The Water House Project finds permanent home

Chef Gabriel Waterhouse’s eponymous east London dining destination The Water House Project, is putting down permanent roots this September.

The new opening will see it relocate to Corbridge Crescent, near Regent's Canal and a short walk from Bethnal Green station.

Established in 2015, the restaurant’s first guise was within Waterhouse's own home in Hackney (an underground 12-seater dining experience) before moving to a semi-permanent bricks-and-mortar spot on Mare Street in early 2020. 

The new site will provide space for a central 'borderless' kitchen, a standalone reception area for guests to enjoy a drink before or after dinner, and up to 40 covers.

Diners can choose to enjoy the experience from one of two communal tables, or more intimately on one of eight, smaller tables dotted about the room. 

Waterhouse's nine-course tasting menu - which changes each month - depicts an elegant cooking style using earthy flavours, while also incorporating subtle nods to the Nordics.

Pickled and fermented ingredients will be used, and dishes will be cooked over a Japanese grill. Working alongside Waterhouse will be sous chef Thomas Lemercier, formerly of restaurant Hide. 

The September menu will begin with a trio of snacks to include British lops pork belly donut with plum chutney; Craster kipper mousse with shiso; as well as cucumber soup with dill and yoghurt sorbet.

Other plates will include girolles, tarragon and mushroom consomme; St Austell mussels and Jerusalem artichoke with chive and lemon; Herdwick lamb, black garlic, polenta and mint to follow, before a palate cleanser of fig leaf ice-cream with fig leaf oil.

For dessert, dishes will include stilton ice-cream with compressed pear and oat crumble, as well as celeriac, salted caramel and chocolate truffle.

Dinner is rounded off with miso and chocolate cookies, orange and Szechwan marshmallows and fresh mint tea. There is also an exclusively vegetarian menu available.

Low-intervention wines will also change monthly, and pre-batched house-made cocktails using seasonal ingredients from the kitchen are also available. 

You may also be interested in…