I live ten minutes away from Rocket Bishopsgate. Rosy works ten minutes from Rocket Bishopsgate. When I GoogleMaps the address it’s planted dead centre between Liverpool Street station and Shoreditch High Street station, a stretch that shouldn’t hold any mysteries if you live East.
But neither of us can picture this place, not even slightly. Trying to work out how it slipped under our radars, we’re imagining underground den-of-vice vibes – it’s almost Shoreditch, where the speakeasy is King – but the reality’s much more prosaic.
It turns out this link in Rocket’s London chain – one of a City/Holborn/Canary Wharf/Broadgate quartet – is hidden in really plain sight. Taking over the first two floors of an office block, the darkness of the windows makes it look like one more HQ in a string of glass and steel. Outside there’s a small, cordoned-off strip of chairs which looks like one of the Costa concessions you get in the ground floor of big corporates. But inside, Rocket’s a lot less identikit than it looks from the street, and substantially stranger. In a good way.
In some ways this still feels very Square Mile. There’s a very power-suited clientele, a lot of glassware per person on the tables, and a massive cocktail menu with a Porn Star Martini listed in the Classics section. However afraid that makes you, the French ’75 and Rosy’s Au Pear – something involving Xante Cognac and champagne – are both actual classics. But even with that City feel, the occasional random design flourishes – giant Space Invaders running up the walls of the stairwell the best of them – make Rocket feel a bit less predictable than your average Broadgate chain.
The random flourishes aren’t limited to the design, either. The menu’s standard across the Rocket restaurants, covering very good pizza, a lot of seafood and meat grills, and some less obvious mixes cropping up across the starters and mains – like Rosy’s candied beetroot, blackberries and watercress starter – as well as the burger/sea bass/fishcakes standards. The salad menu plays very fast and loose with the whole salad concept, in a way that I’m really happy about. Rare Beef and Chips salad, Fish and Chips salad. Chicken Milanese salad. Essentially burgers. Thinly-veiled by some cucumber and radish shavings. I make Rosy order the ‘Nduja pizza in case the salads turn out to be more ephemeral than they sound, so there’ll still be a source of carbs, meat and cheese close to hand. But my Surf and Turf salad turns out to be just as brazenly not-a-salad as I’d hoped, a pile of battered tiger prawns, baby squid and seared rare beef. With some radish and some greenery. Neither are really key players here.
The salad’s great, and obviously more than substantial enough. Since I’d already imprinted on the idea of Rosy’s pizza, back when I still had doubts about the salad, I manage a slice or two of that as well. Also great. Also so heavy with meat that by the time we’re finished with our main courses both of us feel like we’ve gone eight rounds at a steakhouse. We manage a sorbet to wind up our dinner with. Sorbet to share. If anything’s going to illustrate just how powerful the main courses are, it’s that this is all we’re capable of, when there’s a range of brownie-and-cheesecake Americana on offer.
If you want coherency and an identifiable theme – or even just a really light dinner – Rocket Bishopgate’s going to push your boundaries. But if you’re after unbelievably rich pizza, or a salad garnished with half a chicken and a wheel of Saint-Agur – then Rocket’s there for you, hiding behind unreadable windows in all its weird and lavish glory.
Rocket, 201, Bishopsgate, EC2M 3AB. 0207 3778863. Website.
