"Leila’s Shop straddles two units on Shoreditch’s Calvert Avenue: one functions as an eclectic greengrocer’s stacked from floor to ceiling with gourmet food stuffs. The second is a café serving a weekly changing lunch menu, to eat in or in a takeaway returnable tiffin tin, Wednesday — Friday using the ingredients sold next door, which reliably ends with a selection of sweet treats that offer a masterclass in seasonality and provenance. Desserts at Leila’s are led by baker supreme, Stroma Sinclair, formerly head pastry chef at Spring, whose creations include rhubarb and blood orange pavlova, or chocolate mousse cake with cream and kumquats to eat in, or bakes such as malt loaf, almond and quince cake, and homemade ginger snaps to take away. Swiss rolls recur throughout the year in seasonal variations, and a recent highlight was a citrus curd swiss roll that used YQ flour and brown sugar in the sponge, and a filling of Northiam Dairy’s unctuous unsweetened double cream along with a zingy curd featuring Sicilian blood orange, pink grapefruit, lemon, and bergamot. It is as familiar feeling and nostalgic as it is novel and refreshing; this interplay of homeliness and masterful execution being the hallmark of Leila’s cooking." - Emma Louise Pudge
