Vittles Reviews: It’s Time to Talk About Leila’s Shop
"When I found out Alex Jackson was cooking at Leila’s Shop, my heart sank: I knew I’d have to visit." Words by Simran Hans. Photography by Michaël Protin.
Welcome back to Vittles Reviews. Today’s review is by Simran Hans. You can read all previous Vittles reviews here, along with a Six of Nunn Latin restaurant special from last Friday. To read all past recommendations and today’s newsletter in full, please subscribe for £7/month or £59 for the whole year.
When I found out Alex Jackson was cooking at Leila’s Shop, my heart sank: I knew I’d have to visit. You see, the last time I was in Leila’s was about two years ago. It was a drizzly afternoon and I’d wandered in, planning to buy a tub of La Grotta’s small-batch ice cream, which is sold in only a few London retailers. Of course Leila’s, a speciality greengrocers (and adjoining café) in Shoreditch whose calling card is its meticulously curated produce, is one of them. Its size and layout means it is not a place to linger, but that day the shop was almost empty. Upon crossing the threshold, I was met with a death stare. ‘Stay in the middle of the shop,’ I was told by owner Leila McAlister, as I craned my neck to survey the freezer in the corner of the room. ‘Oh, I was just looking at the ice-cream flavours you have in,’ I said sheepishly, assuming permission to browse. I was promptly shooed out. ‘I’m happy to go through them with you after,’ McAlister replied curtly. She continued an unhurried conversation with the only other person in the shop. Embarrassed, I waited outside in the rain. Several minutes passed. I gave up and left, seething, vowing never to darken Leila’s doorway again.
Back home, I typed ‘Leila’s Shop’ into Google and trawled through the reviews. It turns out my treatment was nothing special. At this point in 2023, Leila’s was rated #15,358 of 15,658 London restaurants on TripAdvisor (it’s now #15,625 of 21,655). ‘Very rude’, ‘unwelcome environment’ and ‘unfriendly’ were the most frequent complaints levied at the chilly customer service. The comments, of which there are 52, with nearly half in the ‘Terrible’ category, are damning. To put it in the words of one recent reviewer:
‘If you want to be treated like a Victorian orphan who’s just wandered off the street looking for gruel, this is the perfect place for you!’
Last summer, however, the cook and writer Alex Jackson announced he was leaving his position as head chef at Noble Rot Soho to work the lunch shift at the café at Leila’s. I have enjoyed Jackson’s generous, granny-style Mediterranean cooking for years – first at Sardine, the now-closed Provençal-style restaurant he opened in 2016, and then at Noble Rot in Soho, where the food was glamorous and sultry. What on earth would he serve at Leila’s, a café once known for its porridge?