Sunday 10 June 2012

L'ENTREPoT, HACKNEY DOWNS



Entrepot: French, from Middle French entrepost, from entreposer to put between, from entre- inter- + poser to pose...

Hackney Downs is the favoured location for directors seeking urban grit: gangs, drug deals, stabbings, gun crime (the recent TV series Top Boy was shot here). It's not hard to see why as you emerge from the station, walk under the railway bridge along the pavement bespattered with pigeon droppings, pass a lamppost garlanded with sellotaped bouquets - a family commemorating the shooting of their teenager a year ago. Turn left and opposite 'Jerk Corner' (don't go there if you value your arteries) RIP is scrawled along the wall - oh yes,  this remembers the 14 year old who bled to death at 2am in the morning, stabbed by gang members. 
So it's a brave enterprise that opens here; this may be East London but it is a far cry from the hipster haunts of Shoreditch and Hoxton. L'entrepot is that brave enterprise, an outlet for Borough Wines, which has fashioned a wine bar from a very unpromising space next to Tesco Metro, an old engineers' shed for the nearby railway.

There are, however, hipster habitats even here, from whence they  emerge, blinking in the sunlight donning the Raybans. Here they can sit back and enjoy the interesting wines, sample broad bean and mint bruschetta or the cheese plate and forget about the horrors that have passed a few hundred yards from here...



L'entrepot is at 230 Dalston Lane, next to Hackney Downs Railway station and Tesco Metro.

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