The story
Since opening in October 2019, Oren has become a genuine neighbourhood spot on Shacklewell Lane in Dalston. Chef Oded Oren runs the kitchen, cooking Mediterranean inspired sharing plates over a charcoal grill. The food draws on his heritage, balancing bold Middle Eastern flavours with the precision of a chef who knows his ingredients.
The menu changes, but the approach is consistent: dishes arrive from the grill, designed to be shared. Early press noted the fine crispy batter of gurnard, the creaminess of labneh, and a chocolate mousse that one critic called "possibly the best I’ve ever had." The flatbread—pillow-soft, served with olive oil and tomato—is the kind of starter you order twice. Burnt aubergines with tahini and baked hispi cabbage with romesco have also drawn praise. The wine list focuses on low intervention bottles from small growers, chosen to match the food’s intensity.
The space itself is a converted shop, small and lively. The music is loud, the room is always packed, and the atmosphere is buzzy without trying too hard. There are outdoor tables along the footpath, a bar, and a dining floor. On Sundays, a set menu is offered at £38 per person.
Oren earned a Michelin Recommended award, a fitting recognition for a kitchen that delivers this level of cooking in such an unpretentious setting. It’s the kind of place that feels like a discovery, even when it’s full of people who already know.
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Stepping into unprepossessing Oren on a dark night, one is immediately assailed by delicious cooking smells and the sound of music playing. It’s tempting to walk straight out – if only to walk straight back in again to experience the sensory overload anew. Welcome to Dalston (though one might equally be in Brooklyn or Berlin). The name above the door is that of Israeli chef Oded Oren whose food proves as bracing as the ambience. You could stick a pin in the menu and be sure of eating well. At a test meal, we alighted on seven dishes between two, from a selection of vegetables, fish, meat and desserts. Monkfish liver pâté with agrodolce date ketchup lived up to its reputation as the ‘foie gras of the sea’ being both rich yet impossibly moreish. Eight-hour braised cabbage, blackened from the grill, was in its own way, no less intense; date – hello again – brings pleasant sweetness. Then two stuffed pittas, one with chicken thigh, livers and duck hearts (the Jerusalem mixed grill), another with ling anointed with lamb fat, tahini and chilli. Great ingredients given a street-food edge. A warm assembly of chargrilled courgettes, peas and monk's beard demonstrates Oren’s judicious, never gratuitous, use of his charcoal grill. A short list of low-intervention wines and a choice of cocktails for around a tenner (no West End prices here) keep this hip little indie nicely buzzing.
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