When my friends suggested we get pancakes, I started thinking of any all-day (all-night) breakfast places around Shoreditch. Wasn’t I surprised to find out they actually planned on making our own! What an evening its been. 26 pancakes in all…for 4 of us. Toffee, chocolate, rasberry jam, strawberry jam, maple syrup, golden syrup…almost entirely sweets for dinner. Naturally, we needed some wine to balance it all out.
Now here’s a place I didn’t expect. Situated in the normally staid area around Gloucester Place and Baker Street my Dad and I were referred by his hotel over to Il Baretto. I know the Hyatt Churchill is a nice hotel and they have no reason to point us in the direction of somewhere that isn’t nice…but still have a hard time taking recommendations from hotels at face value. I feel like there must be something in it for them. This, however, seemed to be a completely honest recommendation and man am I glad we took it. The place seemed pretty quiet at 7:30 when we arrived, but when we left at 9:30 the place was absolutely buzzing. My starter of bruschetta with tomato and roasted red peppers was a nice change from what you usually expect out of bruschetta. I had a basic gnocchi with veal ragu sauce but they managed to make each gnocchi really light and fluffy (I’ve also come to expect gnocchi to be heavy and doughy). So that’s two surprises. The main course did take a really long time to come out, but the manager came over to apologise and treated us to some fried zucchini…or is it courgette?…and was extremely (some might say overly) friendly. Pats on the back, shaking hands, that kind of thing. I’ll definitely be back.
The Tip: Osteria Antica Bologna
The Tipster:
Thursday night is one of my favourite nights to go out. Friday mornings are one of my least favourite mornings to go to work. It was my job to organise a work night out, or “team building exercise” as I preferred to call it. The “grill” portion of Dollar Grill and Martinis is pretty good value for what you get. Around the table everyone walked away satisfied with their burgers and steaks that all came in between £10 and £15. About £20 total after we’d washed it down a nice glass of Malbec. We then proceeded downstairs to really kick the night off with the other house specialty, the Martini. They have a really wide range of spirits and, being a vodka martini man, I started with Ciroc before moving on to the less-traditional Akvinta vodka from Croatia. The beer selection was limited, but unique: Viru (Estonia), Moritz (Spain), Blue Moon (USA), Deus (Belgium), and both light and dark Bath Ales from here in the UK.
Drinks tend to be on the pricier side at about £8.50 for a martini. We had about 5 before the night was out.
Favo(u)rite American Hangout : The Big Easy
Tipster: Brett Newmark, Operations Manager