Indian in London according to Zagat. I'm tempted to go for their game festival.

duck & waffle was just as fun as i thought it would be

i am waiting till some crazy morning time to head there.

How hard is it to get in? I've been tempted for ages but fear the queues.

I am going to be going for something to eat on my lonesome in the envoirons of Hoxton Square this evening. Recommendations for something not too pricey, suitable for on-your-own-with-a-book, appropriately delicious?

Matt, do you have a link for that Babur review/rating (used to live round the corner from it - or up the hill from it, rather - and can remember it transition from good, solid but unexceptional curry house to its current fantastic incarnation - and does it still have the tiger on top?)

tim, there's a mexican pop-up in catch in shoreditch, sounds decent tho obv so many pop-ups: http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/foodanddrink/young-british-foodie-shay-ola-founder-of-the-rebel-dining-society-and-cofounder-of-death-by-burrito-8125827.html

That sounds relevant to my interests, thanks ... is Catch OK to sit in on a Wednesday if you're a middle-aged git like me?

it's probably fine midweek, i haven't been in ages cos obv it's a big bar in shoreditch and hence pretty off at weekends. i wouldn't imagine it's rammed on a wednesday.

the only other place i could think of is a bit further away, the hawksmoor spitalfields basement bar, which would be pretty relaxed to hang out in on your own i think. it's never as busy as i expect it to be, anytime i go.

Ward Fowler - I was going by this (PDF link). The tiger is still on top yes but it's only the second-best large cat on top of a building in SE London.

LOL gd to know the catford cat still thrives

Oh yeah I've been to that bar at Hawksmoor - it's excellent for sure (the short ribs they do are ridiculously good) but if I go there I'll be three cocktails down by the time I leave, due to a sever willpower deficit. I'll give Catch the once-over and of not probz nip in for a crafty Vietnamese up the road...

How hard is it to get in? I've been tempted for ages but fear the queues.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 19 September 2012 15:30 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not sure... a friend made the booking

it can't be that bad if you go at 3am or whatever, now it's 24-hour.

I really want to rock up there when I'm in the area at 2am or whatever.... but when am I ever out at 2 am? Never, that's when.

I'm not sure I'll be able to cope with negotiating whatever security there is at 3am, although I'm kind of up for giving it a try.

i'd love to do the 2am thing though it's not really a...three-course meal time of day, is it, and what one wants to do at that point tends to be quite...spontaneous

duck & waffle is easy to get in, i presume, if you book, but i don't know how far in advance you need to do that. a week wasn't enough at the end of aug

where did you go in the end, tim?

In the end I had the opportunity to have a quick bite to eat with my lovely wife, which meant the Tottenham Court Road area, and I had a tasty-but-unremarkable burrito at Benitos Hat. Thanks for your help though! I like the sound of the popup burrito place.

Afterwards I got DRUNKED as part of the M&T closing ceremonies (last day on Sunday fwiw).

half-price i read... danger will robinson, danger! reckon i might pop in alright.

where did you end up in the end on Saturday Tim? They only just "downsized" our table from 8 to 5 about 30 mins before you arrived!

We went to the Japanese place a few doors down the road, and I ate an entirely serviceable Chicken Katsu curry. It was good.

Other places I wenton what was quite an eat-y weekend:
Cay Tre Soho, which has a very different, fancier menu than its Hoxton counterpart (I had squid stuffed with confit duck, and ox cheek. It was good.
St John bar: pretty quiet for a Sunday lunchtime, I had ridiculously delicious and ridiculously fatty lamb breast (£7), J had a £5 egg mayonnaise sandwich that was beautiflly made and the size of at least two regular sandwiches. Quality and value, for real.

We did wind up at M&T last night also, though not to eat (they'd ruyn out of food so we had salt beef baagels with our beer). Danger indeed.