Roe

Weighing in at 500 covers, this gastronomic leviathan from the team behind Fallow in St James's harks back to the 1990s and the outsized destinations of the Conran empire, although it couldn’t be more forward-looking. A giant 3D-printed coral sculpture helps break up the expansive sweep of the dining room, which opens onto a terrace overlooking Canary Wharf’s South Dock, while an aeroponic ‘growing wall’ provides naturally verdant decoration. Jack Croft and Will Murray's cooking is all about the big flavours on the sharing plates rather than the sustainable, zero-waste ideas behind them – mercifully there are no earnest tableside lectures here. Every dish we ordered made an impact: deep-fried cuttlefish toast with puffed pork skin and sesame offered a chunky, juicy and sustainable spin on the Chinese restaurant classic, while a flatbread topped with Devon crab, tomato, chilli and basil was an outstandingly light and elegant example of the genre. Best of all was a skewer of meltingly tender, rare-breed pork belly served on a wooden board (a signature of the restaurant), redolent of the grill and supercharged with green Thai chilli paste, yakitori glaze and sriracha sauce – all made in-house. A well-drilled front-of-house team offers the sort of friendly, personal service you’d associate with a neighbourhood bistro rather than a swanky gastrodrome, although a lack of experience was evident at times during our visit. There are some tantalising (and not greedily marked-up) choices on the wine list – our South African Dorper Chenin Blanc was excellent. Overall, Roe offers thoughtful, exciting and distinctive food that’s easy to love and difficult to forget. It’s a winning combination.