[title]
Peckish? What do you fancy? Maybe a Mona Lisa? Or a nice plate of Jack the Rippers? Or how about an Uncle Reggie Murray?
Yotel has a new hotel opening, based in the creative and cultural hub that is Shoreditch. And in honour of its East End location, it has a new food and drink menu (with a twist) in Komyuniti, its all-day bar, restaurant and co-working space.
The twist is that all the menu items have cockney rhyming slang names. So there’s the Mona Lisa (margherita pizza, presumably in honour of the film). Or you can get an Uncle Reggie Murray (a veggie curry. Don’t worry, traditionalists are also catered for with the meat-based Ruby Murray). There’s the rather horrifying-sounding ‘Bedkrabs and Broomsticks’ (olives and breadsticks). And in honour of the hotel’s Shoreditch location there are the unfortunately named Jack the Rippers: no, not kippers but chicken strips.
To be fair, Yotel isn’t by any means the only culprit in exploiting the superficial trappings of East End culture for its own ends, and invoking Jack the Ripper. There are, after all, endless tours/pub crawls of Shoreditch and Bethnal Green based on his brutal killings. But it’s (rightly) still a sensitive subject, as one London chippy found out last year.
So maybe a bit of a rethink is in order.
Yotel London Shoreditch, 309-317 Cambridge Heath Rd, E2 9LH.
In other foodie news, say aloha to London’s newest foodie fusion... Poké Bao.
Timeout has a new, daily newsletter and you should sign up immediately.