Ah, how we love the Francis Road Community Group (although it sometimes gets a little over-heated, like everything on Facebook.)
And the excitement over the new pizza restaurant opening in the former Clarkins, just up from Carnival towards the tube on Leyton High Road, was truly fever pitch the other evening.
For the uninitiated, Figo is an Italian joint just on the edge of the Olympic Park, on the ‘other’ side of Westfield Avenue. It’s opposite Tonkotsu, if that helps? Yep, you know the one.
And while it’s a mini chain, with another in Brentwood, parent organisation the Romet Group also have some other notable restaurants in east London: Venerdi on Chatsworth Road, and Bella Vita (as well as Cod & Co) on Broadway Market, as well as several Pivaz Turkish restaurants in Epping and Hackney.
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Food wise, the Figo brand is a sort of upmarket take on your usual trattoria, with a combo of sharing plates, pizza and pasta.
At lunch it’s about eight quid a main – pizza or pasta – while the evening menu is pretty safe but goes a bit more fancypants with calamari, burrata, fish casserole and pan-fried seabass, as well as some dishes that soar past the £20 mark. Yep, we’re talking about you Filletto Di Manzo! Mind you, fillet of beef is pricey wherever you gobble it.
In the new branch there’ll also be a cocktail bar and open plan kitchen, as well as spacious dining area with floor-to-ceiling windows, and of course a wood-fired oven.
It’ll be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and, of course, brunch at the weekend.
And now the bad news? You’ll have to wait until early 2021, said the spokesperson when we asked. So in the meantime, the equally good Yard Sale or The Northcote it is.
264-268 High Road Leyton E10. More info here. UPDATE Feb 12th 2021: The restaurant is now set to open in May this year. “We took the decision not to do it before then as we don’t want to open with any restrictions,” says the company’s Operations Director Andy Dempster, “but will take a view once we have all the facts.” Watch this space it seems.
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