Visible from a distance: Jenny Parker and Kate Bentley outside The Hornbeam Café on Hoe Street, Walthamstow
The Hornbeam café and community centre can be found on Hoe Street, an ancient thoroughfare lined with no-frills shops and eateries with local colour aplenty. The street made national news recently when residents lifted up a bus to free a trapped unicyclist, and again when it had to be closed following a mass brawl between teenagers.
With its murals, flowerpots serving as bike locking stations, and funky lettering, the Hornbeam is easily visible from a distance. The café is run by an organisation called Norman Loves – headed up by Jenny Parker and Kate Bentley and boosted by volunteers, who serve simple and wholesome vegetarian breakfasts and lunches made from largely organic ingredients.
A warm and pleasant space, the café also hosts film nights and supper clubs, and sells locally made organic jams and chutneys. On Saturday mornings families fill the tables soon after opening, while young couples as well as older residents stop in for a coffee before picking up fruit and vegetables at the stall operating outside. Children filter in through the side door on their way to music lessons upstairs.
The Hornbeam also houses the Forest Recycling Project, a community enterprise selling reclaimed paint at vastly reduced prices, diverting the paint from landfill to homeowners with DIY needs; and OrganicLea, a local growing initiative that runs a local veg box scheme akin to Growing Communities. People can sign up to the scheme in the café, which also operates as a pick-up point.
The Hornbeam has a loyal local following, with heartfelt reviews on Yelp. With the boost to the area that the new Lea Bridge station will provide, it should continue to thrive, as it serves people from vastly different age groups and backgrounds, and provides avenues for further involvement for those who wish to socialise. Although may look a bit threadbare inside, this is a true community hub.
Italian job: ‘Delica’ pumpkin and barley risotto with crispy salsiccia at Il Cudega
When in Milan, do as the Milanese do.
Well, that’s not exactly how the maxim goes – and this foodie has never been to Milan. But if you visit Il Cudega, a new Lombardy restaurant on Westgate Street, order whatever the staff recommend. You won’t be disappointed.
The Lombardy region in northern Italy takes in the southern Alps, the lakes and has Milan as its capital. To start with we were recommended a complex white wine to accompany a salad with warm goat’s cheese, which was hard, and with an intensely mature flavour.
The wine was a winner with the carpaccio too, which was served generously, with a mustard and lemon dressing and raspadura, a kind of Lombardy Parmesan.
The menu is limited but ample, and changes according to the produce available.
If you can stomach the ethical dubiousness of veal, try the restaurant’s signature dish, Vitel Toné – veal tuna. It is roasted veal served in cold strips, with an anchovy, lemon and caper sauce.
In the 18th century Italians in landlocked Milan could not source tuna from Sicily, the chef tells us. Instead, they pretended to eat the delicacy by cooking thin strips of red veal in a mildly anchovy sauce.
And thank goodness they did, because this is divine. The pairing of a strong fish with a stark meat is unusual – but it works. The veal is so tender it almost dissolves and is served cold – which gives space for the anchovy flavour to come through.
For the more ethically-conscious the vegetarian food is as robust and flavoursome as it comes. I plumped for a main course of dark and meaty wild mushrooms, with a sweet pumpkin puree that cuts through the warm, oozing Gorgonzola served on top of crispy polenta.
For dessert, the Gorgonzola sorbet sounds terrible but is quite the opposite. The cheese flavour is subtle, and it comes served with a scoop of mascarpone gelato, a pear compote and walnuts. The flavours sit somewhere between a cheeseboard served with fruit and a cheesecake. It came with a flavoursome sweet, red dessert wine.
The quality of the produce, the hospitality and the extensive knowledge of the staff are as impressive as each other. The chef and waiter visit each table to explain the provenance of ingredients and why they’ve matched them with others.
Whether it’s the name of the beef farmer on Lake Como, the time at which they harvest the pumpkins, or the type of wine to have – they know their stuff and it enhances the experience.
There’s little to fault about this eatery. It’s pricey, though so are many places in Hackney these days, and the portions are modest. But you get so much bang for your buck.
