Hackney's best new restaurants 2015

Hackney's dining scene just keeps growing and developing, showing only the slightest signs of slowing down. While in 2013 and 2014 the pace of change felt astonishing and exhausting, by now it feels that this is how Hackney's going to be for a while.

That quiet acceptance was disrupted briefly by the Fuck Parade protesters who sought to highlight the effects of gentrification by bottling the lamely iconic Cereal Killer Cafe on Brick Lane. It was an easy, high profile target but the reality is that most places opening in Hackney will be unaffordable for people without much spare income. Intimidating small business owners and their customers won't change that reality (only radical political action can), but I hope businesses and individuals reflect on how they impact on their less fortunate neighbours.

2015 felt like a year of maturing, with a significant number of high quality new openings from established and inventive chefs. We've seen the rise of modern, crisp, playful bistros – my favourite being Brooksby's Walk, and I'm confident that the much praised Pidgin on Wilton Way and newer Ellory in London Fields will knock my socks off when I have some spare cash/time to check them out. The Mare Street/London Fields axis seems to be where most of the fancier places are opening.


Parmesan Pannacotta at Brooksby's Walk.

As I blogged yesterday, Middle Eastern food is on the up, as are venues doing a bit more than just serving you food – I loved the clubby atmosphere at Berber & Q, the camp metal at Black Axe Mangal and the live jazz at Jackdaw in Clapton. We've also seen specialist restaurants opening all over Hackney – sushi at Uchi, ramen at Tonkotsu, Japanese yakitori skewers at Jidori, jerk meat at Rudie's in Dalston, lobster (obvs) at the Lobster Bar on Richmond Road.


Softshell crab sushi at Uchi.

I predicted last year that the neighbourhoods adjacent to Hackney would see their restaurant options broaden as more priced out young professionals moved in. That's certainly been the case, with just a bit of Hackney export about some of the openings. Clapton businesses Sodo and Clapton Craft are due to open in Walthamstow in the new year, haggis pushers Deeney's have opened a cafe in Leyton after running toastie stalls in Broadway Market and Chatsworth Road for severeal years, and Tottenham has now got Chicken Town – healthy, fancy fried chicken with a social conscious, with Giorgio Ravelli, Head Chef at Clapton/Homerton's Brooksby's Walk, as Executive Chef.

Tired, established streets like Stoke Newington Church Street and Islington's Upper Street have seen a renaissance after years of derivative, generic restaurants opening. Church Street has had the highly regarded the Good Egg open, along with Escosesa – an intriguing Scottish-Spanish seafood restaurant, and some fancy pie shops and wine bars ae on their way. Meanwhile, Islington has had high profile new openings like Oldroyd, Alsatian brasserie Bellanger and the ridiculously fun Black Axe Mangal.

Less established streets have also seen big booms. Well Street in Homerton stands out as seeing some of the most striking change – a sourdough pizzeria and cocktail bar in a former laundrette have opened, while most of the change in Clapton has been on Lower Clapton Road where Rootdown, Blondies, Jackdaw, Ten Ten, Klub Trop have opened, soon to be joined by dim sum restaurant My Neighbours the Dumplings. Notably many businesses on this stretch appear pretty quiet mid-week, suggesting there's not quite the level of demand in Clapton for so many restaurants and bars, especially when there are already many strong local favourites, like Verden and Shane's.


Lamb belly at Jackdaw.

In 2014 we saw a number of independent but derivative restaurants opportunistically open in Hackney, and in 2015 the trend has been towards the new generation of 'trendy' mid-range chains on a roll out. Honest Burger has opened in Old Street and soon Dalston, Franco Manca opened in Broadway Market and soon Stoke Newington, Foxlow from the Hawksmoor group opened in Stoke Newington before rollin' rollin' out to other yummy 'burbs like Balham and Chiswick.

I expect things to slow down a bit more in 2016. I think we're closing in on saturation point in Hackney, and only restaurants who understand and offer value to the local market will survive. Big name new openings from the Moro crew on Hackney Road and Lucky Chip on Ridley Road are likely to do well, but wacky or pretentious 'concepts' chasing a Dalstonist headline are unlikely be sustainable businesses if they don't deliver the goods.


Lamb at Moro.

We'll see more of the neighbourhood bistro format, more trumpeting of the provenance of ingredients and drinks, more pushing at the boundaries of 'traditional' cuisines. I'd expect to see Walthamstow to get a few more 'grown up' restaurants, and see a few more independent options open up in Leyton, Leytonstone, Forest Gate and Tottenham. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a few more specialist food shops open in North East London – we have some great beer and wine shops, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a fancy cheesemonger or fishmonger open up this year.

Hackney's best new restaurants 2014

I started off 2014 predicting that the Mare Street and Lower Clapton Road axis in Hackney would flourish with exciting new restaurants, becoming more of a destination for eating and drinking out. And lo it came to pass: the area saw an unprecedented amount of new openings, not just on the main axes, but in the surrounding areas of Homerton, Hackney Downs, and around Dalston Lane.

