Bistrotheque

I went for brunch and had the pancakes which were amazing and the pork chop with a fried egg which was pretty good. The atmosphere is great.

So… My friends chose Bistroteque because apparently it has an amazing Cabaret act downstairs and a live pianist on a grand piano in the restaurant. Unfortunately, the cabaret closed a year or more ago and the pianist only plays on the weekends… STILL… Was a brilliant meal out for all!
Service was slow (pre dinner cocktails took 20 mins plus for example) so why 5 stars I hear you ask…
The ice cream.
But, before I come to that I should say I think the burger here is one of the best I’ve had outside of America. The beef is freshly ground steak meat but done the day before so whilst they won’t do you a rare burger they will do it medium rare and its oh so juicy and goooood! I’m seriously fussy about my burgers — the bun was amazingly fresh and doughy and the Gorgonzola was awesome all melty in there…
The chicken looked pretty cool too — I stole a bit of my friends but was too distracted by my awesome burger to take any photos — sorry!
So, anyway, back to the real deal — THE ICE CREAM
I just was minding my own business ordering the banana and peanut sponge with dulce de leche sauce and as an after thought asked for a scoop of the homemade Icecream on the side…
It arrives, I have a little spoon of the ice cream before attacking the very nice looking sponge and BAM. Oh. My. God. It was like they took the best vanilla Icecream in the world and the whipped clotted cream into it and then thought, I know lets whip some liquid meringue/​marshmallowey stuff into it too. I seriously was blown away. I gave my pudding to a friend and proceeded to order 2 portions of just the Icecream and then sat there making funny noises ignoring everyone else at the table. When I woke up the next morning, the first thing I did was check out deliveroo and just eat to see if I could order 3 portions of Icecream to my home the next day.
The food here is really good but seriously, that vanilla icecream… I’ll be going back and ordering 3 portions sometime soon…
I think I have a problem…

Always great for brunch. Eggs Benedict, Bloody Mary and live piano music is perfect for a Sunday morning.

The setting is nice. We could hear the piano in the background while eating all sorts of starters — very small portions but quite unusual tastes — we had egg royale with smoked salmon as a main and the pancakes with figs and toasted almonds. Get ready for it because there is a LOT of cream but this is delicious.
The plus? The delicious high ranging cocktails and especially the cucumber flip

Good luck finding the unmarked entrance from the street (look for the white alcove with benches and plant pots and there’s a door inside on the left). But once you’re in (and upstairs) you’ll see the incredible warehouse space that is Bistrotheque.
The food that comes out of the big open kitchen is really something special. Seemingly with an emphasis on the veg my hake starter came with very tasty heritage tomatoes and the lamb entrée was served on a bed of chard).
If you’re looking for something pricey but memorable it’s definitely worth it.

Bistrotheque has all the right elements of the most perfect Saturday morning brunch — hidden East London venue, grand piano, fresh flowers, an aesthetically beautiful menu, espresso martinis, Aesop hand wash in the loos. We ordered some bloody Mary’s and espresso martinis to start — both perfect. But the food was utterly disappointing. Within minutes of ordering, our food was served — the Bistrotheque breakfast and avocado poached egg on sourdough. It was clear the food had been cooked earlier in the day and warmed upon ordering. The avocado toast was covered in red onion, unnecessary amounts of unchopped coriander and the egg not properly cooked. I have always been a real fan of this place and have had many great meals there but for me, Bistrotheque has lost its ‘pizazz!’

Going to keep this short because I could be talking for days.
Food — Some of the best in London (I would argue the best). I’ve had a lot of things on the menu and can say I enjoyed all of them.
Drinks — Cocktails are unreal plus they have a stella wine and bar selection
Atmosphere — Very minimalist chic.
Service — Outstanding. Servers are knowledgable, friendly, and funny.
Area — It sits in the middle of Bethnal Green but very hidden, which I love.
The hardest part is staying away in order to protect my bank account. Otherwise I think I would just buy the restaurant.

