TT restaurant review: inventive food on a Shoreditch rooftop that’s well worth a visit
Kingsland Road stretching north of Shoreditch towards Dalston is like Shoreditch itself: half tourist hell, half incredible. Some of the Vietnamese restaurants on the area’s Pho Mile over charge and underdeliver, but then others like the Sông Quê Café are legendary.
The message? Beware. When you’re in east London it’s not a culinary safe ground, certainly not anymore, and especially at night when office workers vacate to be replaced by throngs of out-of-towners necking their body weight in warm prosecco at a ballpit bar.
There are the stalwarts, the bastions of the old, shiny ‘isn’t this cool!’ Shoreditch: Lyle’s on Bethnal Green Road, The Clove Club and the newly opened Llama Inn, showing that the area is still boundarypushing for its food despite the tides of gentrification. It’s also been a pleasure to watch TT – formerly TT Liquor – flourish over the past couple of years, going from nonchalant bottle shop, the type you’d expect to open and then close a year later, turn into a fully blown restaurant with comfy rooftop bar and film screenings and pretty much everything you’d ever need, including some of the loveliest, most switched-on staff.
It’s the type of smart place that should keep defining Shoreditch. The rooftop suntrap has now reopened as a permanent restaurant – it’ll remain open in winter due to a clever closing weatherproof cover, but it makes sense that the owners waited until spring for its big reveal. It’s helmed by ex-Oren head chef Sam Lone, who also worked at The Palomar and Cabotte.
Dishes focus on fire cooking with seasonal produce. Many of the plates are smoked, pickled and baked, and the dishes can also be served in the newly refurbished ground floor restaurant. Everything on the menu has an air of familiarity, but many dishes also feel inventive and totally surprising – and well worth the visit to try. It’s thoughtful tapas-style dining that plays with international flavours in surprising ways. Ways that instigate breaks in conversation while you work out exactly what’s going on in your mouth.
Dry-aged ribeye was served with an exciting homemade Chimichurri that seemed as well cared for as the meat; mackerel is spruced up with pickled chilli hot sauce and smoked Ox cheek croquettes are served with a smoky chilli dipping cream just to keep you on your toes. Lone is 28, and to be fair, the food is representative of that: they’re the type of daring combos that someone young wouldn’t second guess.
Opened in 2017, TT has repurposed a former Victorian police station. It’s a labyrinthine space where oak and hardwood clashes with industrial concrete spaces harking back to ye olde Shoreditch where empty warehouse spaces would be turned into hipster bars. The original focus on cocktails is still strong, and there are weekly events ranging from cocktail masterclasses to film screenings.
But climb up and up, like a beleaguered 18th century wrong-doer, to the rooftop terrace – hidden from the street – and you’ll find one of Shoreditch’s best-kept secrets.
To book go to Tt-london.co.uk or call 020 7183 9503
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