Lower Clapton Road has changed the most - and going through the list of new (food) openings in the last year, let alone all the other shops that have opened, makes me feel exhausted. New restaurants have been distinctly classy and grown up, with Verden, Little Ivy's, the Bonneville, Yard Sale and Pie Franco opening within a few months of each other and attracting praise, custom and occasionally controversy from across London, and even in national press. Meanwhile supper clubs upstairs at Palm 2 seem to do a roaring trade, and Candela has come and gone. Over on Chatsworth Road, the big news was the opening of the luxury Spar supermarket, with a fancy (and actually very good) burger bar and a luxury restaurant upstairs.



Down Mare Street way, Raw Duck's opening at a bigger premises on Richmond Road was met with widespread acclaim, while Broadway Market has seen new openings from sourdough pizza kings Franco Manca, snazzy butchers Hill and Szrok, the revamped Cat and Mutton, and fancy Thai  residency Som Saa.



Further south, Paradise Row in Bethnal Green is newly home to a handful of new restaurants and bars located under its arches, most notably Mission E2 - a wine bar and restaurant, with a giant palm tree inside and impressive selection of well-priced Californian wines.



Towards Hackney Downs, Lardo have opened up a petite pizza restaurant off Amhurst Road, Hash E8 on Dalston Lane has become my favourite spot for a porky brunch, and Hand of Glory is a gorgeous pub with great beers on tap and high quality kitchen residencies. You'd never know it was 5 mins from Kingsland High Street.



Homerton's new openings have been mostly pubs - the Adam and Eve and the Jackdaw and Star joining The Plough on Homerton High Street, while the Gun on Well Street is a lovely little saloon bar.

Dalston continues to see lots of new openings, including mid-market chains like The Diner, Premier Inn and Costa Coffee. The more interesting restaurants open off the main drag of Kingsland High Street. Steve Parle's Rotorino has brought fancy Italian cooking further down Kingsland Road near the intriguing-sounding Fan Tong, Lucky Chip have got a permanent space in a disused car park just off Dalston Lane, and the Pond has brought the tortuous concept of modern Hawaiian cuisine to a fully decked out warehouse off Gillet Square.

But with all the hype and excitement comes a new band of generic, half-arsed restaurants ready to ape an aesthetic to blend in to New Hipster Hackney. Chatsworth Road in Clapton now has three such restaurants and cafes, Lower Clapton Road a couple too - with exposed brick, industrial fittings, ramshackle furniture and slightly too loud music all there to distract you from the average quality, average price food you're getting. It's old hat for Stoke Newington and Dalston, which have housed generic 'trendy' restaurants for some time, as investors piggy back on the coattails of more interesting new businesses.

It's been the year of the backlash too. In 2013 and 2014 house prices in Hackney grew by almost 50%, rents by a similar amount. The number of restaurants and cafes opened could well represent a doubling or tripling of what was there in 2012 in some parts of the borough, as Hackney firmly becomes, and feels like, a more expensive kind of place. In one of the poorest areas in the country, basic living costs are increasing as benefits are cut and low wages stagnant - and the streets and faces are changing dramatically. Combined with suburban disdain for l'hipster, restaurants and cafes in East London quickly feel the heat of the spotlight when they respond insensitively.

I don't believe that this pace of change can continue. I see the last two years as a mega adjustment, and I expect to see a lower number of new restaurants opening in 2015, but with a few trends...

The Mare Street axis will continue to gentrify apace. The kind of snazzy restaurants opening in Dalston, Haggerston and Shoreditch will make their way to the arch spaces around London Fields station, such as the fancy-sounding Il Cudega, which will specialise in the cuisine of the Lombardia region. Further up, the fancy ramen joint Tonkotsu is set to open on Narrow Way in January. It will be the first of its kind to open on this stretch, and could pave the way for other restaurateurs drawn to the road's scruffy, slightly down-at-heal charm. New openings in the Mare Street area will be fuelled by the impending arrival of the Hackney Fashion Hub, which will seem a lot more tangible as 2015 trucks on.

Asian and fusion flavours will have a greater influence. You can't move for modern British, pizza, burgers and dude food, and there's plenty of French and Turkish cuisine to be had. Despite a long tradition of Vietnamese restaurants opening on Kingsland Road and Mare Street, we're only starting to see the influence of Asian flavours in a small number of newer openings, such as Rita's and Raw Duck. Dalston newbie Fan Tong appears to be fusing eclectic Asian flavours with British ingredients, and I'd expect to see a bit more of this in some of 2015's more interesting new openings. Bring on the kimchi!

More interesting openings outside of Hackney. Areas like Walthamstow and Leytonstone have both old and new interesting restaurants, but places like Tottenham, Leyton and Forest Gate have seen less of the new. As more people are priced out of Hackney AND Walthamstow AND Leytonstone, I'd expect a sourdough pizza restaurant or two to open in these parts of town.

More chains and more generics. As business rents increase, it will be harder for small businesses to afford to offer quality, interesting food at a price people are willing to pay. This means more low quality generic restaurants will open, skimping on ingredient quality to meet demand. Not necessarily overlappingly, mid-market chains will find their model at an advantage in the area. Nando's, Costa and The Diner are already in the area, and I wouldn't be surprised if a Pizza Express or similar opens on Stoke Newington Church Street or on the ground floor of a Dalston new build development.

