Is Cambridge Heath Road shaping up to be the new Hackney?
Tower Hamlets is one of the most rapidly gentrifying boroughs, and Cambridge Heath Road’s bubbling new cultural scene feels like the very early days of Hackney Wick.
If you’ve walked around Cambridge Heath Road recently, you might have noticed a change in the air. Vacant shopfronts are suddenly trendy cocktail bars, foot traffic is picking up, and old favourites are increasingly buzzy.
Analysis by Trust for London recently identified neighbourhoods in Tower Hamlets as the ‘most gentrified’ in London. For proof, look at nearly every other high street in east London: Brick Lane, Hackney Wick, Bethnal Green Road and Roman Road, to name a few. But their heydays feel like they are receding into the past, with independent businesses overshadowed by tourist-y pop-up shops and chain coffee stores. Could Cambridge Heath Road be up next?
The star of the new scene is Miga – an excellent Korean restaurant run by two brothers in their 20s. The duo make modern Korean food with the ethos that their mum’s food is the golden standard. Now featured in the Michelin Guide, Time Out, Conde Nast Traveller, and AnOther Magazine, elbows for reservations at Miga have been increasingly sharp.
There’s also eco-friendly darlings Flat Earth Pizza, open since 2022 and winner of Britain’s Best Pizza in 2023. Recently, Flat Earth Pizza came third in Time Out’s list of the most sustainable restaurants in London.
Next, opposite the Young V&A on Paradise Row is Câv. The new cocktail bar is inspired by hi-fi listening bar culture, and from the same duo that brought us the buzzy Oranj, hidden mysteriously behind steel doors on Bacon Street just off Bethnal Green Road. They do one of the most sophisticated Martinis you’ll find in London. Câv also hosts an Iberian Peninsula-inspired kitchen, Tasca, which received a glowing review from the Standard.
Although not quite new, there’s also the recently refurbished 2 Michelin Star restaurant Da Terra, located within the former Town Hall.
Even the dimly lit, dilapidated railway arches of Malcolm Place, just past Bethnal Green Gardens, include an artistic landmark – the new Luigi Mangione mural.
Not far from the Vagina Museum on Poyser Street (which recently crowdfunded £70k to keep its doors open), is the new Scarlett Letters, also tackling taboo topics. This bookshop specialises in sex-worker literature and hosts buzzy events ranging from poetry readings to stripper life drawing sessions.
Scarlett Letters is on the ground floor of Pelican House, a shared workspace and coffee shop that opened during the pandemic and has miraculously survived. It’s a coworking space for grassroots unions, resistance networks, and campaign groups ‘committed to the struggle for a just world’. Despite the bookish exterior, they throw club nights in the basement.
Another buzzy new arrival is Three Colts Tavern, a Walthamstow–brewed craft beer and ale boozer, often seen overflowing with people in small beanie caps on a Friday night. Three Colts also hosts Short Road Pizza in their kitchen, self-described as ‘Italian roots, American swagger.’
Just past Three Colts you’ll also find the recently opened 135 Bar & Lounge, a former flat-roofed pub turned cocktail bar and aspiring member’s club. Owner and luxury nightlife veteran Johan Svennson claims the area reminds him of Notting Hill’s gentrification in the early 2000s.
With plans to convert the long-empty Brownhall House, the brutalist office block directly opposite Bethnal Green Library, the area is sure to see more new openings.
Older and well-loved favourites will no doubt enjoy the attention shining down on this once-overlooked road. Oddly situated by the Tower Hamlets Labour HQ, there’s the shockingly good cocktail bar, Satan’s Whiskers, recently listed as the best in the UK by Time Out.
Plus, Italian-run Quarantacinque Cafe, with lovely daytime snacks (pistachio latte, yum) and a chic menu of evening aperitivo. And don’t forget the canalside Ombra, a ‘Venetian style’ spot known for its fresh seafood.
Change is a funny thing – looking at the pop-up shop hinterland of Brick Lane or the flood of GAIL’s cups covering Hackney Wick, some will find the gentrification of Cambridge Heath Road a depressing prospect. For now, we can enjoy the revitalised high street before everyone else cottons on.
If you liked this read: Satan’s Whiskers: Your neighbourhood cocktail bar is as devilishly good as ever.
