Hackney has a Michelin star, one of the best breakfasts in London and a Victorian street market that still works for a living. It also has the shortest opening week of any district in this guide, and that is the thing to plan around.
The good kitchens here open Wednesday to Saturday. Not Monday, usually not Tuesday, and several of them not Sunday either. In most of London a restaurant closing two days a week is a quirk. In Hackney it is the norm, and a Monday evening plan made from a list will fail.
The star
Behind
- Address
- 20 Sidworth Street, E8 3SD
- Nearest
- London Fields or Hackney Central
- Hours
- Dinner Wednesday to Saturday at 7pm. Lunch Thursday and Friday at 1.30pm, Saturday at 1pm
- Booking
- Online, up to three months ahead, for tables of up to six. Larger parties by email
- Price
- Ten course tasting menu £125, with a £88 wine flight. Six course Thursday and Friday lunch £64, with a £64 flight
- Standing
- One Michelin star. Chef Andy Beynon. Eighteen kitchen table seats
How to get in
Eighteen seats at the kitchen table, so this is a single sitting at a fixed hour rather than a table you arrive at, and the release goes fast. The six course Thursday or Friday lunch at £64 is half the price of dinner for the same kitchen. There is a separate and more relaxed wine bar, which is the way in if the tasting menu is gone.
A fish focused tasting menu served across a counter by the chefs themselves, with the kitchen in front of you rather than behind a door. The format is the point: at eighteen seats there is no anonymous corner of the room.
The one to go to on a Saturday morning
Café Cecilia
- Address
- Canal Place, 32 Andrews Road, E8 4FX
- Nearest
- London Fields or Haggerston
- Hours
- Breakfast Saturday and Sunday 9am to 10.45am. Lunch Wednesday to Sunday 12pm to 3pm. Dinner Wednesday to Saturday 6pm to 9pm
- Booking
- 020 3478 6726
How to get in
Two things from their own booking terms. Breakfast is a 105 minute window on Saturday and Sunday and nothing else, and the table is held for fifteen minutes before it is released. Note also that Sunday is lunch only: the dinner service runs Wednesday to Saturday. Be early or be somewhere else.
Max Rocha’s canalside room, cooking out of a background at The River Cafe, St John Bread and Wine and Spring, and out of growing up in Ireland. The 9am to 10.45am breakfast window is one of the best short services in London and it is genuinely short.
The fire
Brat X Climpson's Arch
- Address
- Arch 374 Helmsley Place, E8 3SB
- Nearest
- London Fields
- Hours
- Wednesday and Thursday 5pm to 10pm. Friday and Saturday midday to 10pm. Sunday midday to 9pm. Closed Monday and Tuesday
- Booking
- Online, or arch@bratrestaurant.com
- Standing
- The Hackney site of Brat, whose first room is on Redchurch Street in Shoreditch
How to get in
A railway arch rather than a dining room, and a different proposition from the Shoreditch original rather than a copy of it. It keeps Hackney hours, shut on Monday and Tuesday and dinner only midweek, so if the Redchurch Street diary is full this is the fallback on a weekend rather than on a Monday.
Wood fire cooking under the arches. Our Shoreditch guide covers the first Brat, which holds a Michelin star, runs a seven day kitchen from midday to ten, and is the one to fall back on when east London’s short weeks defeat you.
Broadway Market
Broadway Market
- Address
- Broadway Market, E8
- Nearest
- London Fields or Bethnal Green
- Hours
- Saturday 9am to 5pm, Sunday 10am to 4pm, 52 weeks a year
- Price
- Free to walk
- Standing
- In its own words, a working Victorian street market
How to get in
Saturday is the market and Sunday is the smaller, calmer version of it. Their own distinction is worth keeping straight: the market runs 52 weeks a year, the street 365 days, so a weekday visit gets you the shops and none of the stalls, which is a different and much quieter thing.
Food stalls, traders and a street of independent shops behind them, running down to the canal at London Fields. Unlike most London street markets this one never takes a week off.
How to plan it
Saturday is the day the district is fully open. Broadway Market from nine, breakfast at Café Cecilia if you booked it, and any of the kitchens in the evening. Everything on this page is trading.
Wednesday and Thursday are the civilised version. The restaurants are open, the market is not, and you can get a table that would be impossible on a Saturday night. Thursday is the better of the two, because Behind and Café Cecilia both add a lunch service that Wednesday does not have.
