The much-discussed “Shoreditch revival” had The Standard’s restaurant critic and me deliberating last week. We were at the new Hoppers, in the tea building where Lyle’s restaurant used to be, admiring the whirling fans and carved wood of the place while eating lamb dosas and a pork curry. Has Shoreditch “come back”? Well, no, because it never really went away. The discourse can be tiring.
The Shoreditch narrative is a straightforward timeline. It was for decades the periphery of the East End, an entry point for many who wanted to “explore London” but didn’t like the look of Bow or Stratford, both largely contained in those days. It was a run-down and fairly derelict part of town from the 1960s until the 1990s, largely forgotten following a decline in the manufacturing industries — textiles and so on — post-war.
