The Clove Club

The Clove Club is a tasting-menu restaurant inside Shoreditch Town Hall on Old Street in East London, led by Scottish chef Isaac McHale.

Its story starts with a supper club. Daniel Willis and Johnny Smith first hosted paying guests in their Dalston loft in November 2010, and the name of that club passed to the restaurant. McHale, born on Orkney and raised in Glasgow, had spent six years at The Ledbury under Brett Graham and also cooked with René Redzepi at Noma. With Ben Greeno and James Lowe he ran pop-up dinners as the Young Turks, one of them at the Dalston club. McHale, Willis and Smith then raised money from the public through Crowdcube and opened The Clove Club in 2013.

British produce fills the menu, including ingredients that had fallen out of use, and cooking ideas come from far beyond Britain. Buttermilk fried chicken dusted with a salt of pine needles is one signature, flamed Cornish mackerel another. Orkney scallops, Cornish lobster and dry-aged Middle White pork have all appeared on the tasting menu. One course arrives as a glass of old fortified wine, into which a waiter pours hot pheasant consommé at the table.

There are no tablecloths and staff do not refill the glasses, so guests pour their own wine and water. The town hall rooms hold a dining room and a bar with a shorter menu. A Michelin star came within a year and a second later, and The Clove Club was among the first London restaurants to sell tables as prepaid tickets through Tock.