Floyd's (CLOSED)

Please note, Floyd's has now closed. Time Out Food editors, March 2019.

A contemporary brasserie in the shabby and chic environs of Dalston, Floyd’s has a certain charm and some serious know-how in the kitchen. A pretty pale blue-painted space with shelves of books here, Middle Eastern tiles there and flowers on every wooden table set the scene.

The staff are easy-going and the menu competently covers the bases, from breakfast through mains to snacks and puddings – the combination successfully pulls in the regulars. We stopped by for a late lunch and had a chilled cucumber and yoghurt soup, which is easy to get wrong but here was spot-on: tart and sweet, heady with garlic and a hint of dill, scattered with chives and slicked with olive oil.

The soup could have done with some accompanying bread, but this minor blip was forgiven with the arrival of a towering plate of ingenious courgette linguine with almond and parsley pesto, nutty wild mushrooms, rocket and parmesan – a juicy plateful of deep flavours offering all the pleasures of pasta with none of the carb coma. A definite winner.