The best caves à manger and bottle-shop bars in east London

P. Franco, Clapton

P. Franco might be modelled on the caves à manger style bars of Paris, but its low lighting, throbbing beats and achingly stylish clientele (you’ll never find P. Franco without a crowd swelling at its door) make an evening here feel like you’re in the kitchen of the coolest house party in town, just with better food and drink.

Opened in 2014, from the team behind Noble Fine Liquor who have since gone on to open Hackney restaurants Bright and Peg, P. Franco invites in guest chefs to run residencies, which might last anywhere from a night to several months.

Seats around the long, communal table are given on a priority basis to diners when it’s busy, but with no reservations and places popping up on a first-come-first-served basis, you’d do well to arrive early – ideally with no more than one companion – and be prepared to stand around the sides of the buzzing bar, where a knowledgeable sommelier will keep your glass topped up while you wait. There’s typically around six bottles open at any one time – most natural, independently produced and interesting – with many more lining the walls to purchase for later.

Jamie Smart (previously of St. John, Lyle’s and Brawn) is the chef in residence, until September 2022. If you like what you try, take home a bespoke poster from the collaboration as a relic from your visit.

Hector’s, De Beauvoir

Don’t be fooled by the sign above the door reading 'J. Scott and Sons', if you’ve come in search of wine bar and bottle shop Hector’s, you’ve come to the right place. This tiny neighbourhood bar, from Jimmy Stephenson (of brilliant butchers-cum-restaurant Hill & Szrok) and his wife Anna Shaffer, serves Climpson’s coffee and pastries by day, when you can also shop for interesting, thoroughly researched bottles to enjoy later. It then turns into a wine bar from Wednesday to Sunday (open from 5pm on weekdays and 2pm on weekends), and a trip here truly feels like landing on one of London’s best-kept secrets.

Always busy (unsurprisingly, given there's no reservations and space for roughly 25 to 30 covers inside), Hector's emits a warm glow that's especially inviting on dark evenings. Inside, it feels like someone’s front room, and its bottles lining the mantelpiece and bookshelves look like someone’s private collection.

Pull up a stool at a counter and sample a short menu of wines by the glass, plus rustic, European deli fare: salamis, cheeses, breads and olives all feature. Don’t leave without venturing down to the cellar where a treasure trove of rare bottles hides in waiting and the odd event is held.

Weino BIB, Dalston

With its deli shop-front and shelves stacked with a broad range of gourmet pantry goods (pâtés, cheeses, pickles etc), Weino BIB might look like the hangover of a successful lockdown project, but owner-manager Kirsty Tinkler was ahead of the curve. She first launched the concept as a pop-up at nearby Brunswick East back in 2015, moving it into its current bricks-and-mortar home in Dalston in 2017.

As the name suggests (the latter part, BIB, is industry shorthand for bag-in-box), wine is the primary focus here, and all varieties are natural, while most are low-intervention, organic and sustainably sourced. There are bottles, yes, but several popular varieties are on tap (it’s 80% more sustainable to get rid of glass, we're told, as pouches can hold two bottles, while cartons carry four, requiring less energy to transport).

A short, dud-free menu of small plates is not to be missed. Bread – always a great litmus test for a restaurant – comes from stellar supplier E5 Bakehouse, while the butter is homemade and speckled with crystals of salt. Sardines drizzled in tarragon oil, and warm slivers of lardo, are also highlights.

Weino BIB accepts bookings and we advise you make one: when we visited on a Thursday evening, every table and countertop housed excitable guests by 8pm.

Top Cuvée, Finsbury Park (and Cave Cuvée, Bethnal Green)

Bringing the caves à manger ethos to Finsbury Park is 2019 opening Top Cuvée, the brainchild of industry heavyweights Brodie Meah (Dinner in Melbourne), Noel Venning (Three Sheets bar) and chef Dan Miller (Naughty Piglets), whose wholesale business is one of the UK’s fastest-growing suppliers of natural wine.

At this vibey neighbourhood spot, a 60-long list of largely French and Italian wines can be enjoyed alongside an ever-changing bistro menu that appreciates in price and substantiality as it goes on (think oysters for £3.50 a pop, saucisson seche for £7 and a dish of Toulouse sausage with lentils and mustard for £17).

So successful is the trio’s vino offering, that they’ve launched a bottle shop further down Blackstock Road, Shop Cuvée, and spin-off site, Cave Cuvée, in Bethnal Green.

They’re tapped in with other local innovators too and keen to collaborate. Yard Sale Pizza and Shoreditch’s reasonably priced Michelin star restaurant Leroy are among those that have recently run pop-ups with the Cuvée team.

Yardarm, Leyton

Perched on up-and-coming Francis Road in Leyton, Yardarm (named after the seafaring phrase denoting when it was considered acceptable to start drinking: when the sun was over the yard arm, or main wooden arm that sails are hung from) is a family-run bottle shop, wine bar and small plate haven run by local couple Dan and Eliza.

Familiar names (Like St. John and Chin Chin) are stocked here, but Yardarm is very much a place to discover new bottles, and approachable staff will take a break from plating up cakes and serving coffees to take you through the stock or direct you towards bottles that match your preferred flavour profile. A fridge at the back of the store is worth a browse if you rock up with a craft-beer lover.

Next door to the bottle shop and deli is an intimate restaurant area, where a short, punchy menu of small plates can be enjoyed from breakfast through to dinner from Thursday to Sunday (check Instagram for details), along with a bottle (or glass) of your choosing from the store.

Yardarm runs informal wine tastings most weeks – a chance to meet fellow wine enthusiasts and learn more about what you’re drinking – and if you want to take your passion to the next level, the store also runs WSET wine courses with level 1 and 2 qualifications attached.

Quality Wines, Farringdon

Still east but more centrally so, Quality Wines was quick to launch a nationwide delivery service to get its conscientiously sourced produce out to homes across the country during lockdown, but a trip to the bar itself is a must for Londoners who like to be talked through what they’re eating and drinking, with oodles of enthusiasm. Discover over 20 wines sold by the glass, plus many more bottles including a decent ‘skin contact’ selection. Each bottle is tagged with a retail price, and there’s a blanket charge of £15 more to drink it in. A Shop Table experience, open to eight to 12 guests per sitting, is a chance to tuck into head chef Nick Bramham’s Mediterranean-inspired (and reasonably priced, at £45pp) chef’s menu.