Hungry Donkey is a new, environmentally conscious Greek restaurant strongly influenced by Hellenic street food, which opened in April 2015 in Aldgate, London. Located just off Commercial Street, the 42 cover restaurant serves simple, top quality Greek food and drink in a contemporary and casual setting.
Do we need another Greek restaurant joining the crowded London dining scene? Fair point, but this one does indeed present a ‘different’ proposition that’s well worth exploring – and H&C News enjoyed the food, as did the diners around us.
Multiple options
The restaurant is owned by Markos Tsimikalis, whose love of his native Greek cuisine led him to create Hungry Donkey. Of the launch, he says, “I really wanted to create somewhere that is modern and cool without losing the simplicity of classic Greek dishes. The menu has been designed so that we can cater to the city worker who wants a quick and delicious lunch, someone popping in for a coffee, or guests who want a relaxed supper.”
A look at the menu shows that the diner has the intended choices: you can use the Starters and Sides to ‘share’ with companions; and the Souvlaki Skewers and Souvlaki Pita Wraps lend themselves both to sharing and to carry out – busy city workers are already discovering the lunchtime attractions of the Wraps in particular.
The menu
The menu delivers a range of dishes available throughout the day for diners to select according to taste not time. There are also daily changing specials, and yeast intolerant, lactose sensitive, vegan and vegetarians are all catered for.
Breakfast includes traditional Greek yoghurt pots with honey, walnuts and seasonal fruits, filled pastry pies including Tyropita (with feta and cottage cheese) Spanakopita (with spinach, feta and dill) and Bougatsa (with semolina custard crème, cinnamon and icing sugar).
Greek coffees and a selection of teas are of course also available.
Starters
Greek Starters have to be treated with care: we’re all familiar with the problem of eating too much, too soon, and struggling with the rest of the menu.
However, we’d recommend that you consult the excellent, informative team at the Hungry Donkey: their recommendations included Pan-fried Saganaki Cheese (crisp and delicious, would work much better than many canapés we’ve endured in the past) and Zucchini Fritters (deep fried, melt in the mouth) – the perfect accompaniment to the Greek beers we drank on a hot evening.
Lunch and dinner
The lunch and dinner menu offers a range of salads, pita wraps, soups, souvlaki skewers from the Robata grill and classic mains. The pita wraps are freshly prepared pitas filled with a choice of free range spit roasted chicken, pork or lamb, tomato, tzatziki, onion and parsley. We enjoyed the surprisingly subtle combination of sausage with herbs and onion in the Greek Sausage wrap.
Souvlaki Skewers from the Robata grill consist of slow grilled pork, chicken or lamb, served with lemon, wild oregano and salt. Again, the lemon, olive oil and oregano ensured that the chicken and pork that we tried were moist and delicious.
Main dishes also feature traditional Greek dishes like Moussaka, as well as stuffed courgettes with minced meat, pine nuts and parsley served with an avgolemono sauce.
Desserts
The simple desserts list features Diples – thin dough deep-fried and served with honey and walnuts, Galaktoboureko, orange flavored semolina custard in filo pastry and roasted quince with maple syrup and cinnamon.
We tried the Greek Yoghurt Pot – illustrated in the centre of the picture above – which tops specially imported yoghurt from Greece with honey, walnuts, pineapple and cinnamon. Delicious, and a very generous portion!
The drinks list comprises entirely Greek wines and a mix of local and Greek beers including Volkan and Septem beers (already mentioned above), and red, white and sparkling wines from locations such as Santorini, Crete, Florina, and Amyndeon. The spirit selection includes Mastiha, a Greek digestif liquor, Metaxa, a renowned Greek brandy and the classic Greek tipple, Ouzo.
Before, during or after work?
The menu will continue to be refined as customer feedback helps Markos understand the tastes of city workers and how to present the choices available to them when they visit for the first time.
If you work in the area, we recommend that you visit the Hungry Donkey: whatever the time of day, there’s good food and drink to tempt your taste buds, with friendly and helpful staff to guide your choice.
Although there’s plenty of competition in the area, and as a result it takes time to get noticed, we’d expect that most customers will return after their first visit – to further explore the menu and drinks, and to enjoy the friendly, relaxed ambience.
Hungry Donkey, 56 Wentworth Street, London, E1 7AL
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