Restaurant in London, United Kingdom
St. JOHN pedigree at proper pub prices.
Marksman on Hackney Road is the most compelling case in East London for serious British cooking at pub prices. Tom Harris and Jon Rotheram's St. JOHN-trained kitchen holds two consecutive Michelin Plates and an OAD ranking, while the ££ price point sits well below London's top-tier British restaurants. Book the first-floor dining room; the pie for two is the dish to anchor your order around.
The most common misconception about Marksman is that it's a gastropub that happens to have decent food. It isn't. Tom Harris and Jon Rotheram, both alumni of St. JOHN, run a proper kitchen here — one that takes British seasonality as seriously as any restaurant in East London. The pub wrapper (brown-tiled façade, wood-panelled bar, rooftop terrace) is genuine, not decorative. If you arrive expecting a dressed-up dining room with formal service, you'll be pleasantly wrong. If you arrive expecting a boozer with some refined bar snacks, you'll be productively surprised by the first-floor dining room's ambition.
At ££ pricing, Marksman sits well below the ££££ bracket occupied by London's marquee British kitchens. That gap matters. You're getting cooking rooted in the same St. JOHN philosophy , quality produce, no-nonsense technique, pronounced British identity , at a fraction of the cost of CORE by Clare Smyth or Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. Whether that trade-off works for you depends on whether the setting matters as much as the plate.
Marksman occupies two distinct registers. Downstairs, the bar is a functioning East End pub: unpretentious, unhurried, the kind of room where a pint makes sense on its own terms. The brown tiles and wood panelling are original to the building rather than a design intervention. Upstairs, the first-floor dining room steps up in formality without going stiff , it's modern but not cold, and the approach to service matches: attentive without ceremony.
The rooftop terrace is worth flagging for warmer months. It gives Marksman a seasonal dimension that many Hackney Road competitors lack. If you're booking between late spring and early autumn, ask about terrace availability when you make your reservation.
The scent that greets you in the dining room is worth noting in practical terms: this is a kitchen that works with animal-forward British produce, roasted bones, rendered fat, and fresh herbs. If you associate that register with St. JOHN's Smithfield original, you'll feel at home immediately. If that's new territory, expect something closer to a Sunday roast at its leading than anything that reads as modern European.
Harris and Rotheram's cooking follows the St. JOHN logic: seasonal British produce, whole-animal thinking, and a deep scepticism of unnecessary elaboration. The pie for two has drawn consistent attention across multiple reviews , it's the kind of dish that defines what the kitchen is doing better than any description of individual components. Dressed Dorset crab and a Sunday roast appear across credible sources as further anchors of the menu's identity.
There is no tasting menu format here. Marksman doesn't ask you to commit to a multi-course arc managed by the kitchen. You order what you want, at your pace, in a pub. That's both the point and the limitation: if you're looking for the structured experience that Michelin ££££ restaurants in London offer, this isn't it. If you want serious food without the performance around it, this is one of the more compelling options in the city at this price point. The Michelin Plate recognition in both 2024 and 2025 confirms the kitchen is operating above casual pub level, even if the format stays firmly grounded.
The wine program at Marksman deserves more attention than it typically gets. Pubs at this price point usually default to a short, low-margin list managed by a distributor. Marksman, operating in the St. JOHN tradition, takes a different approach: the list is built to work with the food rather than alongside it. Expect wines that make sense with animal fat, offal-adjacent dishes, and strong British produce , meaning the list skews toward natural producers, skin-contact whites, and old-world reds with the acidity to cut through rich cooking.
This is not the place to order a cocktail and spend thirty minutes on the menu. Marksman rewards drinkers who let the food dictate the glass. If you're planning to drink seriously, ask for guidance on what's working well with the current menu. The bar downstairs handles pints with the same seriousness the kitchen handles produce.
For East London wine bars with a similar sensory register, Goodbye Horses is worth cross-referencing. For a different take on the serious-pub-meets-serious-cellar formula, The Devonshire offers a useful comparison point on the west side of the city.
Booking difficulty at Marksman is rated Easy. You are not competing for one of twelve counter seats at a high-demand omakase. That said, the dining room is finite, and popular weekend slots , particularly Sunday lunch, when the roast is the obvious anchor , do fill. Book a week out for weekday dinners, two weeks for weekend lunch to be safe.
Tuesday is the first day the kitchen opens (4 pm onwards), so it's not a Monday option. Wednesday through Sunday the kitchen runs from midday. Hours run until midnight across all open days, which makes Marksman a viable late-dinner option if you're working around an East London evening.
Address: 254 Hackney Rd, London E2 7SB. The nearest overground stations are Cambridge Heath (Overground) and Hoxton, both within comfortable walking distance from Hackney Road.
