5 Restaurants to Try This Weekend

This weekly column suggests five restaurants to try during the weekend. There are three rules: The restaurants must not be featured in either the Eater 38 Essential map, nor the monthly-updated Heatmap, and the restaurant must be outside Zone 1.

Lahore Kebab House

This Whitechapel favourite was knocking out excellent, great value food from the Indian subcontinent when Dishoom was just a twinkle in a management consultant's eye. The curries are decent enough (keep an eye out for the daily special) but it's the mutton, chicken and paneer tikka that are the extensive menu's real highlights, along with lamb kebabs and chops that rival the mighty Tayyabs' as the best in the city. There's a wallet-friendly BYOB policy — one cheerfully aided and abetted by the off-licence next door; if you spend more than twenty quid a head, you've probably over-ordered. —George Reynolds
2-10 Umberston St, Whitechapel, E1 1PY

Atariya

Inauspiciously located opposite Ealing Common station, between two convenience stores, this branch of Atariya (one of four) is perhaps its most neighbourhood, with the spartan wood interior an unassuming foil to winning dishes. It’s a cunning concept: a fishmonger’s sushi bar, which puts fish quality first and everything else second, or perhaps last, though it’s worth noting that vegetarian options include an ume shiso roll of delicious complexity. Those seeming afterthoughts can include service from time to time, but quibbling over nigiri and sashimi of this standard is churlish when comparable ingredients in dressier surrounds come with either the Sushi Tetsu (space) or The Araki (price) model of wilful inaccessibility. —James Hansen
Station Parade, Uxbridge Rd, W5 3LD

Jim’s Café

Andrew Clarke — chef director of Brunswick House — has taken charge of Chatsworth Road stalwart Jim’s Cafe. They’ve got a stripped service on this weekend, but any of the jazzed-up caf’ menu, from Arbroath Smokies with miso cream to the poached egg and fries with heavenly greens and moreish mac ‘n’ cheese, will have diners beaming up at that wood panelling ceiling. NB. Do not swerve beer cheese and pretzels, nor decline the grown up take on Butterscotch Angel Delight. —Suze Olbrich
59 Chatsworth Rd, E5 0LH

Restaurant Richard Wilkins

In the leafy environs of Buckhurst Hill (walking distance from a London postcode, where Essex begins), Richard Wilkins has opened a bijou 30-cover spot, serving a modern French menu. Time spent in the Michelin garlanded kitchens of Hedone, the Waterside Inn, Petrus, and Maison Pic, inform the inspiration and thrust of the menu. Dishes Eater London have sampled include Landes foie gras torchon; agnolotti ‘Carbonara’; saddle and neck of Cumbrian lamb with Cévennes onion; skilfully made silken moulleux au chocolat. Definitely a young chef to keep an eye on. —Zeren Wilson
75 Queen's Rd, Buckhurst Hill IG9 5BW

The Brothers Fish Bar

It can be extremely difficult in London to eat what is — internationally, at least — regarded as Britain’s national dish. Fish and chips, from a traditional ‘chippy’ is, as a rule, best eaten either in the north of England, on the country’s coasts, or in Scotland. There are a though a couple of places in the capital that do the ‘speciality’ justice. One of them is 53-year-old The Brothers on Wood Street: first-rate, home-made chips, and a thin, crisp-battered piece of cod fillet — fried in groundnut oil — tastes precisely as it should. Delicious, fortifying, world-class beige food. —Adam Coghlan
122 Wood St, Walthamstow, E17 3HX