Pophams London Fields — Restaurant in London

Go there if you're not hungry. You'll leave the place thinking "where can we get brunch around the area?"

To my standards, this place is over rated. One of these places that completely take advantage of the middle class living in the area and ruining the area making all the creative people leaving and moving up north. If London Fields becomes uncool and filled up with uncool people that have loads of money in 5-10 years time (literally what Shoreditch became today from being the coolest area in 2012) it'll be thanks to establishment like this one.

☕ Flat white is £3.2 which is a No-go for me. I refuse to contribute to shops with such a high price for coffee. Dude... it's water, some milk and coffee beans. Go down to Clipson's & son and you'll get amazing coffee for £2.75. Or go up to Mare street cemetery up the road and you'll get a very good one too at Coffee8 for £2.6.

🥐 It's a bakery but forget to buy a croissant there. You might be better off going to Sainsbury around the corner to get it with your coffee, for the same price you'll buy at least 3 croissants.

🍽️ Be smart when ordering food. The salad option is made for people who aren't hungry, want to eat but don't want to eat too much (see the picture attached, picture was taken before eating anything in the plate; it's good, but not filling up). If you really want to eat there, then expect spending s minimum of £20-25 on different bits of food in order to satisfy your hungriness. To me, at this price, I better go to a restaurant. Lardo's next door will probably end up being cheaper and fill you up.

👫 Regardless my comments, the place looks good and very well maintained. The staff is friendly and smiling. If you can sit outside with your laptop during a summer day, then maybe it's worth paying an expensive coffee but make sure you've eaten...

We had such a disappointing experience this evening at the pasta restaurant. The service was lovely and the wine was nice, but the food was so disappointing. The portions were tiny, and we arrived starving because we had read such good things. Worse, the flavours were really underwhelming and did not make up for the lack of actual food. They recommend 3 pasta dishes between two people but the portions are so small that if you go please order at least 4 for two. We barely touched our mains despite being so hungry because we didn’t like them, but the menu was so small and they had sold out of the other dish so there was no other option to order. We checked the menu beforehand obviously but knew that it’s a seasonal restaurant, so this wasn’t what was available when we got there. They threaten to charge £30 pp if you cancel so I felt pressured to stay and hoped the food would surprise us. Compared to the website, the ingredients were so penny-pinching and measly but the prices were obviously no different. An asparagus (4 pieces) and “egg” (part of 1 yolk) starter and potato cannelloni (3 the length of a match stick as a main!) were ordered because there were so few alternatives. We wanted to go and fully intended to pay for the food and leave it untouched, but I have to say, there was a missed opportunity for them to not charge us, given that we didn’t eat the food and our evening was ruined (it was too late to go elsewhere). It would have made such a difference to our experience. In some restaurants the idea of customers going home hungry and leaving the food would be unacceptable but that wasn’t the vibe here. They gave us a discount, but in the end we paid £65 for some sourdough bread, 4 bits of asparagus, some crisp breads and two...

Travelled all the way across town to be here, was definitely worth the hype.

Service was not the best, I was overwhelmed by the choices they offer, I asked for recommendation and the lady at the till just smiled, asked me to look at the pastry on display at the till and ignored me. The coffee and chai I ordered were both so amazing, especially the chai - authentic chai not just your average chai powder - fragrant and smooth.

I loved their pastry, it was all freshly made from the bakery on site, right behind where we sat. I had the cardamom bun and it was probably the best I’ve had, the brioche was soaked in condensed milk and it was heavenly. I dare say it was better than the ones from my favourite place - Buns from Home.

My friend had the pain au chocolat and I wasn’t a big fan because I love it when they’re stuffed with more chocolate than Popham’s, however having said that, the pastry is top notch.

We also ordered the Apple Crumble and it was fair, if you aren’t a fan of raisins, steer clear from it as it was pumped with them.

We stayed until we could order lunch and my friend had the daily soup which was a concoction of nduja and parsnips. It wasn’t the best we had and it could be an acquired taste. I had a beef sandwich and it was lovely, love the combination of it with sprouts and horseradish.

All in all, the experience was great, our clothes all stank from the open kitchen/bakery after having sat there for hours. The place was also packed with people with laptops even from a very early time, be prepared to have to share tables.

For the beverages and pastries, I would definitely go back. Service could really use a pick up, but that might just be an...