Stories

Does Broadway Market need another place to go and eat and drink? The team behind the Queen of Hoxton and The Book Club seem to think so because they have taken up residence and recently opened new all-day brunch and cocktail bar/café, Stories. Replacing the Market House Bar, which lasted just a little over six months; let’s hope for their sake that they get a little more out of this prime Broadway Market spot.

Billed as the venue the area needs, Stories looks to be a multifaceted project that will appeal to local freelancers by day and by night, well, it will be appealing to the same people probably – just with added alcohol and music and less laptops. The over publicised focus on creating a freelancer friendly space might lead even the least cynical person to do a little sick in their mouth, but wait up. On inspection the amount of power points is a helpful addition (they are EVEYWHERE), so we’ll put the slightly overt work talk down to attracting custom.

The space has been opened up from what was here before and a new system of stylish bench seating works. Considering we’re here on the day after the opening everything seems to have bedded in well. Colourful metal supports white washed wood, high stools create informal seating at random pillars and at the back of the place there’s even an oversized terrarium of sorts, with a wall of green shrubbery and hanging baskets making it almost tropical up in here.

The all day brunch is what it is… Which is the likes of eggs Benedict, bacon and sausage on brioche buns and avocado on toast. In the evening it’s about the choice of burgers. Think beef & chorizo, sweet potato & chickpea and most unusually, the prawn cocktail burger. Desserts come in the form of ‘spiked’ milkshakes and juices. So for afters you can expect to see bourbon added to milk, honey and nutmeg or fresh strawberry and pineapple juice with golden rum. The bar serves draught beers like Asahi and Brooklyn and there is an emphasis on cocktails – although not on tap as various other ill informed websites would have you believe. We like the sound of the ‘Sob’, a mixture of Beefeater Gin, mango puree, sugar, lemon and chill. And at under £7.00 a cocktail, they’re already undercutting the other established cocktail bar on this short street. Fiiight!!

Bearing in mind the concise menu, reasonable prices and excellent coffee (the flat white was top notch) Stories might even be having, stories - get it? - told about it for years to come.