Reviews Lyle's

yeh jagah thodi theek hi lagi mujhe jada khass to nahi par ek baar zrur yaha ke khaane ka luft uthaaye apne pariwaar ke sath or dosto ke sath

Brilliant dining experience. We ordered 8 dishes between three of us. The stand outs would have been the grilled razor clams, and the grouse and damson toast. The staff were very knowledgable on the dishes. And I loved that the sourdough bread for the table was free flowing. Great spot for a long lunch.

Lyle’s is hardly the first restaurant to embrace minimalism, but it’s still nonetheless striking how much it pervades nearly everything that this Shoreditch restaurant presents to the customer. Whitewashed walls, blank-faced tiles and bare concrete floors are just the start. Not a word is wasted on the menu – if you want florid dish descriptions and category/section headings, then you’re out of luck.

Unfortunately, this stripped-back approach also extends to the service. While almost always very efficient, it’s also usually lacking in charm and warmth. In a way it’s almost admirable that a workplace has managed to instil such a widespread and consistent sense of perfunctory brusqueness into almost its entire front of house staff.

This sandblasted sense of hospitality would annoy me a lot more if it wasn’t for the remarkable cooking of Lyle’s kitchen.

If Lyle’s were to be in Australia, it would not feel out of place. The dining room is hip and trendy and the plates of food pretty and minimalistic. But this is not just any casual dining place – Lyle’s is ranked number 65 in the World’s 50 Best Guide and was also awarded a coveted Michelin star in the 2016 guide. Chef/ owner James Lowe has worked at La Trompette where he has picked up solid classical French training before stints at Fat Duck and more recently the head chef role at St John’s Bread & Wine. It is probably his time at St John’s which most influences his style of cooking – minimalistic simplicity, based on less fashionable cuts and ingredients, but no less delicious.

Lunch on a Saturday, at 1pm the restaurant was pretty empty. I started with aged chicken skewers, which were delicious and it was a good size dish. My main was deer with bitter leave and mustard, the meat was lovely and cooked to perfection the leaves and mustard were a little lacking and didn't really do much for the meat. It all went horribly wrong for dessert with the most bitter granita di cafe with raw cream! I severe lack of any sweetness, they did take this off the bill as the waiter also tried one and agreed it was pretty bad! Nice ideas for dishes, felt a little like the needed perfecting! I'm not planning on rushing back.

The Tea Building has been somewhat of a Shoreditch icon since the 1930s. Located on the corner of Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green Road, the far from pretty building was initially designed as a bacon curing factory which Lipton Tea later used as a storing warehouse. Since gentrification hit Shoreditch in full force, the building has opened its doors to dozens of trendy designers and eateries including Pizza East and members club Shoreditch House, giving them a chance to put their own stamp on the building.

Some say it’s bold, others call it arrogant; serving a no-choice set menu certainly divides opinion. Despite this, more and more restaurants are joining the club and diners are getting ...

And round the corner from The Clove Club is this gem. The chef, James Lowe, like Isaac McHale at The Clove Club, was previously part of a group of chefs called The Young Turks and did a stint at St John Bread & Wine. The St John influence is clear – this is the closest I have come to St John without actually being in it, although the food is slightly more complicated. It’s not part of St John but, interestingly, is owned by the same group as Trishna and Gymkhana. It’s a tangled old world, restaurant ownership....

Had a business lunch and found the food great.  Wonderfully simple and straight forward plating with rich flavors. The lamb heart with anchovy was amazing as was the salted cod with egg yolk.   Can't wait to go again when i find my self in shoreditch. 
Oh and an epic bit of coffee skills to really impress

So to the rescue today, and not a moment too soon, comes Lyle's, somewhere that in an ideal world I would have been to months ago (it opened back in May) but - well, no, I'm not going to make any excuses about why I haven't been yet because I'm not really sure myself; the point is, I've been now, and it's great, and here's why.  

You can always tell a huge amount about a restaurant from the quality of their house bread. When Lyle's first opened they were getting someone else to make it whilst their own was in development, but these days it's their own product, and my lord, what a good product it is. A not-too-thick crust, a gorgeous tacky crumb, and paired with a deep yellow, salty house butter, there are barely any finer ways to start a meal.  

Pheasant liver toast & crabapple jelly is a twist on a bistro staple; there's something slightly lighter and smoother about pheasant as opposed to chicken liver, or perhaps that's just a more experienced hand in the kitchen than on display in your average local pub starter. Either way, this was very enjoyable. Yeah alright, the presentation's a bit turdy. Who cares.  

You probably can tell everything you need to know about how good the game broth was from the picture, but I just want to stress how the neat circles of oil floated in the liquid like glimmering jewels, and that the egg was utterly perfectly cooked, the deep orange yolk of the Burford Brown bursting out when prodded with a spoon. I can demolish even a fairly mediocre game broth, and this was very far from mediocre.  

The modestly-titled "crab & salsify" had a fresh, rich mixture of white meat and neat discs of salsify in a sort of thick liquid half way between a bisque and a sauce. It was frothy and light, but somehow held its shape as I heaped it onto the house bread. Clever stuff.  

