Flawd

Flawd was the first permanent space for the team behind Higher Ground. Sat waterside at Islington Marina in New Islington, it’s a specialist wine bar and bottle shop, with an outdoor terrace as well as indoor seating space to sit and sip before making off with one of the many takeaway natural and low-intervention wines.

The idea is to enjoy a bottle of wine with friends, and the focus is on small-scale wine producers – the Flawd team want to ‘make natural wine approachable to anyone and everyone’. Co-owner and head chef Joseph Otway (previously head chef at Where The Light Gets In) says: ‘We really just want to open a neighbourhood wine bar for the growing New Islington community.’

‘We’ also includes Richard Cossins, formerly general manager for (the now defunct) Michelin-starred Fera at Claridge’s, and Daniel Craig Martin, incoming from Copenhagen’s noma. And if you’re less keen on wine, there’s also local and craft beer to be had, and, of course, food.

Flawd serves selections of British cheese as well as charcuterie and ferments from the award-winning Curing Rebels, who have a passion for high welfare, sustainable produce, curing meats and smoking salmon on the south-east coast – their creations include Brighton salami and salmon pastrami.

There’s also a constantly changing menu of unusual small plates made using fresh, organic seasonal produce (veg, herbs, salad leaves and fruit) grown themselves at the one-acre Cinderwood Market Garden in Cheshire. ‘What’s on today might be gone tomorrow!’, but think plenty of plant power: celery root and bacon salad, uchiki kuri squash, habanero and sea buckthorn, oak sweetcorn, Thornby Moor curd and rhubarb sweet chilli, purple sword celtuce with parsley and shaved ox heart.

Obviously, the breads and bakes are supplied by Pollen. It would be rude not to, really