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Goddard & Gibbs, London E1: ‘It all feels very promising … until the food starts to arrive’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants
Why open a gigantic seafood restaurant with little care or attention to the fine culinary art of fish cookery?
Goddard & Gibbs, a laid-back, prettily staged, speciality fish restaurant, may lack a charming harbour view, but it does offer an exciting glimpse of east London nightlife. Inside, the place is a modern, airy, Santa Monica-style seafood brasserie, with large, luxurious booths for group eating, tasteful jazz music and fuzzy, flattering lighting. Outside, the post-6pm-on-a-Saturday high street is lairy, with police vans lining up to begin battle with shoeless mobs of vomiting bottomless brunchers.
Goddard & Gibbs has dropped anchor at the new One Hundred Shoreditch hotel, formerly known as the Ace, which had a restaurant called Hoi Polloi. That rather cool, all-day diner was a pleasant enough spot, and you might have seen a minor celebrity or fashion designer barking through a power breakfast, but the food – twists on British and American classics – wasn’t anything to clap like a seal about. Then again, restaurants in hotels very rarely are. There are exceptions, but most rely heavily on the hotel’s guests being chivvied there for one night to eat mediocre food that at least looks passable with an Instagram filter on it.
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