Franks Canteen
Eloise Dawes took her first head chef job here in June 2024, arriving from the sous chef pass at Kudu with Bentley's Oyster Bar, Arbutus and Robin Gill's Paradise Garage behind her (Restaurant magazine).
Why go
Paul Warburton owns the place and named it for his son Frank, and by 2024 it had been feeding Highbury Park for ten years (London on the Inside). Dawes writes the evening menu, a run of seasonal sharing plates that came out of the gate with smoked eel and sweetcorn oeuf en gelee and a black garlic and mushroom Kyiv. The pickle jar is the tell of her pass history, and reviewers keep landing on it: mackerel parfait with pickled baby corn, sea bass with pickled beetroot, pickled mackerel on a potato cake muffin. Four months into her tenure Time Out gave the room 4 stars (Time Out, 2024). The day job is a different restaurant, with breakfast from 8am, Dusty Knuckle bread and Dark Arts coffee, which is what the neighborhood has come for since long before the current kitchen.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the duck yolk scotch eggs with mushrooms, then the miso Brussels sprouts, which London on the Inside called
Super crispy, swimming in sauce, and a far cry from the bog standard boiled sprout affair.
3 If you are here on a weekday at noon, the £22 prix fixe comes with a glass of wine or beer. - Avoid: turning up hungry on a Monday or Tuesday night. The kitchen closes at 3.30pm on those two days, and dinner runs Wednesday to Saturday.
What locals & experts say
- Eloise Dawes, head chef, in Restaurant magazine (June 2024):
I'm thrilled to be working with such a great team for my first head chef role at Frank's, and entrusted to create my own menu.
1 - Joe Mackertich, Time Out (15 October 2024, 4 out of 5):
Big, bolshy flavours are crammed clown car-like into every morsel,
and on the signature,An avant-garde mackerel parfait exploded with curling tentacles of pickled baby corn.
2 - Kitty Bovaird Postiglione, London on the Inside (29 November 2024): read the menu as
European classics with a twist, which, more often than not, was pickled items,
and on the mackerel,The potato cake muffin was surprisingly soft and bouncy, complementing the sharp mackerel well.
3 - Paul Warburton, owner and executive chef (June 2024):
Despite all the changes we've seen in the last decade, within an often difficult industry, we're still loved by locals and new faces alike.
1 - Local rec: on Jeff's list with a one-line instruction, below.
Good to know
- Timing: Monday and Tuesday 7.30am to 3.30pm, Wednesday to Friday 7.30am to 9.30pm, Saturday 9am to 9.30pm, Sunday 9am to 4pm. Dinner is Wednesday to Saturday, 6pm to 9.30pm.
- Booking: advised, walk-ins taken. Happy hour runs 4pm to 6pm Wednesday to Saturday, in the gap between lunch and dinner service.
- BYO: Wednesday evenings, bring your own wine and pay no corkage.
- Match days: the Emirates is a fifteen-minute walk, and there is a £30 pre-match menu of two small plates and one large.
- Price: £22 for the weekday prix fixe lunch with a drink. Time Out bands the evening bill at £££.
- Dietary: the venue publishes no allergen, gluten-free, celiac or vegan statement, so ask when you book.
- Hygiene: FSA inspection 12 December 2025, Islington; hygienic food handling, cleanliness and management of food safety all Good6.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "Go see Eloise." REAL.
Verdict
should-visit — Make the detour if you are north of the canal. A first-time head chef with Kudu, Bentley's, Arbutus and Paradise Garage behind her, writing her own menu, and Time Out handing the room 4 stars four months later. The cooking has a signature you can name: pickled and fermented sharpness cut into European classics, which is the reason a mackerel parfait comes with pickled baby corn and the sprouts are lacquered in miso. It stops short of a must because there is no award to point at and the ambition is neighborhood scale, deliberately.