Manteca

Manteca settled into its permanent Shoreditch address on Curtain Road in November 2021, after two years running as a residency in Soho. Chris Leach and David Carter (also behind Smokestak) built the restaurant around whole-animal butchery and wood-fired cooking: hand-rolled pasta shaped in view of the room, a glass-fronted room for house-cured salumi, and a menu that reads Italian with a British accent. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and remains one of the harder tables to secure in east London.

The ground floor puts the open kitchen and pasta bench on show behind tall windows onto Curtain Road; downstairs, a wood-panelled dining room lined with banquette seating and a wine wall is set aside for private hire. Feasting menus, served family style for the whole table, run from parties of eight through to a full buyout of the downstairs room for up to seventy — booked directly with the restaurant.