Guidebook for Greater London
Food Scene
Located halfway down Mare Street behind an apparently run-down façade, Green Papaya feels like a quiet club. It’s a charming little place: long-established, family-run, simple and well loved. Customers are a mixed bunch, from American hipster tourists to dapper older-generation Caribbean couples in their Sunday best, complete with hats. Service is laid-back yet efficient and welcoming, and the food quite superb. Soft-shell crab with salt and chilli was exactly as it should be, with discernible chunks of flavoursome, well-textured crab in a crunchy, tasty batter.
70 recommandé par les habitants
Green Papaya
191 Mare StLocated halfway down Mare Street behind an apparently run-down façade, Green Papaya feels like a quiet club. It’s a charming little place: long-established, family-run, simple and well loved. Customers are a mixed bunch, from American hipster tourists to dapper older-generation Caribbean couples in their Sunday best, complete with hats. Service is laid-back yet efficient and welcoming, and the food quite superb. Soft-shell crab with salt and chilli was exactly as it should be, with discernible chunks of flavoursome, well-textured crab in a crunchy, tasty batter.
You know those super-cute, uber-quirky interiors you’re always lusting after online? The ones full of pastels, pot plants, retro prints and mid-mod furniture? If the answer is ‘nope’ then you might want to stop reading, since Palm Vaults – which landed on the pedestrianised top end of Mare Street this summer – is totally committed to its eccentric look.
From the enormous cheeseplants to the luscious pink and green icing on the cakes, the vintage marble-topped tables and exposed brick walls right down to the pink paper in the till, every tiny detail is geared towards aesthetic nirvana (2016 edition). For better or worse, it’s been called ‘London’s most Instagrammable café’.
22 recommandé par les habitants
Palm Vaults London
411 Mare StYou know those super-cute, uber-quirky interiors you’re always lusting after online? The ones full of pastels, pot plants, retro prints and mid-mod furniture? If the answer is ‘nope’ then you might want to stop reading, since Palm Vaults – which landed on the pedestrianised top end of Mare Street this summer – is totally committed to its eccentric look.
From the enormous cheeseplants to the luscious pink and green icing on the cakes, the vintage marble-topped tables and exposed brick walls right down to the pink paper in the till, every tiny detail is geared towards aesthetic nirvana (2016 edition). For better or worse, it’s been called ‘London’s most Instagrammable café’.
Broadway Market’s atmosphere of laid-back revelry should make it the perfect spot for Buen Ayre, chef-proprietor John Patrick Rattagan’s attempt to bring casual Argentinian meat feasting to London. The layout is right – one small room, simply furnished, with the asado grill the focus at its centre.
The beef on our ‘deluxe’ mixed grill (£53 for two, plus £4.50 for a side of above-average chips) certainly looked every charred, sticky inch the parrilla victim. Yet it didn’t elicit the gushing response that other steak specialists in the capital can. What felt more appropriate to the no-frills set-up (and service, it must be said)
103 recommandé par les habitants
Buen Ayre
50 Broadway MarketBroadway Market’s atmosphere of laid-back revelry should make it the perfect spot for Buen Ayre, chef-proprietor John Patrick Rattagan’s attempt to bring casual Argentinian meat feasting to London. The layout is right – one small room, simply furnished, with the asado grill the focus at its centre.
The beef on our ‘deluxe’ mixed grill (£53 for two, plus £4.50 for a side of above-average chips) certainly looked every charred, sticky inch the parrilla victim. Yet it didn’t elicit the gushing response that other steak specialists in the capital can. What felt more appropriate to the no-frills set-up (and service, it must be said)
Drinks & Nightlife
The sizeable Cat & Mutton sits proudly at the helm of Hackney's Broadway Market, and has been welcoming its costermongers and consumers for 300 years. Over the centuries it has evolved into an establishment of two kinds: downstairs is a traditional pub, serving ales and roasts to thirtysomething locals. And up a spiral staircase is Pearl's cocktail lounge: a crepuscular bar with creative drinks, heavily draped windows and panoramic views of the market below. Both floors have comfy mismatched furniture, retro mirrors and old ceiling features made of tin.
150 recommandé par les habitants
The Cat & Mutton
76 Broadway MarketThe sizeable Cat & Mutton sits proudly at the helm of Hackney's Broadway Market, and has been welcoming its costermongers and consumers for 300 years. Over the centuries it has evolved into an establishment of two kinds: downstairs is a traditional pub, serving ales and roasts to thirtysomething locals. And up a spiral staircase is Pearl's cocktail lounge: a crepuscular bar with creative drinks, heavily draped windows and panoramic views of the market below. Both floors have comfy mismatched furniture, retro mirrors and old ceiling features made of tin.
There’s no faulting the beer at this grand old corner pub, which had lain derelict for a spell before being revived by the Individual Pubs group in 2006. The 16 handpumps on the long bar are rarely all in operation, but there’s usually a wide selection of ales: regular guest ales join the core collection from Cambridge’s Milton Brewery, from the gentle Minotaur mild to the lively, pungent Marcus Aurelius stout, and three beer festivals a year (March, July and November) bring further variety.
Despite the best efforts of the staff and the presence of a bar billiards table (there’s also pool and board games), the beer is certainly the main attraction.
53 recommandé par les habitants
The Pembury Tavern
90 Amhurst RdThere’s no faulting the beer at this grand old corner pub, which had lain derelict for a spell before being revived by the Individual Pubs group in 2006. The 16 handpumps on the long bar are rarely all in operation, but there’s usually a wide selection of ales: regular guest ales join the core collection from Cambridge’s Milton Brewery, from the gentle Minotaur mild to the lively, pungent Marcus Aurelius stout, and three beer festivals a year (March, July and November) bring further variety.
Despite the best efforts of the staff and the presence of a bar billiards table (there’s also pool and board games), the beer is certainly the main attraction.