It’s been a busy old year for the team behind celebrated east London nightclub The Cause. After a long soft launch at its new space in London’s Docklands, the 3,000-capacity venue officially reopened in January. Not two months later, its owners also relaunched Peckham pub The Greyhound, a lively local with a great programme of live music and DJs popping up in its basement venue. And just five short months after that comes the gang’s third opening of 2024, this time in Dalston.
Named after a 1977 by NYC rockers Television, the Marquee Moon takes over a handsome two-floor corner boozer on Kingsland High Street formerly known as the Marquis of Landsdowne.
Painted a bright shade of duck egg green outside, interiors-wise it’s both chic and cosy, all unvarnished wood, turqoise fittings and heaps of houseplants, with a sexily low-lit basement decked out in wooden booths. As you’d expect given its owners’ credentials, this is another music-forward venue, with a 3am licence and a roster of The Cause regulars like Grace Sands and Jaye Ward playing from a prominent ground-floor booth most days.
The food is taken seriously here as well, with roasts on Sundays alongside a menu of pub classics with an Asian twist; current dishes include a curried potato salad, tom yum clams with fries, hash browns with peach and mushroom xo sauce, and a pandan and banana trifle. Drinks follow a similar theme, with cocktails including a rice-washed negroni, a brown butter and pandan old fashioned and a yuzu spritz, while the wine list leans heavily towards (you guessed it!) organic and biodynamic pours.