Smiths Spitafields was 2nd on our list of places to visit last night, the plan was to stop off and checkout the relaunch, before heading elsewhere to watch the world cup. For those who don’t know, a fire last year meant the place has been closed for sometime, so it was glad to finally see it back, as they say “Nothing stops the cow”.
SOS is set at the far end of Spitafields market if you’re coming from Liverpool Street and for those of you who know the Smithfields version it is basically more of the same. Well that is unless outside space is a must, as this is squarely a meat lover’s indoor paradise, especially good for those who want to dodge the sun. However there’s an inside outside space which is part of the market and has its own charm but it’s not ideal.
The ground floor very much felt like a bar and we had their own SOS beer, which in our opinion is far better than the standard fair, another plus is selected cocktails are £6 from 5pm everyday all night. The food we tried on this floor was a taste of the sort of thing you’d expect to eat on this floor. We tried quite a few but our favourite was the chicken burger, the peanutty undertones really sang in our mouths.
On the 1st floor was a more refined dining experience with and open kitchen and well presented tables. Though thankfully not a table cloth in sight, this place still wants you to feel relaxed. The food here was much more refined with strips of steak being our favourite this time round.
Their loft room is for exclusive use only and gives you a feeling of being outside with it’s sloping sky light windows, in fact with all the wood it felt quite Nordic and the views were kind quirky. Though a cracked window pane destroyed the effect somewhat (perhaps it is on the snagging list)
Finally the basement, in truth we’re not sure what it’s used for, by this time we were on our 4th drink and the football was about to start, but if they have the piano request guy there on a regular basis it is worth a visit in its own right. Suddenly we were given a small meat pie in the stairwell, we have no idea where the staff were heading with them but they were absolutely 
So with SOS stealing our well thought out plan by providing us with enough reasons to get distracted and not realise the time. We grabbed a seat in front of their big screen showing subtitles and a soundtrack that included Michael Jackson. After watching the first half of Brazil v Croatia game we’d realised we actually missed ITV’s football commentary (who knew). So our biggest criticism is an unfair one as we never intended to stay that long. Dare I say it, if they’d turned off the funky music and gave us Adrian Chiles and co for a couple of hours, we’d have stayed until they kicked us out. It would be good to know if they plan to have the sound at other games during the world cup as i’d go as far as to recommend it as an alternative location.
Full and happy we headed to the George Pub next to Liverpool Street station, which with its traditional décor and 75ish inch HD TV we lapped up the atmosphere of the 2nd half, complete this time with commentary we could hear and moan about. It was a wonderful end to a great evening, even if the dodgy refereeing spoilt it some what.
First impressions: From our limited experience of Smiths Spitafields it seems hard to go wrong in our opinion. The lack of actual outside space may matter today but may matter much less tomorrow, in which case the covered outside space comes into its own, plus the sun must go down at some point. . So if you love meat and cocktails (or a good larger) and are in the area we recommend you give it a try.
For more info visit their website