Llama Inn London review: This restaurant proves Shoreditch still has it
Llama Inn London restaurant review: Colourful Peruvian food in Shoreditch
A night out at The Hoxton hotel in Shoreditch? A superb choice. The Hoxton is one of the few Shoreditch venues that retains its cool while others have gone touristy. So I dressed up, swept down Great Eastern Street, then out of the rain and into the exposed brick foyer, the sort of place where remote workers lounge around with expensive matcha lattes on their laptops. At 5pm they switch those up for espresso martinis. But I was confused when the receptionist told me to leave the hotel to get to the hotel’s new restaurant.
I was told to walk through the lobby, go out to the back of The Hoxton, turn right, and follow a little yellow Llama Inn sign on the wall. Then follow a backroad to the right, past some bins, to a small door with ‘Llama Inn’ on it. I don’t know if the hidden entrance is self-consciously, ironically cool or the result of some misfortune from planning regulators meaning the hotel couldn’t get guests direct access to their hotel’s rooftop. Either way, it couldn’t be more Shoreditch.
Seven floors up and I’ve entered the rooftop, but one that feels cosier than most cool new restaurants: it’s more like an elaborate penthouse, with cloth ceiling hangings helping to transport you somewhere that certainly isn’t EC2A. The Llama Inn is Peruvian, and has a menu that doesn’t have time for faff. There are no sides, just meals that leave you sated, like the amazing beef main called lomo saltado, with pancakes, rocoto, rice, pickled chilis and fries.
It’s probably more pop Peruvian than the sort of thing most Peruvians actually eat, but it looks and tastes like the sort of epic end of night feast you’d share after a big drunken sesh, which is no bad thing. Sweet, but not cloyingly sweet sauce, hunks of meat, wrapped up in little make-at-table pancakes, with a big bowl of rice to soak up the last of the sauce. It’s enough for two to share as a main. While the menu looks familiar, it tricks you into trying new things: the pancakes are more textured than usual, the stir fried steak replete with a frankly obscene amount of flavour from onions, tomatoes, red wine, and bursts of rocoto pepper. Joyous.
Back to the start though. The menu is divided into four parts, and we were told to try one dish from each. A snack starter of pastel de choclo croquettes with mozzarella and ocopa went well with a margarita made with mezcal. Why haven’t I heard of this before? With a spicy rim, served in a lowball and glowing a berry red colour, I don’t think I can remember a smarter drink. (My guest stayed classic with the pisco sour and said it levelled up to the ones she had this past summer in actual Peru.)
The rain was lashing outside and I spared a thought for the lost Llama Inn guests wandering through the foyer in their dinner clothes, not yet aware they’d have to go outside again. But I forgot about them when the ceviche arrived: scallop in a bed of yuzu kosho, pitaya and nori sauce. It had an elegant, velvety creaminess to taste, both through the chunks of meaty fish and the sauce, the spicy Japanese condiment of yuzu kosho.
More than hip east London food, this dish had fine dining credentials. Before the main (the big messy beef pancakes) we had one final course from the un poco de todo list (translating to “a bit of everything”). We had a salad of quinoa, bacon, avocado, banana and cashew, the sort of dish that epitomises Peru: varied, textural, sweet and savoury. For Brits it is utterly surprising. Then there were more cocktails, a decent playlist (though a bit loud if you’re old and cranky like me) and a dessert of something creamy flavoured with matcha.
I wish this newly opened restaurant was hard to get out of, not get into: I would’ve found any excuse to bed in for the night.
To book the Llama Inn London go to llamainnlondon.com