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Appalachia, London N1: ‘The chicken is like Sunday dinner on performance steroids’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

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July 5, 2026 · 1:17 PM
Appalachia, London N1: ‘The chicken is like Sunday dinner on performance steroids’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

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Appalachia, London N1: ‘The weirdness is delicious.’ Photograph: Beca Jones/The Guardian

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Appalachia, London N1: ‘The weirdness is delicious.’ Photograph: Beca Jones/The Guardian

Grace Dent on restaurantsAmerican food and drink

Review

Appalachia, London N1: ‘The chicken is like Sunday dinner on performance steroids’ – restaurant review

This is no theme bar, and not remotely a joke: they really are doing proper Appalachian regional cooking on a side road near Old Street

Grace Dent

Sun 5 Jul 2026 01.00 EDT Last modified on Sun 5 Jul 2026 03.30 EDT

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Appalachia, newly opened near Old Street, London, is unlike anywhere else in town. It serves grits, pork rinds, collard greens, kilt salad, chow-chow relish and pot liquor. Ali Borer, formerly of Smoking Goat and Guy Ritchie’sLore of the Land pub, and not remotely Appalachian himself, is cooking the food of yesteryear Scots-Irish mountain settlers who made their home in this sparse region of the eastern United States. Appalachians smoked, pickled and preserved just about any edible item they could get their hands on, because, well, needs must. London’s dining scene has ignored all this porky, liquory stuff until now, mainly because, let’s be frank, most British people’s understanding of Appalachia begins with the Burt Reynolds film Deliverance and ends with those guys from O Brother, Where Art Thou? stealing a chicken. Not only that but, just as many people would be unable to locate the Appalachian mountain region on a map, you might find it equally challenging to locate Nile Street, because it’s hidden away on the borders of Shoreditch, just around the back of Hackney.

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‘Holy heck, they’re good’: Appalachia’s cheddar and jalapeño cornbread madeleines.

The room itself is quite patentlya reclaimed old saloon bar, and you sit up at that bar watching Borer make your cornbread madeleines. And, holy heck, they’re good: cheddary, fiery, served hot with a nod to the cast-iron skillets of the mountain kitchen. The space isn’t terribly comfy and, much like Tollington’s Fish Bar and many other similarly hip indie spots, Appalachia feels more like a restaurant that’s simply making the best of its surroundings rather than truly inhabiting them. The downstairs space, meanwhile, has been turned into a whiskey and cocktail bar called Lowcountry, named after South Carolina’s coastal region, and each time you order a banana pudding sazerac made with brown butter-washed rye and absinthe, or a fat fashioned comprising bacon fat-washed bourbon and maple syrup, a server bearing a tray materialises from below, almost as if they’re ascending from a very well-stocked basement cupboard. The entire drinks list, by the way, is heaven for the non-drinker and for those who like to sway and wake with headaches. The former can enjoy Jörg Geiger’s fruit fermentations, Saicho sparkling teas and a really extraordinary olive lemonade; I also highly recommend the alcohol-free paloma, too.

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‘The star of our meal’: Appalachia’s butter-brined half chicken with miso grits and black pepper gravy.

The menu is a single, seasonally changing sheet on which Borer’s nerdy devotion to getting things right clearly shows. Chow-chow mignonette on British oysters tips a hat to that old pickling tradition, while the pot liquor poured over East Sussex mushrooms is essentially the liquid left over after cooking collard greens with smoked pork. There’s also a kilt salad for which hot bacon fat is poured over greens to wilt them. Then again, if pork is not your thing, you might well find Appalachia a bit testing, because rind, fat and various other piggy bits can be found nestling in many dishes. That said, the pimento cheeseburger with thick, hand-cut potato fries seemed to go down a storm, while vegetarians must – and I mean must – order the fried green tomato salad on a pickled ginger gravy base. These crunchy, breadcrumbed tomatoes are one of my favourite things in London right now; the glossy-topped hillbilly loaf with a quenelle of cultured apple butter is pretty fantastic, too.

To be honest, Appalachia feels like one of the absolutely hottest, most interesting spots in town. This is no theme bar, and not remotely a joke: they’re really, with full chested pride, doing proper Appalachian regional cooking on a side road near Old Street. Pull up a stool, and enjoy the butter-brined half chicken with miso grits and black pepper gravy, which was the star of our meal and reminded me of nothing so much as Sunday dinner on performance steroids. The beef tartare tostada that preceded it, however, turned up with so much spicy heat that the beef got slightly lost: brave and enjoyable, yes, but I doubt I’d ever order it again. The tongue and head skewer with an oyster sauce glaze was a reminder that here is a kitchen that strives to waste nothing, possibly in the great Appalachian tradition of being cut off from anything so much as resembling a Tesco Metro.

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‘A Shoreditch riff on the most reliable dessert in the American south’: Appalachia’s banana pudding.

The banana pudding choux bun, with layers of vanilla custard and Biscoff crumb with salted caramel popping candy, was a Shoreditch riff on the most reliable dessert in the American south, the one you’ll see at every church potluck and family gathering from Tennessee to West Virginia. The bananas in Borer’s version, however, were so chewy that I sat in the taxi home wondering if they were actually plantain. Borer is cooking the best Appalachian food in the UK, not least because he’s cooking almost the only fried green tomato salad on this side of the Atlantic. I can’t pretend his place isn’t weird, but the weirdness is delicious.

  • Appalachia 71 Nile Street, London N1 (no phone). Open lunch, Sat only, noon-2.30pm, dinner Weds-Sat 5-9.30pm (last orders). From about £40 a head à la carte, plus drinks & service

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Comments (391)

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Comments (390)

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Guardian Pick

Those cheddar and jalapeño cornbread madeleines look mighty fine.

I have a friend from that area whose favourite insult if he thinks someone is mad or stupid, will drawl, “His cornbread ain’t done in the middle.”

Thankfully Chef Ali Borer didn’t get that particular memo.

Jump to comment

ChoccaMocha6 hours ago

16

Guardian Pick

I only spent a couple of days in the Applachians but I found the local accents very endearing.

'Sorry, could you get me another cup of coffee, please ?'

'Shirley Khaaan !'.

Jump to comment

PeteTheBeat3 hours ago

2

Guardian Pick

Those cheddar and jalapeño cornbread madeleines look mighty fine.

I have a friend from that area whose favourite insult if he thinks someone is mad or stupid, will drawl, “His cornbread ain’t done in the middle.”

Thankfully Chef Ali Borer didn’t get that particular memo.

Jump to comment

ChoccaMocha6 hours ago

16

Guardian Pick

I only spent a couple of days in the Applachians but I found the local accents very endearing.

'Sorry, could you get me another cup of coffee, please ?'

'Shirley Khaaan !'.

Jump to comment

PeteTheBeat3 hours ago

2

View more comments

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