Things that live in the sea are messed up, right? With their backwards breathing, their bottom feeding, or their just being a sentient lump of muscle that lives in a shell. But something doesn’t need to make sense for it to be tasty, and what decent human being doesn’t enjoy seafood? But away from coastal regions it comes at a price. Can you get delicious seafood (and fish) in East London that won’t cost the ocean?
Vintage Salt
I started off at Vintage Salt, in the shadow of Liverpool Street, where I was promised a ‘Cornish village look and feel’. For starters were tuna tartare with avocado and pickled cucumber, which hit the right refreshing and textural notes, while my companion for the evening opted for salt and pepper squid with chilli jam, which was pleasingly spicy. Starters often get the benefit of the doubt, but here they were definitely a highlight. My companion was not impressed with the oil seepage into my sea bass a la plancha, and perhaps it was a touch on the overcooked side too. We fared worse with the shrimp burger – it was gristly, tough, heavy and lacking in that oceanic freshness concomitant with shrimp. Afters were a buttery Bakewell tart and a very sweet apple crumble. We drank the Italian house white, which was decent drop. A good thing too, as the cost of this meal (just over £60 before wine and service) was reaching the point at which house wine becomes a necessity rather than an act of parsimony. It’s a decent enough place, though perhaps a little on the more money than sense side. As if to perfectly back this point, its sister restaurant lives in Selfridges.
When in full weekend pomp I am probably not alone in finding Spitalfields Market something of a horror show. But I need to qualify this, for in Wright Brothers it is home to a gem of a seafood restaurant. We opened with fried oysters with Louis Sauce, which were light and moreish, home smoked mackerel with gentleman’s relish, which deserves musical metaphors I have too much self respect to use, and Galician octopus, chorizo, broad beans and garlic, which seemed rather brash in comparison, but it’s not a dish one orders for delicate perfumes. Salt-baked seabream, carved up at the table, was soft and yielding, and resplendent with umami qualities one doesn’t normally associate with fish. My trusted companion watched me warily as I tried her stone bass with tarragon risotto, which was nothing short of a flavour party. After a fairly standard lemon posset for pudding, the one sad note was the cheese selection (only two – and fairly uninspired at that). Before wine and service one is looking at very close to three figures here and if you want to get involved with the shellfish and oysters…well, let us just say it is a good thing that the food at Wright Brothers is of a standard that you’d be happy to go there for a special occasion.
Of all the places earmarked to visit for this parvum opus, the Richmond was perhaps the one to which I was looking forward the most; a raw food bar complete with enthusiastic reviews from the ladies and gentlemen of the press – all very promising. The much-hyped raw dishes came first, with the standout a wonderfully delicate scallop carpaccio, while the sea bass tartare divided opinion. I thought it was subtle and suggestive, my ever-hard-to-please companion found it bland. On the tuna tartare with aubergine and harissa, we were more in concord. It felt like too much, flavours falling over each other, with none of them quite winning. We were actually rather in the market for crab muffins, but they had run out (it was 9.30pm on Monday evening), so instead we opted for cooked scallops, which resisted and surrendered in the right proportions. Our cooked mains, I’m sad to say, did not treat us so well. Both the hake and mackerel we ordered had been overcooked into dry submission, though some saag-like spinach on the side treated us better (it would come back to haunt us during our gambrinous post-prandial debrief, however). For dessert, lovage cake was an interesting sweet-herby conclusion to the meal and the banana tart was perfectly serviceable and sugary. But at just above the £100 mark (pre-wine and service), I’d have hoped for better,
Monday night or not.
I would like to think the team behind Mussel Men came up with the name first and followed it up with the concept. As the puntastic moniker suggests, they take a much less po-faced approach to seafood here. One senses, however, that they do take the business of seafood more seriously. The potted crayfish were delicately fragrant and fresh, though perhaps the butter layer felt a little bit like the contents of 1970s Elvis’ arteries. I had a generous bowl of mussels mariniere next, which were refreshingly not drowning in sauce, allowing the mussels to do the talking. “We’ve been nicely done to a meaty but yielding texture, and we taste a bit like we remember what it was like to live in salt water,” I think they were saying. The fries tasted a little fast foody … in a good way, and as an ardent advocate of the potato, I had a lot of time for the velveteen mash on the side. If you happen to be in the area and get the urge for seafood in genuinely unpretentious surroundings (one feels they are making a point of it), pop your head in.
