There’s no shortage of bars to look cool in down Shoreditch way, but Iron Bloom has some pretty good food to match its eclectic cocktail selection, finds Mr Hip Harman
What’s with the odd name then? Well apparently,, this place used to be an’iron factory’, although I am not sure if that means it used to make irons, or made iron. If you see what I mean.
The brickwork is exposed, as is still de rigeur these days, although there seems to be no filament lamps thankfully, a lighting solution that’s now so clichéd you can even buy it outside London.
The power sockets over the tables are industrial chic, but we notice with delight that they have USB sockets to charge the phone to take the pics to post on Instagram to pleasure one’s followers.
There’s a nice’vibe’ to the place and it doesn’t feel intimidating or cliquey to those of us not blessed enough to live and/or work in the postcode.
The background music when we’re in, is of the type that always seems popular in euro- venues, a kind of repetitive loop of non-threatening sounds that tends to drive me mad after a bit.
However, this is a preview night and so usually there will be a DJ in the booth playing real vinyl and the venue’s music programming is curated by Clifford Irving, resident DJ, Producer and Co-Founder of 38 East Studios.
Iron Bloom comes from the creators of Looking Glass Cocktail Club, so we expected a fancy cocktail menu, which we duly got, but we weren’t ready for the quality food on the sharing menu.
English lamb cutlets served with tabbouleh and citrus curd were gnaw to the bone good, smoked cod roe with crab butter on crumpets topped with caviar was a taste Catherine wheel. Dishes like red mullet cooked with agave, rum, raisin and pineapple wrapped in banana leaf on a charcoal bed, and black pudding quail scotch egg, were excellent and not at all what you might expect in a’bar’.
And even I, a long-time burger-dismisser, was impressed with the Wagyu beef and bone marrow burger in its bright green bun.
We also liked the Mac n Cheese, a step up from the average, although like every mac n cheese I have ever had it was so blasted hot you could probably have melted steel in it.
In fact all that was wrong with the food was how hard it was to see it. That we got any pics at all was down to J using his phone as a light source for me, which would have made us both look rather stupid if it hadn’t been a press night
The booths and long tables mean you can choose to be social (in the traditional sense of talking to people in person, rather than via a screen) and the staff are bright and breezy and damned attractive too.
All in all, Iron Bloom is a very pleasant place to be and every other Saturday there’s a UK Garage Brunch with a strictly old-school garage music policy and a bottomless brunch.
I confess that I don’t know what garage music is, I am like a high court judge when it comes to any music that’s not Indy guitar band.
UK Indy Brunch? Now there’s an idea.
46 Great Eastern Street
London, EC2A 3EP
OPENING HOURS Monday: ClosedTuesday-Friday: 6pm-11:30pmSaturday: 12pm-11:30pmSunday: 12pm-5pm