Review: Sager + Wild, Bethnal Green

I love how London is strung together, an endless brightly lit web of streets full of places to shop and eat, and how you can walk in a few yards from one socio-economic area to another. You can be strolling past name-brand boutiques and identikit chain shops along the edge of Spitalfields Market… then drift into a neighbourhood of indie homeware and clothes stores and achingly hipster cafes and eateries in Shoreditch… then blend subtly beyond Brick Lane into an endless row of South Asian clothing and cakes mixed with sharp-lit tatty local groceries and kebab places… and back to a little hipster enclave around Bethnal Green tube. All without ever losing sight of bright lights and shopfronts.

So we ended up at Sager + Wilde winebar with food in Bethnal Green, rather than the other branch back on Old Street. It’s a nicely decked out place under the railway arches, big but with dark wood panelling and an impressive amber-lit bar to cosy it up a little. They are good with wine as well; this month was a special investigation into Beaujolais and we were led to two glasses of very excellent 5 or 6 year old cru wines with surprising body and leather.

The food was good without being knock-out. A pair of butternut squash arancini were well made and had a good autumnal taste with a little chunk of scamorza melted in each. A dish of roasted Jerusalem artichoke were exactly that; anyone familiar with roast Jerusalem artichoke will know what I mean. One of the best flavours in the world, impossible to screw up.

Maureen’s main was a cacio e pepe with truffle. The pungent truffle flavour was built in very nicely although the cacio e pepe itself could have had a bit more bite. Pasta was perfect. Basically a really good dish. My main was duck with figs and vermouth jus. I could pick a hair: the fig was advertised grilled and they forgot to grill it. But actually the juicy fresh figs worked really well with the nicely roast duck breast, and the jus was a very deep-flavoured and silky puddle. Roast heritage carrots were okay.

Three courses without drinks would set you back around £36 and that seems about fair. It’s a good place to have in your neighbourhood and I’d be a regular if I lived here. Or if a random ramble through London led me back. But I’m not going to go the extra yard and suggest it’s worth a special journey.