Wringer & Mangle

Cool place: spacious, hip, friendly staff and nice interior!

You may have been here before. It was called the Laundry about a year ago and then was replaced by Joe’s Oriental Diner which I never managed to eat at due to their difficult opening hours. Well now it’s Wringer & Mangle — another laundry themed restaurant in the cavernous ex-​industrial laundry alongside the railway line near London Fields.
The interior hasn’t changed much but they have bought a few new tables and chairs plus some gymnastic equipment to sit on. Although the décor inside still feels industrial and East London, the outside area has been transformed into an all weather sitting room — not to my taste but I wasn’t sitting out there.
The food was very good and getting a table here on a Saturday night wasn’t too much of a problem although their website only allows booking ‘requests’ so you have to wait for a few hours for someone to get back to you before you know you’ve got a table or not (probably better to call up). Service was good and they even turned down the music for us when we requested it. Think British — Dover Sole, chicken casserole, lamb fillet, soup, quail etc. Their bar area has a long cocktail list of variations on the Tom Collins cocktail.
The problem is this place is huge and even on a Saturday night with almost all tables busy it still feels empty. Not that I ever saw the Laundry that busy either. I’d really like to see them succeed but they face stiff competition and will need to be getting more people through the door than I saw. There is a collaboration with local escape room ‘Time Run’ where you can play the game and have dinner afterwards but I’ve already done that puzzle so won’t be going for that package.
On Sunday’s they have a ‘build your own roast’. No idea what that means but imagine you get to tell them exactly what veggies and extras you want with your meat. Sounds like a bit too much effort for me but I’ll go back and give the roast a go sometime based on the quality o their food on Saturday night. I just hope there’s ‘an option called ‘the works’.