Going Greek

I'd love to chart every cuisine served within 2 miles of my flat. It'd be a fun exercise - and may help focus my efforts on local eating out. A project for a rainy winter's day perhaps?

What I find most interesting is thinking how the age and cuisine of restaurants can reflect waves and patterns of immigration, as well as different food fads. Blackstock Road, not too far away, and on my old route to work, is a scruffy, ungentrifiable strip, and host to many different communities at different points over the last fifty years. There's a little patch, half way between Finsbury Park and Highbury Barn, where there is a collection of rustic, but bright Sardinian trattorias, a pre-Wahaca-and-burrito-fetish-era Mexican restaurant, and a drab and austere-looking Greek taverna. I like that the patch is completely understated, without any of the hype and crowding of Upper Street or Church Street. It's a locals' spot.

With the nights long, the wind blowing cold and warm sun a distant memory, Greek food couldn't be more appealing. Greek restaurants are too often shrouded in the clichés of plate-smashing, belly dancing and ouzo shots; sometimes you just want to have some mezze and souvlaki without all that fuss. I'd never cycled past N5's Olive Tree and seen hen or stag parties, and a bit of googling found a few glowing reviews from proud locals.

Inside, there's a sense that it's been there since the 1970s (it's not - more like late 90s) - slightly austere green, plain walls, starched table cloths, a bit of cladding by the kitchen. It's a family affair, and at least three generations seem to be involved in front of house, kitchen and management. All very nice and keen to please you. We had superb banter with the waitress who I guess was about our age and told us that we reminded her of someone very clever from a TV show we hadn't heard of, and how excited she was to get off her shift and out some make-up on.

The menu offered a fair priced a la carte with a wide range of Greek meals and grills. But there's a set menu which seems to be available most of the time (including Friday and Saturday nights) which does 3 very decent courses for £10.90. It's mostly the classics - very well made dips and gorgeous pita breads, mains of moussaka, haloumi, baked aubergines and some more basic grilled meats, and a small selection of desserts (greek yoghurt and honey, honey cake with ice cream).

We opted for the set menu, doing a bit of topping up from the a la carte. And got a bottle of pretty nice white wine too. The dips and starters were really good - top houmous and reminded me of the differences between the Greek and more Middle Eastern versions.



I ended up opting for moussaka - an old favourite and something I'm rarely motivated to cook (too many stages, too many pots) and was very pleased, nothing to fault with it's creamy cheesy top, the olive oil soaked potatoes and aubergines or the aromatic lamb mince. Portions were very generous, and we over-ordered by getting a large Greek salad to go with the mains. A doggy bag for lunch the next day.





Overall, the Olive Tree was great for a hearty taste of Greece, decent, good-value portions and warm and homely service. Sure, it's not going to win any Michelin stars for innovative cooking, but what an excellent neighbourhood spot for a no-fuss, honest Greek meal.

Brunchin' brunchin' #2

Brunch is big business in the yummy liberal enclave of Stoke Newington. So much so, that in a damning critique of the inner city middle classes's hypocrisy, the Independent journo highlighted the almond croissant and latte serving cafes of N16 as the frontline of social divisions that permeate right down to parents at the school gate.

Competition is fierce for brunch on Stoke Newington Church Street. Fierce for restaurants and cafes vying for the refined dollars of N16ers, happy to splash out on the good things in life. Fierce for would-be brunchers, with every table in every eatery hard won through hawking and stalking and opportunist pouncing. The sharp elbowed middle-classes indeed.

My old favourite is the Blue Legume, which does delicious brunch, lunch and dinner. Their brunch menu covers tansatlantic favourites such as eggs benedict, freshly pressed fruit juice combos (celery, apple and mint? YES PLEASE!) with more Mediterranean style dishes - olives, lamb sausage, haloumi all crop up in the cooked breakfast dishes. The prices are very reasonable and so the above-mentioned competition for a good table is tough. We recently even found ourselves brunching at the unfashionable hour of 10am to save us the table sourcing stress. On a bitterly cold, but sunny December morning it did the trick, but by 10.30am people were arriving in droves and by 11am the outlook was pretty bleak. So there you go: early bird, worm, etc.

I usually opt for the eggs benedict, which is always delicious, but most recently I plumped for the Mediterranean breakfast, the big 'un.



It was a delicious mixture of smoky, salty and fresh flavours; much less greasy than its English counterpart. The jam for the toast felt slightly redundant, but I guess some people like to finish on a sweet note. Ben had the fruit salad platter, which is an immense spread of exotic and more local fruit, presented beautifully and great for kidding yourself that it'll help you fighting off a cold.

The opening of Homa on Church Street midway through 2010 sent the N16 twiteratti into a gushing frenzy. A new spot, with beautiful, sleek interiors, a wine bar with a bang on winelist, excellent pizzas, bunch, cakes, locally smoked salmon. Is it too good to be true?!

We had a table late afternoon on Halloween. The surrounding streets looked like the scenes in ET, full of gleeful, screaming children dressed in immaculate scary outfits. The distractions of Halloween and our slightly odd timing made for a quiet and relaxed meal at Homa, with friendly service and tasty food.

