Five Restaurants to Try This Weekend

This weekly column suggestions 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 they must be outside Zone 1.

Sorella

Here’s Robin Gill’s long-awaited Italian job. Sorella looks much as it did during its time as The Manor, but with the addition of Campari prints and some carby heft (very welcome; those potato-less mains made for big, bad hangovers). Everything from the deeply savoury truffle arancini — the real thing; no nasty honk of oil here — to the mackerel crudo and the malted barley affogatto is stylish but substantial. The staff are charming and clued-up, and the absurdly generous £45 a head tasting menu is the stuff that broken zips are made of. Even before news spread across the river it was rammed on a Tuesday, and deservedly so. This place blows the bloody doors off. —Emma Hughes
148 Clapham Manor Street, SW4 6BX

Trattoria Raffaele

This small family-run Italian trattoria in Sydenham is packed most nights of the week with locals who return time and time again. The bustling but relaxed restaurant plays host to families and friends just enjoying good food — it’s a heartwarming place. For what it’s worth, this local spot in a relatively unknown neighbourhood once achieved London’s number one spot on TripAdvisor in 2016. Food is rustic, home-style, and comes in generous portions, whether its a bowl of fresh pasta, perfectly cooked fish or a crisp-based pizza from the wood oven. Well worth the trip down the Ginger line; call ahead to book. —Laura James
94 Sydenham Road, Sydenham, SE26 5JX

Uchi

Uchi has stealthily become the fail-safe for Hackney-based pick me ups: hobbled romances, freelance dramatics, early onset 2018 ennui — there is little that can’t be (fleetingly) assuaged by the miso-marinated aubergine; hijiki seaweed, carrot, deep-fried tofu, and saba shioyaki (grilled mackerel skewer.) Oh and the black rice, tempura broccoli maki. Plated with exemplary attention to detail and devoured (respectfully) in a space that’s properly transportive, which could be down to the umami glow, but could also stem from the oddity of chaotic service that somehow never once gets maddening. Best to book. —Suze Olbrich
144 Clarence Road, E5 8DY

Original Sin

This is exactly the sort of bar everyone needs from time to time. The room is subterranean, narrow, divey. There’s no daft Victoriana on the walls or other Shoreditch mixology naffness. The staff have roguish winks to spare but aren’t annoying. And the drinks are bang on — not going to win any awards, perhaps, but strong and well-balanced and interesting enough that one can easily lead to two or three. Like Every Cloud, then, it’s that rarest of things: a cocktail spot that bridges the gap between east London style over substance and west London sticker shock. Possibly not original, but a sin worth committing all the same. —George Reynolds
129 Stoke Newington High Street, N16 0PH

Ellory

Ellory will close on Sunday 4 March, but the use-it lose-it factor is leavened by the news that Leroy will spring from the ashes. Nonetheless, this London Fields curio is as worthy of a return to pay respects as it is of a first revelatory visit. The Netil House setting pits marble and exposed ventilation against each other in a mismatch that is captivating rather than confusing; the former an altar to one of the most adventurous and sybaritic wine lists in the capital. Dishes are more often impeccable than riveting, but don’t mistake this for damning with high praise: plates like blood orange, bitter leaves and ricotta or smoked eel, parsley root and bacon are uncomplicated and delicious — in other words, everything a meal needs to be. —James Hansen
1 Westgate Street, E8 3RL