Pear & bitter leaf salad is of course not a new combination of ingredients, and if I'm to be brutally honest this was probably the least interesting of the small plates at Lyle's. But that's probably entirely deliberate. We only ordered it because we ordered everything - if you're the kind of person going round London ordering bitter leaf salads for your lunch then you'd probably be very happy with it.  

Ox heart, pickled walnuts & brussels tops was my favourite dish, not because I automatically prefer anything involving grilled offal (though admittedly this must have played a part) but because the meat was dense and minerally, charred from the grill, the pickled walnuts played the part of capers, adding acid and complimenting the meat, and the brussel tops were just brilliant, soaked in butter and with a satisfying crunchy texture. If Lyle's can occasionally be accused of playing it safe (as with the bitter leaf salad for example), here is a dish, despite its superficial simplicity, that would have been less good had anything been added. Or taken away, for that matter.  

What looked at first like a pile of beetroot actually hid some huge chunks of moist smoked mackerel, and the flavour combinations (along with the shaved horseradish on top) worked surprisingly well. It usually takes a lot for me to appreciate beetroot in any form (don't get me started on its seemingly ubiquitous use in desserts in fine dining restaurants, and whoever made a beetroot beer I tried in a craft pub in Camden once needs their license revoked) but this was firm without being dry, sweet without being soily.  

Mallard legs & celeriac seemed to me like a visual pun on an Italian duck ragu with tagliatelle, but duck and celeriac are a fantastic match, and the more gamey Mallard here brought another dimension into play.  

Finally, the flavours in smoked haddock, potato and buttermilk will be familiar to anyone who's ever had a fish supper in their life, but there's not much not to enjoy about decent fish in a nice creamy sauce. Perhaps the texture of the haddock was a little too crumbly, but it was all seasoned nicely and I was particularly impressed with the forensic knife skills on those chives - just look at them, millions of perfect miniscule green hoops.  

Industry experts will tell you that whilst spods like me wave their SLRs around and bang on about offal, most of what makes a normal person's restaurant experience memorable is rather more to do with service, atmosphere and value. And though the food is clearly top drawer in many respects, it is in these three ancilliary categories that Lyle's leaps ahead of the pack. Service was friendly, attentive and relaxed in that East London style - as formal as they need to be, but with a ready smile. The room, and so therefore the atmosphere, is nothing short of beautiful; bright and clean and whitewashed with a nod to St John (chef James Lowe, of Young Turks fame, used to head up St John Bread & Wine just down the road) but somehow less austere and intimidating.

And with regards to value, well just take a look at the bill. Nine generous (albeit starter-sized) dishes, 3 glasses of very nice wine, and a total including service of under £30 a head. It's easy to point at the occasional famililarity, or complain that a certain set of ingredients aren't setting the world on fire, but all said and done you're eating dishes you'd be happy to come back to again and again, and you're doing so in a lovely room served by lovely staff who can't do enough for you. At lunchtimes at least, Lyle's is a joy.

Since opening its doors in trendy Shoreditch in early 2014, Lyle's has been one of the most talked about and hottest names in the London dining scene by reviewers and causal food fans alike. Such is the reputation it has built for itself that any mention of Lyle's is usually followed by adjectives such as "amazing" and "delicious".

But at £39 for the 5-course tasting menu, I was sceptical. Maybe it's been ingrained into me but I've been conditioned to believe that good fine dining comes at a price that's far more than this. So how good can this really be? Well I'll put that to bed now - it's good, Michelin good.

Even before the meal began we were treated to beautiful appetisers of sweetcorn with honey and butter and Queen Scallops with seaweed which individually could've been a dish worthy of a tasting menu. Expectations were rising with every bite.

The tasting menu on this night was as follows:
- Puffball, mushroom and onion;
- Mackerel and gooseberries;
- middle white pork with little gem and anchovies;
- St. John toastie with honey and walnuts; and
- blackcurrants, vanilla ice cream and tarragon.

Being grouse season at the time, a seasonal special of grouse with liver parfait and sweetcorn was on offer for a £15 supplement which we took up. Well as the cool kids say YOLO. That is still hip right...?

It's not every time you can claim this but I can comfortably say that the menu had no kinks and got better and better with each passing dish. Personal highlights were the middle white pork which was so fat and juicy it was heavenly and the now almost famous St John toastie which has now just ruined all other toasties for me forever it was so fantastic.

And just when you think things couldn't possibly get any better after a meal like that, out comes the perfect petit four of brown butter cake to finish you off.

So if you've been counting, that's 7 dishes (plus bread and petit fours) for £39 or with the supplement, 8 dishes for £54. Seems impossible for Michelin quality food in this day and age but that's exactly what you find at Lyle's. Even to this day it baffles me. Lyle's truly is amazing and delicious. Get there.