Beetroot with Zata’ar Labneh at Rootdown on Lower Clapton Road
Growing up in the nineties, I found the term ‘Californian cuisine’ bemusing, as it seemed vague but pretentious, denoting a lifestyle rather than a cuisine, and evoking images of temperate al fresco dining with Chardonnay. But extra virgin olive oil was a luxury item back then and sun dried tomatoes the height of sophistication. Now, with the internet, food programmes on television and the cult of Ottolenghi, we are all food experts.
Which brings us to Rootdown, a small restaurant opened by siblings at the top of Lower Clapton Road, serving carefully selected fusion dishes described as ‘Californian’, a descriptor I find both archaic and endearing in a city awash with ‘Modern European’ menus. The restaurant prides itself on seasonal, small-scale food. I did note Growing Communities as one of their suppliers, suggesting this was not just lip-service to sustainability, and upon further investigation, Rootdown smokes its own salmon, makes pickles in-house, serves its own beer, and mixes up carefully crafted house cocktails, all at very reasonable prices.
For starters we had pan-fried squid with pickled turnips and smoked almonds, a Japanese bonito broth with raw tofu, and some homemade foccacia with zata’ar. All delicious, although the delicate bonito broth unfortunately was too wan up against the strong flavours of the other dishes. To follow, we opted for polenta with wild mushrooms, asparagus and truffle oil, and the bewildering onglet steak with padron peppers, potatoes and taleggio.
These were rich dishes, not for the faint of heart, but the taleggio and steak combination proved to be a winner – we devoured it. Becca, the owner, swore the polenta’s silkiness was chiefly due to whipping rather than heavy cream, but I didn’t entirely believe her. Even though truffle oil is frequently reviled by chefs as being fool’s gold, I would certainly order this dish again.
We finished off with a flawless grilled peach and meringue combination before tottering home. The only thing I would reproach Rootdown for is its friendly but disorganised service, a small crime given it certainly delivers on the promise set by its inventive and enticing menu. It’s a shame it hasn’t had more press coverage, but maybe you should visit before it becomes impossible to book a table. I certainly will.
Eco bites… Poco Broadway Market. Photograph: Thomas Bowles
One of the top-voted one-liners of the Edinburgh Fringe was: “Jesus fed 5,000 people with two fishes and a loaf of bread. That’s not a miracle. That’s tapas.”
But nothing could persuade this Londoner, recently returned from Andalucia where piles of crispy whitebait and oil-drenched chorizo are conjured up just as companions for your cerveza that tapas is not heaven sent.
Poco is the newest arrival on Broadway Market, where it replaces bike shop Lock 7 (they have upsized over the canal). So far, so Hackney. But this little place, offering tapas inspired by Spanish and Latin American cuisine and trialled and perfected in Bristol, has something special.
That would be Tom Hunt, the ‘eco-chef’ gaining a rep for his conscientious cooking, for how many restaurant websites do you know with an ‘ethics’ section? Like a proud parent in the Christmas round-robin, his menu reels off its credentials: 100 per cent seasonal, organic, sustainable, all fresh produce sourced within 50-100 miles of the restaurant. It’s right-on right down to the ‘non-mafia’ certified Sicilian wine.
We sit at a smart wooden table where only a few months previously I had stood bartering over the cost of a bike service, and order a carafe of red with help from our smiley waiter.
A tasty beetroot puree arrives, decorated with beetroot leaf crisps and served with crunchy crispbread (E5 bakehouse), swiftly followed by rich merguez sausages with spoons of earthy puy lentils and burnt shallots draped on top.
Photograph: Thomas Bowles
The corn fritters with English chillies were slightly dry but, embracing the spirit of non-wastefulness, became great dunking tools for the beetroot dip.
