It’s felt like the whole of Kentish Town has been holding their breath for the arrival of the Soho House Group owned trio of foodiness into our humble community. See our local magazine/ blog: The KentishTowner’s write up of the run up to launch – from hushed rumours through to the big day itself to really understand the level of anticipation we all felt. It’s been tough but the wait is over.
The long awaited Chicken Shop, Pizza East and Dirty Burger soft launched to locals last week from Wednesday through to Friday with everything half price – thank you Soho House! We headed down there on Friday night along with swarms of incredibly good-looking Kentish Towners (who knew??) to check it out.
Having put our names on a 45 minute wait list, I was
secretly pleased to have enough time to sample more than one of the Pizza East
cocktails. First up was a delectably light Martini Royale (martini bianco and
prosecco over ice with a couple of basil leaves floating on top – I shall be
making this one myself) and an amaretto sour, done the proper way with egg
white and plenty of bitters. These were followed by margaritas all round.
After drinks, we headed to The Chicken Shop, which has a separate entrance but is essentially downstairs. Both The Chicken Shop and Pizza East make you feel as though you walked off the North London pavement into New York’s Meat Packing district. This is achieved with open kitchens, bustling, friendly staff, hanging meat, colourful bars and rough wood finishes on almost all of the services.
The Chicken Shop prides itself on the simplicity of its menu and its sauces. There’s something refreshing about deciding on the menu in a split second – for us the decision was: we’ll have everything please. Well it was ½ price… We washed down our half chicken, coleslaw, butter leuttice and avocado salad and of course both sauces with a bottle of rosé, poured out of a metal jug – nice touch and keeps it cool without an ice bucket.
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| The Bar at Pizza East (photography was forbidden inside during the soft launch so you'll have to rely on my descriptions for now... ) |
After mains, we helped ourselves to the biggest slice of apple pie I’ve ever seen, still steaming from the oven and crowned with creamy vanilla ice cream (we were too excited to photograph - sorry).
We walked home holding our bellies and vowing we’d never eat again. We have since broken this vow and plan to continue doing so, regularly, at The Chicken Shop - though next time we’ll be heading dirty burger-wards. Watch this space.
