Corner Room – at the Town Hall Hotel in Bethnal Green – was launched as a more casual neighbourhood restaurant while Nuno Mendes was still behind the stoves at the Michelin-starred Viajante downstairs. While Nuno has now moved on to the glitzy Chiltern Firehouse, Corner Room remains, offering a daily changing seasonal menu and pretty amazing value.
The menu is mostly made up of small plates designed for sharing although there are a couple of main course sized dishes if that’s not your bag. We started with crispy pig skins – a bowl of giant homemade pork scratchings with a tomato dip – and marinated scallops with ‘lactose’ roasted carrots (us neither). Both main courses were excellent: barbecued poussin was glazed with a gloriously sticky black pepper sauce while big slices of dry aged middle white pork loin came with buttery artichoke and rich red wine jus.
Desserts were perhaps the only let down; the combination of ‘compressed’ strawberries and burrata didn’t really work for us, a little better though was the frozen panna cotta with apple and hazelnut.
All in all though, Corner Room offers some well priced, exciting cooking in a cosy, intimate setting – and what more could you ask for in a neighbourhood restaurant?
Town Hall Hotel, Patriot Square, London E2 9NF
www.townhallhotel.com