Throughout, the quality of the ingredients is stark – but the lamb neck, served rosy pink with anchovies, caperberries and Swiss chard is the hands – down highlight.
We panic-bought a couple of beautiful Mersea oysters, thinking we would still be hungry, but then got blindsided by the arrival of the punched potatoes, served with lashings of garlic, rosemary and an alioli.
Tom Hunt emerges from the kitchen decked in his apron and, after receiving instruction from the pudding pedagogue himself, it would have been rude not to order both the desserts he recommended. On paper it sounded a bit adventurous for your average churros aficionado but the Peruvian goat’s milk chocolate pot, with caramelised beetroot ran away with all the prizes.
There is a thin and often ill-trodden line between tapas and its in vogue cousin the ‘small plate’. At around £40 a head (factoring in non-mafia wine and oysters) this might be no place to drop-in for alcohol-sponge appetisers but you pay gladly for the quality, and the knowledge that the ingredients’ journey to Poco’s plates hasn’t cost the earth.
Opening a sourdough pizza place in Hackney is brave. The borough is home to a growing abundance of restaurants offering just that, including Sodo, Apollo and the seemingly unstoppable London chain Franco Manca. Yes, pizza with a light, thin, slightly sour base and few, but quality, ingredients, is right on trend.
So Sourdough Saloon, based in Lord Morpeth pub in Bow, is up against stiff competition. The pizza kitchen serves up a selection of sourdough pizzas every day for between £7 and £10. They certainly get the basics right. The base is satisfyingly thin and crispy and the taste lingers as a sourdough base should. The tomato sauce is used sparingly – which is all it needs because of its richness in flavour.
Choosing between the 15 options on the menu was tricky. The toppings were carefully matched and not excessive in quantity. Particularly appealing were the Siciliana – with mozzarella, black olives, anchovies, garlic oil and oregano – and the Mamma Mia, a classic combination of mozzarella, parma ham, rocket and shaved parmesan.
But as authentically Italian as the ingredients sounded, they were not of the quality we had hoped – indeed they were even a bit bland. We plumped for the Vegetarian and Sbagliate and the indulgent Morpeth. The grilled aubergine on the Sbagliate – which also came with mozzarella and basil – was so thin you wouldn’t know it was there and it was screaming out for a drizzle of olive oil prior to cooking.
We expected big things from the Morpeth pizza, given its namesake. It’s topped with Buffalo mozzarella, spicy salami, gorgonzola, roasted mixed peppers and rocket. But we detected hardly any gorgonzola, and little flavour beyond the salami, which was mildly spicy and nicely oily.
The experience was let down slightly by the finishing touches. Pizzas are served in cardboard boxes and without cutlery. Also missing were a few light nibbles or starters. Olives or some antipasti would complement the menu well and surely not create too much extra work for a pub kitchen. But the chilli oil and black pepper mill were a nice touch and the staff were a delight.
For pub grub, this is impressive stuff, but it’s no rival to bona fide sourdough restaurants.
Jewish New Year food: Short ribs. Photograph: Giulia Mulè
Jewish food doesn’t have to be kosher to be delicious, and you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy it. In Hackney we can get the best of all possible worlds, from the austere purity of the supermarkets of Stamford Hill to the rough and tumble of Brick Lane, where authentic bagels with lox and cream cheese or salt beef are consumed by suits, Sikhs, white-van men and bemused tourists.
But to do this we need to try to understand kashrut, the basic ideals and dietary laws of Jewish religion. The laws were given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai and is enshrined in sacred writings and commentaries upon them.
It says what foods are forbidden, and what foods can be eaten and how and when they should be prepared, cooked and served. Meat must be slaughtered to exclude blood and sinews and certain kinds of fat, and never allowed to be in contact with milk and dairy products.
Kashrut resonates on different levels, from common-sense food hygiene in a hot climate to ideals of purity and holiness, for many forbidden items were once destined for holy sacrifices, not profane use. Strict observance creates and reinforces the separateness and otherness of Jewish communities, whilst nurturing the warmth and generosity of family meals and ritual feasts.
