Celebrity chef to open restaurant in the heart of Hackney

Gizzie Erskine. Pic: Ibsan73

Celebrity chef and TV presenter Gizzi Erskine is to open her first solo restaurant in a new venue in London Fields, Hackney, in March.

The chef, best known for her Channel 4 cooking shows, Drop Down Menu and How to Cook Yourself Thin, has lived in Hackney for 16 years.

She will launch Mare Street Market, housed in the ground floor of a former Hackney council building with founder Marc Francis-Baum, the co-owner of pub empire BarWorks and Phillip Way, co-owner of Flying Horse Coffee.

The restaurant will seat 70 diners. It will feature a seasonal, woodfired and rotisserie menu and be designed by Erskine, who went to Leith’s School of Food and Wine. Highlights will include wood-fired pizzas, fried mozzarella sandwiches, gourmet burgers, rotisserie chicken and Sunday roasts.

A head chef has been selected to manage the day-to-day running of the restaurant but Erskine will oversee the restaurant as executive chef.

The restaurant will be at the heart of the multi-use space which will also host a florist, café shop, podcast studio, record shop and art gallery. There is “nothing like it” in the capital “or the world”, Erskine told the Evening Standard.

The space will also house a delicatessen selling produce from small Hackney-based food brands, including Hackney Gelato, cured fish seller Secret Smokehouse and pickle brand Newton & Pott.

Erskine said she hoped the market will raise the profile of the ingredients and innovative food being produced in the borough. “You’ve just go to look at Hackney. It’s got one of the best food markets and the natural wine scene is huge here.”

Leave a Reply