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Restaurant Review

Goddard & Gibbs: A chic new seafood restaurant in Shoreditch

With its innovative take on British seafood, this new addition to east London’s dining scene is proving to be quite a catch

Goddard & Gibbs: A chic new seafood restaurant in Shoreditch

One Hundred Shoreditch – a revamped reincarnation of Ace Hotel – is already garnering rave reviews for its sleek design and slick service. The hotel’s six restaurants and bars are reassuringly buzzy, not least in all-day brasserie Goddard & Gibbs, where the ethically-sourced British seafood menu is proving a popular choice for east London locals and foodies alike. With its sunshine yellow decor, inventive twist on fish and raw bar, Goddard & Gibbs is our restaurant of the week. 

Goddard &Amp; Gibbs: A Chic New Seafood Restaurant In ShoreditchPin

If these walls could talk! Everybody has a story from Hoi Polloi at the Ace Hotel, so they say. Hoi Polloi may no longer be with us, but in its place is Goddard & Gibbs, one of six new restaurants and bars within the Lore Group’s One Hundred Shoreditch. Sneaking in for an early preview, we see the clear connection with what came before (the designers have taken the correct, green decision to keep what they could) while enjoying new additions like the terrazzo-clad wine bar, seafood hatch, full height windows, and barking mad abstract sculpture in colour-popping ‘Mr Happy’ yellow.

Goddard &Amp; Gibbs: A Chic New Seafood Restaurant In ShoreditchPin

It’s a fun place ‘inspired by English fishing villages and seaside towns’. This USP has deep potential, particularly in the East End with its proud history of shellfish stalls and oyster-houses. Not that east London eaters such as me need the narrative hook; it’s long been a source of anguish that, this close to Billingsgate Market, we still have to schlep west for fruits de mer. Now we have Goddard & Gibbs.

Goddard &Amp; Gibbs: A Chic New Seafood Restaurant In ShoreditchPin

The chef Tom Moore, new to me, comes not from some hip east London joint but from Mayfair’s Lansdowne Club. I take that as a good sign because it’s in private club kitchens that our island’s comfort food traditions are upheld. I note a fish pie, prawn cocktail, and treacle sponge on the menu, alongside exotic mussels with coconut, sea bream ceviche, and a fillet of fish burger with kimchi. For obvious reasons, the crispy, garlicky hake Kyiv with brown shrimp butter, is proving a hit. 

“I note a fish pie, prawn cocktail, and treacle sponge on the menu, alongside exotic mussels with coconut, sea bream ceviche, and a fillet of fish burger with kimchi. For obvious reasons, the crispy, garlicky hake Kyiv with brown shrimp butter, is proving a hit.”
Goddard &Amp; Gibbs: A Chic New Seafood Restaurant In ShoreditchPin

Other dishes that impress us mightily are oysters with Vietnamese dressing (soy, ginger, chilli), New England-style clam pizza pie, and skate wing lavished with XO butter. But, between you and me, the thing my friend and I have been messaging each other about ever since, is the wickedly good fried doughnut with peanut, malt ice cream and miso caramel. 

Goddard &Amp; Gibbs: A Chic New Seafood Restaurant In ShoreditchPin

Wine-wise, there’s plenty by the glass and en carafe, with range and depth sub-£50. Don’t forget to come early (or leave late) in order to make time for a drink at the Seed Library, the groovy 1970s basement bar from Ryan ‘Mr Lyan’ Chetiyawardana.

THE LOWDOWN:

Meal for two (with wine): £90

Signature Dishes: Hake Kyiv; Sea Bream Ceviche; Hot Shells for Two.

What to drink: Perilla G&Ts at the Seed Library


100 Shoreditch High Street, Shoreditch, E1
goddardandgibbs.com

Photography: Steven Joyce
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