Pond Dalston

Oh man I love that place! Hawaiian cuisine and a bar with a great selection of wine and cocktails. The food is on point and made me travel with all these delicious flavors. The restaurant is well designed, perfect place for a diner for two or a girls night out in Dalston. Highly recommended!

I came here for a gaming book launch event, specifically to Manhattens Project, which I couldn’t find to check in to. I can however recommend it. I had some bar food as I was starving, a steamed bun, not your usual affair and it was delicious. There was also sushi available as a bar snack which is a refreshing change from the bog standard chips, burger, etc.etc. the full menu looked and smelt amazing too. The cocktails tasted great, and some had the best descriptions I have ever read for a cocktail. My personal favourite was Sex on the Beach #2, for description alone I wanted to buy it. Seriously need to find out who wrote that, as I want to steal their writing talent!
Go for the cocktail descriptions. stay for a cocktail, they live up to their descriptions. And please please please have the eagle cocktail… because reasons. Badass reasons and kudos points.

I’m really rating the bar as that’s probably the best reason to come here.
Manhattans Project recently moved in and they can sure shake up a drink. I’m impressed by this once pop up’s ability to adapt to a permanent setting.
On the menu: Sex on the Beach, Orgasm and of course a Manhattan (but all with a twist). But you have to love the fact that they serve spam fries.

How do you know when a place has become a hipster haven? I would say a Hawaiian themed upscale restaurant and bar is a damn good sign.
Now, I have not eaten at Pond, nor gotten the legendary SPAM sushi, but I have heard it is an experience.
What I have done here, is drink, and it’s a nice spot to drink for sure. We grabbed a pina collada (well made, well shaken and served in fantastic tiki glasses) and brought it out to the chic industrial patio they have and had a really good night.
I will have to be back for the food because I’ve liked what I’ve seen so far.

The best spot I’ve been so fat in the whole of the UK.
Food is amazingly original at a fair price. The service is perfect and the people are hella cool.
A must try for everyone stopping by London!
BRAVO

Five stars for POND Dalston. They’ve just launched a new cocktail menu to launch the ‘year of the pineapple’. I’m not sure what this is, but was happy to drink to it with a candy floss negroni: blue candy floss fluff peeking out of a champagne glass which you douse with fluid from a wee bottle till it melts.
The food is new Hawaiian, which sounds sort of perversely eccentric, especially given the gritty Gillett Square location. But it’s superb — very fresh, with sashimi, taro root and seaweed in the mix. POND are famous/​notorious for artery-​challenging Spam fries — also eccentric and bizarre, and obscenely delicious.
Altogether it’s a buzzy, high-​energy, upbeat kind of place, and I love it. Oh yes and they have booths.

Wife treated me for a birthday dinner.
Pros:
Service was great. Robyn the bartender in particular was very social and mixed good cocktails. The food came out very quickly.
Price was fine given it was tapas.
Cons:
The selection wasn’t overly large so even just the two of us ordered about 30% of the entire menu and I wouldn’t say we were stuffed.
Same with the booze. there was a fairly limited selection and no plum wine?!

I totally loved this place!
I had heard that the spam-​sushi like bits were great, and despite how unattractive it sounds they were, along with the melt-​in-​the-​mouth pork belly, delicious!
I love that all the cocktails taste like a tropical paradise (and not like lilt!) —
We had the best meal, and most interesting meal we have had in a long time here–
P.S– ask for a booth if your on a date

A little hit and miss. Firstly, the good points, the staff are exceptionally friendly and the cocktails are fantastic. The spam fries are also something special, the tangy sauce they serve with it cuts through the rich salty goodness of the spam, such a perfect comfort food. The rest of the dishes were okay. The poke pine had a lovely flavour but I felt the fish cut too thickly and could have been fresher. The grilled pork was exceptionally cooked, and just melted in your mouth but the entire dish needed more herbs and the sauce needed to be punchier to cut through the fat. The Szechuan aubergine was nice but fairly forgettable. My recommendation is drop by for a drink (or 3) with a serving of spam fries and you will be happy.

Pond is situated in a real ‘edgy’ part of London (was scared to use my mobile phone when I got lost trying to find the place), created in an old warehouse. Feels über trendy and hip. Some dishes were hit and miss (Hits = Poke & Catfish, Misses = why so much Spam on the menu?) Great cocktails — we loved Luscius Lana’i, pineapple sorbet & Prosecco.

I really like this place, good vibe, great drinks and tasty food. Have been a few times and took a friend from out of town here that had never tried Hawaiian food, he got hooked straight away! Btw I was very skeptical trying the spam at first but after being forced by my better half I must admit that it is indeed very addictive, highly recommended!

