A local’s guide to… Hackney, London

World-class bars and restaurants, thriving street markets, leafy canals, handsome Victorian terraces – Hackney has it all. Offering both the buzz of urban city life and slower-paced residential corners, the hip East London borough has become one of the capital’s most desirable places to live, eat, work and shop in recent years. Spend a weekend taking in its diverse corners, ranging from the glossy hotels and nightlife spots of tech and creative hub Shoreditch to the boutique cafés and delis of laidback Clapton and the popular green expanse of London Fields. The demographic is young, the fashion is on point and the coffee is artisan… 

Where to eat

If there’s one thing that Hackney nails, it’s cool food and drink – a new bar or café seems to open on almost a weekly basis. Kick off breakfast with an epic smoked bacon sarnie and flat white at The Dusty Knuckle bakery in Dalston. Watch staff turn out freshly baked loaves in the industrial hangar-like space, then buy what is probably Britain’s finest focaccia to take home. Come lunchtime, graze your way around Broadway Market, a pretty strip of shops and restaurants off Regent’s Canal. Saturday has a food market with everything from falafels to doughnuts, but every day you can tuck into fresh tuna poke bowls at Okko or fragrant cardamom buns at Pavilion. When aperitif hour rolls around, you’re spoilt for choice in this bar-dense borough. Sip crafted cocktails at Bauhaus-inspired A Bar with Shapes for a Name on Kingsland Road or natural wines at tiny Bruno in Victoria Park Village. Dinner? Pull on your coolest togs to sample the borough’s Michelin-starred food scene. Book in for the tasting menu featuring Scottish lobster and suckling pig at The Clove Club or fish-focused dishes and eclectic wines at Behind. 

Where to stay

Most of the borough’s best hotels cluster in the south around nightlife and creative business hub Shoreditch. Check into One Hundred Shoreditch, an indie stay that blends rooms featuring a clean and contemporary aesthetic with vibrant social spaces that attract a local clientele (not just tourists). Explore top to tail, enjoying a mezze dinner at rooftop restaurant Kaso, then sipping nightcaps in the basement at Seed Library, an innovative bar by international cocktail maestro Ryan ‘Mr Lyan’ Chetiyawardana.

What to do

While there are galleries and museums if you want them (for example, the recently renovated Museum of the Home), Hackney is less about the ‘sights’ and more about the atmosphere: green spaces flooded with families, shop-lined high streets and eclectic markets. Depending on the day of the week, visit the stalls (Saturday) at Hoxton Street Market – established in 1687 – the cool food vendors at Netil Market  (Friday to Sunday) or the hawkers on Chatsworth Road (Sunday only). Stroll along Regent’s Canal, detouring for a dip in the London Fields Lido or a meet-and-greet with goats and chickens at Hackney City Farm. Then explore the vast Hackney Marshes – either on foot, or via the River Lea on a hire kayak from Moo Canoes in Hackney Wick.

What to see 

Opened in 1901 and still boasting an opulent gilded interior, Grade II*-listed theatre Hackney Empire – right in the heart of the borough on bustling Mare Street – has hosted the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Houdini and Louis Armstrong on its stage. It’s worth simply checking out the striking exterior, but all the better if you can visit for a show – preferably, the theatre’s popular annual pantomime.

What to buy

Sign up for one of the regularly scheduled sample sales at The Box near Hackney Central, where brands such as Paul Smith, A.P.C and Matches offload clothing and accessories at hefty discounts (often 50 per cent or more). If you’ve been wondering where Hackney residents get their sizzling sense of style from, it’s here.