Being an East London local and knowing Stratford fairly well, I’ve been watching the Manhattan Loft Gardens building (42 storeys) going up slowly over the last few years so I was intrigued to say the least when The Stratford Brasserie opened on the ground floor of the building.
The Stratford is based just outside of Stratford International station (which has direct trains from Kings Cross in just six minutes), and just over the road from Stratford International DLR station.
We decided to try it for a breakfast on a Saturday morning, the restaurant was open and spacious, sharing the ground floor space with the hotel lobby and a fantastic looking bar which looked well stocked with a variety of different gins. The Stratford Brasserie had a charming buzz to it, it wasn’t packed but had enough diners to create a nice, relaxed atmosphere.
The Stratford – What We Ordered
Breakfast is served until 11am so we arrived at 10.30 and were shown to a large round table, the decor of the whole restaurant is quite relaxed, with Scandinavian vibes.
I started off by ordering a latte (£3.50) and my friend ordered the freshly squeezed orange juice (£3.50) but I particularly liked the ceramic mug that my coffee was served in, it had a matte finish and tied in with the Scandinavian decor. It would’ve been nice to see a little latte art or something on the coffee so it just felt like a normal coffee rather than something a bit more special.
To eat, I went for my usual avocado on toast (£10) which is my go to breakfast choice both at home and when I’m out. It was served on rye toast topped with two poached eggs. I enjoyed it, the lime flavour wasn’t overpowering, there was a good mix of chilli and the chef definitely wasn’t stingy with the avocado – there was tonnes of it – but I would rather it was served on sourdough toast instead but that’s just my personal preference.
My friend chose the classic full English (£14) which is always a good choice when you’re reviewing a restaurant. It came with a Cumberland sausage, smoked streaky bacon, homemade hash browns, a grilled tomato, a flat mushroom (which I stole because they don’t like mushrooms) , a small pot of house beans and a choice of eggs. It also came with a choice of toast which was served in a little rack which was a nice toast. My friend opted for sourdough which is our favourite.
It would’ve been nice if the bacon was a little bit crispier as streaky bacon can sometimes be a bit fatty and stringy if the fat isn’t rended down properly and although he ordered scrambled eggs, it actually turned up with fried eggs. We didn’t complain as we were hungry and just wanted to eat but the attention to detail was disappointing that they didn’t get our order right. We actually ended up swapping our eggs so he had my poached eggs and I ate the fried eggs (can you tell he’s the healthy one?!). The eggs themselves were delicious, the yolks were so yellow and fresh which looked fantastic on the plate but overall, Caravan does a better full English breakfast.
What let The Stratford down was the service; unfortunately it was quite slow and we were actually given the wrong bill at the end so we had to get this rectified so unfortunately that took the shine off the visit. On the plus side, we were able to quote the code LOCAL25 which gave us 25% discount!
The Stratford – 2/5
I wouldn’t rush back but I imagine that these are just a few teething issues and I anticipate that The Stratford will only get better as time goes on.
Food – 3/5
Service – 1/5
Decor / Ambience – 3/5
The total cost for two people was £26.16 including service and 25% discount.
Have you visited The Stratford before? Feeling Inspired? Check out my London Restaurant Hit List!
The Stratford
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
20 International Way
London
E20 1FD