Keen to try the N16 smoked salmon, I plumped for the Eggs Benedict. James was super keen and went for a plate full of smoked salmon with capers, cornichons, rocket and lashings of creme friache. Fancy pants. The salmon was really incredible - delicate smoky flavours, tender and very fresh tasting. In the eggs benedict it was served with fresh spinach, poached egg and hollandaise sauce, all of which tasted like they were made from really top ingredients.



Anna opted for a cooked breakfast of sorts, with scrambled eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, mozzarella and sourdough toast. Again, the ingredients were clearly super quality and well sourced, and it totally elevates brunch from being a fun social event with nice food to a proper foodie experience.



Meals at Homa are a good £2 or so more expensive than at Blue Legume and the experience is a little more slick, stylish and sedate. The ingredients at Homa are clearly a cut above the rest, but Blue Legume is still very yummy and has a lively atmosphere and more 'fun' menu in terms of smoothies, cakes, etc. Brunch is clearly a growth industry in Stoke Newington and you're truly spoiled for choice. Lucky me.

Even the pizzas are posh

You only have to flick through the piles of take away menus that come through your front door on a weekly basis to see that tastes are more and more sophisticated, even when it comes to the traditional junk food fest territory of the Friday night take away. The game has been upped and you can now even choose which Italian region you want your pizza from, some Indian take-away menus don't even feature chicken tikka masala and you can get dim sum delivered to your door. Of course, you still get menus with yellowing pictures of huge greasy pizzas topped with rubber cheese and rubber meat, but it's hard to see how those places will survive for much longer when you could have it so much better for the same price.

I've been in essay mode up until recently, spending long weekend days in the library, coming home tired and hungry with little energy to cook. This has meant lots of quiet, relaxed Saturday nights with a take away and a couple of episodes of Mad Men. Very young fogey, but a good excuse to try out some of north London's best pizzas!

Firezza is highly rated by an Italian born and raised friend and specialises in pizzas by the yard. Their bases are thick and rustic without being too doughy, but it's all about the toppings. Plentiful, plentiful top quality hams and salamis, huge basil leafs, sweet onions. Yum. The pizzas are actually huge and we weren't able to finish ours', as much as we wanted to, but they did for a very nice lunch the next day in the lirbary.



It's a small chain and there are a scattering of branches across London. Our nearest is by Highbury and Islington tube. There's a cheaper price (£8.50 a pizza) if you pick up, so I sent the boyf out on his bike to pick ours up.

Il Bacio is another small chain of Sardinian restaurants across a small stretch of north London: N16, N5 and N4, with lots of avid fans. The restaurants serve a range of Sarindian fare: fish and seafood dishes, pizzas and pastas, while Il Bacio Express on Stoke Newington Church Street focuses mainly on pizzas. The menu, being Sardinian, diverges from the pizzeria norms, with more sea food, olives, capers, fresh herbs and Sardinia specific hams.



The pizzas were delicious, especially for the topping combinations. The slight trade off for more interesting combinations compared to Firezza was that the topping didn't seem as good quality – the olives were quite plain and the meat wasn't as clearly top notch as that on the Firezza pizza.

Finally on the pizza front, not a take away, but I enjoyed the pizza at the Hideaway bar between Tufnell Park and Archway tube. It's a great little late spot, with a great selection of beers, wines and friendly bar staff who went out of their way to meet our cocktail demands (Mad Men themed!). Their pizzas are reputed to be some of the best 'outside Foreign' according to the Observer, so we were keen to try them.



I had a chorizo and almond pizza, which was a winning combination, Spanish inspired. The chorizo was really good quality, very meaty, the peppers sweet and the almonds gave it a good rounded taste. The base was thin but not too crispy, which was a nice experience if not hugely filling. Still very nice and a great place for a local low key evening if you're in the Tufnell Park/Archway/Dartmouth Park 'hood.

Dim sum ...and then some...

I do love dim sum - those novel little packages of flavours, the ceremony of sharing dishes, the antiquity of the bamboo containers, the ritual of chopsticks, tea and soy sauce, celebrating each morsel for what it is. Yum.

China Town in central London is the obvious place to have a tasty dim sum meal, and places like New World are a fun experience, with waiting staffing pushing round trolleys coming round with dim sum offerings. Like an old school Yo Sushi. But there's dim sum life outside WC2 and in the last couple of months I have had some excellent dim sum at Yum Cha in Chalk Farm and Shanghai down the road in Dalston.

I went to Yum Cha on a warm Saturday evening before heading to a gig nearby. We had the most tender spare ribs in a rich mandarin sauce, juicy deep fried squid, prawn and pork dumblings, steamed honey roast pork bun, chicken shrimp and rice wrapped and steamed in a lotus leaf. All were fresh and authentic, and very good value for money when the bill came in at £11 each including a beer.







Yum Cha is quite a big place and wasn't too busy, considering that it's slap bang in the middle of Camden Town and is very affordable. If you live in the area, they do dim sum delivery - a novel concept.

