The Hackney Pearl, Prince Edward Road, www.thehackneypearl.com

Last Friday night I took the bold move of sitting on the 55 bus and leaving the safe confines of Hackney Road for the mysterious Hackney Wick. It is a mystery as I want to somehow penetrate and I don’t know why. It is strange place sandwiched between tall and warmly glowing new flats overlooking our fabulous Olympic artefacts and a hotchpotch of real factories and converted factories. The converted factories are special flats, all big windows and envy inspiring rafters and crumbling brick. Unfortunately the place doesn’t seem to have been matched by the catering community, an hour of wandering around Fish Island provided two options of Crate and the Hackney Pearl – however, as it was Friday night and half of the populous seemed to be in the very amiable Crate we opted for the pearl.

 

It sits on one of the many incredibly quiet roads in the area, so much so that in the summer there are benches in the middle of the road. I suspect that this road is actually closed and it isn’t pressurising its customers to risk death for sunny seating options. On a cold and rainy spring Friday we opted to sit inside. It is an ex-shop and has been kitted out in mismatched retro tables and other bric-a-brac you expect to find in a hackney place of dining – although this doesn’t have the try hard atmosphere forced on some, it wears it spots naturally.

 

The food here isn’t cheap – most of the mains, including veggy, are around or above the £12 mark. Seeing as it was going to be expensive I obviously went big and went for the Onglet steak with thrice cooked chips. The steak was cooked perfectly rare, but being an onglet it is its destiny is to be a tiny bit chewy. Disappointingly it came with a nice Parisian butter that obviously had just been taken out the fridge so spent the first few minutes sadly sitting on the steak refusing to melt. When it eventually did it was very nice and brought the dish together. The chips were good though probably didn’t need the third cooking session as they began to take on a more roast potato structure. My girlfriend's dish was a better accomplishment of cauliflower fritters, imagine huge cinamon spiked onion bahjis, and pickle/chutney with a green ragu. The ragu in itself was an innovative bright green concoction which screamed of health and vitamins. An apple crumble for desert was excellent but the hard shake coaxed from the brunch menu was more of a double vodka and milk, effective for pissheads with heartburn but not a drink I would quickly return too.

 

The Pearl also has very nice brunch and lunch menu and having been on a summer's day it is a great sun trap, albeit more industrial estate than a country pub Sunday but that is what you want sometimes. The staff are friendly and it is a a very nice place to go to laze away a Sunday or Bank Holiday. This will be a stalwart of the Wick as it develops and once the ‘Queen Elizabeth II Park’ (still weird) is open and more punters flood the area it will definitely be the go-to place alongside Crate.

Monikers, Hoxton Square, www.monikers.co.uk

Monikers is sat in the top corner of Hoxton Square in (what seems) an old school building which has been popped up as various bars in recent years, it brings a more upmarket feel to the various bar / restaurants on the square churning out burgers of various guises. The building has reclaimed the former school vibe and offers specials on a school blackboard, various old maps and periodic tables dotted around and they have dug out the old wood flooring found in multipurpose school assembly halls / gyms / school lunch room (presuming you went to a school that didn’t cost money). Oh and water came from a beaker – convenient for measuring how little hydration you’re getting as you pile through wine.

The food is mainly a range of small plates at the normal costing from £4 – 12ish depending on if it is a small small plate, a small plate or a big small plate. There were also some proper big plate specials on the blackboard, which we didn’t have a chance to try. We sampled quite a few of the small plates which offered a nice range of dishes – I went for chorizo sausages in honey and mustard sauce, a tasty pre-meal snack, buttermilk chicken wings with tartar sauce, an interesting combination with tartar sauce seemingly working well with anything battered and deep fried.

The bigger small dish of steak salad, was very good, a rare hangar steak thinly sliced over an Asian style salad dressing. My girlfriend had mushroom gnocchi which came in a cream sauce. This was good but not a dish to go for following the leeks with truffle oil and parmesan – ironically a meal with about 20 dishes and the leeks were the most accomplished dish, they tasted like they had been poached in butter (in a good way) and were sumptuous with a spikey parmesan punch. As we went the day before St Davids day I am also claiming this is a distinctly Welsh dish. A vat of chocolate mousse desert was very good and the cheese board could have done with another cheese but it did have an amazing soft cheese which looked like brie but tasted of a blue cheese which was worth getting on its own right.

The restaurant was still in soft opening mode when I went there so I wouldn’t assume that this is the finished product. But on this outing the only negatives from Monikers was that if it is quiet then you can feel like you are in an awkward detention and when the music came on it was 90s indie. This was a step in school memories too far. To be clear, Oasis is suitable for pre-lash drinks music on a sat night but not restauranting. But am sure the quietness and music was down to it being the first week. However Monikers offers is an enjoyable, friendly and relaxed (non-burger) restaurant in the heart of Hoxton Square. Although I didn’t try any of the specials they showed that this is a pretty ambitious kitchen which won’t turn out your standard small plate fare and it will deservedly get busier over the next few months.

 

Also, for those of you with an inane curiousity about what a 'moniker' is - it is the graffiti on the side of a freight train, of course.

The Looking Glass, Hackney Road, http://lookingglasslondon.co.uk/

Some people moan about the rapid gentrification of Hackney, however a small part of me sings with joy every time I see one of the many Hackney Road Handbag wholesalers give way to something I can enjoy. A road needs one shop selling handbags with discounts on orders over 100, maybe two at a push, Hackney Road inexplicably has about 30.

 

The Looking Glass cocktail bar has now appeared opposite the junction with Columbia Road and the shop which sells chairs for about a grand each – the other side of ridiculousness on Hackney Road. It hasn’t gone for anything too renegade and contains the stripped back and moodily lit atmosphere which has worked so well for bars like Rubys. But there are a number of huge renaissance sofas which give the bar a more of a upmarket feel than many similar bars in the area.

The cocktails are on the expensive side (~£10), however these are proper cocktails. What gastropubs did in raising pub food quality there needs to a similar conjoined verb and noun for these places; Gastails works with me. The cocktail I had came with a chocolate spray spritz so that the rum based drink had an inexplicable aroma of chocolate without overpowering the taste of rum. It also came with a block of chocolate to eat on the side which was confusing but who doesn’t like bonus chocolate. My girlfriend’s drink (served in tea cup obviously) had a lemony aroma and taste not dissimilar to something you would treat congestion with, in a good way. The service was great and they were willing to adjust flavours for personal tastes.

The Looking Glass also has a secret section at the back, (what self-respecting bar nowadays doesn’t?) in which you can pull a huge floor to ceiling mirror which swings back to reveal more seating at the back. This could be a cruel trick which leads to awful injuries as a 1 tonne mirror falls on you, so you will need a certain amount of trust with this. The Looking Glass is a nice place for a date, post meal drink or to just sit in the huge decadent chaise sofa which faces out onto Hackney Road and watch the world go by as you hope the gentrification is complete to the stage that no one stops and urinates / vomits on the window.