The best restaurants in Hackney
When you think of Hackney, you're most likely thinking of Shoreditch's best restaurants and Dalston too, but there is more to restaurants in Hackney than meets the eye. This east London borough is teeming with delicious foodie treasures, from Hoxton to Bethnal Green, so we've made a list of our favourite restaurants in Hackney.
How we choose the best restaurants in Hackney
Every restaurant on this list has been selected independently by our editors and written by a Condé Nast Traveller journalist who knows the destination and has eaten at that restaurant. When choosing restaurants, our editors consider both high-end and affordable eateries that offer an authentic and insider experience of a destination. We're always looking for stand-out dishes, a great location and warm service – as well as serious sustainability credentials. We update this list regularly as new restaurants open and existing ones evolve.
Papi, London Fields
This trendy new kid on the block is the name to know in East London’s foodie circles. What started as the hugely popular restaurant pop-up HOT4U now has a bricks-and-mortar set-up firmly in place. Located just behind London Fields, it’s a small affair with only 28 covers upstairs in the stripped-back dining room, and space for an intimate 14 downstairs. Daily offerings are scribbled on the chalkboard and prepared in the tiny open kitchen, with tasty smells that waft into the dining area. There’s a significant emphasis on zero-waste – chef Matthew Scott goes to great lengths to preserve, reuse and recycle each and every ingredient, from fermenting vegetable scraps to extracting yeast from bread. Most of the seasonal menu changes from day to day; but the mainstay is the garlic bread. A work of art you may have seen on your Instagram feed, it’s made from fermented potato bread, which is then grilled on coals, steamed, coated in browned garlic butter and grilled again before it's topped with piped whipped ricotta cheese and sprinkled with garlic powder grown in the chef’s garden – and yes, it’s as good as it sounds. Other carefully curated sharing plates we tried were a bowl of mussels served in sugo, giant langoustines cooked in wasabi and plenty of punchy experimental plates – there was a daring dish of veal brains with turnips and peas. Pair dinner with a glass of orange wine from the all-natural selection by Charlie Carr of Wingnut Wines and finish with the daily dessert offering (the vacherin ice cream with prune was amazing). Sophie Knight
Address: 1F, 373 Mentmore Terrace
Book online
Bambi, London Fields
An exciting new entrant on the East London food scene, Bambi is an intimate restaurant and wine bar brought to you by James Dye (co-owner of south London outposts The Camberwell Arms and Franks) and acclaimed chef, Henry Freestone at the foot of Netil House, Hackney. While you may raise your eyebrows at the ever-so-popular small plates and low-intervention wines, we must admit that this place pulls it off in style.
So, let’s dig in. We started with a crisp, creamy cauliflower cheese arancini and lip-lickingly-good smoked mackerel pate with samphire. Another hit included the (you guessed it) saucy braised butter beans mixed with goat curds and kale. Meat eaters, don’t sleep on the roast chicken with pesto sauce, which boasts that perfect balance of crispy skin and succulent meat. Mop up the juices with the chicken fat focaccia, and you’re on to a winner here. Finally, cleanse the palette with a tipple from the impressively curated wine list (a juicy, cold, effervescent red for me) or, if you’re feeling brave, one of the bar’s glass-like Dirty Martinis.
