Allen & Overy

Something to suit all tastes 

This section of the website has been contributed by Andy Jackson - trainee, joined March 2007

Bishops Square is in Shoreditch, 2 minutes walk to Brick Lane and just 5 minutes walk to Hoxton Square (though the walk back sometimes takes longer).  There are countless places to eat, drink and party so please read the following as just a brief glance at the options available.

In and around the square there are the A&O regular pubs (The Gun, The Water Poet, The Commercial Tavern and The Ten Bells) and some good restaurants such as Meson Los Barriles for tapas, Sweet Basil (and Carluccio's) for Italian, Scarlet Dot for Indian and Patisserie Valerie for cake.  Spitalfields market, which backs onto the A&O building, has a good variety of lunchtime food stalls including falafel, pie and mash, Thai, Mexican and Chinese.

Being in the City, there are, of course, plenty of winebars, smart restaurants and the like to lure you on your way from the office to the station, but any City firm is surrounded by winebars so this article is going to focus on the good stuff:  Brick Lane, Shoreditch and Hoxton.

Brick Lane is famous for having the best curry restaurants in England.  There are a huge number of them, stretching north up the first two thirds of Brick Lane and the food is generally cheap and excellent.  I wouldn't dare try to say which is best, just visit a few and pick a favourite.

The northern third of Brick Lane, up to Bethnal Green Rd has only one curry house and is instead devoted to bars, clubs, art and clothes.  The huge Truman Brewery complex houses a number of bars and clubs, including Vibe Bar, The Big Chill, Corbet Place, Cafe 1001 and one of the bigger local clubs, 93 Feet East.  It's also used for exhibits by local and national art, fashion and design colleges.  It holds a regular weekend market, and is covered in some great graffiti, and, for some reason, its car park became a beach last summer...  On the rest of Brick Lane and around the junction with Bethnal Green Road you can find a load more bars (Bar Exit, The Redchurch, Lounge Lover etc), the excellent Mexican bar restaurant Green Red, a few middle eastern restaurants, a new cinema (Rich Mix) and, crucially for the late night/early morning snacks, the famous 24 hour bagel place.

5 minutes north of the office, up Bishopsgate Road, Shoreditch blends into Hoxton Square and Old Street with plenty of great bars and restaurants:  Light Bar, Drunken Monkey, Home, Dragon, The Great Eastern, Cantaloupe, The Bricklayers Arms, The Reliant, Pool Bar, Zigfrid, Bluu, Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen, Yelo, and, 100 metres up Kingsland Rd, half a dozen good Vietnamese restaurants.  The main clubs are 333, Herbal, Cargo, Medicine and the Aquarium, but half of the bars listed have late licenses and space to dance.

There are so man more good places, not to mention all the live music, random club events/music festivals and so on, but no more space to write.