Six of One: 209 Amazing Restaurants
Plus, one of the great tap rooms of Western Europe, lentil soup in West London, Korean food in Putney, and some of the best chips in London
Hello and welcome back to Vittles Restaurants.
Six of One is a column dedicated to London restaurant recommendations. In each issue, six writers will share a restaurant, bakery, cafe or takeaway spot that they believe deserves to be better known. You can find the full Six of One back catalogue here.
Today’s Six of One recommendations are from Mohammed Ali Salha, Siqi Chong, Gary Doherty, Zayneb Al Asaadi, Gavin Cleaver, and Dan Biddulph. To read all the recommendations, as well as the back catalogue and the full updated map, please subscribe below.
1. Haku Café & Izakaya
There’s a pilgrimage route that’s started to take shape in West London. It begins on South Ealing Road at Tetote Factory for empyreal Franco-Japanese patisserie before leading you to an eccentric collection of epicurean delights at The Ealing Grocer and ending at a relatively new spot on The Mall.
That restaurant is called Haku Café & Izakaya and it appears like an oasis on a stretch of road that’s also home to Wenzel’s and Paddy Power and feels neither like a café nor an izakaya. Its short menu is split into breakfast (konbini-style sandos, panini, onigiri), lunch (bento boxes) and hot drinks. Proceedings end surprisingly early at 5pm daily.
On the day I visited, I had already eaten six buns at Tetote and a slice of spanakopita at The Ealing Grocer, so I ventured in sheepishly. The person at the till took pity on me, guiding me towards the karaage bento (£13). Despite, at this point, feeling like a human vacuum cleaner, I obliged. This was a thrilling, well-executed lunch that exuded confidence in its simplicity – crispy nuggets of chicken thigh in two flavours, deeply saline miso soup, rice, braised burdock root, salad, yuzu pickles and a smattering of fruit.
Haku means white, with the place deriving its name from the Kobe-founded sake brewer Hakutsuru (white crane), which seems to be involved in this opening (though that wasn’t immediately obvious). I spent half my time staring at the hambagu and ebi fry bento that another diner ordered and made a mental note to buy some Tums and return to try the beef yakiniku panini. I’ll be back soon, see you there? Mohammed Ali Salha
44 The Mall, W5 3TJ
Behind the paywall: The reassuring consistency of Vietnamese homestyle cooking in King’s Cross, the only good restaurant in Putney, a Moroccan burger van which you should visit for soup, one of the best taprooms in Europe, and phenomenal chips in Hounslow.
Plus a new, updated map of all 209 Six of Ones so far!
