Oren

A pitta packed with hake and grilled in lamb fat, which the London editor of The Infatuation called one of the best things you can eat in the city (The Infatuation).

Why go

Oded Oren cooked at Louie Louie and then ran a string of residencies around London before he took the room on Shacklewell Lane where Floyd's used to be. It opened in October 2019. His own description of the food is "inspired from my home (in Tel Aviv) and the Mediterranean using local and sustainable produce", and the mechanism is a charcoal grill with a low-intervention wine list bought from small growers next to it (Oren).

In February 2026 Michelin gave it a Bib Gourmand, one of thirteen new London Bibs that year (Hot Dinners). A Bib landing this edition counts for more than one somebody has held for a decade.

The room is small. Counter seats at the bar, a few tables, candlelight, and enough proximity that when one phone vibrates everybody checks their pockets. The menu runs to around eighteen plates and it is built for sharing, which is the one thing to get right before you book.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the arayes, then ox cheek and hummus, which the kitchen has run since it opened. The whole braised cabbage if you want to see what the grill does to a vegetable. Amba chicken thighs with toum. Start with the stone-baked flatbread.
• Avoid: coming as two people and expecting to cover the menu. Do not turn up without a table booked. The Hackney Gazette's reviewer found the burnt aubergine mushy and called it the low point of her meal.

What locals & experts say

• Jake Missing, The Infatuation London, May 2022, 8.5: "Arayes, a pitta stuffed with hake before being grilled in lamb fat, is one of the best things you can eat in London." On the vegetables: "An entire braised cabbage, a vegetable often reduced to the flavourless sibling of the whole cauliflower, is a revelation." And the practical note: "Oren is a restaurant that's heaving almost every night, while simultaneously being slept on." ref
• Janine Rasiah, Hackney Gazette, December 2019: "The lamb flatbread with baharat spice and yoghurt picked things right back up, with us fighting over who had which piece." Her caveat was blunt: "The burnt aubergine proved to be the only low point of the meal, we were unsure about the mushy texture." ref
• Catherine Hanly, Hot Dinners, December 2019, on the flatbread in the first week: "on the face of it a very simple dish but here the bread is smoky and wonderfully chewy and god know where they found tomatoes that tasted this good at this time of year." ref
• Abby Lee, founder of Mambow, naming it among her favourite spots in Hackney for Time Out in October 2020: "It's delicious Mediterranean food, whether you want a sabich to-go or have a full mezze delivered with cured sardines. The food reminds me of being on holiday." She was talking about the lockdown takeaway, which is worth knowing when you read it. ref

Good to know

• Where: 89 Shacklewell Lane E8 2EB, under ten minutes on foot from Dalston Kingsland.
• Timing: evenings. Book, because it fills.
• Seating: counter seats at the bar as well as tables, plus a few outside.
• The menu: around eighteen plates, built to share. Plates ran from six pounds to just under twenty when Hot Dinners priced them at opening.
• Diet: a whole section of the short menu is vegetarian and vegan, and three of the five snacks were veggie at opening.
• Wine: low intervention, bought from small growers, and priced as punchily as it tastes.
• Sites: two, and they are different things. This row is the restaurant at 89 Shacklewell Lane. Oren Delicatessen opened in London Fields in February 2023 at 6C Ada Street E8 4QU, has its own website and its own hygiene record, and nothing on this page comes from it.
• Michelin: Bib Gourmand, new in the 2026 guide, announced 3 February 2026.
• Hygiene: the FSA holds this premises at 5, rated 13 March 2025, under Hackney. FHRSID 470241. The deli is rated 4 and that rating belongs to the deli.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: none. His saved-places export carries an empty note against this row, so nothing here is attributed to him. The master CSV line "Dalston Levantine open-fire save" is a curation label rather than his words, and the open-fire half of it is accurate.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

must-visit — Plan an evening around it, and bring more than one other person. Oded Oren cooked at Louie Louie and ran residencies around London before opening his first permanent room on Shacklewell Lane in October 2019, with a charcoal grill at the centre of it and a low-intervention wine list bought from small growers. In February 2026 Michelin gave it a Bib Gourmand, one of thirteen new London Bibs that year, which under our own rules counts harder than a Bib somebody has been sitting on since 2015. The Infatuation's Jake Missing scored it 8.5 and wrote that the arayes, a pitta packed with hake and grilled in lamb fat, 'is one of the best things you can eat in London', and that a whole braised cabbage here is a revelation. Abby Lee of Mambow picks it too. The practical intelligence matters as much as the praise: the menu runs to eighteen or so plates built for sharing, the room is small enough that one phone buzzing makes everybody check their pockets, and it is full most nights, so book. Confidence is high because a Bib, an 8.5, two opening-week bylined reviews and a chef pick all say the same thing.