This New Italian Spot Is A Guarenteed Crowd Pleaser
2025 is the year of the friendly, neighbourhood Italian restaurant in London. 27 Old Compton Street opened with the promise of £10 pasta dishes, and Lupa followed with a famous name and 90-minute table turnovers. Now it’s Elephant’s turn, taking over a restored old Victorian pub in Hackney, and it might just be the best yet.
Ex-Manteca chef Francesco Sarvonio has crafted a simple but effective menu inspired by Southern Italy, with a vibe not far off that prison scene in Goodfellas. Prices are refreshingly fair, as pasta often is in London, which goes some way to explain the wider Italia trend during a cost-of-living crisis.
What sets it apart?
On the restaurant-pub spectrum of gastropubs, this veers sharply towards the latter. In fact, it doesn’t feel like a gastropub at all, just a restaurant that has the added (formidable) benefit of serving pints. On tap is Guinness, Peroni, the little-seen in London Grolsch that diners much older than me may have a nostalgic connection to, as well as some local craft pale ales.
On the restaurant-pub spectrum of Gastropubs, this veers sharply towards the latter
As for the decor, this is restoration rather than renovation, bringing the venue back closer to the roots it’s lost over 100 years of conceptual turnover. As a result, there is something almost church-like; the most striking visual is a 25-year-old skylight salvaged from a former East End cinema that looks like a stained glass window, and going downstairs to the bathroom feels like you’re walking into a confessional, but that could just be the Irish catholic in me. Food is served on plates that look like they were pulled from a vintage china shop. It’s esoteric, but it works.
Our experience
As you really should in an Italian restaurant, I started with a Negroni. I firmly believe that you can’t get a Negroni right, you can only get it wrong. It’s the easiest thing in the world to make – three alcohols, ice for dilution and an orange slice or peel. If you start messing with the formula, trying to improve what is already a perfect drink, you’ve gone wrong. Fear not, they haven’t gone wrong here. The cocktail list generally is full of classics made really well. They’ve also put a lot of effort into making sure the wine list is great, although part of the fun of a new opening is sampling a restaurant still in the zone of experimentation, which meant we sampled a few off-menu wines in the mix.
On the food, as mentioned, prices will pleasantly catch your eye. Starters all sit between £7 and £12, and even mains aren’t far off. Fresh fish of the day (some delicious mackerel in our case) for £14, and pizza doesn’t rise beyond £15. The most expensive dish on the menu is the rib-eye at £29 – it’s not uncommon to see triple that price in London.
Early highlights include squid skewers with salsa verde and croquettes filled with beautifully reduced ox cheek. Then, the trick is to come hungry so you can overorder and sample both the mains as well as a pizza for the table. The pizza menu mixes the simple and classic – bufalina, diavola – with offbeat hits like a margherita sbagliata (which means ‘wrong’) and a daily pizza special where they can explore the weird and wonderful. For now, there is only one pasta dish on the menu, a ziti Genovese ragú, which is salty, fragrant and comes with the right amount of cheese – or, an ungodly amount.
On the food, prices will pleasantly catch your eye
Verdict
Elephant already feels like it’s bound to succeed because of how versatile it is. It’s perfect for a quick midweek catch-up with a single friend, or a vibey group birthday dinner where you can order everything on the menu. A casual first date or romantic anniversary. The hospitality is warm and welcoming, and special mention to the fact that kids eat free at Elephant. It’s a true crowdpleaser with an East London edge.
where: 3 Lower Clapton Rd, Lower Clapton, London E5 0NS
website: www.elephanthackney.com