For Pete's birthday I took him out for a dim sum lunch at Shanghai on Kingsland High Street in Dalston. We rocked up at about half two on a bustling Saturday afternoon, the main road brimming with all walks of life and the extremists: extreme hipsters, extreme evangelists, extreme Communists. Shanghai, a former eel, pie and mash shop is all tiled walls and tiled floors - a hangover from when Hackney was the main domain of the Cockneys. Some of the tables are in benches and booths in that front section, but the majority of the restaurant is in a fairly traditional parlour style restaurant with chintzy décor and linen table cloths.

The dim sum was totally top notch. We had fried cuttlefish and coriander cakes, which were salty, juicy and chewy in perfect proportions and served with a shallow dish of broth for dipping. The chicken spring rolls had real, discernible (!) bits of chicken and were packed full of tasty bits. Steamed buns with barbecued pork were soft, fluffy and then sticky in the middle and very satisfying, and the steamed dumplings (vegetable dumplings in carrot juice pastry, crystal prawn dumplings, steamed minced meat & chive dumplings) were also perfectly formed and flavoured.





The bill was a scandalously good value £18 for six dim sum portion, drinks and service. And there are savings to be had if you go for dim sum between 3 - 5pm, even on weekends. Utterly scandalous for such delicious food. Being just 10 minutes walk from my flat, I know I'm going to be a regular diner at Shanghai!

Nostalgic: Dartmouth Park

Allow me to briefly to be nostalgic about my old 'hood.

Just before we left I noticed an interesting-looking pub open up in the spot of an unwelcoming old place on Highgate Road. On my late cycles home from the library after a day's studying I would catch glimpses happy bohemian types sipping ale, bare bulbs, exposed floors, chalk boards. Oh...to be finished my exams, I thought.

Well, in the brief window between finishing my exams and moving house, I made it to The Southampton Arms. It is a pretty special place - it doesn't have a telephone, you can't reserve tables, it only sells independent UK ales and ciders and pork pies, sausage rolls, scotch eggs, roast pork sandwiches. Nice.

When we rolled in they had already sold out of scotch eggs, so we had a round of pork and cider pie (served with piccalilli) and sausage rolls (served with a light tomato salsa), which were delicious. The pork pie was meaty and fruity, with pastry a million miles removed from those nasty jelly and fat pies you pick up from the supermarket. The sausage rolls also good.



Later on we ordered some pork rolls. Wow. The rolls were so soft and buttery, dusted with flour in a totally old school way. The pork was juice and was accompanied by delicious apple sauce. Though there was only one slice of meat in each roll (not representing the best value for money at £4.50), it was still very delicious.



So if you find yourself on the Parliament Hill side of the Heath on a lovely sunny day, it would be well worth your while to have a post-park snack and pint at the Southampton Arms. It is also much less smug and has much better drinks than the Bull and Last up the road.

Resettled: Newington Green

It's been a shamefully long time since I last posted, but with good reasons - I had exams for my Masters and then I moved house. And now I've done both, it's time to regain a sense of normality. This involves cooking for pleasure, eating out with friends, discovering all the delicious foodie finds in my new area (Newington Green).

The subtle differences between neighbourhoods is one of the things I find most fascinating about London; how a little shift (two miles at most) to the east and the character of the streets and their inhabitants and their cultural and culinary offerings change.

From my house in Dartmouth Park, you could walk 300 metres west and you would find well-heeled but low-key gastropubs fringing the heath. 400 metres west and you would find neighbourhood Italian, tapas, Ethiopian restaurants; bargainous, delicious little secrets. To the west the clientèle were older with more families, to the east young professionals and empty nesters nestled together.

From our flat in Newington Green, there is a more exciting patchwork of differences in direction. A plod north takes you first to a band of Turkish places; okacbasi houses which give out the most amazing smoky smells, to the East lies the multiculti melting pot of Dalston, with West African, Carribean, Turkish and cockney shops and stalls on the high street and in the amazing Ridley Road market. A venture South or West will take you to well-heeled Highbury or Islington, with boutiques, delis and abundant yumminess. So, very well served!

So the first few weeks have been an intensive discovery mission around the new area - the greengrocers, the bakeries, the butchers, the markets, the brunch spots, the take-aways. But there was no question about where our first take-away would be from: Mangal 1, the classic Dalston kebab joint.





Eager eaters were gathered outside, charcoal grill smells wafted out the door. We ordered our Adana kebabs, and each came with a separate salad container and bread. The results were amazing, mind-blowing; even when surrounded by piles of boxes and everything else in disarray. A tasty start to an exciting new chapter!

Russian through London

So it's confirmed; we're moving a bit east to Newington Green in May. My friends who live in NW postcodes are now determined to make sure I make the most of this part of London's offerings before moving two miles east, never to return, obviously.

So today I toddled over to Primrose Hill for lunch with friends at Trojka, a Russian restaurant that is a bit of an 'establishment' among the Primrose Hillbilly types. I love Russian and Eastern European food - hearty stews, sour cream, dill, stuffed things; and then the influences from its neighbours, from Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan and beyond. I went to Moscow a few years back and my friend took me to restaurants serving all kinds of cuisines you would be hard pushed to find in Britain, although I've found both Georgian and Armenian restaurants.

