Fine Dining Near Me in Shoreditch: The Clove Club's £185 Midweek Tasting Menu

The Clove Club charges £285 for its dinner tasting menu on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, yet serves the same full menu for £185 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The restaurant sits inside the Grade II-listed Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street, London EC1V 9LT, a few minutes on foot from Old Street station, and the last dinner seating is 8:30pm. Chef-patron Isaac McHale's kitchen holds two Michelin stars, so anyone typing fine dining near me around Old Street has a serious midweek option right here.

Isaac McHale, Johnny Smith and Daniel Willis ran an experimental supper club in Shoreditch before moving into the old Town Hall, and The Clove Club opened its doors on 4 March 2013. McHale, a Scottish chef, cut his teeth alongside René Redzepi at Noma and Brett Graham at The Ledbury. The first Michelin star arrived a year after opening, and the second came with the 2022 Michelin Guide for Great Britain and Ireland.

The partnership changed in November 2024, when the founders split their group. Smith and Willis took joint ownership of Luca, the Italian restaurant the trio opened in Clerkenwell in 2016, while McHale became sole owner of The Clove Club. The restaurant's own list of honours includes the highest new entry on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2016, No. 1 in the Sunday Times Top 100, and London Restaurant of the Year from BMW Squaremeal.

The current sample tasting menu, dated August 2026, runs to eight courses. It opens with Cornish crab in a chilled courgette and basil soup with almond, moves to Scottish blue shell lobster with gooseberry aguachile, summer berries and marigold, then line-caught tuna with roasted friggitelli peppers and pine nuts. Grilled red mullet arrives with Sungold tomato and salsa macha, and the meat runs from slow-roast Maison Garat chicken with Scottish girolles and toasted hay to dry-aged Middlewhite pork with trombetta courgette and Indian spices.

Dessert starts with a grilled habanero granita over blackcurrant sorbet and sheep's milk yoghurt mousse. The last course pairs organic English strawberries with Antica Formula vermouth, rice pudding and sake lees. The kitchen rewrites the menu with the seasons, so treat these as a guide to style. The World's 50 Best names buttermilk-fried chicken with pine needle salt and flamed Cornish mackerel as long-running signatures.

Vegetarians get a parallel eight-course menu at the same price. The August 2026 version swaps the crab for celeriac remoulade, then serves hazelwood-grilled maitake with hazelnut and black truffle, roasted organic aubergine with green tomato, St Nectaire and salsa macha, and a crisp hen's egg with the same trombetta courgette and wet garlic as the pork course. Both menus finish with the habanero granita and the strawberries, so a mixed table ends on the same plates.

The full dinner tasting menu costs £285 on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday and £185 on Tuesday and Wednesday, which makes the midweek booking the clearest saving in the building. A short dinner tasting menu at £225 runs on Monday and Thursday only. At lunch, served Wednesday to Saturday, the full tasting menu is £185 and a three-course menu costs £95. A discretionary 15% service charge is added to every bill, so a £285 dinner for two lands at £655.50 before drinks.

My honest view is to skip the Friday and Saturday dinner unless the date itself matters, because you pay £100 more per person for a menu the restaurant serves in full on Tuesday and Wednesday. The short £225 menu is not the bargain it looks on a Monday or Thursday either, since it costs £40 more than the full midweek menu. The £95 three-course lunch, served Wednesday to Saturday, is the cheapest way to sit in this room.

Online bookings open three months ahead on a rolling basis for parties of one to six, through OpenTable. Lunch seatings run from noon to 1:30pm and dinner seatings from 6:30pm to 8:30pm. A card secures the table but no deposit is taken. Change or cancel with less than 72 hours' notice, including dropping a guest, and the fee is £125 per person at lunch or £155 per person at dinner. The restaurant states the charge is not discretionary.

Dietary needs must be flagged when you book, because changes requested on the day for unannounced allergies cost £20 per person. You may bring one bottle of wine per two guests at £75 corkage per bottle. If your date shows as full, email reservations@thecloveclub.com with your preferred time and party size to join the waiting list. Walk-ins are accepted when tables free up, but the FAQ is clear that nobody is guaranteed a seat.

Allow three hours for the full tasting menu and two for the short one, and tell the team on arrival if you have a train to catch. There is no strict dress code, though most guests choose smart-casual. Children are welcome and eat the same menu as adults, with high chairs on request, but there is no room for pushchairs in the dining room. That makes it a poor choice for a family with a sleeping baby.

Shoreditch Town Hall opened in 1866 as one of the grandest vestry halls of its day, and The Clove Club now fills part of its historic rooms. The Michelin Guide describes the room as electric, with chefs working in an open kitchen that adds to the buzz, and recommends starting with the house martini while the first snacks arrive. Next to the dining room, the bar and lounge serves a changing menu of small plates and now takes bookings for up to six.

The Michelin inspectors tag The Clove Club as iconic and credit a charming front-of-house team with keeping a long menu running smoothly, while more than 2,000 Michelin Guide users have saved it as a favourite. Parties larger than six, and private events, go through the reservations team by email rather than OpenTable. The wine list pairs contemporary growers with classic Old World bottles, so a sommelier conversation is part of the evening rather than an extra.

Old Street station, on the Bank branch of the Northern line in Zone 1, is the nearest Tube, and the Town Hall is a short walk east along Old Street. Shoreditch High Street is the closest Overground stop. Buses 26, 35, 47, 48, 55, 67, 78, 135, 149, 242 and 243 all stop nearby. Drivers should head for the NCP car park at Finsbury Square rather than circling Hoxton side streets.

Before a lunch booking, look up at the Town Hall tower, where a statue of Progress and the motto More Light, More Power recall the 1897 Refuse Destructor that burned rubbish to light the borough's streets. The building was a music hall venue in the late 19th century, hosted boxing from 1955 to 1975, survived a fire in 1904 and sat on English Heritage's Buildings at Risk register before a trust took the lease in 2002.

From there it is a short walk north up Kingsland Road to the Museum of the Home at 136 Kingsland Road, E2 8EA, which is free and open 10am to 5pm from Tuesday to Sunday. Its Rooms Through Time and gardens make a calm hour before a Wednesday lunch. For a plan B when The Clove Club is full, Luca at 88 St John Street in Clerkenwell, the Italian restaurant McHale's former partners now run, serves dinner Monday to Saturday from 5:30pm.

The Clove Club, Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street, London EC1V 9LT. Lunch Wednesday to Saturday, seatings noon to 1:30pm. Dinner Monday to Saturday, seatings 6:30pm to 8:30pm. Closed Sunday. Dinner tasting menu £285, or £185 on Tuesday and Wednesday. Short dinner menu £225 on Monday and Thursday. Lunch tasting £185, lunch three courses £95. 15% discretionary service. Corkage £75. Late-change fee £155 per person at dinner.