SMITHS (Spitalfields)

SMITHS (capitalised once for correctness, but not to be repeated) is a newly opened spot in Spitalfields. Although it’s not really new, being an effective rebrand of the old LUXE (sic, old naming habits die hard seemingly), to share the branding of its Smithfield sibling. Cheshire high streets, beware! To be honest, I’m not 100% sure on the history or the status of John Torode's involvement (edit: he is no longer involved), but as this is a blog with no sub-editors or unpaid interns, boring facts can wait. It’s basically a reboot.

I liked the old Luxe, it was a well-executed venue with crisp branding and reasonable food and drink. Smiths is largely the same – at street level is a bar, with a restaurant upstairs and some sort of nightlife offering in the basement. Food is strikingly similar; a lot of grills and some random contemporary dishes such as braised short rib. There is some disconcertingly random geography among the starters; salads of green papaya co-exist with those of caprese, and both chicken liver parfait and spring rolls feature too. 

The nuts and bolts of the place are decent. Service is especially lovely (I need to declare here that I was invited to review Smiths, so this could have been a factor) – and the grills were good. But I would not say brilliant. For an establishment known for meat (and John Torode did pitch himself as a beef expert at times) the steak wasn’t amazing. Grill temperature couldn’t have been high enough to deliver a medium-rare piece of meat like the above. It should be bristled with char and burn, not tokenistically striped like a Whopper.

With Hawksmoor up the road and St John opposite, you’d struggle attracting a high-spending clientele here at that calibre. But perhaps that’s a lazy comparison. It seems to be pitched a little lower - more heightened pub food than upmarket steakhouse although to be fair I don’t think they are stating otherwise.

My venison cheese burger was reasonable – a stonkingly dense venison patty, cooked medium and with Cashel blue on top which worked well. The chips were my naughties gastro pub nightmare: massively hot, enormous roast potatoes masquerading as ‘hand-cut chips’. For fuck’s sake, it’s hardly a hard-working artisan paradise cutting a potato three ways. Good whack of salad though.

What else? Well, the cheeseboard was pretty, adorned with celery and some random sprigs of herbs. 

Smiths for some reason left me a little cold, much lesser than the sum of its parts. Everything was of a good standard and the staff were excellent, but I think it was missing an originality, a character or a quirkiness to be memorable. It’s safe, dependable and so straight down the line, that in being inoffensive it renders itself towards forgettable. 

Grillshack

Grillshack has thankfully replaced the execrable Alphabet Bar on Beak Street, and early signs are positive. First impressions are a slightly baffling array of innovation; no reservations standard but you can sign up for a text when your table is ready. But once you’re in, the options for ordering are overwhelming. Do you download their app and go through that? Or perhaps at the DIY till points? Or yes, there is a counter. Which most people seem to do.

The menu is edited fairly tightly – the burger with add-ons (my newly gluten-free other half is appeased here, but at a 75p surcharge absent from the admittedly higher priced Honest Burgers), a steak, some chicken. Basic yes, and not ground-breaking so far. Although crowd pleasers equate to  crowds and this has certainly been the case on both visits of mine.

Grillshack’s £5-ish burger is my nap here: a juicy, decent sized patty, just pink enough for the purists among us, pretty damn tasty. Bun replete with a light bead of sweat, and bacon proper. 

The steak with shoestring fries is value for the meat alone; a rib-eye supposedly but pulverised into the sort of escalope you might expect in a steak sandwich. No complaints at a £10 price point. Their regular fries have a fantastic seasoning which eclipses the rather lacklustre shoestrings too, which need a touch of sexing up, April Bloomfield style.

But food isn’t the main draw here. It’s serviceable, nay, quite good, but the ease and charm of Grillshack won this pig over. At such great value it’s definitely positioning itself as a Flat Iron, Five Guys and Shake Shack contender, and leaving the higher end of those markets well alone. The key will be repeat business, bolstered by service levels. Which are fantastic by the way; truly attentive and friendly.

Richard Caring’s stewardship of Le Caprice, Soho House Group and others over the years has proven that punters return hungrily again and again for 7/10 food when you give them 9/10 service. As long as it’s decent, great people add the magic finishing touch to make the occasion. Grillshack is a fast food version of that clever approach.