The menu at Trojka covers lots of Russian classics, as well as many favourites from around the bloc. Given my love for this part of the world, choosing a dish was hard, but I plumped for a Coulibiak, a hearty pie filled with salmon, spinach, rice and buckwheat, topped with sour cream and dill and surrounded with a sweet tomato sauce. It was a perfect combination of flavours and textures and was incredible value at £7. My friends had Pelmeni (cheese and potato dumpling) and Gypsy Latke (gypsy-style goulash with potato pancake), both delicious.


To start we shared an 'Armenian salad', which was a simple but winning combination of beetroot, grated carrot, avocado, pepper and new potatoes.


I also had a tea with raspberry syrup - which was bizarre but nice. I remember from my time in Moscow that there's a fondness for sweet things - Russian 'champagne' is so sweet that your teeth feel coated after one glass of the stuff. And raspberry syrup tea was actually quite nice. Without milk, obviously.


The service was a tad slow, but it was a busy Sunday lunch (and Mother's Day of all Sundays), but the food was well worth it. The atmosphere was buzzing with a mixed set of Americans and Russians in London, as well as your usual north London bobo types, and the décor was bright and luscious. I would like to go back for an evening meal at some point - try some of their Georgian wines, Russian vodkas and hear the live music.

New brunch options

Our landlady has decided to sell-up, so we'll soon be upping sticks and finding somewhere else to live. I love living where here (Dartmouth Park), but it's exciting to think of all the new foodie opportunities in a different neighbourhood. I've lived in the Tufnell Park area for 5 years and still haven't been to every restaurant - I can now focus my energies on visiting the rest of the places I want to try out, such as Nuraghe, Spaghetti House and back to 500 for one more delicious meal. Incidentally, they're all Italian! Yum.

Today Pete and I had took a stroll around an area we are quite keen to live in - Newington Green/Mildmay. It was a lovely sunny Sunday and all the locals were out enjoying the weather, brunching away, playing on the green. We walked around the local shops, restaurants and bars and found great grocers, lovely little neighbourhood restaurants and nice pubs too. Definitely a go-er.

We had a lovely little brunch at Tina, We Salute You on King Henry's Walk, N1. It was a light, nicely decorated cafe filled with super-laid back educated hipster types reading the sunday papers. I had a (now ubiquitous) flat white and toast with cream cheese, cinnamon and honey, both delicious. The coffee was rich, creamy and fruity almost; the toast smacked of New York somehow - the tartness of the cream cheese, the muskiness of the cinnamon, the sweetness of the honey. Delicious.



We're hoping to view a flat around the corner from Tina's next week, so fingers crossed that we can make this our local!

Fish pie

I have a strange history when it comes to fish. Some of the first solid food I had as a littl'un was fish. I used to adore shellfish - I remember greedily gobbling mussels, clams and prawns from my parents' Cataplana on holiday in the Algarve. But at some point, I can't remember why, I stopped liking fish and seafood altogether. For most of my life, I couldn't stomach the thought of the seas' fine produce, save for prawn mayonnaise, batter calamari and tinned tuna. I tried at various points start eating fish again, but it was only when I was in Montreal in 2007 that I plucked up the courage to order a moules frites.

On subsequent trips to Croatia and Portugal, I tried more and more fish and seafood. In Portugal the seafood was particularly good. We stayed in Sesimbra, a fishing village down the coast from Lisbon, where I ate razor clams, crabs, squid, sardines, swordfish.

And yesterday, after much craving, I made my first fish pie. I cycled over to Steve Hatt on Essex Road, which must be one of the best fishmongers in London. The fish is top notch, so fresh that you can't smell a thing, and Steve Hatt's young lads are incredibly jovial and helpful as they prepare your fish. When the guy serving me sussed I was making a fish pie, his eyes lit up and mentioned his envy to his colleague. Such is the love of fish at Steve Hatt's! They also had a great selection of fish and seafood, including the lesser spotted razor clam. I shall have to go back for some another time.

I decided on a Mark Hix recipe for fish pie, as it looked the most sensible and traditional of all the recipes that Google threw up. Start with the basics and then you can innovate! It was quite a process-y meal - lots of different pots and pans, sieves and collanders, but all of it made sense and contributed to a lovely, comforting pie in the end:


I served it with some dressed leaves and some steamed spinach with butter. The mashed potato and the fish elements probably blended together a little too much. This might because I didn't let the fish mix set for long enough. It was absolutely delicious though - just as homely, fresh and luxurious as you'd hope. The way that the recipe suggests cooking the fish (poaching for 2 minutes, then later cooking in the pie) had the fish just right. I used cod, salmon and smoked haddock (smoked by Steve Hatt himself!) and it was the perfect combination. Might have also been nice to have prawns in, but the tweaking and adjusting I can do next time.



The whole experience of making fish pie has definitely upped my confidence in cooking with fish and I am now ready, eager and willing to try out some more dishes. Smoked haddock chowder next? Mmmmm....