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In the middle of Shoreditch, in the Tea building, is James Lowe & John Ogier's new restaurant, Lyles. They originally met having worked together at St.John's Bread and Wine, and on walking in the influence is apparent with a simple whitewashed, modest, open plan room that includes the kitchen. It is a huge contrast to the image conscious Boxpark opposite.
With 3 aperitifs and 6 courses, the set menu is testament to sourcing of quality seasonal produce with many different cuts and offal used no doubt contributing to the good value. For dinner, except for a vegetarian option, there is no option other than the set menu at £39. If you want to pick and choose go at lunch time where most dishes here, and more, are available. Not satisfied with just lunch and dinner, Lyles is set to be an all day affair with their own coffee bar and pastries open early aswell.
While we pondered over the lengthy wine list (with 20 reds and 20 whites there is quite a choice), a plate of sourdough and some rather good in-house made butter was brought out. Although yet to start their own bread, the sourdough tonight was from another ex-St.John's of Bread Ahead, considered by many one of the best bakeries in the city, so not a bad back up!
First up was the appetizers; anchovy on toast, asparagus and walnut mayo, and blood cake with damson and chicory. The anchovies poised on little sourdough toast soldiers had a really intense powerful flavour, rather too overpowering for my tastes especially for the first bites. The asparagus with walnut mayonnaise was about as good as fresh veg gets. The gritty and moreish walnut mayo gave it that extra dimension, like a refined peanut butter. It could be a campaign to get kids (and adults) to eat more greens if it was spread with this. Next was the bitesize blood cake, damson, and chicory, the best of the bunch. The cake was light with that familiar taste of black pudding with a bit of sweet fruitness from the damson and the crunch of the chicory. The sharing of the starters reflects the laid back, simple approach to Lyles, stripping back the pretense other refined dining experiences.
The first main starter was nettle soup with cured pig cheek and pheasant egg. The nettle soup had flavour as vivid and pronounced as the striking green colour. Breaking the egg oozed out the yolk into the nettle giving it more richness Unashamedly I wiped the bowl with my remaining bread, it was that good. How uncouth!
The lamb sweetbread came with yet more greeny of of braised lettuce and a ransom sauce. The ransom sauce was thankfully quite subtle not overpowering the sweetbread which was cooked beautifully with a nice char on the outside while still soft in the middle. No doubt their will be an awful lot of offal in this place (..groan). A really enjoyable dish, again showcasing what can be done with just a few ingredients.
A couple of days before going to Lyles I read this fascinating piece by James on aging of not only beef, but white meat and fish. If you haven't read it take a look on the Vice munchies site. I can't wait to try that aged chicken if that description is anything to go by. It's great that they have the space to have such control over many elements of the produce, and willingness to experiment with even the aging process. That strive to go outside normal convention really will set it apart. This really comes through on the dishes, none more so than the dover sole. Having been aged for 5 days, instead of being flakey as you would expect for fish, it was alot more denser, like bacalhau, with some elasticity that you wouldn't expect and yet still soft once chewed with much more intense flavour than normal sole. You'll just have to try for yourself, I've not had anything like it. The cider butter gave it an almost sticky texture in the mouth.
While the baked Riseley was a little too rich and heavy for my liking, and I had enough bread by this point, never have I been so enamoured by a bunch of leaves before. A bowl of delights, with great texture and flavours, some giving a powerful peppery punch, and very nicely topped off with apple juice. An unexpected, simple pleasure that makes me look at salad in a new light.
The frozen yoghurt with loganberry and broken spelt cake was a light end to the meal. The loganberry brought a sweet and sharpness. An enjoyable finish.
At £39 for food of this quality is exceptional value. This is refined, but simple food, complexity is not added where it is not needed. With so few ingredients in each dish, flavours of each are dialled up to 11, that for the most part works exceptionally, bar that initial anchovy.
While only their opening night, FOH were very pleasant, although it seems some had yet to find their voice. A shame that people should mumble when describing such good dishes.
With their background, the set menu, use of offal and the minimalist set up it would be too easy to call Lyles a cross between St.John's & Clove Club, however it is very much an individual, and I struggle to think of another place like it in London. Book now before the word gets out, it could well become another place booked out for months.

Was super excited to dine here and everything exceeded my expectations. I love how clean the flavors were and nothing like I had before. The whole experience was great and the workers are friendly. The dishes are small and they recommend 2 to 3 dishes per person and its meant to be shared. It's also expensive but I thought it was worth it. Would love to come back and try other dishes.

Incredible dining experience here. I love the style here which is clean, controlled and understated. Each dish was well-balanced, cohesive and really did showcase the produce and ingredients. So glad I opted for the non-alcoholic pairing which was interesting and super good. Great casual vibes and top-notch service from the team too. One of my best dining experiences. Deserve way more than 5/5.

Food was perfect with high quality ingredients and the service was excellent. They made us feel very welcome and made sure we had the best experience. Lovely place to dine and celebrate a special occasion.

Has a reputation for a reason - great produce driven cooking, nice atmosphere and service, and an interesting wine selection with a knowledgeable sommelier. Blackberry and blackberry leaf pudding was the highlight, very clever cooking.

Great seasonal menu for food and drinks. Generous portions as well, and a good mix of local selections. Playlist was also great during my meal - Highly recommend to try. Staff was amazing and worked together to create a great service.