Perilla

A Corner Address That Sets Its Own Rules

Newington Green sits in a part of north London where the restaurant culture runs on independent credentials rather than destination hype. The neighbourhood draws a crowd that knows its food, and the restaurants that endure here tend to do so because the cooking earns repeat visits, not because a PR campaign pushed them into the conversation. Green Lanes, the long arterial road that anchors the area, has accumulated a range of places to eat that reflects the area's demographic mix: Turkish mangal houses, long-running local favourites, and a handful of modern British kitchens working with more ambition than their surroundings might suggest. Perilla, at numbers 1-3, sits squarely in that last category. For more of what the neighbourhood offers, see our full Newington Green restaurants guide.

The room signals its intentions immediately. Candlelight, pot plants, and terrazzo floors give it the visual grammar of a certain kind of considered modern dining room, the sort that has absorbed the lessons of a decade of Scandi-influenced interiors without feeling derivative. It reads as a neighbourhood restaurant, and that reading is not wrong, but the kitchen operates with a subversive streak that the room only hints at.

Where the Food Comes From, and Why That Shapes the Plate

The editorial angle that makes Perilla worth discussing at any length is not atmosphere or awards positioning, but sourcing. Ben Marks cooks in a mode where the ingredient comes first and the technique follows, which sounds direct until you see what that produces on the plate. Devon duck breast arrives soft and pink, paired with celeriac and sauerkraut in a combination that speaks to a kitchen that trusts its suppliers enough to keep the treatment restrained. The provenance here is not decorative, the kind of chalkboard name-dropping that became a cliché in British restaurants around 2012. It is structural: the quality of what comes in determines what is possible on the plate.

That same logic applies to the vegetable work, which is among the more serious in the neighbourhood. Panisse, cut into nigiri-like fingers, arrives lightly battered with a pungent salsa verde and sits on a decorative bed of raw chickpeas. The presentation is considered, but the point is the panisse itself: a preparation with roots in Marseille street food, treated here with enough respect to anchor a course. Dishes like this place Perilla in the company of British kitchens, including Moor Hall in Aughton and L'Enclume in Cartmel, that take the sourcing of produce as a first principle rather than a marketing position, even if Perilla operates at a considerably different price point and scale.

A take on vichyssoise, served hot in a scuffed metal dish with punchy lovage alongside the more traditional parsley, is a useful illustration of the kitchen's method. The classic is not abandoned but interrogated. Lovage is an assertive herb, one that pushes back against the mildness of leek and potato, and using it signals a cook who is interested in what the ingredient actually tastes like rather than what convention says it should do. The sourcing intelligence is baked into decisions like this one.

The Carbonara Argument

The dish that leading summarises the Perilla approach is also, by critical consensus, the one that looks least like the food it is drawing from. A carbonara built from cauliflower mushroom, with bacon, Parmesan, and breadcrumbs combining into something that reads simultaneously as mac and cheese, gratin, and carbonara, is the kitchen thinking through a classic rather than reproducing it. The ugliness is part of the point. British restaurant cooking spent much of the 2000s and 2010s making everything look precise and contained, the tweezered plating that became shorthand for seriousness. Perilla is not interested in that, and the carbonara is the clearest evidence of it. The comparison set here is not places like The Ledbury or Restaurant Sat Bains in Nottingham, where formal technique and visual precision are part of the contract with the diner. Perilla is operating in a different register, one where big-hearted cooking and deliberate informality are the point.

Reginette pasta with a hearty ragù of girolles sits in the same category: comforting, unrefined, and clearly the product of a kitchen that has thought about what girolles actually contribute to a dish rather than reaching for a stock pasta garnish. The sourcing work at Perilla is visible in dishes like this, where the quality of the mushroom has to carry the weight of the whole bowl.

Desserts, Drink, and the Tasting Menu Case

Dessert options are deliberately limited: a sorbet and one proper pudding per service. The prune and damson doughnut, filled with Armagnac cream, is the kind of thing that closes a meal on its own terms. The decision to keep the dessert section short rather than padding it with safe options is consistent with a kitchen that is editing for quality rather than covering all bases.

The wine list is short, all-European, and built with the same intelligence as the food sourcing. A wine flight is available for those working through the tasting menu, and there is also an extended single-bottle list available on request. The all-European focus is a curatorial choice that mirrors the kitchen's sourcing ethos: working within a defined framework rather than trying to be comprehensive. For those exploring what else to drink in the area, our Newington Green bars guide covers the neighbourhood's drinking options in full.

The tasting menu represents the kitchen at its most coherent. The à la carte covers the same territory, but the tasting format allows the sourcing logic and the subversive approach to classics to build across a sequence rather than arriving in individual dishes. It is worth the commitment.

One logistical detail worth flagging: all prices at Perilla include a service charge, and the restaurant makes this explicit on both the menu and the bill. In a city where the question of how service is handled has become a genuine point of friction between restaurants and their customers, the transparency here is notable.

Placing Perilla in the Wider Picture

Modern British restaurants in London divide, broadly, into two operating modes. The first is the formal or semi-formal destination kitchen, places like Midsummer House or Gidleigh Park, where the dining experience is structured around occasion and ceremony. The second is the neighbourhood-led kitchen, smaller in scale and less formal in register, where the cooking has to justify the visit on its own terms without the scaffolding of a grand room or a long reputation. Perilla is firmly in the second category, and it earns its position there through the sourcing work and the kitchen's willingness to be unfussy when the food calls for it.

The vegetable positioning is worth noting separately. A kitchen that gives vegetables prominent placement, rather than treating plant dishes as an afterthought or a dietary accommodation, is making a statement about where it thinks the interesting cooking is happening. The sourcing discipline that produces a serious panisse or a lovage-forward vichyssoise is the same discipline that would make an expanded vegetable menu coherent rather than tokenistic. The address, on Green Lanes, already carries that association.

For those planning a broader visit, our Newington Green hotels guide covers accommodation options in the area, and our experiences guide maps what else the neighbourhood offers beyond eating and drinking. Perilla is at 1-3 Green Lanes, Newington Green, London N16 9BS.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Perilla suitable for children?

The informal room and neighbourhood setting make it more child-friendly than most central London restaurants at a comparable level, though the focused menu and evening atmosphere mean it works better for older children who can engage with the food.

What is the atmosphere like at Perilla?

If you are comfortable in a candlelit, plant-filled room with an informal but attentive approach to service, Perilla delivers. The room has been praised by critics for striking the right balance between neighbourhood ease and genuine culinary ambition. If you are expecting the ceremony of a formal destination restaurant, this is not that.

What should I order at Perilla?

The tasting menu is the most coherent way to experience the kitchen. Among the dishes that have drawn critical attention, the cauliflower mushroom carbonara and the prune and damson doughnut with Armagnac cream are cited as representative of Ben Marks's approach to the classics. The wine flight or a bottle from the all-European list are the natural pairings.

What is the leading way to book Perilla?

Book ahead. Perilla operates as a neighbourhood restaurant with a small room, and the combination of critical recognition and a loyal local following means availability is limited, particularly for the tasting menu on weekend evenings. Check the restaurant's current booking channels directly.

What is the standout thing about Perilla?

The sourcing discipline that runs through the menu, from Devon duck to cauliflower mushroom to properly made panisse, is what separates Perilla from the broader category of modern neighbourhood restaurants. Ben Marks's kitchen takes the ingredients seriously enough to let them do the work, which produces food that reads as simultaneously casual and considered.