Tufnell Park tapas

Last night I finally made it to Cafe del Parc, after years of cycling and bussing past it regularly. It's located halfway up Junction Road, which is a rather dreary main road that links Tufnell Park and Archway, although there are a few hidden gems there, like the Hideaway and some nice antique shops. I'd always been intrigued by its stylish frontage but never stopped to take much of a closer look.

Inside it is utterly charming - the kitchen is in the middle of the restaurant and totally open, complete with luscious herb plants, bottles of olive oil and hanging chorizo. The tables are arranged around the kitchen; the menus printed on brown paper and attached to clipboards to accommodate for the seasonally evolving menu. The music was fairly loud Indian instrumental stuff, which actually worked quite well. Café del Parc is said to be inspired by old Ibiza and you can well imagine that hippy vibe there.


The menu was absolutely WOW. There were probably about 40 tapas dishes on it, all of which would have been delicious. Luckily there we were a party of four and could justify a reasonable order, even with one seafood eating vegetarian! The wine list was also incredibly well chosen and reasonably priced - we plumped for a rosé that was deep fuschia in colour and beautiful to taste.

We started with some home made bread with olive oil and some olives with garlic and preserved lemon. All of which were amazing. Our first round of tapas was potted shrimps in saffron butter - tasted of the sea, a carrot and lentil stew which was rich with cumin and served with aniseedy dill, and filo pastry stuffed with spinach, feta and pomegranates - this was one of the highlights of the evening - sweet, sour and salty all in one, we could well have ordered seconds.


Next came Moorish lamb skewers with butter bean mash. The lamb was smoky and tender and still juicy and pink inside. The butter bean mash alone would be worth ordering the dish for - rich with roast garlic and herbs, my friend has already tried to re-create it at home!


Calamari rings arrived next - and were a world away from your typical ruibbery bland calamari experience. Again, they tasted of the sea, the breadcrumbs tasted positively healthy and they came with a delicious garlic mayonnaise.


The next dish was a meaty highlight - pan-fried chicken, chorizo and Serrano ham in a creamy, paprika-y sauce. I could have eaten every last drop. We also had deep fried goats cheese balls in orange blossom honey - goats cheese is one of the few things I don't enjoy, but here it was so smooth and soft that it was actually a pleasure to eat.


Next up was razor clams and salad in a sweet wasabi dressing. There could have been a more generous serving of razor clams, but they were still sweet, meaty and delicious. The wasabi dressing gave it a nice kick too.


The last dish to come was the ol' classic, Patatas Bravas, which you just can't go wrong with really:


After such a delicious meal it was hard to resist having a dessert. We opted for the home made ice cream selection, which included a scoop of malaga raisin and cinnamon, a scoop of pomegranate and a scoop of orange ice cream. Wow. We also shared a chocolate mouse, which was rich and eggy, topped with some vanilla ice cream.


Every dish was absolutely excellent, but there were so many more we could have chosen. 12 dishes between four was just the right amount though. I will certainly be going back with anyone who is interested to make more progress on the menu. The tapas were definitely reasonably priced rather than cheap, but the ingredients were clearly of excellent quality and when the bill worked out as £23 per head including wine, it certainly felt like one of the best value meals I've had in a long time. So, whether you live in the area or not, it's definitely worth making a trip to Cafe del Parc if you are in search of quality, imaginative tapas in a lovely setting with great service!

Persia, near Primrose Hill

My favourite thing about living in London is the sheer cultural diversity of its inhabitants. I love being on a bus and hearing different languages in every direction. But most importantly, every diaspora group brings with them their culinary traditions by opening restaurants, cafes, grocers and delis as cultural outposts for diaspora to seek comfort and for curious diners' to discover the exciting and far flung cuisines.

I admire the dedication of The World in 202 Meals in their mission to sample every national cuisine moonlighting in London's restaurants. I have a similar mission in mind, and made a visit to Iran on Haverstock Hill last weekend in the form of a restaurant called Tandis.

I've long been intrigued by Persian/Iranian cuisine - my good friend Afsi is half-Iranian and I have many fond memories of popping round her family's house and snacking on leftover Salad Oliviyeh or hearing tales of the perfect Tah-dig. More recently, I've been dying to go to Persepolis in Peckham and get my hands on some rose petals, dried limes, barberries and other exotic staples of the Persian kitchen. Similarly, Tandis has been on my radar for some time having featured in numerous lists.

Everything about Tandis was great. The service was warm, helpful, personal - the owner was keen to ensure we chose dishes well and entered into a jovial debate with my friend Tamara over the virtues of different condiments for her Loobia Polow (her Iraqi roots said yoghurt, he said tomato salad). The décor is stylish and luxurious, the space light and airy. And the food...wow. There is a big range of starters that you could eat Mezze style, but the waiter advised us to save ourselves for the mains. The mains include a wide range of kebabs as well as some rice dishes and a long list of meaty and vegetarian stews.



I was most interested in the stews - some with split pea and aubergine, others with ground, dried limes and sour plums. I opted for Khoresh-e esfenaj-o alu - a stew of Lamb, spinach and sour plums. It was incredible - the sour, sweetness of the sauce, the green vigour of the spinach and the tender, slow-cooked lamb. Wow. It was almost overwhelmingly tasty with such potent flavours. It came with a huge pile of saffron rice - I love that pungent, perfumed taste. A vegetarian friend had the a split pea and aubergine stew which was also tasty.



