OPENING IN JANUARY 2022
The Light Bar in Shoreditch only opened its doors at the beginning of 2021, but its already launching a second dining area upstairs, The Timber Loft, an 80-cover restaurant with a broadly modern European focus. The top floor bar and restaurant is also available for private hire and events, offering a bright and open wooden space complete with widely-spaced tables, exposed wooden beams, light-letting skylights and plenty of windows. To bring a warm feel to the place, the room has been fitted with copper light fixtures, bespoke mid-century furniture as well as soft teals peppered throughout. Despite whatever images a ‘loft’ might conjure, there's certainly nothing dark and stuffy about this place.
Tristan Downes, who previously worked at JOY and Brunswick House, is in charge of the kitchen and has created a host of seasonal dishes including celeriac and winter tomato terrine with brioche crostini, squash ravioli with fried sage and chestnut and confit duck leg with Roscoff onion and red cabbage.
Plant-based eaters will also be fully satisfied with a vegan five-course tasting menu featuring the likes of Jerusalem artichoke gnocchi with artichoke crisps, roast squash with fregola and porcini, and roasted pear panna cotta with caramel and basil.
Tristan was shortlisted for the National Chef of the Year Awards in 2020 and 2021 as well as featuring on MasterChef: The Professionals 2018 and working across multiple Gordan Ramsay restaurants. He also heads up the kitchen for The Light Bar downstairs, which can be found just off the buzzing Shoreditch high street.
The building was originally built in 1893 to generate electricity for the UK’s first powered train station, Liverpool Street’s Great Eastern Railways, and inside you can find signifiers of the venue’s rich history such as exposed steelwork and glazed brick walls.