Story Deli

Food

Coffee seems to be the main trade of this place. There’s not much on the menu. Pizza or salad, and a few cakes and stuff to go with the coffee. We chose the Chorizo and Egg (£11) – chorizo, spinach leaves, egg, potatoes, chilli, dressing, aubergine, potato, which is more likened to a jumble of salad ingredients, with some melted cheese, on a crispy pita bread rather than a “pizza”. Indeed, as a pizza, it fails miserably. The crust is too thin, there is too much topping which made the base soggy, and too heavy generally. As a salad though, it works quite well, good quality ingredients that speak for themselves, with the egg just cooked so the yolk ran over to act as the dressing for all the leaves.

Top marks though, for their coffee. Our cappuccino (£3) was wonderfully smooth and not too hot! So at least they do their core business well.

Rating - 6.5 (because of coffee)

Atmosphere

We paid for the privilege of perching on a £15 cardboard stool (yes, you can of course buy it there)., and eat on a jumble of mismatched, junk-yard like tables. The kitchen is situated upstairs in this warehouse like space. Everyone eating there were Brick Lane friendly, so I guess if you want to be cool, this was the place you go to.

Rating - 2

Service

Dead casual, but the system seems to work quite well most of the time. There was one waiter and one cook, with some “friends” who seem to drop by to help out. Luckily we arrived before the crowd (at 1:30 pm for lunch!!), and got served quite promptly. We saw everyone having to wait at least 10 minutes before they got a menu, and even longer of course to get their orders taken.

Rating - 2

C-factor

They have a thing of pricing everything only in pence, so our pizza was 1100p instead of £11. I don’t know if that’s a ploy to make it look cheaper or not, or just to be “cool” again. I’m afraid the prices are too cool for me. It was great to have once for the experience, but for that money, I can dine better elsewhere.

Rating - 0.5

Brownie Points - 11

Info

3 Dray Walk
The Old Truman Brewery
91 Brick Lane
London
E1 6QL
Phone +44 (0) 20 7247 3137