Came here for a friend’s birthday just after Christmas on the recommendation of Grace Dent’s column. The seven of us had never had Hawaiian food to speak of so were excited to see what was served. All having wildly different food tastes but a singular love of cocktails we were excited. However we were immediately put out when we arrived and our friend explained that she couldn’t get through to the restaurant all day to ask for one more person on our table. The waitress acted as if we’d ask for a free meal and made this song and dance over accommodating one more person despite the restaurant being practically deserted. The next hitch came when a different waitress proved unable to take our order correctly getting both drink and food order wrong on multiple occasions. When the food did arrive it was tasty and imaginative but in a lot of ways suffered because of the restaurants popularity and didn’t quite meet expectation. The cocktails were just average, with some weak and watery. We all agreed that whilst it was a nice experience and setting, we wouldn’t rush back

We had a pleasant evening at Pond last weekend. Upon entering the place looked a bit deserted until we realised that the restaurant area was round the corner and pretty packed. The space is BIG and cool and the cocktails we started with were a hit — I really liked the bar area, hopefully it’ll get a bit busier in here once people realise it’s actually here.
Upon sitting down, service was great and non-​intrusive but they were there when we needed them. The menu isn’t huge and starters mainly contain fish and resemble sushi (including one with some spam on it that we had to try — actually one of the best starters). The presentation was beautiful but some dishes lacked flavour especially the vegetables despite being doused in some (possibly soy) sauce. I could barely taste the sauce, however, perhaps a little more seasoning is needed here. I enjoyed the tuna/​grapefruit combo and they certainly like coriander which appeared in almost all the dishes.
We were recommended to order 6 or 7 small sharing dishes to start and two bigger plates between the 4 of us. We opted for 5 small dishes and 3 mains and this was just fine.
The whole catfish at £20 was deepfried and was tasty and succulent although a bit of a mission to get the fish off when you are sharing with 3 other people, the half chicken was smaller than I expected and was probably my least favourite of the larger dishes, the short rib was, however, very nice and my favourite dish.
Desserts were also quite nice but smaller than I was hoping but I suppose we should have ordered more food. With one of our table being allergic to avocado though we were slightly limited in our options but that’s not their fault.
The bill wasn’t too steep (£40 a head including one bottle of wine and two cocktails) but be warned, some of those small sharing dishes are not really suitable for more than 2 (we had to split the sushi in half to each try some) whereas some came as a threesome.
So, in summary, I’ll probably come back if they mix up their menu a little. Having pretty much tasted everything off it on my first visit I may well stick to drinks. But with White Rabbit nearby making vegetables taste amazing every time, Pond may have to up their game a little.

Great place for a group dinner. Sharing plates are usually annoying because nobody gets enough food. Here the portion sizes for sharing is decent with the beef rib and catfish being the stars. We even got the volcano chicken special. The chicken breast was very succulent and moist. Whether you go as a couple or as a group, definitely get the spam fries. Yes spam, that tin can meat, works when fried up and served as fries. I don’t know if that is authentic Hawaiian or not but 100% delicious.

Came here on a Saturday for a birthday, I’ve never had Hawaiian food and was concerned it would be very fish orientated, however there was a decent amount of meat dishes. The venue is a little bit hidden at the end of a street. Luckily the sign is quite visable so we didn’t have too much trouble finding it.
The venue is very modern, large open space with very simple décor. We were greeted at the bar by a barman very suited to the laid back Hawaiian mood that they are trying to achieve. Selection of cocktails is good and the ones we went for were pretty good at £9 each. There is also a decent selection of soft drinks Inc multiple gingerbeers.
We were seated in an area for 18, and we ordered as a group. The food came out in a reasonable time and the service was friendly and accommodating, they were sure to make sure the wine kept flowing. We had a selection of dishes That were all very tasty, the food seems to go for a Hawaiian /​Japanese fusion and included spam fries, a selection of sushi rolls and bugogie among others… The spam fries were a winner for me! We went for two shared mains, the beef rib and medium sized cat fish. I’m not a fan of fish… Even more fish as ugly as this one! But I took the chance and i was suprised I quite enjoyed it. The beef rib was really tasty! Not sure what was in the marinade but it definitely worked for me! The deserts were all woofed down at the end!
Combined with the wine (which was a lot) the bill was on the pricey side, but I will definitely make a return visit!

Being that this restaurant is at the end of my road I had high hopes for London’s first Hawaiian restaurant, however it was all in vain.
The food here just isn’t up to scratch and prices are certainly a bit keen — £23 for a black cod dish that was riddled with bones…
The main problem I had was pretty much everything lacked enough flavour, ceviches should be bold and not just tasting of unseasoned fish… It’s saying something when a bar snack of spam fries is the best they have.
It may be minutes from my front door but I won’t be returning.