Bistrotheque’s brunch and dinner are both excellent. While hard to spell and hard to find (keep going, it’s down there on the left, welcome to Tower Hamlets) the service is impeccable and from experienced hands.
The restaurant is on the upper floor of a large late 20^th century light industrial unit. The sort of thing that, in this part of London, was surely built where a bomb once fell. The building was reborn as service industry space in the early 2000s and originally planned as a multi-​purpose gallery and restaurant. It is now exclusively the latter. The internal doors are glazed with square-​grid wire reinforced glass, the external window panes are held in with original hand-​set putty, and the concrete floor is marked with paint and dents from a former life. All very authentic, and the restaurant space itself is respectful to the building’s origins: kitchen, bar, piano stage and dining area are all built into one very large room. If you look above the kitchen you’ll see it’s just a partitioned off area. The metal-​truss roof is exposed with naked white-​painted ducting visible from edge-​to-​edge in the style of modern open plan spaces. If it weren’t a restaurant this would probably be a software startup’s offices.
The bar is a large oval pit with iron sculptures and seating for around 25 people, offering space for walk-​in diners and the best view into the kitchen. You can make table reservations as well and we ate at the tables in the seated space. The white-​paper table cloths have important and pithy life advice written on them of which you should take note.
Brunch is incredibly popular here, and with such a large space turnover is rapid and you won’t have to wait long even at 11am on a Sunday morning. I had eggs benedict: cooked properly with a sauce on the lighter end of the spectrum and surprise spinach accompanying the ham, and on good chewy sourdough toast. Very well plated. My fellow diners had the slap-​up Bistrotheque breakfast, a modest example of a full English that subs out your regular starchy-​thing and replaces it with what must be deep-​fried potatoes gratin. They call it «layered potato» and it’s a thing of golden brown beauty but also a bit like eating a pile of crisps. No slur on the excellent dish, but if you insist on eating with cutlery expect one in five attempts at cutting to result in an explosion of potato bits pinging across the room. Don’t be embarrassed if this happens — look at the floor around other tables and you’ll see you aren’t the first. Brunch drinks and coffee excellent and a pianist was present. Conversations were interspersed with «is he playing Supergrass?» and similar questions. The music catered for those who grew up in the 90s.
Dinner a few weeks later was Mersea Island oysters (from the Thames estuary in Essex, not the Liverpool homonym), salt cod brandade (a kind of rillette), steak tartare, cod and chips, crème brûlée and chocolate pudding. We also had a glass of sweet PX sherry, one of Bistrotheque’s Dilligint cocktails — a close relative of the G&T made with house tonic and dill — and a bottle of Vin de Pays d’Oc viognier. The fish batter was crispy without pinging around the room when you cut into it. The steak tartare was generous, hand chopped and chunky, with a good strong mustard tang. The other star of the meal was the salty ice cream that came with the choice pudding. An absolutely embarrassing amount of food and drink for two people, so £130-​service-​included seemed extremely reasonable. They have Gelas Armagnac here but we had to be responsible: the walk home was along the canal.
(ps: Thursdays evenings are currently special fish nights. The culinary team do a trip out to the fish docks that morning and serve up what they find for dinner in the bar area. Sometimes a drag cabaret accompanies. It’ll be the next thing we try here.)

You know a place is hard to find when a London Cabbie is doubting the address and even up to a half block away, is still thinking you are wrong. At night, the side street its located on can be intimidating, BUT it was there!
Had made reservations for a group of 4 on a Friday night dinner at 9:15pm.
Walked in to a chic, white restaurant; its beautiful. The place was lively and busy and our table wasn’t ready, so we headed to the big bar to have a drink. We only sat at the bar for 5 minutes before our table was ready. They have a good wine selection and I started with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
Once at our table, we were greeted quickly and the table started with Steak Tartare. Very good.
For my entrée, Half Roast Chicken. Very good.
For dessert, I had one of each of the Fromage. Excellent.
Good food, service & beautiful décor. Great evening out.

This is a great venue tucked away in a nondescript road just off the busy main street. You have to have faith! Follow the understated RESTAURANT sign up the stairs and you’ll find yourself in a light, buzzy area half bar, half restaurant.
We focused on brunch… eggs benedict, eggs florentine, Smashed avocado and poached egg and pancakes with bacon and maple syrup. It was all good.
With a pianist playing in the background, the table opposite working their way through two bottles of wine in less than an hour and the adjacent table enjoying crème brûlée directly after their eggs benedict… there was plenty to keep us entertained.
A really chilled brunch venue.

Assuming you’ve found it, you’ve got a table, you’ve got friends (or a solo stool at the bar) and you’ve got the hunger, I don’t see what could possibly go wrong here. Bistrotheque is proof that chefs are modern-​day clerics– if you stir the right things together, they’ll put me under a spell.
You know my favorite brunch combo is bloody mary + oysters + eggs benedict (and mac and cheese where available), so it’s what I set out to try here. Easily the best eggs benedict I’ve had… possibly ever. A lovely, buttery sauce, nice little jersey rocks to start, a well-​made drink… I really don’t have any complaints. The crème brûlée had a brulee to win all brulees with vanilla seeds at the bottom for a little surprise.
We caught the tail-​end of the live piano music and got to hang out for a little longer than we were probably supposed to have the table for as they were changing over for dinner and it was a perfect Sunday in East London.
I absolutely love it, despite my friends-that-can’t-use-google-maps’ complaints, I would be perfectly happy to become a fixture that props up the walls on a regular basis.

