- Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, EC2M 4QH
Words by Emily Steer.
We have stumbled across a rare thing: a restaurant in the usually eye-wateringly priced area of Bishopsgate that is actually undercharging. Maybe we shouldn’t shout about this too loudly in case they hear and push their prices up, but we were literally gobsmacked at the value for money. The quality of food is verging upon the nearby St John Bread and Wine, yet it is much cheaper, which in turn meant we ate twice as much.
Bishopsgate Kitchen is located just beyond Liverpool Street station on Brushfield Street, in the business district of East London, but despite being in suits-ville it retains a quiet and tranquil atmosphere away from the bustle of suited post-work drinkers. Lunch and evening food is laid out in two categories; either design your own board, choosing from a selection of cheese, cured meats and pant-wettingly good deli options, such as marinated artichoke hearts and pan-fried chorizo picante – the list goes on and on – or the second option: main plates, which is what we went for. We tried pan-seared sea bass with pipérade and sautéed samphire and a pan-fried sirloin steak that looked so juicy and bloody it was all the pescatarian at the table could do not to clamber on the table and wolf it down whole. All the food combinations are imaginatively put together, and it’s one of those places where it all looks so good you end up shamelessly perving on everyone else’s food. We also had their homemade bread to mop up all the buttery saucy goodness. We finished with a chocolate torte that tasted like pure chocolate truffle and a honey & vanilla pannacotta, which was dripping in watery honey.
The flexible size of meal or board makes this a great option for lunch or a daytime meeting and from what we saw of their breakfast menu, which begins at 7:30am on weekdays and 10am on weekends, it makes a pretty good pre-work destination. The breakfast menu is fairly simple but features all the usual breakfast suspects, and if our meal was anything to go by is undoubtedly delicious.
The only detail that has slipped our clumsy minds is the wine we drank, probably down to the utter booziness of it, which was picked out by our waiter and left us wobbling out the door with ridiculous grins plastered all over our faces. A lovely final touch is a gift of their own packaged seeds that you can grow at home, which came with the bill and made us want to go back even more as we sadly lost ours on the way home in a haze of alcohol and were very disappointed.
All in all Bishopsgate Kitchen is the perfect combination of good prices, quality food and an accessible location. A big fat Art Wednesday thumbs up.
Drink
(Wine unknown but delicious….)
Main
Pan-seared sea bass with pipérade and sautéed samphire £11.50
Chimay marinated pan-fried sirloin steak, hand cut chips, béarnaise sauce £16.00
End
Rich chocolate torte, mascarpone, toasted hazelnuts £4.50
Honey & vanilla pannacotta with cherry compote £4.50
TOTAL including service: £43.50
Bishopsgate Kitchen website [click here]
