8.5
Great
Food & Drink

Jason Allen 21/01/19


Moio

Please note, sadly Moio has now closed. If you’re looking for an alternative in the area, try Primeur

Head down Stoke Newington High Street and – sandwiched between a KFC and a fish & chip shop – you’ll find Moio.

And thankfully, that’s just a description of the location, not the food.

If you happen upon it in the morning, glancing through the wide glass facade you’ll probably see a pair of chefs busily making fresh pasta and prepping ingredients for the evening ahead. One of those chefs is João Ferreira Pinto, the supremely talented Portuguese head man formerly at Portland – which is where he met his business partner, Swedish sommelier Carolina Seibel.

Together, they upped sticks and opened their own space. It’s dressed in the classic East London restaurant uniform, and pulls it off beautifully: bare brick walls, low-slung exposed lightbulbs, and glazed tiles, with a long bar and petite, all-wood dining area. Oh, and the name? Refers to to a unit of measurement, used mainly in the 16th century salt trade between Portugal and Sweden, that equates to roughly 810 litres. Try cracking that little fact out at your next party, thank us later.

The menu rotates as and when it needs to, depending on seasonality & suppliers, but currently you can settle into starters like razor clam & passion fruit ceviche; some Portuguese morcella sausage with smoked plum; and their rather unique celeriac vichyssoise with frozen grapes.

Moio

The larger offerings then boast some of that aforementioned fresh pasta in the form of saffron cappelletti with fresh ricotta & pottimarron (it’s a kind of small squash); and a hefty Pastrami “slab” with smoked garlic puree. To finish it off, expect rosemary creme brûlée or queijinhos (a sweet almond cookie) with olive oil and forest berry snow.

As far as the Swedish side of the team goes, the philosophy for the wine is similar: there are no hard & fast rules other than if it’s good, interesting, and affordable, it goes on the list, currently consisting of around ten reds & white from a peppering of places around the globe. If wine’s not your thing, then they’ve got some beer on tap from a new local brewery, Deviant & Dandy, annnnd they’re planning on serving cocktails in the not-too-distant future, including a dry pickled martini (“if we can steal the pickling juices from the kitchen” Carolina stresses) and their twist on a negroni.

Which you might want to drink a moio or two of.

NOTE: Sadly Moio has now closed. If you’re looking for an alternative in the area, try Primeur.

Moio | 188 Stoke Newington High St, N16 7JD


While you’re in Stokey… You might want to sink at cocktail at Original Sin.


Moio


188 Stoke Newington High St, Stoke Newington, N16 7JD

8.5 | Great