We had been advised to save space for dessert - and it had to be faloodeh - a rose and lime sorbet filled with thin vermicelli and topped with sour cherries. It was invigorating, perfumey, sour and bizarre. But very good.



I learnt that the sour taste is prominent in Persian food experience. I think sour is quite an acquired taste - it doesn't feature in many European cuisines and, when it is, it's balanced against another taste sensation. I like it though. That said, there were plenty of dishes that weren't all about the sour. I will definitely be going back - it was very reasonably priced (£7-8 for a stew main, £10 - 11 for a kebab main) and there is just so much on that menu I want to try!

Christmas lunch #1

Gathering together around the ritual of food and wine is one of my favourite things about Christmas. Over the course of December, I'll get together with most people I know at some point for a meal. Working with a bunch of lovely foodies means that the team Christmas lunch is something to look forward to indeed.

I work in the leafy inner-suburb of Muswell Hill, which has more boutiques, cafes and delis than you could ever need. Yet, for all that muesli money, there's very little in the way of nice independent restaurants or decent pubs. So for our Christmas lunch we went to the Woodman pub at Highgate tube. The Woodman used to be a run-down spot for ageing and under-age drinkers, positioned unfavourably at a junction on grimy ol' Archway Road (A1).

It got 'done up' almost two years ago and now it's a cosy, but spacious, unpretentious pub, with a great kitchen, well-picked wine list and massive outside area. The menu has French, British and Mediterranean influences and the Christmas menu reflected all those.

I had braised Lamb shoulder with aman bayaldi (slow cooked aubergine and other med veg) with olive mash. Joyously, massive bowls of traditional trimmings were placed in the middle of the table so that even non-traditionalists could enjoy pigs in blankets, red cabbage and roast potatoes and parsnips.



To finish I had a chocolate cheesecake, which was unsurprisingly rich and luxurious and had a lovely, caramelly biscuit base.



Most people will have had their Christmas meals by now, but bear the Woodman in mind if you're ever up in that neck of the woods (literally - Highgate and Queens Wood are both within spitting distance of the Woodman!) - it is a welcome change from the chain pubs and restaurants of Highgate Village and Muswell Hill.

Moro

A few years ago a dear friend bought me the Moro cookbook. This was when I'd just moved back from the culinary wasteland of Germany (you would not believe how terrible supermarkets are there) and I was beginning to get into cooking big time with my flatmates. I was excited to be back in London - land of farmers' markets, normal markets, global food options. I delighted in skipping up Seven Sisters Road to get the generous bundles of fresh herbs, slightly exotic vegetables and fish to make Moro meals. I read about the restaurant time after time in the Observer Food Monthly and in Time Out, I walked past it countless times, I eyed up the menu online. For our birthdays (in June and July), my partner and I decided we would treat ourselves to a meal at Moro. And last weekend, at the end of November, we finally did!

It all started simply, with delicious sour dough bread olive oil. We munched on that while we contemplated the short, but perfectly mouthwatering menu.



It's worth saying that the service is impeccable at Moro. It was a busy Friday night, the restaurant was bustling with contented, enthused punters and they could easily have been hurrying us along, but were friendly, informal and attentive. We finally settled on a selection of sherries - not the kind of sherries that your grandma drinks too much of at Christmas, but exciting, delicate, interesting sherries served perfectly chilled. The website describes them like so:

"Try this selection to discover the sheer deliciousness of bone dry sherry, from the salty sea breeze tang of Manzanilla, through the more pungent, assertive Fino, finishing with the more complex Manzanilla Pasada whose rock pool aromas are overlaid with subtle nutty age."



For starter I had a pumpkin kibbeh stuffed with sweetly spiced onions, raisins and chick peas. It was served with a radish and pomegranate salad and musky seasoned yoghurt.



Pete had swiss chard stalks with raisins and anchovies. It was earthy, salty and sweet all in one.



My main course was strips of charcoal grilled lamb, served with a smoky, spicy aubergine and bulgur wheat pilav and a shredded cabbage and yoghurt salad. It really was just heaven on a plate - the combination of flavours were perfectly balanced, the meat was super quality and the charcoal imparted just the right amount of smokiness.



Pete had woodroasted pheasant breast, served with onions caremalised in Pedro Ximenez and braised cabbage. I should also say that the wine list was excellent, with a really broad, well-chosen selection of wines by the glass. We had a glass of Gotim Bru and a glass of Mestizaje (described as mid-weight modernist!).



For dessert it had to be the classic Moro yoghurt cake with pistachio and pomegranate seeds. It's something I've made from the Moro recipe book before, so I was keen to try it as it should be. I was pleased to find that my own version wasn't too far off the mark, but this was just stunning: sweet, sour, fruity, nutty, and perfectly paired with a glass of Vino Dulce de Moscatel!



I can honestly say that it was one of the best meals of my entire life. It was a faultless experience, the food and the wine were out of this world, the atmosphere was warm and happy, and punters and waiters alike were equally enthused about the food. Now - to try and replicate at home!