Where to eat in Hackney
24 places
Planning a whole day here? Read the Hackney area guide.
Behind
££££Andy Beynon's eighteen-seat horseshoe counter took a Michelin star in January 2021 after roughly twenty days of trading - the fastest in British history. A surprise tasting menu built entirely around fish.
Bing Bong Pizza
££Second in Britain in 2025, cooked out of a leopard-print bar on Morning Lane rather than a kitchen anyone would design on purpose.
A pop-up inside You Call The Shots, so it keeps the bar's hours rather than a restaurant's. Not a separate address.
Broadway Market
££A Saturday street market running down towards the canal, weighted towards British producers, and the reason half of Hackney is outdoors on a Saturday morning.
Saturday is the main market. Much quieter and largely shut the rest of the week.
Cafe Cecilia
££Max Rocha's canalside room in Hackney - short menu, St John lineage, and a guinness cake with its own following.
Clapton Country Club
££Sunday lunch with live jazz in an old tram shed, which Time Out puts at #28 and calls a classy alternative to the pub version.
Climpson & Sons
£On Broadway Market since before the street became what it is now, roasting its own and still busiest on Saturdays.
Dalla
££One of the Hackney rooms driving the current wave of London Italian cooking away from the centre.
Dough Hands
££A pizza residency in the back of a Hackney pub - the format that produces some of London's best pizza without a restaurant attached. Sits between New York and Neapolitan: crisp base, generous toppings.
Runs on the pub's kitchen hours, which are shorter than the pub's own. Check before travelling. Also operates in Dalston and Hackney Wick.
E5 Bakehouse
£Sourdough milled and baked under the London Fields arches, with a cafe attached and flour sold by the bag.
Elephant Hackney
££A Clapton neighbourhood Italian that Time Out rates among the city's best.
Facing Heaven
££Vegan Sichuan built on tofu and mushrooms rather than mock meat, from the chef behind the much-missed Mao Chow.
Koya Ko
££The Broadway Market outpost, opened in 2021 - the same handmade udon without the Soho queue.
Lardo
££A London Fields room with a wood oven, open since 2012 and still on the lists.
Mambow
£££Abby Lee named it for her mother's bowls and cooks Malaysian food through an open kitchen, against low-intervention wine.
Mexican Seoul
££Ashley Chipchase went from a Brick Lane street stall to a canalside room near Victoria Park in 2023, and the Korean-Mexican pairing turned out to be more than a gimmick.
Miga
£££A family-run kitchen that moved from New Malden to Hackney in 2024 and was named Time Out's best restaurant in London - the yughwe beef tartare with crisp Asian pear is the dish everyone writes about.
Ornella
£££Milanese cooking on Wilton Way from the team behind Roman-influenced Lupa in Highbury - a butter-yellow corner site done simply.
Shankeys
££Named by both The Infatuation and Time Out, which is a narrow overlap to land in.
Sutton & Sons
££Runs a fully vegan chip shop alongside the traditional ones - banana blossom instead of cod.
Teal by Sally Abé
££££Sally Abé's first solo restaurant, named after the game bird rather than the colour - British ingredients, British food history, and a stated commitment to the people who supply it.
The Marksman
££Downstairs is a proper pub; upstairs is the dining room that won Michelin's Pub of the Year.
Violet Cakes
£Claire Ptak's Hackney bakery - the one that made the royal wedding cake, and still a small shop selling cupcakes over a counter.
Yard Sale Pizza
££Started in a back-yard oven in Homerton in 2014 and grew into east London's default good pizza without ever becoming a chain you would avoid. British ingredients, proper vegan options, and consistent across every branch.
Six London sites - Clapton, East Dulwich, Hackney Road, Leytonstone, Walthamstow and Finsbury Park. Clapton is the original.
If everything else is full
Reliable rather than remarkable. These are chains — worth knowing about when you need somewhere open, not worth a journey.
Temple of Seitan
£A vegan fried chicken shop that behaves exactly like a fried chicken shop - seitan in buttermilk-style batter, burgers, wings and fries, at chicken-shop prices.