Eline

Having a former Popham’s staff member is always a good start when you’re opening a new restaurant.

Having two is basically cheating.

So Eline has opened with the deck fairly well-stacked in its flavour, because the show runners – messers Alex Reynolds and Maria Viviani – both met while manning pans & filling wine glasses at Hackney’s vaunted carbohydrate paradise.

You’ll find Eline in the fancy new Rosewood Building just across the road from Hoxton station, where she sits a few minutes walk in various directions from bars like TT Liquor and Equal Parts, cultural hotpots like The Museum of the Home, and other restaurants like Morito.

There, she occupies a fairly Nordic-looking space filled with pale wood & low-lighting. At the entrance, there’s a small wine shop – really just a shelf – but it’s got a pair of seats next to it that form a beautifully cosy little wine snug. Apparently it’s there for people to wait with a glass if they’re a little early for dinner, which makes for a big incentive to get there a little early.

Alex Reynolds is in charge of the menu, which starts off (appropriately for someone from Popham’s) with some of the finest bread you’ll have had for a while. If you want to really make the most of it, ask for it to come with some of the ultra-smooth chicken liver parfait. After that, a starter of celeriac millefeuille is more decadently luscious than a vegetable like cleric has any right being, and the smoked pork terrine on pork fat toast is sublimely moreish.

All this is before we’ve even seen a main course – the roe venison with slow-roast beetroot, the skate with mussel & apple broth, the toasted spelt with gremolata, it’s all lovely. Then there’s a cheese course (Lancashire bomb cheddar with peppered digestives) and some dessert in the form of delicate pear & ginger palmiers, or a rich chocolate & smoked hazelnut tart. The menu isn’t huge, but everything on it is a hit – and the monthly, one-off Sunday roast is definitely worth checking out too.

Of course, that wine shelf is there too, and it acts as a wine shop during the day (named Kimchi’s). It’s all excellently curated by Maria Viviani, who’s chosen to draw most of the bottles from the Old World, and most of them from France. Which incidentally, is where Alex’s late grandmother came from.

She’s Eline.

NOTE: Eline is open now, Weds-Sat and occasional Sundays. Kimchi’s wine shop is open 11am-10pm. You can find out more, and make a booking right here.

Eline | Rosewood Building, Gorsuch Pl, E2 8HU

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