10 Greek Street

10 Greek Street

Please come and visit us at The Whitechapel Refectory & After Hours in Whitechapel Gallery.

The Refectory is open during gallery hours serving a seasonal menu of salads, sandwiches, hot dishes and more.

Thursday to Saturday nights we transform into After Hours, an informal wine bar serving charcuterie & cheese alongside an evolving wine list and of course, The Black Book.

http://www.10greekstreet.com

Bitten&Written | Restaurant Review | 10 Greek Street

You can ascertain everything about a restaurant just by glancing at their wine list.

If I can’t carry you with me on this “everything” journey, then let’s just say everything you need to know about the aspirations of the kitchen, the aura of the place, attitude of the owners, ambitions of the restaurant – it’s a magical worm hole that drives right to the heart of the whole shebang, a crucial indicator, a window into the soul of the gig.One moment distilled my extreme knee-jerk restaurant analysis, a realisation that I had seen one of the bravest lists ever.

Luke slaps a few rotating three bottle specials on too, most recentlyfor a mere �50 – we love this kind of silliness.This is a wine list that will engender genuine loyalty from diners and a knowing wine trade.

Nifty swivelling bar stools, the blast of heat from the kitchen, and Cameron engaging with diners as he cooks, all mean this is the place to sit.

Expect her review this week.This is the kind of place worth bowling into for the wine list alone.

10 Greek Street, London, restaurant review - Telegraph

Call it what you will, this faddy no-booking policy is so despicably ageist that I hereby call on Cherie Blair QC MBE, the philanthropist and human rights lawyer, to launch a landmark class action in Strasbourg on behalf of mature folk who like great and affordable cooking, but will not or cannot engage in competitive queuing against 25 year-olds with pain-free backs and supple hamstrings in order to eat it.

In mitigation, let me say that I wouldn’t have bothered at all had a friend of the manager, Luke Wilson, not inveigled him to break the iron rule and reserve us a table for dinner.

Luke is his son from the second of three marriages; but it was the first Mrs Wilson who inveigled him into holding a table.

Quiet words will not suffice in this tiny space with 30 covers (off-white walls unencumbered by art work, antiquey hanging lamps, black table tops, menus chalked on blackboards, stools at a bar by the tiled kitchen at the back; determinedly on-trend in the wartime drinking club style).

Factor in a superb wine list as decently priced as the food, in fact, and 10 Greek Street is right up there with Polpo and Polpetto among the most impressive of Soho’s ageist new wave.

10 Greek Street, London

10 Greek Street, London Over a glass of Dom Pérignon 2003 at the Room to Read dinner in Sydney, which raised more than Aus$1m for this estimable charity, I heard something that will delight restaurateurs everywhere.

We were discussing the practice of restaurants operating a no-bookings policy in the evenings, a policy that has had the not insignificant effect of changing when she and her friends go out to eat.

A no-bookings policy also removes the potential for a stand-off between the receptionist and the customer when someone walks in, spying conspicuously unoccupied tables, only to be told there are no tables available because they are already booked.

And, finally, because a no-bookings policy encourages customers to come earlier in the evening, restaurateurs are able to fit in two sittings without telling diners they only have a two-hour slot.

Their investment of £250,000; the keen menu and wine prices; and the atmosphere that comes from the fact that the 28 seats plus nine around the open kitchen are continually busy are all predicated on their no-bookings policy in the evening, Wilson explains.

10 Greek Street, London W1 | The Independent

RL Stevenson in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (published in 1886) described a Soho street which contained "...a gin palace, a low French eating house, a shop for the retail of penny numbers and two penny salads, many ragged children huddled in the doorways, and women of many different nationalities passing out, key in hand" – and little has changed.

The north end of Greek Street is drenched in history, what with the Gay Hussar, opened by the Hungarian impresario Victor Sassie in 1953 and a favourite haunt of left-wing politicians ever since, at No 2, and The Pillars of Hercules pub, name-checked in A Tale of Two Cities and the place where Ian Hamilton, editor of The New Review, regularly regaled his literary cronies Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Clive James, at No 7.

This place takes minimalism and non-luxury to new heights, beaten only by Meat Liquor in Welbeck Street, where you're given jam jars to drink wine from.

Like the Liquor, 10 Greek Street operates a no-bookings policy, but you don't have to queue round the block.

Watching the sous-chef torching the caramel, while we chatted with the (mostly New Zealand) staff and the dreamboat waitress Matilda, I thought what an unusual treat it had been to eat in the kitchen at No 10 – so warm and homely, so charming and friendly, the food so serenely, unflappingly, cooked, plated and served up.

10 Greek Street, London, restaurant review - Telegraph

Call it what you will, this faddy no-booking policy is so despicably ageist that I hereby call on Cherie Blair QC MBE, the philanthropist and human rights lawyer, to launch a landmark class action in Strasbourg on behalf of mature folk who like great and affordable cooking, but will not or cannot engage in competitive queuing against 25 year-olds with pain-free backs and supple hamstrings in order to eat it.

In mitigation, let me say that I wouldn’t have bothered at all had a friend of the manager, Luke Wilson, not inveigled him to break the iron rule and reserve us a table for dinner.

Luke is his son from the second of three marriages; but it was the first Mrs Wilson who inveigled him into holding a table.

Quiet words will not suffice in this tiny space with 30 covers (off-white walls unencumbered by art work, antiquey hanging lamps, black table tops, menus chalked on blackboards, stools at a bar by the tiled kitchen at the back; determinedly on-trend in the wartime drinking club style).

Factor in a superb wine list as decently priced as the food, in fact, and 10 Greek Street is right up there with Polpo and Polpetto among the most impressive of Soho’s ageist new wave.

Restaurant review: 10 Greek Street | Life and style | The Guardian

It is relatively straightforward to look convincing, and 10 Greek Street has nailed it: walls in neutral colours, banquettes, no tablecloths, blackboard menu, kitchen in a clean, white-tiled space as if somebody decided to cook your lunch in a luxury bathroom.

In recognition of this counter there is a short menu of bar snacks including hunks of long-roasted pork belly with spiced quince.

For starters there were butch, chunky pieces of un-boned rabbit, breaded and deep fried with a crunchy caper mayonnaise, and thick slices of smoked eel (sourced from The Upper Scale, a supplier which is committed to sustainability) with cubes of beetroot and a thick smear of horseradish cream.

Our other main course was slices of chargrilled Welsh lamb and purple sprouting broccoli with anchovy cream for salt and duck-fat roasted potatoes for shameless indulgence.

The standard kept up through dessert: a light mandarin posset with shards of bittersweet caramel, scoops of an exemplary lemon curd ice cream and a soft quince and almond tart.

10 Greek Street | Restaurants in Soho, London

Fabulous seasonal modern cooking in Soho at lovably affordable prices, and a great wine list to boot - but sorry, no bookings taken.

Dishes are seasonal – ricotta-stuffed courgette flower with lentils, wild mushrooms and truffle, and chilled asparagus and pea soup with crème fraîche were exemplary starters.

And it’s value for money too – the soup cost a fiver.

There’s more fish than meat, but Brecon lamb cutlets with borlotti beans, aubergine and courgettes earned their place on the menu.

Cooking is not fault-free: gooseberry and apricot crumble had good fruit, but the topping was a little worthy.