Chelsea’s acclaimed seafood restaurants spreads East…

In an interesting twist of restaurant fate, Chelsea’s celebrated seafood specialists The Sea, The Sea are expanding to Hackney. We’ve seen many a hip pop-up start East and move West, of course, this is the first time we can remember seeing the opposite journey.

Overseen by executive chef Leo Carreira, the Hackney outpost will be a bigger site than the Chelsea location, and introduces a counter-style Chef’s Table, serving an omakase-style tasting menu from its open kitchen to just 12 guests per sitting.

Menus and dishes will change regularly, reflecting the daily catch and seasonality but the opening menus will include dishes such as Aged turbot, hot dog pods, honeycomb tomatoes, Horse mackerel, pine nut, sake, shallots (pictured), and Langoustine Wedding Cake, a dish that’s taken a year to develop: a seaweed ‘egg cake’ baked in an artisanal Portuguese pot, seasoned with togarashi and stuffed with smoked langoustines and a sauce made from their heads, before being glazed in homemade almond milk and topped with langoustine ‘floss’.

Championing artisan, low impact fishing methods, The Sea, The Sea’s fish comes from a co-operative of day-boat fishermen in Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, delivered to Hackney directly the same day. From there, The Sea, The Sea will send fish to their wholesale customers – and that’s all part of the more immersive experience the new site provides.

In Chelsea, there’s a small ageing cabinet. In Hackney, that will be a large walk-in space, with live shellfish held in special filtration tanks on-site. Diners will pass through the wholesale and product development operations en route to the Chef’s Table, getting a glimpse behind the scenes as fishmongers process the morning’s catch.

The Sea, The Sea can be found at 337 Acton Mews, London E8 4EA. The Chef’s Table menu costs £110 per person and can be booked here

(Photography: Jodi Hinds.)