The Hottest Restaurant Patch in Shoreditch Gets New Mediterranean Bistro

Two popular restaurant industry personalities have joined forces on a new restaurant in Shoreditch. As first reported by London on the Inside, chef Damian Clisby, formerly of the celebrated Petersham Nurseries in Richmond and Covent Garden, and Nick Gibson, owner of the award-winning, cult-followed Islington gastropub The Drapers Arms, will together open Emile — a six-month residency on the former site of Rok (and latterly No Idea) on Curtain Road in Shoreditch. It’s an area that has recently seen a surfeit of promising new openings.

The 40-cover bistro and wine bar will be Mediterranean leaning, open for lunch and dinner Tuesday to Saturday and from Sunday 27th October open every other Sunday for a series of set-menu feasting lunches. The menu will be “accompanied by great wine,” overseen by Gibson. Emile is named after Clisby’s grandfather.

Clisby’s menu will change daily, with a sample indicating the likes of:

• Pecorino, pear, pumpkin, and speck
• Celeriac, cavolo nero, apple, and toasted rye bread
• Potato and butter ravioli with porcini
• Venison loin, Kalibos cabbage, plum, and thyme
• Paddock Farm pork rib, anchovy, capers, to share
• Chocolate, hazelnuts, and olive oil

On wine, Gibson says the list will be “short, interesting and competitively priced; predominantly Old World, from accessible classics to wine-geek curiosities.” A single-bottle, bin-end list of special wines will also feature. So too will more expensive varieties served by the glass using the Coravin system of preservation.

“We’ve been chatting for a while about doing something that would combine Damian’s love of cooking with my passion for wine, and our shared love of hospitality. Emile is exactly that and we’re looking forward to seeing how it evolves,” Gibson said.

Clisby added: “I’ve been wanting to get back to doing what I love — hands-on cooking, actually creating, rather than overseeing large kitchens and brigades — for some time and Emile gives me the perfect opportunity to do just that.”

Emile adds to a growing list of new openings in this particular part of Shoreditch. It is moments from where the new fresh pasta restaurant from Padella will open, which will join Passione Vino, Oklava, Leroy, St Leonard’s, Gloria, Pachamama East, Nobu, Passo, Red Rooster, and soon-to-open Daffodil Mulligan.

It is not yet known whether the duo will use this as a pilot for a permanent project following the residency. But with risk reduced and reputations to draw crowds, it promises to be an instructive test-bed.

More soon.

Emile will open on Thursday 10th October at 26 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3NY.