Canteen, Crispin Place, Spitalfields

Canteen, Crispin Place, Spitalfields
Wednesday 6 September, 2006

I love trying new places and today my London based sister took me to Canteen. I caught the tube to Liverpool St and it was a short walk over to Spitalfields. The area looks relatively new with lots of boutiques and cafes/ restaurants along with the Spitalfield markets.

Canteen is a very slick looking joint. It offers indoor/ outdoor seating - large solid oak wood communal tables with bench seats along with some booths. The staff were very friendly and welcoming especially as we didn't have a lunch reservation. But they were more than happy to find us a seat. The menus are located on the place mats at each place setting and they offer a range of good wholesome English food.

Their philosophy is, 'Canteen is committed to providing honest food, nationally sourced, skillfully prepared and reasonably priced. We believe in good produce provenance. Our meat is additive free sourced directly from producers practising good animal husbandry and our fish delivered fresh from day boats on the south coast. All dishes are cooked to order and the menu changes seasonally to accommodate the best and freshest national produce.'

A really neat thing they offer is the Fast Track menu - if you are short on time they offer a cut down version of their main menu just for you. Today, due to the warm weather, we opted for some salads. I ordered the Smoked haddock, beetroot and horseradish salad and my sister ordered the gammon and potato salad.

We watched what other tables were ordering and the favourite item appeared to be the pie - they offer two pies daily a meat and vegetarian variety. Each comes served with mash and peas. Our meals were presented and looked great - large servings for under £10 each. The smoked haddock was divine and the beetroot was served in small diced cubes on top of the horseradish and spinach leaves. There was so much of it that I felt I hardly made a dint in it.

The other cool thing about Canteen (and this is the case in almost every cafe/ restaurant in London) is that when you ask for the bill and provide your debit/ credit card the staff bring the terminal to your table and complete the transaction then and there. This is great for security and even better for those paying separately.

I really enjoyed Canteen and can highly recommend it.

Canteen - 2 Crispin Place, Spitalfields, London - 0845 686 1122

http://www.canteen.co.uk/