TEN: The Ten Bells

He says...

My view from the restaurant above The Ten Bells peers straight into Spitalfields Market, which has been entirely transformed from the shabby vintage clothes stalls I perused in my early days in London into chichi shopping.

This uber-gentrification provides the context for this place, which features some cool art such as a neon scribble by local luminary Tracy Emin (the landlady of the nearby Golden Heart is good friends with Emin), contributing to a tastefully subdued sense of East London cool.

The menu is similarly characterful, with a healthy emphasis on rich meat and offal dishes. My pig's head starter arrives not in the expected shape, but as a number of small biscuits smeared with mustard - delicious if a little embarrasing as one of our friends eating with us is a vegetarian.

Speaking of which, Kat had the sweetbreads, which I discovered is not a euphemism for lamb's testicles but actually comes from the animal's throat. Having been eating sweetbreads for many years I felt strangely cheated by this discovery.

The meat-based excess does not end there as I move on to the featherblade beef with onion rings - the beef itself arrives in a dense and textured 'cake', almost like a black pudding in its condensed nature. It's perfectly matched to a thick and creamy swede mash.

The serving sizes are the closest I've come to nouvelle cuisine style portions in while, and three courses do not excessively fill the belly.

 I finished with a walnut torte which arrives in a surprisingly decontructed explosion of zabaione and yellow plums which sums up what this place is all about - simple, natural but happily contrary.

Score: 8/10






She says...

Relieved to have recovered from the lurgy just in time to enjoy our visit to The Ten Bells in Shoreditch, I fought my way through the buzzy downstairs pub up to the small dining room, invitingly calm by comparison. The neon Tracy Emin style (or original?) sign on the wall and the vintage (secondhand?) mis-matched furniture reminds us that we're in trendsville. The offal and choice of wines from Languedoc are BANG on trend, as I believe they say round here.



The pig's head from the 'snacks' menu drew the attention of all of us and wasn't really any smaller or less enticing then any of the starters proper. 4 quarters of flattened head-lining with a sparky topping of, I think, horse raddish. I'm impressed that they've already changed the menu so trying to double check on the website proves pointless. My lamb sweetbreads were rich and fatty and perfectly pitched. Joe was less impressed by his soup - sickeningly fishy with a sharp radish after-taste. Passed round for everyone to try I can verify it was mighty fishy, but not unpleasent to my more sophisticated tastebuds.

The vegetarian in our midst was a bit under-represented on the short menu but enjoyed his polenta main. The beef went down well, although it wasn't a hunk of steak as I think some expected. 'Featherblade' turns out to be more pulled beef style moulded into a lump with gravy. My grouse was great. The pureed celeriac was smooth, creamy, and uncommonly good, the blackcurrants subtly penetrating this sumptousness.

Enjoying ourselves with tales of MI5 shenanigans we were more than happy to hang around and order puddings as well. Kat's pear salad won in the most bizarre category. A properly unusual combination of pear spaghetti, slightly unripe to make the spirals work, mixed with thyme making it quite savoury, then raw coffee sprinkles and sweet honey icecream. It tasted amazing and I imagine there was much trial and error in the kitchen getting those flavours to work together. My parfait with pressed apple and butternut squash curd won the 'less adventurous but still very interesting and most moreish' category. The walnut torte with plums and zabaione won high praise from Joe and appreciation from Matt, but I thought the torte was more of a cake, crumbly and a bit dry. Luckily it wasn't my dessert!



Overall a lovely evening with food that's inventive and worth talking about, but, most importantly, worth eating! Staff were on the relaxed, friendly side of professional, and knowledgable; happy to correct us in our mis-assumption that sweetbreads were testicles - they're actually a gland from the neck. It's not exactly cheap but I think priced exactly right considering the quality. However, portions aren't big so I think Kat & Adrian regretted their no-starter stance, and after 3 courses it ended up at £44 a head including 3 bottles of wine and tip. A great place to go with friends so you get to try as much on the menu as possible.

Score: 9.5/10