Fresh from the successful drawing board of brothers Tom and Ed Martin – creators of superb gastropubs The White Swan, The Well and The Gun - comes the beautiful Empress of India restaurant in London’s Victoria Park. It may be styled a gastropub too, but it feels more like a smart casual restaurant with an exquisite, light dining room decorated with lovely murals and intriguing design details, like mussel shell chandeliers and a bar mirror that once graced the Rex Cinema in Calcutta. The Empress of India serves a fit-for-a-king modern British menu of seasonal, locally-sourced classics, many of them meaty affairs cooked within full view and smelling distance on a chrome rotisserie, next to the open kitchen - the Sunday roasts are set to become legendary. The wine list is affordable and intriguing, and the ‘pub’ element shows itself at The Empress in the list of well-kept draught beers and real ales.