We can understand this by reading Claudia Roden’s The Book of Jewish Food, an entrancing overview of Jewish food from all over the world, with family reminiscences and recipes, and a wealth of affectionate detail, from Cairo to New York, Baghdad to Bombay.
The food of Ashkenasi Jews reflects that of Eastern Europe, while Sephardi communities, settled all over the world, enjoy a wide range of more exotic dishes from where they now live or used to live. Algerian Jews, many now in exile in France, remain devoted to a cuisine and its rituals based on centuries of life in North Africa.
Special rituals for the celebration of holy days – such as the Jewish New Year, which this year falls on 14–15 September – shape family life, and meals and recipes play an important part in this. The Jewish Museum in Camden Town displays a lot of material showing this aspect of life in London over the centuries.
The Jewish presence in East London goes back a long way, from the Middle Ages when Jews were exploited and persecuted, and eventually expelled, to their acceptance by Oliver Cromwell in the sixteenth century, and an eventual approach to integration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Successful and cultivated Jewish families moved in posh circles, while extending generous charity to the less fortunate in the East End, establishing schools, hospitals and synagogues. This delicate balance was swept dramatically away in the 1880s by the influx of refugees from Eastern Europe fleeing from persecution. While trying to avoid that weasel word ‘swarm’ I find the restrained voice of Dr Jerry Black, author of Jewish London, an Illustrated History who uses ‘avalanche’ to describe the situation.
Just now we are all too familiar with the unsettling mixture of hostility and compassion towards immigrants; to our shame more was done then than now to help and support the 150,000 refugees (from a total of over two million) who fled to London. When the crowded and familiar East End was bursting at the seams, many Jewish people moved northwards towards Stamford Hill, an almost rural area.
A poster advertising flats to be let by the Four Per Cent Industrial Dwellings Company in Stoke Newington in the 1890s perhaps explains the arrival of the by now legendary Egg Stores, still flourishing opposite the entrance to Abney Park Cemetery. This used to be a cavernous, pungent store with seething vats of pickles and gherkins and barrels of herrings, freshly baked bread and many items essential to orthodox Jewish gastronomy.
After a fire a few years ago it reinvented itself and is now a smart ultra kosher supermarket, with every imaginable ingredient sourced, produced and packaged in approved conditions, to meet the need of the local orthodox communities, with tins and packs of most internationally known cuisines. But the Egg Store’s greatest glory is still its herrings, probably the best in town, and its meltingly soft, salty-sweet schmaltz herrings, a treat worth crossing London for.
In Hackney the essentials of Jewish food coexist with related cuisines: a few doors down from the Egg Stores is a fine Polish deli, a Turkish snack bar with Middle Eastern flat bread and salt beef bagels, and the Palestinian Tatreez café with a huge white bulbous bread oven and a small but delicious vegetarian menu. On Stoke Newington Church Street a new café called The Good Egg is due to open on 29 Sept, where Montreal, Tel Aviv and California will add deliciousness to an innovative all-day brunch menu, which includes the ubiquitous Jerusalem Breakfast.
Another unorthodox take on Jewish Middle Eastern food awaits the Hackney citizen who ventures to Spitalfields and finds their way to Artillery Lane, where Yotam Ottolenghi offers a kaleidoscopic menu inspired by Middle Eastern and Mediterranean food. His book Jerusalem is a fusion of Palestinian and Israeli cuisine, speaking of harmony and goodwill in a troubled land. Yotam Ottolenghi could be said to be the Daniel Barenboim of gastronomy; his sensitive use of a huge range of spices and flavourings brings balance and harmony to recipes that are like complex musical scores, performed by a large multi-racial band. Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra does not arrogantly call for peace (a big ask) but suggests ways of listening and understanding that could bring it closer. Enjoying food together, like making music, is a good step forward. We are fortunate that this can be done on so many levels in Hackney.
Some Jewish specialities are universal favourites: potato pancakes and fish balls (gefilte fish) are enjoyed all over the world, both of them ways of making something special and delicious out of frugal ingredients.