Good for a special night out or just looking for a really good meal. Everything on the menu is recommended. Dont be fooled by dishes that sound ordinary — the flavours and presentation is awesome and it is matched by a fantastic wine list. Make sure to book!

A beautifully decorated restaurant with good service. The only let down was the food which I thought was over priced and lacking.
We ate:
Starter: Stone bass tartar
Main: Sea bream with fennel and orange & the skirt steak with portobello mushrooms and a shallot butter sauce
The starter was nice but nothing special. I’ve tasted that typical soya ginger chilli sauce in so many dishes before that it didn’t come across as anything special for me.
The sea bream was a bit too soft, almost mushy, the flavours were rather bland.
The skirt steak needed a lot of additional seasoning. It came with a shallot sauce which had only been poured on one slice of the steak leaving the other pieces plain and unloved.
Each dish yearned for something else, perhaps a contrasting texture and better seasoning. If I were to come back it would be to sit by the bar with a glass of wine and enjoy the surroundings of this beautiful restaurant.

Excellent restaurant — great ambiance, yummy food and good service.
Four of us came for dinner and we started with an array of small bites to share: white bait, grilled scallions and Scotch quail eggs. The eggs were fabulous (yolks were perfectly soft, the sausage and breadcrumb casing nice and crunchy).
Our mains were also spot on. I had the skirt steak which was perfectly cooked and seasoned. The chips were also the way chips should always be: crunchy and salty on the outside, nice and creamy on the inside.
What a fab restaurant!

This is one of the coolest restaurants I have ever been to, no joke. Not only is it in a random sort of area, but the fact that you have to walk down an alley to enter just contributes to the overall vibe that it presents. I was in awe of the open-​ness and beauty of the space, and it just had a great vibe that is very rare to find. I will definitely be coming here any time I find myself in London.

Very cool, reasonably priced restaurant and bar.
We went here for our anniversary dinner and had a lovely time. The service was spot on, discreet and efficient. I had the prix fixe menu, starting with a pear, stichelton, spinach & walnut salad which was bloody lovely. Jenny had the charcuterie plate, again which was very nice, followed by the half roast chicken. Washed down with a beautiful bottle of Yalumbu Viognier, which I highly recommend. The coffee and crème brûlée that finished the meal were also superb.
The interior is sparse, industrial, unpretentious. Well worth checking out.

Fantastic spot overall. Very hip without being douchey (well, except for the patron with five buttons on his shirt unbuttoned — chest hair! — but I suppose the restaurant can’t keep a guy from letting his douche flag fly). The food was great overall. I went for the prix fixe menu, which at just shy of £17.50 was a pretty good deal. Salad was good. My salmon was a bit undercooked for my liking; the server apologised and promptly got me a new fish. (Believe it or not, I don’t think the chef, who was visible in their open kitchen, was too impressed with my send-​back.) I think it’s worthwhile for a restaurant to note in their menu how they cook a meat, especially if they’re in the habit of doing it medium rare. Anyway, once the more-​cooked salmon came it was delicious, and while I waited the manager brought some tasty salami for us to munch on. Dessert was a rich but delicate crème caramel.
We sat at the bar and, naturally, enjoyed a few bevvies on the evening. I had my first Negroni (the thinking man’s drink!) and the lady enjoyed their Cucumber Flip and, later on, their Espresso Martini. The Negroni was decent, but I’m not really a mixed drink/​cocktail guy; I would have gone for a beer, but their prices on beers from The Kernel were extortionate. For about 50p more I got the Negroni rather than a Kernel Pale Ale.
All in all it was a great evening. Wonderful ambiance, attentive service, pretty good value. I will definitely come back to this place.

When they opened the owners could not afford a sign; now they don’t need one.
This is a hip, unpretentious, delightful space with good food and very solicitous service. Some websites call the food «French». That seems incorrect. We’d call it nouvelle eclectic.
We had the Parmesan polenta, egg and flat mushroom and the steak tartare, chips and salad. Both were yummy and nicely spiced. Then we had a green salad and rice pudding for dessert. The waiter seemed a bit weirded out by a salad for dessert but overcame his anxiety. All in all a very nice place.

