An expert guide to the best restaurants in London Fields by chef Max Rocha

We’re huge fans of east London’s Café Cecilia. So much so that in 2023 it topped Time Out’s list of the 50 Best Restaurants in London, and remains on our current ranking of this city’s best places to eat. Opening in 2021 and named in honour of his grandmother, Cecilia’s chef-founder Max Rocha is now releasing his first ever book, the Café Cecilia Cookbook, with 100 recipes from the restaurant, including our personal fave: mussels and Datterini tomatoes on toast. ‘That one’s quite easy but quite special, and gets everyone excited,’ says Max.

As well as the food, one of the best things about Café Cecilia is its primo spot on the canal just by Broadway Market and London Fields in Hackney. ‘I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else – I love it by the water,’ adds Max. ‘It kind of feels like a mini River Café, sometimes.’

So who better than Max to give us a personalised guide to the other best restaurants in the area? Check out his recommendations below. 

1. Koya Ko

Max: ‘It’s primarily a Japanese udon noodle-based restaurant, with some donburi rice bowls as well. It’s great for a really accessible Japanese lunch: the perfect place to have a really simple and clean meal. They do a cold sesame udon, which is the best thing in the summer. They’ve hit the nail on the head with that place. It’s super casual – you order and get a buzzer and then you pick up your noodles.’

10 Broadway Market Mews, E8 4TS

2. E5 Bakehouse

‘They do an amazing toasted cheese sandwich. It’s my favourite indulgent thing to eat for lunch. Their bread is brilliant, and they make so much that the older bread – which is good for a toasted sandwich – gets used for that. Sometimes they put kimchi in there. They also always have a really nice vegetarian-based main course. So, if it’s midweek, you can get a dhal with some of their bread and lovely roast vegetables from their own farm. It’s all just really organic and fresh. They also do an amazing galette on the weekends and their cookies and desserts are the best – they make the best raspberry financier in the world.’

396 Mentmore Terrace, E8 3PH

3. Anatolia

‘I’ve been going there for more than  10 years. They do the best lahmacun – probably the best value lahmacun in Hackney. I’m that little bit too far away for Mangal I to be my local, so this is the next best thing! It’s also less busy. It’s just a really good local Turkish restaurant that doesn’t get the support it deserves. A lot of our local regulars go there, which is why I started going back. It’s for the people!’

251-253 Mare St, E8 3NS

4. Buen Ayre

‘I went for the first time recently and it’s such good value. It’s one guy cooking grilled meat platters: you can get two steaks with fried mushrooms and Buenos Aires cheese, all on a sizzle platter. You share that between two people and it’s delicious. The service is amazing. They get all their beef from Argentina and it’s good value for a steak, because everyone’s using ex-dairy cows now and that makes things really expensive. If you really want to go all-in on meat, I’d go here. They also do the best black pudding I’ve ever had – which is a bit of a curveball.’

50 Broadway Market, E8 4QJ

5. Saray Broadway Café

‘It’s quite a discreet caff. You can get a full fry up, like in a traditional British café, but they also smash out the most beautiful Turkish gözlemes in the window; your classic spinach and cheese or meat and potato. Broadway Market can be a bit oversaturated with a certain type of sandwich, and this blows any focaccia sandwich out of the water. It’s amazing. What I like to do is go there and get a spinach and cheese gözleme and have it with a side of black pudding. I like the contrast.’

58 Broadway Market, E8 4QJ  

Café Cecilia Cookbook by Max Rocha is published by Phaidon Press.

RECOMMENDED: The best restaurants in Hackney, according to Time Out.