Rök

Meat, smoke, and salt. If you like the sound of that, you’ll like Rök Islington (and the original branch in Shoreditch) a lot. They cook just about everything over a fire or through preserving in salt, while combining ingredients from all over the place. One regular dish on the always-changing menu is scallops served with ’nduja (Calabrian sausage spread) and seaweed. Sounds odd on paper, but wait till you taste it. And it’s not all meaty mains here: the side dishes (especially the cabbage) are some of the best things on the menu. Rök is a bare-wood, hard-chairs, brightly-lit kind of place – not a place to bring a date, unless they truly love meat, smoke, and salt.