Latkes
The proportions are usually one egg to about a pound of potatoes. Seasonings can be grated onion, garlic, chopped parsley, nutmeg, pepper. Grate the peeled potatoes and onion and put them in a sieve or colander and squeeze out the excess moisture. Put in a bowl and add the beaten egg and seasonings and mix well. Have some fat or oil in a heavy frying pan and put spoonfuls of the mixture in, flattening them slightly. Cook until golden then turn over and cook the other side. Eat hot.
Artichokes and Broad Beans
This simple but delicious dish is one of Claudia Roden’s family favourites. Preparing fresh artichoke hearts is one of life’s less agreeable chores, but you can buy them frozen from many Turkish or Middle Eastern stores. The one at the bottom of Ridley Road market usually has them.
1 lb each of artichoke hearts and shelled broad beans
sugar
salt and pepper
lemon juice
chopped fresh mint
olive oil
Put everything in a pan and just cover with water. Simmer gently until done (anything from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the age of the vegetables), topping up with water if necessary, but ending up with a thick sauce. More fresh mint can be added as a garnish.
BúnBúnBún is a new Vietnamese café that has bravely opened on Kingsland Road just two doors up from neighbourhood favourite and hallowed legend Sông Quê.
Bún’s USP, differentiating it from the other Kingsland road cafés, is that it purports to serve authentic fare from Hanoi, particularly bún chå, a pork and noodle dish served in a rich meat broth that I saw everywhere in the city when I visited, and was looking forward to enjoying again.
We thus sat down expecting to find a menu full of hard-to-find classics, but the menu was full of mostly familiar pan-Asian items: green papaya salad, satay, udon noodles, as well as a perplexing “Vietnamese burger” served on a brioche bun (a nod, I suppose, to that law passed by the Tories stating every burger henceforth must only be served well done, and on brioche).
The bún chå itself was accorded a separate instruction manual encased in a plastic stand on each table, with a mathematical formula featuring different types of meats and accompaniments. Between this, and the fact that it was filed under “noodle salad” on the menu (it’s a broth dish), I got confused, presumed that Bún was simply serving a vermicelli salad, and opted for the monkfish instead.
Unfortunately our friendly server was run off his feet and also was not fluent enough in English to answer our questions, so I also ordered some sweet potato chips from the menu, supposing they were was possibly a Hanoian speciality. Alas, I found that they were indeed just chips.
Our meal, supplemented by summer rolls and salt and chilli squid, definitely gave Sông Quê a run for its money: all of it was well prepared, fresh and perfectly executed, and I enjoyed the classics done well. The salt and chilli squid was actually far superior to most of the competitors’, and the monkfish was decently priced and generously portioned with lots of fresh herbs.
So, despite being a little disappointed that I managed to miss the signature dish (I blame both myself and how the information was presented), Bún is all right in my books, although I’d like to see the owners develop a more Hanoian feel as they find their feet.
Food described as ‘macrobiotic’ may sound, to the untrained ear, like something cooked up in the science lab.
But the origins of macrobiotics lie in traditional Chinese medicine, and can be traced back thousands of years.
The idea behind macrobiotics is that what one eats directly correlates to health, well-being and happiness.
Nicky Clinch is a Hackney-based chef, teacher and counsellor who is out to spread the word of macrobiotics to anyone who will listen.
“Macrobiotics was at one time very scientific and was specifically for healing illnesses,” she says. “But now there’s a new generation, which is trying to change it and bring it into the mainstream.”
Clinch has worked as a ‘natural foods chef’ (“it sounds a little bit more recognisable than macrobiotic chef,” she explains), for Tiosk on Broadway Market, and runs courses in macrobiotics at the Made In Hackney food kitchen.
Macrobiotic diets, Clinch tells me, are plant-based, and use only seasonal, locally-sourced and organic produce. For her, that consists of whole grains, sea vegetables and vegetarian proteins – with no refined sugars or dairy allowed.
“I find that cooking and eating this way is optimal for us not just physically but emotionally and mentally, and it also allows us to stay in tune with the environment we are living in,” Clinch says.
