Housed on the first floor of East London’s impressive Town Hall Hotel, and presided over by head chef John Christie, the Corner Room offers fine European cooking in contemporarily elegant surroundings. With a clean, modern interior and traditional wooden floors, the restaurant is airy, inviting and stylish. The creative menu uses simple ingredients to create complex flavours – for example, the mackerel and gooseberry sorbet. The kitchen’s love of intricate design means almost as much attention is paid to the aesthetics of the food as to the taste. For the less fiscally liquid the lunch at Corner Room is a good alternative, although prices across the board are not Mayfair-steep.