BY KELLY BESWICK
Barely a week goes by when I don’t pass the iconic Light Bar on Shoreditch High Street, usually sitting on the top deck of the 149 bus. Once a late Victorian power station that had fallen into disrepair, it was first brought back to life as a bar at the turn of the millennium and although I had been a fairly frequent visitor in the early 2000s, it had since slipped off my radar.
I was therefore intrigued to hear that the vast, three storey space has recently been given another lease of life, this time with the arrival of a new owner in the form of celebrated landlord and restaurateur, Rob Star. Rob, in case you don’t know, is the man behind Electric Star pubs, with eight much lauded venues bearing the Star name in one form or another in such classic east end haunts as Bethnal Green, Hackney Wick and Hackney Downs. More recently he has dipped his toe more fully into the restaurant scene with the opening of Firestarter, a live fire kitchen located in another of his pubs, down the road at Liverpool Street.
All this clearly boded well for the Light Bar, but what really clinched the deal and had me eagerly booking a table for lunch one Friday in mid-April, was the news that the place also had a new head chef, namely Jake Ayliffe, formally of the highly-acclaimed Rogues Restaurant on Hackney Road.
With such pedigree, expectations were running high on the day of our visit, and I am very pleased to say that the food we received did not disappoint, in fact, I’d go as far to say it was stand out!
On arrival, we were greeted by our charming server who informed us we could sit anywhere. We opted for a table by one of the huge, leaded windows, where the spring sunshine streamed through. Indeed, we could just as easily opted for a seat on the generous terrace and dined alfresco, which, come to think of it, I will do next time, weather permitting.
Once a delightful bottle of M de Minuty Rosé and a carafe of sparkling water had arrived, we settled down to peruse the menu, which contains many pub classics, but as we were about to discover, elevated to delicious new heights.
To start we decided to share spinach and feta parcels, salted fish fritters and a flatbread with a taramasalata dip. The latter was a creamy, silky mound of whipped fish roe, a delicate pale colour and so unlike the lurid pink versions you get in supermarkets in every conceivable way. Its richness was perfectly offset with pickled cucumber, with the wild farmed, wood-fired flatbread proving the perfect vehicle for carrying the dip. The parcels, meanwhile, were delicate triangles of tangy gorgeousness complemented by agave and an herb sauce, while the fritters were cooked to crispy, golden perfection, with the salted fish filling earning lots of ‘oohs and aahs’ from our table.
Next up I’d settled on steak, while my guest chose the pork chop, but of course this was no ordinary steak and chop. My dish was in fact a Picanha, a famous Brazilian cut, that’s known here as rump cap and which was wonderfully tender and deeply flavourful, served with girolles and a lip smacking bordelaise sauce for good measure. As for the chop, well it was Iron Age, meaning it came from a rare cross between a wild boar and a Tamworth sow. As such, the meat was dark, savoury, rich and surprisingly buttery, thanks to its high fat content, and came with a fine truffled apple sauce and the crispiest of crackling dusted with sumac. Alongside our mains we had crispy beef dripping new potatoes that were so moreish, we couldn’t stop dipping them into smoked garlic aioli that came as accompaniment. In a vain attempt to boost our five a day, we also had the grilled cos lettuce, but happily the chimichurri and pickled chilli made it taste more decadent than healthy.
Evidently desserts are not a thing at the Light Bar, and to be honest, we were perfectly fine with that. Instead we indulgently ordered two espresso martinis, which proved to be a fitting end to a truly memorable meal.
The Light Bar, 233 Shoreditch High Street, London E1 6PJ
Follow: @lightbarlondon
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