Whilst studying for three years at the International School of Macrobiotics in Devon, Clinch learnt about what she calls the different ‘energetics’ of both food and everything else around us, including emotions, body, jobs, lifestyles, the seasons and illnesses.
For the uninitiated, the main theory at play is that everything in the world is made up of energy that can be divided into two opposing camps. Yin is expansive energy, while yang is contracting. Together they create balance, which in macrobiotics is the key to health and well-being. Too much of one can spell trouble, either mentally or physically.
Clinch describes herself as a cross between a traditional Chinese doctor and a therapist. Her approach she claims works wonders with a range of problems, from unwanted cravings and digestive health to emotional problems.
“If you’re craving something sweet then it could be because you’re eating a lot of salty foods that makes you crave the opposite,” Clinch says.
“For example, I have one client who has very strong sweet cravings. That tells me that she needs some kind of inside transformation related to slowing down, taking care of yourself or self-nurturing. That’s the emotional aspect to it.”
Clinch was born in Hong Kong but went to school in the UK. Growing up she had a difficult relationship with food and developed eating disorders. Then, aged 20, she saw a therapist.
“I started to understand that it wasn’t really about the food. It was about what was underneath it all. I was using food to cover things up, to cope with situations. It was my way of trying to have some sense of control when I felt out of control. And so it’s become a real passion for me to really help others in this specific area as well.”
Macrobiotics is a lifestyle for Clinch, though one that is not rigid nor necessarily very scientific.
“For me it’s about finding balance and listening to your bodies,” she says. “I tell my students there are no gurus, that you should start listening to your own bodies rather than what you think is right or wrong.”
Nicky Clinch is holding a Supper Club on 11 August, 1 Westgate Street, E8 3RL. For details see nickyclinch.com
Good or otherwise, Japanese food is hard to come by in East London – a remarkable failure of a food market that is so over-saturated that chefs are now setting up ‘residencies’ instead of restaurants.
And yet the only sushi around is likely to be part of a Sainsbury’s meal deal, or in Itsu or Wasabi’s duelling salmon boxes whose ubiquitous, marginally different characters evoke the Whopper/Big Mac rivalry.
On the other end of the inauthenticity spectrum, international giants like SushiSamba on the billionth floor of the Heron Tower offer a dose of vertigo with a £200+ bill.
But almost two years after it opened, the East End Review has discovered what might just be the only normal Japanese restaurant in East London.
Plus, as an added bonus, there are private karaoke rooms on offer for post-meal humiliation.
Sushinoen is easy to miss – tucked to the side just off an utterly chaotic junction in Aldgate.
Owner Shang admits that in the beginning, much of their custom came thanks to a buddy-buddy relationship with the Qbic Hotel next door, which has been sending over droves of hungry business travellers since it opened. But slowly a local crowd has caught on.
On a recent Tuesday evening the serene dining room was packed with suits, locals, and a reassuring number of people ordering in Japanese.
For the most part, Sushinoen, or ‘sushi in a garden’, is ultra-traditional with kimono-clad staff and low tables atop sunken floors for your legs – ancient custom for some, date-night novelty for others.
Classic starters like chicken gyoza, braised pork belly in Dashi soy sauce and miso-glazed aubergine are full of all the salty umami you could hope for.
As in so many Japanese restaurants, maki rolls are tarted up with the spicy mayo concoctions and artfully-presented special rolls (read: gigantic) cater to the Western expectation of intense flavour and hugeness.
But the real test is achieving the perfect simplicity of a plain piece of sashimi and nigiri. Sushinoen does this very well, with a selection of fish far more extensive than cult-favourite Dotori in Finsbury Park, which sticks to the basics.
Sushinoen boasts two types of salmon and tuna (fatty and lean), scallop, mackerel, yellowtail, octopus and sea bream, among others.
Most of the maki (rolls) we tried had lettuce rolled in, a surprisingly strong flavour when paired with delicate fish and rice, evoking a sandwich-y vibe I could have done without.
But regardless, for Japanese classics, you can’t go wrong.