Monday and Tuesday are the days to go elsewhere. Behind is shut, Café Cecilia is shut, and the market is not on. This is the single most common way to waste an evening in E8.
Practical notes
London Fields is the station, not Hackney Central. The Overground platform at London Fields puts you within ten minutes of everything on this page. Hackney Central serves a different part of the borough.
The Overground is the network here, not the Tube. There is no Underground station in this part of Hackney at all, which is why the area still feels further out than it is.
Book, and read the terms. These are small rooms with short weeks and they publish their conditions plainly: fifteen minute table holds, fixed breakfast windows, counter sittings rather than tables.
Everything here was taken from each venue’s own published information and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Hours in this postcode change more than most. Confirm before travelling.
Everything this guide has in Hackney
11 places, gathered from every page on this site rather than just this one. Each was checked against the venue's own published information, and the link goes to wherever it is written up in full.
Restaurants
-
Sutton and Sons
The Best Fish and Chips in London, and the Rule Only One of Them Publishes -
Mangal II Book
The Best Turkish Restaurants in London Are Nearly All North of the River -
Behind
Written up above
-
Café Cecilia Book
Written up above
-
Brat X Climpson's Arch
Written up above
Pubs and bars
See and do
-
London Fields Lido
London Fields Lido -
Plonk Hackney Closed
Crazy Golf in London -
Pophams Walk in
The Best Bakeries in London Close at Four, and One Opens Until Ten -
e5 Bakehouse Walk in
The Best Bakeries in London Close at Four, and One Opens Until Ten -
Broadway Market Walk in
London Food Markets
Your position is read in this browser, matched to the nearest neighbourhood we have written up, and sent nowhere.
Where to go next
Dalston is the next stop north, with Ridley Road Market, the Rio Cinema and Dalston Superstore.
Shoreditch is twenty minutes south west and has the opposite problem: its best things run on fixed days rather than short weeks. For the wider field, the best restaurants in London covers the city and where to eat breakfast covers the mornings.
And our main London guide has the rest of a visit.
Questions we get asked
Is Hackney east London?
Yes. Hackney is east and slightly north of the City, and the London Borough of Hackney is firmly part of east London. It is not north London, though it borders Islington, and it is certainly not south London: the Thames is several miles away. Shoreditch, at its southern tip, is the part most visitors reach first.
Where is Hackney in London?
North east of the City of London, in Zone 2, covering Dalston, Hackney Central, London Fields, Homerton and Clapton, with Shoreditch at its southern edge. The thing to know before you travel is that Hackney is an Overground district rather than a tube one: Hackney Central, Hackney Downs and London Fields are all Overground stations, and the Underground barely touches it.
What part of London is Hackney?
East London, in the London Borough of Hackney, immediately north of the City and west of the Lea Valley. It runs from Shoreditch in the south up through London Fields and Hackney Central to Clapton. Getting here means the Overground or a bus rather than the tube, which is why it feels further out than it is.
Is Hackney safe?
Yes, for visitors, with the ordinary caution of any busy inner city district. The parts you will be in, Broadway Market, London Fields, Hackney Central, are busy and well populated through the day and evening. The genuine risk is phone snatching, which is opportunistic and concentrated on the main roads late at night, so keep a phone in a pocket rather than in your hand.
Which day should you go to Hackney?
Saturday if you want everything open, because Broadway Market runs 9am to 5pm and the restaurants trade in the evening. Wednesday or Thursday if you want a table, because the kitchens are open and the crowds are not. Monday and Tuesday are the days to go somewhere else: Behind and Cafe Cecilia are both shut and there is no market.
Does Hackney have a Michelin starred restaurant?
Behind, at 20 Sidworth Street on the edge of London Fields, holds one star. It is a fish focused tasting menu served across eighteen kitchen table seats by chef Andy Beynon: ten courses at £125, served at dinner Wednesday to Saturday and at Saturday lunch, with a six course lunch at £64 on Thursday and Friday. There is a separate wine bar alongside it.
When is Broadway Market open?
Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday 10am to 4pm. The market runs 52 weeks a year, which makes it one of the few London street markets that never takes a week off, and the street itself trades 365 days a year, so a weekday visit gets you the shops and none of the stalls.
How do you get to Hackney?
The Overground rather than the Underground: there is no Tube station in this part of Hackney at all. London Fields is the stop for everything on this page and puts you within a ten minute walk of all of it. Hackney Central serves a different part of the borough.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 49 in the guide.
Last checked 28 September 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