Yes I’m a predictable cynic and Grillshack is an achingly portable concept, probably conceived as such, but so what? Better more of this than some of the rubbish out there now, and nobody would object to W1 service levels radiating outwards, with the food people actually want to eat.

Crate Brewery

Crate is a micro-brewery which does pizzas. It’s good.

I should elaborate really. 

In deepest, darkest Hackney Wick (it’s weird), there are many industrial buildings which in these heady, post-industrial times are more suitable for apartments, raves and yes, now brewing. Crate is a few years old, a veritable old-timer for today’s brewing boom. They have the perfect spot alongside the canal, with views to the various carbuncles of the Olympic Park and Stratford itself.

About 50% of those alighting from the Overground beelined straight for Crate; we followed a girl (in a chivalrously non-threatening manner, I hasten to add) through the desolation and came across it easily. It was packed considering the eerie quiet of the streets outside, and full of bearded, industrious types scurrying around in their artisan's aprons for this higher calling of pizza and pints.

The oh-so-carefully placed sacks of barley and kegs reminded me of that old Science Museum room where kids could play at industry: scooping up grain and putting it through various conveyor belts and contraptions. Only a bit more grown up. And not completely pointless, as the outcome is beer.

Pizzas here are an odd bunch, but a merry one. My favourite was surprisingly a veggie option – the stilton, walnut and blue cheese, which sounds bizarre but was tangy and sweet genius. A sucker for detail, I loved the thoughtful, egalitarian arrangement of sweet potato allowing everyone to have a piece, possibly inspired by the local squats.

Pepperoni was also fantastic – a hot mess of gunk and grease. And whilst not a pizza bianca like the stilton, it was very light on the tomato base. And finally, the grim-sounding but again, very good minced lamb and pine nut. A friend once ordered a disgrace of a lamb pizza once (at the Lansdowne), which was like regurgitated doner meat from Upper Street's finest, so I was suspicious, but this was genuinely tasty. All crusts are Roman thin and the wooden sharing boards keep everything tactile and sociable.

I can be a bit of a purist bore about pizzas (and many other things) but these were smart, salty toppings which perfectly complemented the copious mead going down. In fact, the flavours worked so well that traditional Italian pizza adornments may have made the whole beer thing feel a bit boorish. Not that it stopped those vampy doyennes of Twitter Rachel Roberts and Grace Dent from sinking a few bottles of red instead – there is something for everyone.

 

So there it is – admirable pizza, interesting beers (they stock loads beyond their own brews, including a rarity on these shores, Bear Republic) and that canalside space. It would be chaos anywhere else, but luckily it’s so far from the beaten track, it’s practically in Leyton. But if you’re adventurous, and fancy doubling the population of Hackney Wick in one train journey, it may be the best shout…

MEATmission

MEATmission is more of the same. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends completely on whether or not you like its older siblings. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the food, booze and vibe so It was never going to be a hard sell for me.

Differences here are that they take reservations before 7pm, the space is more condensed and some food tweaks. Notably, the monkey fingers – a huge serving of buffalo coated and fried chicken pieces. I could eat these every day.

In fact my current buffalo obsession led me onwards to try the buffalo chicken burger which was long overdue after a spate of dead hippies. It’s pretty much a big monkey finger in a bun. The chicken ‘burger’ is absolutely vast – you could quite easily halve it and fill two buns. It’s an unwieldy, greasy mess, and all the better for it.

A reviving glass jug of Brooklyn was punchy at £11 for two pints, but hoarded and guzzled all the same. My companions Piglet and @scouserachel preferred the sanguine hues of their ‘Time Of The Month’ cocktails. 

Service is friendly and extremely competent for this cacophonous, well-lubricated environment. The space is an old Christian mission, hence the name, and the stained glass effect mural is a nod to this. Sort of. If Satanists had worship space, perhaps. Frankly, an old church might be the only way to top this latest venue in terms of gothic drama.

The burgers are high-end slop, the crowd is young and loud, and you have that occasional reward of no-reservations; they thoroughly approve of people lingering to get drunk. It's a go hard or go home sort of place and you’ll already know if you’ll like it or not. I do profusely, and Monkey Fingers are worth crossing town for, but MEATliquor pips it, primarily for being more spacious and a lot more fun. 

