Summer’s struck the city hard, the day we’re booked in at Hungry Donkey. Hard like you usually just read about in Raymond Chandler novels. It’s a hot evening, Mediterranean sunshine with a dash of London traffic-sultriness and reflected tarmac.
Gloom might be rolling across the Greek economy at a rate of knots, but things are still feeling balmy in this Aldgate East corner of Greece. Still box-fresh – just one month old and all clean, semi-Spartan lines – Hungry Donkey’s to be found on an unassuming corner of E1, fabric shops and butchers still outnumbering the evening offerings by some way. But with Copita del Mercado recently opened next door, and The Culpeper pub newly refurbed and serving Spritzes by the tank across the road from them, Aldgate has more than a hint of Exmouth Market about it these days.
All the more so this evening, with people spilling into the street, in search of a breeze. Hungry Donkey’s particularly good for this weather, by City standards at least, with a bit of outside space and two full sides of the restaurant letting in floor-to-ceiling light. In very short order we’re seated at a window table, being flooded with brightness and plied with cold Septem honey ales from an impressively niche beer list.
We’re only just into the starters but – as so often seems to happen when flying the Arbuturian flag – it already feels like we’re blurring the line between date night and competitive eating night. It’s hard to tell if this is romance with a slight frisson of competition or if it’s outright competition with a subtle romantic charge.
Either way, Hungry Donkey is not to blame. It would be fine – ideal, even – as a place to come and just share a serving of zucchini fritters or a plate of silky aubergine dip, washed down with a cold volcanic-grape wine from Santorini or a Greek pilsner. The informality, and the balance of the menu being weighted towards starters and skewers makes Hungry Donkey perfect for a light, tapas-style dinner or a place to explore the excellent – solely Greek – wine list, and punctuate your drinking with the occasional tiny, tender chicken souvlaki, from the robata grill. And that’s exactly what we do, with a few, restrained choices from among the starters: aubergine dip, Greek salad, chicken and pork bite-sized skewers.
Except that we don’t stop there. Because nothing keeps the magic alive in a relationship like facing down your beloved over a plate of Greek sausage – and there must be few Greek sausage plates in London better to bond over than this behemoth of tzatziki and orange-spiced Loukaniko. My date’s exploring the beers from Greek microbrewery Septem with an on-theme, Ancient Grecian degree of democracy, while I try to divine the volcano-earth and Cycladic sunshine in the Gaia Wild Ferment Assyrtiko white.
We concede defeat when we reach the dessert menu, by mutual consent. No clear victors here, although I do manage a Greek coffee, heavy with sediment and with a kick like an angry donkey, if not a hungry one. We leave into an evening that’s still light and still hot, which is lucky, since we can blame our slow, slow pace as we wind our way back to Shoreditch on the close haziness of the weather, and not just the excesses of the evening.
Hungry Donkey, 56 Wentworth Street, London E1 7AL. Tel: 020 3538 1448. Website.