The final string to Bambi's bow – sit back and enjoy some post-dinner tunes spun by resident DJs with vinyl plucked from the custom-made wall of records forming the back of the restaurant. Lucy Bruton
Address: Bambi, Netil House, 1 Westgate Street, London E8 3RL
Book online
Matt RussellSilo, Hackney Wick
When chef Douglas McMaster opened Silo in Brighton in 2014, most people’s response to ‘zero waste’ would have been ‘zero what?!’ McMaster was well and truly ahead of the green curve with his innovative approach to cooking based on the simple but quite out-there idea of not having a bin. Nothing at all is wasted in McMaster’s highly creative kitchen – the whole restaurant has its own well-considered ecosystem, from ingredients being bought directly from local farmers and arriving packaging-free, to leftovers being composted in the on-site bio-digester. McMaster is on a mission to close the loop in the food production process and feed people delicious feasts in the process. As sustainability moves to the forefront of our consciousness, it makes perfect sense that he’d want to relocate his dining offering; and so he’s upped sticks and moved to a slick new canal-side site, joining Cornerstone as another Hackney Wick fine-dining pioneer. McMaster’s approach to food extends to every element of the restaurant: the sleek industrial space above Crate brewery is kitted out with upcycled materials (the crockery is made from old wine bottles turned into glass porcelain) and fittings that can be disassembled in the future. Impressively, it still manages to look very stylish. So high is the quality of food and experience, in fact, that if it wasn’t for the earnest cheery staff who painstakingly explain the backstory of every single element of the experience, you could very easily forget that you were eating yesterday’s old potato peelings.
One glance at the concise menu projected onto the back wall (they don’t print the food menus as they change so often) and diners will spot McMaster’s unusual ingredient pairings. The failsafe Siloaf – aka the house sourdough bread – is first up. Made from flour milled on site, it has a moreish, cakey texture and a crunchy crust, and is served – and best eaten – with a thick slab of rich aged butter. Then there’s a perky appetiser of kimchi pickled radish roll stuffed with earthy hemp ricotta, followed by trick beetroots: sweet golden beetroots glazed to make them look like their more rosy cousins and served on salty handmade ricotta with a sourdough miso sauce made from yesterday’s loaves. Get the daily tasting menu to try as many dishes as possible: every single one – all of it – is bold, daring and delicious. The drinks list is both thoughtful and innovative. Beers come straight from Crate brewery downstairs, and the selection of organic biodynamic wines have been sourced from small, artisanal producers, the list conveniently split into different flavour types.
This is one of the best restaurants in Hackney for progressive food in both approach and taste, and it will leave you awestruck. Yes, it’s good for the planet – but it’s also just damn good. Sonya Barber
Address: Silo, The White Building, Unit 7 Queens Yard, Hackney Wick, London E9 5EN
Website: silolondon.com
Safia ShakarchiPophams, London Fields
No one is showing off the glory of gluten right now like Popham’s bakery. Having opened a more spacious, café in Hackney on the former site of Rawduck (don’t worry, the original Islington Pophams is still open), the bakery is making the most of its new-found space and sticking to what it knows best. Well, almost. By day, it serves unusual Viennoiserie pastries, including the legendary Marmite, cheese and spring onion swirl, but now each evening from Wednesday until Sunday it’s also dishing up a short but very sweet pasta menu. The pickled veg salad served with garlicky, salty bagna cauda is a great palate cleanser before you dive in to the main attraction. On our visit the ‘ham & pea soup’ was a pleasing clear minty broth with delicate bobbing pig-cheek tortellini. Then there was cappellacci dei briganti – satisfying little pointy hats mixed with fruity fresh tomatoes. Next up, rich ‘nduja scarpinocc’, the intense sweet-shaped parcels catching the broad beans on their cute dimples. Pasta is having a moment in London right now but this is some of the most inventive and exciting around. Sonya Barber
Address: Pophams Bakery, 197 Richmond Road, Hackney, London, E8 3NJ
Website: pophamsbakery.com
Milly Kenny-RyderPidgin, London Fields
