bolthole Kingsland Locke

Escape to this affordable and buzzy east London hotel, complete with its own gin distillery and microbrewery

What makes it unique?

This just-opened, affordable lifestyle hotel in edgy Dalston – an area well served by restaurants and nightlife – has its own sustainably managed microbrewery and gin distillery. The public areas include co-working spaces, and the apartment-style rooms have plush sofas and fully functioning kitchens, making it a cosy and buzzy hybrid of home and hotel.

On the menu

The restaurant and bar, Kraft Dalston, is the east London outpost of Le Bab and features full- and slider-sized kebabs cooked on a wood-fired robata and served with sourdough flatbreads. The low-and-slow pork shawarma kebab sees organic free-range pork cooked for 15 hours and served with sweet pickled cucumber, chermoula mayo and a foraged herb mix; a meaty lamb ‘madras’ kebab comes with balti mix and madras yogurt; and the vegetarian paneer kebab is spiced and served on a beetroot and coconut purée with pickled cucumber, crispy onions, curry mayo and coriander (find the lamb and paneer kebab recipes at Omagazine.com). There are also limited-edition kebab specials, snacks and meze dishes, such as the meat butter naan topped with za’atar and hummus, peanut curry pesto and lemon.

Highlights

Beer aficionados will swoon over the German Kraft Brewery brews that are served straight out of the on-site tanks (therefore avoiding packaging, transport, filtration or pasteurisation). The beers are brewed on-site using just water, malt, hops and yeast, creating a pure, fresh-tasting beer. Jim & Tonic’s gin distillery – based on the principles of “reduce, reuse and regenerate” – produces four punchy gins, and the cocktail game is strong here, too.

What you’ll want to recreate at home