If you're building a London restaurant itinerary and want range across price points, Marksman sits usefully at the ££ end of the serious-cooking spectrum. For a longer view of the city's restaurant offer, see our full London restaurants guide. For bars in the area, our full London bars guide covers the broader East London drinking scene. If you're staying overnight, our full London hotels guide covers the full range of options.
The St. JOHN approach to British cooking also travels well beyond London. If you're interested in exploring comparable kitchens across the UK, Hand and Flowers in Marlow, Pipe and Glass in South Dalton, and Moor Hall in Aughton each occupy different positions in the British cooking conversation, at varying price points. For the upper end of the spectrum, L'Enclume in Cartmel and The Fat Duck in Bray show what happens when the same British-produce instinct meets ££££ ambition.
Closer to Hackney, Llewelyn's in Herne Hill offers a comparable neighbourhood-restaurant sensibility at a similar price point, and is worth considering if you're mapping the south-of-the-river equivalent.
The OAD trajectory is worth reading carefully: moving from a recommendation to a ranked position (and climbing within that ranked list) over three consecutive years signals a kitchen gaining rather than maintaining momentum. For a pub at ££, two consecutive Michelin Plates confirm the food is operating well above the category baseline.
| Venue | Cuisine | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marksman | Traditional British | Traditional East-end pub on trendy Hackney Road with brilliant food using the best British ingredients; a mix of impeccable pub classics – the pie for two is unmissable.There are some slightly more r...; With its quirky, brown-tiled façade and enviable rooftop terrace, this pub has long been a local landmark in London’s East End. The wood-panelled bar retains the feel of a traditional boozer, while the first-floor dining room is a little more modern yet still hearteningly unpretentious. The owners are alumni of St. JOHN, meaning there’s a similarly no-nonsense and proudly British approach to the cooking, where the seasonality and quality of the produce is key. So expect the likes of dressed Dorset crab and a traditional Sunday roast.; Opinionated About Dining Casual in Europe Ranked #444 (2025); Michelin Plate (2025); Opinionated About Dining Casual in Europe Ranked #386 (2024); Michelin Plate (2024); Opinionated About Dining Casual in Europe Recommended (2023) | Easy | — |
| CORE by Clare Smyth | Modern British | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Restaurant Gordon Ramsay | Contemporary European, French | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Sketch, The Lecture Room and Library | Modern French | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| The Ledbury | Modern European, Modern Cuisine | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Dinner by Heston Blumenthal | Modern British, Traditional British | Michelin 2 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
A quick look at how Marksman measures up.
Yes, the downstairs bar at Marksman operates as a functioning pub where you can order food without a reservation. It's the more casual of the two registers — ideal if you want to drop in without planning ahead. The first-floor dining room requires a booking and runs a more structured service. For a spontaneous visit, the bar is the practical choice.
Come as you would to a serious East End pub — no dress code applies. Marksman's wood-panelled bar is deliberately unpretentious, and the first-floor dining room follows the same no-fuss register. Jeans and a jacket are fine; there's nothing about the room or the ££ price point that demands formality.
At ££, Marksman is one of the stronger value cases in London's serious-cooking tier. Tom Harris and Jon Rotheram, both alumni of St. JOHN, apply the same seasonal British produce logic to a pub format — meaning you're getting Michelin Plate-recognised cooking without the cover charge that typically accompanies it. If you're comparing spend-per-quality-point across East London, Marksman sits well ahead of most pubs at the same price.
The pie for two is the dish most consistently cited in recognition of Marksman, including by Opinionated About Dining, which ranked the pub in its Casual Europe list in both 2024 and 2025. Beyond that, the kitchen follows St. JOHN's whole-animal, seasonally-driven approach, so the menu shifts — order what's British and in season rather than hunting for a fixed signature.
Marksman does not operate a tasting menu format. The kitchen runs a shorter, pub-appropriate à la carte in keeping with the St. JOHN alumni philosophy — produce-led, unfussy, and without the theatrical pacing of a multi-course set menu. If a tasting menu is what you're after, this is not the right venue.
Lunch from Wednesday onward is the easier booking and typically the calmer sitting. Dinner from Thursday to Saturday draws a fuller room and more of a pub-evening atmosphere. Neither service is categorically better — the food stays consistent — but if you want a quieter dining room with more attention from the floor, a midweek lunch is the practical call.
It depends on the occasion. For a birthday or anniversary where the room needs to feel celebratory, the first-floor dining room works — it's more composed than the bar and the Michelin Plate and OAD-ranked cooking gives the meal credibility. For a high-formality occasion with tableside theatre or a long wine list, look elsewhere: Marksman's appeal is its unpretentious register, not its ceremony.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
