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Please note, this Morty & Bob’s location has closed, and a new Morty & Bob’s has opened at Coal Drops Yard in King's Cross. Time Out Food editors, February 2019.
If the ‘Friends’ crew still shared an apartment (and got clued up to all the latest interiors trends), it would look just like Morty & Bob’s. An industrial-style warehouse space filled with elegantly distressed leather sofas and wooden dining tables, flattering giant orb lights and plenty of foliage. Apart from the monochrome-tiled bar and giant neon ‘Liquor’ sign, you wouldn’t guess that come 5pm, it morphs into the popular Hackney cocktail bar, NT’s. With a steady stream of weekday freelancers and the Hackney brunch crowd at weekends, you might have to hang about for a table, but once seated, don’t expect to feel hurried.
Our waitress steered us towards the standard brunch options for a ‘nutritious’ choice (avo toast with various accessories, chorizo and chickpea bake, granola) or for something ‘dirty’: the grilled cheese. We would argue that dirty and nutritious are not mutually exclusive – at least with a sandwich this good: sourdough bread fried to crispy on both sides, oozing with cheese, cut diagonally with a hefty half-a-gherkin garnish. Regal status should be granted to the earthy, tangy mushroom and truffle version (£6.50) – enough to satisfy the taste buds of any steadfast carnivore – with all of the musk, but none of the animal. Add a plate of moreish rosemary salted fries and you have the hangover cure of the gods for a tenner.
Make the most of the bar credentials with a spicy bloody mary or rocket fuel espresso martini, but honestly all you need in your life is that grilled cheese. Sod the avo, winter is coming and hot, bubbling cheese is as good a coping mechanism as any.