Pidgin opened in 2015 and is tucked away on sleepy Wilton Way, round the back of Hackney Town Hall. We visited on a Wednesday and the tiny space was, as always, packed with devoted locals and those from further afield lured by Pidgin’s famed no-choice tasting menu, which has been ripped up and started again every week since the day they opened. Ideas fly in from everywhere and the flavours are consistently beyond the run of the mill. As isn’t always the case with such menus, vegetarians are well catered for with proper alternatives to the meat and fish courses. Among the short and always on-point wine list there’s choices by the glass. East London’s favourite neighbourhood restaurant Pidgin continues to walk the walk. David Annand
Address: Pidgin, 52 Wilton Way, London E8 1BG
Website: pidginlondon.com
The Duke of Richmond, Dalston
In a previous, wacky life, the walls of this two-storey building on a corner of Hackney’s Queensbridge Road encased a giant urn that doubled as a table for four, a faux-mosaic floor and a sphinx with a fireplace tucked between its mighty paws. If Tutankhamun did restaurants… Since then, it has also been a shiny seafood brasserie/party gastropub (from the team who moved on to open Neptune at The Principal hotel in the West End). The laid-back space has the feel of a smart local pub with burgundy banquettes, sage-green-covered chairs, a distressed-look black-and-yellow wooden floor and a soundtrack that runs from Snoop to Stevie Wonder. The bar snacks might be more decadent than your average pork scratching and Scotch egg numbers (there’s crab in the chip butty, and the fries come with Béarnaise sauce) but the packets of Monster Munch hanging behind the counter reveal that this place doesn’t care too much for starch in its collar. A pub serving top-notch food that everyone will want in their neighbourhood. Gráinne McBride
Address: The Duke of Richmond, 316 Queensbridge Road, London E8 3NH
Website: thedukeofrichmond.com
Steven JoyceMorito, Bethnal Green
Moorish mezze spot Moro put Exmouth Market on the foodie map when it opened in 1997. More than that, it helped revolutionise the entire London restaurant scene with its North African and Spanish tapas, and simple style. Its second and next-door outpost, Morito, is Moro but with a more relaxed vibe, and now the third and latest opening has a hit of East London cool. On Hackney Road, Morito is minimal: polished concrete, artful neon tubes and white walls offset by the surfeit of natural light pouring in. The anchor is the huge central horseshoe bar, a beautiful blue-and-white marble affair that's ideal for drop-ins, while friends, co-workers and families gather around conscientiously spaced tables in the comfortably loud, post-industrial space. Ananda Pellerin
Address: Morito, 195 Hackney Road, Hackney, London E2
Website: morito.co.uk
Mary GaudinJidori
It was hot, then not, but Dalston is now back on our radar, with Jidori riding the foodie wave all the way to being one of the best Japanese restaurants in London. Owners Brett Redman (the Aussie chap behind raw-seafood bar The Richmond and no-frills Elliot's in Borough Market) and Natalie Lee-Jo opened the izakaya (like a Japanese pub) on the site of an old bridalwear store. The space itself is a clean-lined, pastel-coloured refuge on Kingsland High Street with mouth-watering wafts of barbecued meat coming from the open grill behind the birch counter. Order to share. There are some knockout starters: tsukemono (an assortment of homemade pickles, including an umami bomb of enoki mushrooms and sweet-and-sour daikon radish), KFC (koji-fried chicken, that is, made with light and crispy fermented-rice and nori batter) and a twist on an English pub classic, katsu-curry Scotch egg. Roxy Mirshahi
Address: Jidori, 89 Kingsland High Street, Hackney, London E8
Website: jidori.co.uk
Bubala, Spitalfields
The word bubala (also spelled bubeleh) is derived from a Yiddish term of endearment, meaning ‘sweetie’ or ‘darling’. Trickled down from ‘friend’, it is often used between close friends, family and loved ones. And love is at the very heart of this aptly named Middle Eastern restaurant. The pedigree here is impressive, with Helen Graham (of giants The Palomar, Barbary and The Good Egg) heading up the kitchen with Marc Summers manning the front. The space itself is a nod to the modern cafés of Tel Aviv with distressed pink-and-blue walls, Thirties-style wall lighting, lush foliage and a green-tiled bar at the centre. Vegetables are the star of the show here, with each dish showcasing a playful twist on a classic Middle Eastern favourite. Each is made for sharing, so be bold and pick a good few for a real taste. The drinks menu shows the same attention to detail as the food. Commercial Street already boasts strong dining destinations (Thai favourite Som Saa, Chinese hand-pulled noodles at Xi'an Biang Biang and pub-with-rooms The Culpeper), but Bubala raised the bar even further. Katharine Sohn
Address: Bubala Spitalfields, 65 Commercial Street, London E1 6BD
Website: bubala.co.uk