The Barge House is adorable. To get to it, you have to walk down the Regent's Canal tow-path between Hoxton and Haggerston, where old Victorian warehouses rise indomitably out of the water, all of them now home to design studios and craft breweries. It’s been open since November but nobody noticed because the only reason you'd venture down to the canal during the winter is if you had to dispose of a body.
At this time of year, though, it's one of the loveliest places in this great city of ours, the London you describe to your friends who live in places where canals are just bilious strips of water used to store shopping trollies.
The Barge House has tables along the waterside and a bright, high dining room with an open-plan kitchen. Being in Hackney, it is of course a multi-purpose venue, with a club/workshop/commercial space out the back. And for somewhere this close to the epicentre of East End hipsterville, it’s refreshingly relaxed, the kind of place where the chef marches through the dining room with armfuls of vegetables and the staff roll ciggies at empty tables.