Shoreditch Stunner Brat Lends Its Smoky Haze to Brunch

Brat, the Michelin-starred Shoreditch grill restaurant which has set up an outdoor analogue at Climpson’s Arch in London Fields until January, is lending its smoky grills to ... brunch. Tomos Parry and his team will open Saturdays and Sundays from 9:30a.m., from 3 October, with COVID-secure measures in place as mandated by the government. It offers a new tranche of service time, after the imposition of the 10p.m. coronavirus curfew.

Like many of London’s best brunch restaurants, Brat isn’t a brunch restaurant at all, and joins so many in treating as just a time when people want to eat food on a weekend rather than a rigid formula of reheated eggs and sad avocados.

The focus on seafood grilled whole and flatbreads cooked in a wood oven is much like that of the restaurant’s dinner service, but the brunch menu — so far — looks to give the smaller, less hyped corners of the menu deserved shine, ahead of showstopper dishes like whole turbot and ribs of beef marbled with lush yellow fat. So it’s the flatbreads with lardo and egg yolk; grilled langoustines; platters of mussels, cockles, and oysters; cured Mangalitsa pork with plum jam. Here’s a visual preview, with a hazy glow that feels very much like the hangover such a menu might shake off.