The Clove Club.

The Clove Club

The dish this kitchen is known for is buttermilk fried chicken dusted in pine salt, a chicken pakora taken apart and rebuilt, and it has been on the menu since Isaac McHale was running pop-ups under the name Young Turks (Great British Chefs, 2024).

Why go

McHale is a Glaswegian who staged at Noma and In De Wulf, cooked at Tom Aikens, and spent six years at The Ledbury under Brett Graham, finishing as development chef. Before this room he was a third of The Young Turks with James Lowe and Ben Greeno, running pop-ups at Frank's Cafe in Peckham and The Ten Bells in Spitalfields. He opened The Clove Club in the Grade II-listed Shoreditch Town Hall in 2013 with Daniel Willis and Johnny Smith, named for the Dalston supper club that came first. The first Michelin star arrived in 2014 and the second in 2022, and both are still there in the 2026 guide, where the inspectors describe a tasting menu full of originality, verve and flair (Michelin, 2026). The cooking works British produce, including ingredients that had fallen out of use, through technique picked up elsewhere. One thing has changed that most write-ups have not caught up with: the founding trio split, and since December 2024 McHale has owned the restaurant alone, with Willis and Smith gone to run their own group (The Caterer, 2024).

Order this / avoid

• Order: the buttermilk fried chicken with pine salt, and the flamed Cornish mackerel, which World's 50 Best lists as the two signatures. If the raw Orkney scallop with hazelnut, clementine and Périgord truffle is on, take it: Andy Hayler scored the scallop course 16 out of 20 and called it a pleasing minimalist dish that allowed the main ingredient to really shine. The three-course lunch at GBP 95 is the cheap way to read the kitchen.
• Avoid: treating two stars as the whole picture. Harden's diners' poll has held the food at 3 out of 5 since the 2024 guide while the average spend rose to GBP 263. Also do not plan lunch before Wednesday, and know that the short dinner menu runs Monday to Thursday only.

What locals & experts say

• Michelin (2026 guide), two stars retained: the restaurant retains that warm and inviting atmosphere in its home at Shoreditch Town Hall, serving their favourite produce from around the British Isles in a tasting menu full of originality, verve and flair.1
• Isaac McHale, chef-patron, in Great British Chefs (2024): on why the food does not sound like The Ledbury, It would have been the easiest thing to take a couple of ideas inspired by The Ledbury and start from there, but I would have been copying someone else. On where he has ended up, People who were my heroes have become my peers.3
• Harden's, the dissenting record across four guides: the 2023 edition had it still knocking the ball out of the park with imaginative and precise cooking, scoring food 4 out of 5. By 2024 the survey carried both awesome and imaginative and vastly overrated and living off the PR, and the food score dropped to 3. The 2025 edition asked, Perhaps this good-but-no-longer-great view is beginning to become more widely held? The 2026 edition holds at 3 out of 5 and calls the performance solidly good.4
• Andy Hayler (2022), 15 out of 20: the only dish-by-dish read on record, and it is mixed. The duck was accurately cooked, but the farmed trout has little inherent flavour, the white asparagus had very limited flavour, especially compared to white asparagus from France, and the chicken lacked much flavour and was arguably under-seasoned.7
• The World's 50 Best Restaurants: 26th in 2016, the highest new UK entry that year, then 35th in 2022 and 38th in 2023. In 2025 it placed 86th on the extended 51-100 list, one of only two UK restaurants to make it, with the judges writing that its interpretation of modern British is refreshing and full of surprises.56
• Local rec: from Jeff's own list, filed as a two-star tasting-menu destination with a Scottish chef, and he singles out how informal the room is for the level of cooking (his note below).

Good to know

• Timing: dinner Monday to Saturday, lunch Wednesday to Saturday. Closed Sunday.
• Booking: essential. No booking or ticketing policy could be read from the venue's site when this entry was written, so check before you assume the old prepaid-ticket system still applies.
• Prices, as at 29 July 2026: dinner tasting GBP 285, short dinner tasting GBP 225 Monday to Thursday, lunch tasting GBP 185, three-course lunch GBP 95. The venue notes prices change without notice.
• Where you sit: the menus run across the dining room, the front room and the bar countertop, so the counter is a real option.
• Wine: at Hayler's 2022 visit the list ran 697 labels from GBP 28 to GBP 1,630, median GBP 150, at about 3.3 times retail, with corkage at GBP 50 per bottle and one bottle allowed per two guests. Those figures are four years old.
• Dietary: a Vegetarian Tasting Menu is published by the restaurant. No allergen or cross-contamination statement is published, so a celiac diner should call.
• Elsewhere: McHale opened Bar Valette on Kingsland Road in January 2025, 40 covers of southern French and Spanish cooking, run by Clove Club alumni. Different restaurant, much lower bill.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5, Hackney, inspected 8 March 20259.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: "Michelin two star tasting menu mecca. One of the UKs best restaurants with a Scottish chef. Informal atmosphere for the level of service and food." REAL.

Verdict

must-visit — Isaac McHale staged at Noma and spent six years at The Ledbury under Brett Graham, then opened this in Shoreditch Town Hall in 2013 and deliberately did not cook like either of them. He said so: taking a couple of ideas from The Ledbury 'would have been the easiest thing', and he would have been copying someone else. The result is a modern British tasting menu built on forgotten British produce and technique borrowed from everywhere, with a buttermilk fried chicken dusted in pine salt that is a chicken pakora rebuilt from first principles. Michelin has held it at two stars into the 2026 guide. Go in knowing the rest of the record disagrees: Harden's diners cut the food score from 4 to 3 after 2023 and have not moved it since while the average bill went to GBP 263, and the World's 50 Best ranking has fallen from 26th in 2016 to 86th in 2025. Two current stars and that pedigree still make it a plan-around-it dinner, and the GBP 95 three-course lunch is the honest way to test the argument yourself.