The Laughing Heart

The Laughing Heart, London: Worth Booking?

The Laughing Heart on Hackney Road is worth your time if you are looking for a wine-bar-meets-restaurant that takes its food as seriously as its list; a format that is rarer in East London than it should be. This is not a place to drop in for a quick drink and bar snacks. The kitchen here operates as a genuine draw, if you are choosing between treating it as a bar or a restaurant, go in hungry and commit.

Sitting on Hackney Road in E2, the room has the visual honesty common to this part of the city: pared-back, unpolished in the right ways, with the kind of lighting that makes the bottles on the back wall look purposeful rather than decorative. It reads as a special-occasion venue for people who are allergic to formal dining rooms; the sort of place you bring a date when you want the meal to do the work without the stiff atmosphere. For a celebration or a business dinner where the vibe matters as much as the food, it clears the bar that many smarter-looking Central London rooms do not.

The food is the clearest reason to choose The Laughing Heart over the dozens of natural wine bars that have opened across East London in the past several years. Where many in this category treat the kitchen as an afterthought, small plates assembled rather than cooked, The Laughing Heart has consistently been cited as a place where the cooking holds its own. If bar food that is worth ordering seriously is what you are after, this address delivers more reliably than most in its neighbourhood bracket.

For timing, weekday evenings are your leading option. The room is smaller than it looks from the street, weekend services fill quickly. Going mid-week gives you a calmer experience and, practically, a better shot at actually talking to whoever you are. If you are planning a date or a celebration dinner rather than a casual drop-in, Tuesday through Thursday is the window to aim for.

Booking is direct, this is not a venue where you need to plan months in advance, but for weekend tables, a week or two of lead time is sensible. Walk-ins may work on quieter nights, though the room's size makes that a gamble on Fridays and Saturdays.

For more on where to eat and drink across the capital, see our full London restaurants guide, our full London bars guide, and our full London hotels guide. If you are exploring beyond drinks and dining, our full London experiences guide and our full London wineries guide are worth a look too.

If you are building a wider London bar itinerary, 69 Colebrooke Row is the go-to for precision cocktails in Islington, while A Bar with Shapes For a Name is worth the trip for anyone serious about the cocktail programme over food. Academy and Amaro round out the East London options worth knowing. For something further afield, Bramble in Edinburgh, Bar Kismet in Halifax, and Bar Leather Apron in Honolulu each represent their city's leading case for the serious bar-with-food format.