If you mention the words “good front room” to someone from the Caribbean, they’ll know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s the sacred room children aren’t normally allowed in, reserved for big occasions marked by special food, decorations and music. When the door to that space swings open, it normally means something noteworthy is afoot – and this is the atmosphere that Dom Taylor is bringing to Dalston with his new restaurant The Good Front Room.
It’s a reprisal of The Good Front Room residency Taylor launched in The Langham hotel in 2023, after he won Five Star Kitchen, a show in which chefs competed to take over the hotel’s restaurant for six months. This experience is bolstered by his time at venues including the Courthouse Hotel in Shoreditch, The Jam Tree and Marvee’s Food Shop, his short-lived Ladbroke Grove restaurant – as well as his own Caribbean roots.
“I found that I was really inspired by the women in my family. My mum, my nan, my great aunt,” Taylor says. “That’s where my love for cooking came from. The love that would go into the dishes, into the soaking of the fish, into the washing of the peas.” The time he spent with his Great Aunt Myrtle was particularly formative. “She was a formidable woman, strong, mothering and she cooked extremely well. It was like her Dutch pot had no bottom, like she could feed thousands of people with very little.”
Taylor’s childhood memories of his great aunt and her trinket-filled house, as well as its hallowed front room shaped the idea for The Good Front Room. “The space was reserved for one day when, you know, the Queen would come by, and you see this across the Caribbean diaspora. I wanted to take those memories and memorialise them. This is my way of saying thank you to my grandparents and the Windrush Generation for the stamp they made here.”
The homage can be felt across The Good Front Room’s menu, which Taylor has been working on for years. Warming staples like jerk chicken are remixed, dressed with lemongrass and plantain jam that Taylor makes in-house. Classics like ackee and saltfish, coconut curry, brown stew and a seafood boil are imbued with Taylor’s own flair, and they sit alongside plates like his Nan’s apple crumble recipe and porridge. The latter is a nod to West African heritage. “Everywhere you find Black people, you’ll find some sort of grain meal mixed with milk. It’s a whisper from our ancestors wherever we are found.”
Drinks also reflect Taylor’s Caribbean heritage. The signature rum punch has white and black rum, as well as ginger, lime and cherry syrup, while the Sorrel Gold mixes sorrel jam, ginger, prosecco and Angostura Bitters.
The room is framed by floor-to-ceiling windows offset with orange and pink walls and a mural by artist Sasha Heart behind the terrazzo bar.
Perhaps the most refreshing facet of The Good Front Room is that Taylor is not trying to create an experience that is palatable to all. “I’m somewhat trying to change the dining culture that I’ve been immersed in all my life. I’ve seen restaurants try to bend and sway towards what customers want and, in that, you end up losing the art because you become what is required rather than what you believe. You lose authenticity.
“I accept that The Good Front Room won’t be for everyone. It’s not a one-size-fits-all and I’d be doing myself a disservice by trying to do all that. I’m standing firm in how I’ve collected this idea and presented it; I have a very specific tribe and I believe they will find me.”
The Good Front Room
1, Thomas Tower, Dalston Square, E8 3GU
020 3978 0209
Hours:
Thu & Fri 5pm–11pm
Sat midday–2pm, 5pm–11pm
Sun midday–7pm