Food – 8/10

Drink – 9/10

Service - 8/10

Value – 7/10 
Tap water tales – 8/10

Staff Hotness – 8/10

Rapha Cycle Club

Rapha Cycle Club is almost a little too cool for its own good. It’s a sleek, metallic, industrial space, split between cyclewear and a café area. The people at first glance are as you’d expect: inked-up cliques of a better-heeled (and wheeled) variety than Look Mum No Hands.

On closer inspection, there were more folk in civvies than in cycling attire, and the staff were incredibly welcoming. No exclusive cyclist ghetto is this, unlike the terror of deigning to perch on the wall where Poland St meets Broadwick.  

Focaccia was a good size and price (£4.50) for these parts, especially when eating in and it’s grilled and served with a decent handful of dressed salad. It was packed full of prosciutto, mozzarella, tomatoes and basil, and a great lunch. My long black was delicious – I believe they’re moved from Monmouth Beans to Square Mile. 

Interestingly, it was predominantly male and is effectively a very blokey coffee joint. Any ‘coffee date’ I have with a male friend inevitably results in a brief stand-off before one caves in to proclaim “fuck it, fancy a pint?”, and the faux-intentions of coffee are long consigned to history. But at Rapha there are actually plenty of guys having a coffee together. Talking tats. And hedge funds.

They sell booze (a short, eclectic wine list and Kernel beers) and with some music on, it wouldn’t be too shabby a place to come for a quick evening drink, or a cheeky afternoon one. And I thoroughly enjoyed the buzzy, original surroundings too, which reminded me of the many ‘concept’ café-in-retail offerings in Tokyo. I look forward to returning for the braised beef brioche – effectively pie filling encased in a brioche bun, which at £3.50 seems great value.

Honest Burgers (Soho)

Honest Burgers is much as you would guess, a simple place which knocks out very decent burgers with little fuss. Their Soho outlet is their second after Brixton, and believe it or not, the side street location is rather calm – both in comparison to Brixton Village and also for the environs of Soho itself. It even features some outdoor seating.

There is no booking here of course, so expect a good wait. It’s very popular, as Brixton openings seem to be upon roll-out. There’s a predictable “I preferred their earlier stuff” caché in labouring the Brixton origins (as with Franco Manca), but as I’m from North London (and not the Home Counties via art school), Soho suits me just fine.

My burger (sourced via The Ginger Pig) is cooked medium-rare without the quibble of neighbouring Byron. The patty is high quality, fat and incredibly juicy. Smoked bacon adds a lot of flavour, but the cheese doesn’t dominate too much. Nothing worse than some gastro-pub whacking on masses of Quickes Cheddar or similar to turn a burger into a cheese roll.

The bun is contemporary-default brioche, it comes with pickle and some other bits, and most importantly it comes with chips. Rosemary salt chips in this case, and quite impressive they are too. At £9 (£8 without bacon) for both burger and fries, it stridently competes with Byron at the cheaper end of the quality burger market. 

Drinks range from lemonade in jam jars (retro Mason-style, just to remind you it’s 2011/12) to a decent range of beers including a decent selection from Redchurch. Their pale ale is a faithful rendition of a Pacific Northwest ale, but not so sickly in the floral and hoppy as some can be.

Service was swift, but even with the hordes of disappointed would-be diners ogling our burgers from the cold, we didn’t feel pressured by staff to hurry at all. They take your number and call you, so the queue is managed in a more amenable way than many other places. I hate to invoke the obvious, but it really is an honest proposition; superb burgers executed with understated flair but with fun design touches ranging from great typography to the trivial, such as these cool straws - seemingly on-brand in hunting green. Brighton is to be their third outlet I hear.

In London, and particularly W1, you can’t rest on your burger laurels (or should that be BRGR?) for too long, but it’s my current pick over Tommi’s for top sub-£10 burger in these parts. The rosemary chips, drinks and meat quality swing the balance quite considerably. So go now, if you can get in. 

Food – 9/10

Drink – 8/10

Service - 9/10

Value – 8/10

Tap water tales – 4/10 (none offered or requested)

Staff Hotness – 7/10