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A local’s guide to Hoxton

Visitor tips for guests. Links take you to Google Maps. I recommend saving places.

Cafés

moko made

Cutest for coffee: moko made (above) or Paper and Cup

moko made is wonderfully eccentric, and has great and very reasonably-priced Japanese food. Paper and Cup is also cute but further away.

Best for weekday breakfast: Curio Cabal

Try their Mexican eggs.

Towpath

Best for weekend brunch: Towpath (above) or Friends of Ours

Towpath is on the canal, and so closed during winter (they have a free closing party every year with a bonfire and fireworks). Friends of Ours has great food but is on the expensive side.

Toconoco

Best view: Toconoco (above)

Although moko made has better food.

Most hipsterish: SHED (above)

Neon-lit basement gallery coworking space, yeah?

Best for enormous sandwiches: Fabriqué

I met Nimrod Kamer here.

Bars

(closest first)

TT Liquor

TT Liquor (above)

Liquor store in the front. Restored 1920’s cinema in the back. Converted Victorian prison in the basement.

Happiness Forgets

Basement cocktail place.

Callooh Callay

Callooh Callay (above)

The only place I know that has a hidden bar inside a hidden bar inside a bar (go through the wardrobe and then up the stairs).

The Cocktail Trading Co.

Book in advance.

More in Dalston (below).

Restaurants

BRAT

BRAT (above)

Supposed to be one of the best restaurants in London at the moment. They accept walk-ins for places at the bar, but if you want a table you have to book a week in advance. If you don’t get in, Smoking Goat, downstairs, is also good.

Brawn

A more accessible version of BRAT.

CUB (What is it with hipsters and all-caps?)

Gourmet vegan place. Associated with the legendary Super Lyan cocktail bar, next door, which is currently getting refurbished.

Gloria

Gloria (above)

1950’s-style Italian place. Ludicrously popular. They don’t accept booking Fri / Sat evening, so turn up at 6 p.m. if you want to get a table.

There are a bunch of Vietnamese restaurants all clustered together on Kingsland Road. I haven’t tried them all, but the best-reviewed are Green Papaya and Hanoi Café.

There’s also Dishoom is you like queuing.

More in Broadway Market (below).

Places to work that are open late

(closest first)

Hoxton Cabin

You can work on your laptop here until 11 p.m.

Ace Hotel

Ace Hotel (above)

Also the only place you can get coffee at 6:30 a.m. Laptop table in the centre. Usually packed.

The Hoxton

The Hoxton (above)

Café’s great. Bar is okay. Restaurant’s awful. Workspaces to the left.

citizenM

Non-hotel guests can work here until 11 p.m. Considerably quieter than the Ace Hotel or the Hoxton. Go up the stairs.

If you’re a member there’s also Shoreditch House and a bunch of branches of WeWork.

Culture / Entertainment

Gin House Burlesque

Gin House Burlesque (above) is on the doorstep.

There’s the Columbia Road Flower Market on Sunday, which is next to Nelly Duff gallery.

Rivington Place

There are a bunch of galleries in the area, including Rivington Place (above) and Peer.

Connectivity Matters

There’s also a ton of street art (e.g. above). Here’s a great guide.

XOYO nightclub is walkable.

More in Dalston and Broadway Market (below).

Dalston

Dalston is 10 mins North by bus, or 20 mins by foot. Clustered together are:

Cafe OTO

Café OTO (above)

Internationally-famous avant-garde music venue. (I was once at a dinner with a bunch of Italian musicians and artists, and discovered that all of them had been to Café OTO apart from me.)

Arcola Theatre

Vortex Jazz Club

Dalston Eastern Curve Garden

Dalston Eastern Curve Garden (above)

And the bars: Brilliant Corners, Three Sheets, and Untitled (too cool to have a name).

Angel

Regent's Canal

You can walk along Regent’s Canal (above) to Angel, where you have a bunch of great restaurants along Camden Passage: Katsute 100, Brother Marcus, Sushi Show, and Oldroyd.

Coal Drops Yard

You can even keep on walking all the way to the newly-developed King’s Cross, where you have the German Gymnasium, Spiritland, the Everyman Cinema, and Coal Drops Yard (above).

Broadway Market

Broadway Market

If you walk along the canal in the other direction (i.e. East) you get to Broadway Market (above), open on Saturdays, where you can all kinds of street food. It’s still worth visiting during the rest of the week for Kansas Smitty’s jazz bar, Buen Ayre restaurant, and Climpson & Sons café.

A little further in that direction are the Netil360 bar, Wringer & Mangle restaurant, and the E5 Bakehouse café.

Exercise

I go to Momentum, a CrossFit place just the other side of the canal, and Tempo Pilates in Shoreditch (they have another branch in Hackney).

ChromaYoga

Yoga-wise, there’s TripSpace, For the Core, and the intriguing-looking ChromaYoga (above).

You can also run along the canal, to Angel or Victoria Park. Just don’t go at rush hour as you’ll be competing with commuter wankers on bikes.

Shops

Locally there’s Sainsbury’s (better) and Tesco’s (worse).

For organic / health food there’s Hoxton Fruit & Veg and The Grocery (the latter is also a wine shop).

There’s a large oriental supermarket nearby.

If you walk along the canal to Angel there’s a big Sainsbury’s and a Waitrose.

L'eau à la bouche

If you walk along the canal in the opposite direction there’s L’eau à la bouche (above), a French delicatessen which is great for cheese.

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