Neighborhood Guide

Hackney & Dalston

Turkish grills, natural wine bars, and Broadway Market weekends.

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goodDalston Junction/Kingsland Overground, buses along Kingsland Rd

Turkish grills, natural wine bars, and Broadway Market weekends.

Daytime

(1)

Broadway Market (Sat), London Fields park, Turkish breakfast on Kingsland Rd

Mangal 2

A Dalston institution on Stoke Newington Road since 1994, now reborn under the founder's sons Sertac and Ferhat Dirik as a refined, modern Turkish restaurant that has moved well beyond the traditional ocakbasi grill. The art-world connections remain — Tracey Emin, Gilbert & George, and the YBA crowd adopted the original as their canteen — but the cooking has evolved into something more sophisticated: seasonal tasting menus, modern technique applied to Turkish ingredients, and a dining room that reflects the ambition. The charcoal grill is still present but it serves a more considered menu than the kebab house of legend.

Inked$$$
Order: The tasting menu for the full modern vision — the Dirik brothers have moved beyond the a la carte grill format. If ordering individually, the grilled dishes remain excellent but the seasonal plates and the more ambitious cooking showcase what Mangal 2 has become. The wine list has been upgraded. Turkish tea remains the correct finish.Best: Dinner, Thursday-Saturday, when the kitchen is at its most ambitious and the room has the most energy. Weeknight dinners are calmer. Lunch is intimate.

Evening & Night

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Natural wine bars, Dalston clubs, late-night Turkish grills

Three Sheets

Max and Noel Venning's Dalston bar that proved a world-class cocktail programme could operate from a neighbourhood bar with no pretension, no speakeasy gimmicks, and no door policy. The menu is short — six or seven drinks — and each one is built with the kind of technical precision that comes from stripping everything back to what actually matters in the glass. The room is small, the furniture is simple, and the atmosphere is the atmosphere of a bar where your neighbours happen to be drinking some of the best cocktails in London. Three Sheets defined a category: the neighbourhood cocktail bar that competes at the highest level without asking you to dress up, book ahead, or pay Mayfair prices.

Editor's Pick$$
Order: The entire menu, in order, if you're staying. The list is short (six or seven drinks) and every one earns its place. The Vennings' approach is reductive — fewer ingredients, more precision — so each drink has the clarity of something that has been edited rather than decorated. Ask what's new if you've been before; the menu rotates. The simplicity is the point: this is cocktail drinking without performance.Best: Early evening on a weekday when you can sit at the bar and talk to whoever's making drinks. Weekend nights are busier but the room absorbs the energy well. The Dalston location means the surrounding Kingsland Road restaurants provide context for a full evening — Turkish grills, Vietnamese, and the general productive chaos of E8.

Viktor Wynd's Absinthe Parlour

Cabinet-of-curiosities museum with a hidden absinthe and cocktail parlour downstairs.

Editor's Pick$$
Order: Proper absinthe service with the fountain and sugar. This is the place for it.Best: Evening when the museum upstairs is closed and it becomes purely a drinking den.

Behind This Wall

Hi-fi listening bar and cocktail den; vinyl-focused sound system, Japanese-influenced drinks, basement intimacy.

Inked$$
Order: Japanese-influenced cocktails pair with the hi-fi aesthetic. Whisky highballs are perfect.Best: Evening when the vinyl is spinning and the basement fills up.

Bright

Seasonal, produce-driven cooking above a wine bar; short menu that changes with the market.

Inked$$$
Order: The menu is short and changes constantly. Trust whatever's on. The wine selection downstairs is excellent.Best: Evening. The wine bar downstairs is worth visiting too.

Cat & Mutton

Victorian corner pub on Broadway Market; good beers, weekend crowds, and Saturday market buzz.

Inked$$
Order: Good cask ales. Pub food is solid. Classic pub drinking.Best: Saturday market day - the whole street buzzes. Get there early for outdoor tables.

Off Broadway

Hackney cocktail bar with vinyl DJs, backyard drinking, and a loyal local crowd.

Inked$$
Order: Cocktails are reliable. The backyard is the draw in summer.Best: Saturday after the market. Or evening for DJ sets.
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