Hipper than Hoxton: why Haggerston is the place to be

The restaurant now said to be the hippest in London has no sign outside to proclaim its presence and, unlike some West End establishments, no gaggle of paparazzi to snap the celebrities.

This is the East End, close to Cambridge Heath Road, home to a lap-dancing club and minicab offices, kebab shops and used car lots. But this restaurant, and this corner of London, is no longer destined to languish in obscurity. Haggerston, says the latest edition of the Lonely Planet Guide to London, is one of the "chic new neighbourhoods" that made London a "dynamic and buzzing place". Bistrotheque, the restaurant, is the coolest eating place in the capital.

Inside, Bistrotheque is spartan. The bare lighting could be a leftover from the building's former industrial use, the marble-topped tables unadorned and the glasses café-standard Duralex. The menu includes fish and chips, steaks and crème brulée; brown sauce and ketchup bottles are also available. Downstairs, on Thursdays, in the plush cocktail bar, there is a gay cabaret. The whole enterprise is deeply retro and highly chic, its clientele therefore very fashionable. Well almost. "Actually, we are pretty much on the front line of gentrification," says Kevin Cooper, owner of the Cat and Mutton gastropub in nearby Broadway Market, just the other side of Cambridge Heath Road. "The White Lightning [a brand of bottled cider favoured by drunks and derelicts] brigade have not entirely disappeared." Mr Cooper, 35, took over two years ago. He used to run a headhunting firm in the City. "It's now so much better than Shoreditch," he says.

Broadway Market, pretty much the centre of Haggerston, is the new East End in microcosm. Here, what was a wasteland of an old market street just a few years ago is being transformed - smart estate agents, an art gallery, a deli/coffee bar and new restaurants sit cheek by jowl with ramshackle mini-marts, a resolutely old-fashioned ironmongers shop and one of London's last eel and pie shops. But nothing underlines change more than the arrival of a thriving Saturday farmers' market.

Sandwiched between bar-packed Shoreditch and Hoxton to the south and Islington to the north, Haggerston was always likely to benefit.Predictably, property prices have soared.

There is a downside. When developers move in, local people are priced out, and their pubs and cafes become Ciabattas-R-Us outlets. In Broadway Market, there are battles being fought over two properties, uniting residents. Locals have reconstructed a building knocked down by developers and have resumed the squat from which they were evicted before Christmas. At the other end, one man, Spirit, is involved in a dispute over a former derelict shop he turned into his home and a business selling fruit, vegetables and fresh fish.

Hari Kunzru, the novelist, likes the area's "oddball" character. He says: "Money has come to the East End and there are new shops and businesses aimed at the middle classes. But one person's regeneration is another person being pushed out."

Cooke's eel-and-pie shop is run by Bob Cooke, 57, whose grandfather opened on the site in 1900. Like Bistrotheque, it has sauce bottles on its marble tables, but its customer base is very different. "We rely on the older East End types," said Mr Cooke. "Not many of the newcomers eat here."

Across the road, Julie Alred, 32, a single mother, waits while Nicky, 11, buys a bag of chips from the fish-and-chip shop. She gestures at the art gallery: "That used to be a newsagent. Don't think I've much reason to go there, or these new food shops. I do my shopping in Iceland."