Brandon Robshaw on Eating Out: Like a Fish Needs Vanilla ; Wanstead Bills Itself as the Hampstead of the East, but Is Its Ambitious Hadley House Really Worth a Trip to the Suburbs?

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Hadley House

27 High Street, Wanstead London E11, tel: 020 8989 8855

Open Monday to Sunday for lunch and dinner

Wanstead was once famous for being the residence of the Earl of Essex, but now it's only famous for... well, it's not famous for anything at all. Some people call it the Hampstead of the East, but only people who live there. Poised between Essex and East London, with a green and a big park, Wanstead has a broad high street with a couple of delis and a couple of cafes. It's not traditionally big on sprauncy places to eat, but word of mouth suggested that Hadley House was the exception: a high- street restaurant for which it was worth making the …