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

Interiors by east London-based design studio Red Deer feature a muted palette, raw textures and subtle tones that soothe and encourage instant relaxation. Uniforms have been designed by east London ethical fashion brand Birdsong (find its entire clothing range, from loungewear to jewellery, at birdsong.london).

Birdsong’s clothes are produced by talented women who might otherwise face barriers to employment, such as artists, seamstresses, painters and printmakers, and it pays its producers the London Living Wage. The reclaimed leather slippers and sandals are must-haves. A bottle of Jim & Tonic Kraft hopped grapefruit gin will also brighten up your drinks cabinet.

Fun fact

The Clella G&T – Mercato Mediterranean gin with indian tonic, orange and rosemary – namechecks Jim and Tonic’s copper pot still, a combination of the names of its three founders’ partners.

Prices from £115 per night; lockeliving.com

“the apartment-style rooms have plush sofas and fully functioning kitchens, making it a cosy and buzzy hybrid of home and hotel”

What else to do when you’re in the neighbourhood?

• The lower ground floor includes a DJ booth that looks out over the dining room, with a series of DJ nights every Friday and Saturday.

• Locke’s team of ‘house hosts’ can give you plenty of local recommendations. Among them is iconic nightlife venue Dalston Superstore for late-night clubbing and the more chilled Rio Cinema, a two-minute walk away.

• Visit Broadway Market’s vibrant shops, cafés and restaurants.

• Browse Columbia Road Flower Market on Sunday morning.

• Dalston Curve Garden is a social enterprise with wildlife-friendly trees and shrubs, raised planters for growing herbs, vegetables and flowers, and plants that support bees and butterflies.