I was questioning my Google Maps as I walked down Wadeson Street. There were no signs of any public businesses, just warehouses and flats. As my blue dot was reaching the flagged address on my app, I could hear the sounds of a restaurant but couldn’t see any sign of an entrance anywhere. I decided to do a little more investigating and found an open door. A man emerged and told me that Bistrotheque was upstairs and I headed right on up. What I found was a welcoming open space and a very friendly staff. I had a 11:15AM brunch reservation for 3 and they happily walked me to my table.
If I had to guess, Bistrotheque seems to be a well-​kept secret since you have to be looking for it in order to find it. It’s not on a main street where many people walk by so it’s not likely that you’ll just stumble upon it. As I was waiting for my friends to arrive, a member of the staff took my drink order and asked if I’d like a newspaper while I waited, which I thought was very thoughtful on his behalf. When my friends finally arrived, we decided to share an order of the pancakes, maple syrup, and bacon and each got a dish of our own. I decided to stray away from my typical order of some type of eggs benedict and went with the unique duck hash which was recommended to me by the server.
When the food finally arrived, we all decided to share amongst eachother so I got a bite of everyone’s dish. The food was very good and overall it was a very good brunch. The pancakes were the highlight for me and thought it was a good idea for all of us to share alongside our own personal brunch dishes. The duck hash was good, but I wasn’t amazed by it. Aside from brunch, their dinner menu looked amazing so I may be tempted to head back to try it.
As for the atmosphere, this may be the first time I’ve listened to a live piano player as I was chowing down on brunch. Bistrotheque is great little find in an area you’d never think to find a nice restaurant. Just a piece of advice, if your map app tells you you’re in the right place, you probably are… just look for a set of doors and find your way upstairs.

I suppose it’s testament to my age that the ultimate compliment to a spot is to say: «oh! I could totally see a friend getting married here».
And Bistrotheque? Bistrotheque is the venue I’d save for a BEST friend’s wedding. Because it’s stellar.
(intentionally) poorly marked, this restaurant on Wadeson Street looks like a loft space. Our gang of 5 walked by hoping it was the restaurant but, without any obvious markers, marched on. Only to eventually return and subtly high-​five in excitement that we got to eat *there*. The staff mentioned that it has been around for about 8 years without any obvious signage and just a lot of «word of mouth» and «friends bringing friends». Fun. I felt part of a secret club.
The spot is lofty, with high ceilings, white-​washed brick, beautiful light fixtures. I love the design of the menus (graphic design nerd right hurr) and the right-​off-​the-​bat offer of flat or sparkling water to wet the ol’ whistle.
Being right before the restaurant closed for Christmas, the menu was slightly limited, but not in a way that stopped us. Starters included a mushroom burger (meaty portobello was the best component), a cheeseburger (good not great, though the bun was aces), olives (fleshy green and top quality), popcorn, and a caper and herb green salad (fresh and perfectly briny). The fish and chips with battered cod and pea mash was fantastic: the house-​made tartar had just the right mix of onion and pickled included, and the fish was cooked to a perfect crisp. The polenta was overkill with butter (or cheese?) (or, possibly: butter AND cheese… AND cream?), and the duck confit, though also tasty, was extraordinarily rich. If I had gone to Bistrotheque with the expectation of a French restaurant (its cuisine is categorized as «French» on Unilocal), I would have been disappointed.
The real highlights, for me, were the space itself, the staff, and the drinks. On that alone, I’m willing to give the mains a re-​try, especially since the night pre-​Christmas feels unfairly unrepresentative of an average service. Have heard the brunch is killer, so that’s on my stomach’s bucket list.
Unilocal note: who’d ha’ thunk that cream, crème de cacao and tequila would make an awesome cocktail? YOU’RE WELCOME, LIVER!

Das Cabaret war spitze, das Essen so lala.
Die Location ist der wahnsinn. Man hat das Gefühl einen echten Geheimtipp zu nutzen :)

Zufällig kommt man nicht hierher. Von Außen sieht’s aus wie die vielen anderen Lagerhallen in der Umgebung. Innen öffnet sich dann sowas wie ein Bar und im 1. Stockwerk ein Restaurant. Ich war hier zu einem verspäteten Frühstück, kann also weder zum Barbetrieb nicht zum Mittag– und Abendangebot etwas sagen.
Das Restaurant hat einen großen Raum der nüchtern in weiß gehalten ist. Durch die Fenster strahlt (zumindest mittags) diffuses Licht in de Raum. Es war weder zu voll noch zu leer. Die Stimmung eines Samstagsmorgenwurde durch einen Pianisten perfektioniert.
Obwohl Mittagsgerichte schon bestellt werden konnte habe ich mich für ein Frühstück entschieden. Auf der Karte sind die Klassiker wie Eggs Benedikt, Scrambeld Eggs, Full English und Croque Monsieur /​Madame. Letzteres war definitiv einer der Besten die ich je gegessen habe!!!
Vom Service war alles entspannt, keine langen Wartezeiten und auch keine Aufdringlichkeiten. Sehr schöner laden, wenn man ihn denn findet.