D'Gaf

D’Gaf is certainly an ambitious venture. It intends to be a community space that’s also an alcohol-free pub, and a restaurant that doubles as a performance space. Upstairs there are rooms for private hire, and even a shisha terrace. It’s also located in Stratford, an area not renowned for its fantastic entertainment options, however with the impending Olympics and the new Westfield shopping centre that could be about to change.

The main purpose of our visit is to eat, so we venture in to the venue, which used to be an Irish pub. Some old fixtures remain such as the grand wooden bar, but past this is a formal-looking dining area, with neatly arranged white table cloths and shiny cutlery on the tables. The menu is a jumble of cuisines; there’s Moroccan (tagine), Middle Eastern (falafels, lamb kebabs), and comfort food (lasagne, surf and turf, nachos). In keeping with the sign on the door - “this is an alcohol free zone” - we sample a tangy mojito mocktail and a gloopy mango smoothie; there are also non-alcoholic wines, milkshakes and hot drinks. The meal starts off well with the shrimp tempura, tasty tender prawns in a golden batter served with a garlicky yogurt dressing; in fact it is all rather satisfying - large falafel patties are crisp and herby and come with hummus and warm pitta bread, the lamb cutlets look a little on the dry side but far from it, they are in fact juicy and flavoursome. The desserts are wonderfully traditional: banoffee pie, sticky toffee pudding, chocolate brownie, you get the picture. The cheesecake is rich and looks homemade, even better is the Winter Apple Wonderland, essentially a mammoth portion of apple crumble with hot custard. It’s all moderately priced too, with starters around a fiver and mains averaging £9.

It may seem a little odd to top off a Middle East-inspired meal with crumble, but the hodgepodge menu is a little like D’Gaf itself. The décor is a mixture of Middle Eastern furnishings and urban touches, like the street art on the terrace. The stage, situated amidst the dining area, hosts spoken word performances, comedy, and even a magician on certain nights, plus there are flat screens on each of the three floors so that the performances are not missed wherever you are in the building. The aim is to create a “public house” in the truest sense of the phrase, drawing in the locals to eat, drink, socialise and catch a performance, however with the sheer number of standard, alcohol-serving pubs in the immediate vicinity they’ve certainly got their work cut out.