Any pub that employs a chef with credible restaurant CV now feels it has the right to append the prefix ‘gastro’ to its name. Many have installed josper grills or wood fires to buttress their claims. Renovate on old boozer may earn extra points. The Baring doesn’t try too hard. It doesn't need to either. This neighbourhood venue lets its quality speak for itself.
Your reviewer’s only previous visit to a Georgian restaurant was a disappointment. The passing of time and a desire to be open-minded provoked a recent visit to a new venue purveying Georgian cooking. It was well-conceived, but ultimately underwhelming.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Oxford students will take every opportunity to show off their erudition. With this maxim in mind, when your reviewer and eight of his chums returned recently to their Alma Mater for a reunion weekend, he was reminded of the famous line of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr: “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” In simple terms, the places where we dined some thirty years ago have stood the test of time.
Harrow is famous for its school, perhaps its eponymous hill, but little else. Although it is located less than ten miles from where this reviewer grew up, he was not aware of its dining options – until recently. Step forward Jay Rayner. I have long been a fan of the restaurant critic of The Guardian and have enjoyed several of his books, including My Dining Hell. This is a summary of his most damning reviews. 19 of the 20 places subsequently have shut. Fortunately, his recent piece on the incongruously named Panda’s Kitchen was praiseworthy – and rightly so.
People love to make lists, however arbitrary they may be. KOL is one of only two UK restaurants to rank in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, placing at number 17. It must, therefore, being doing something very good. Your reviewer had written two highly praiseworthy pieces about KOL in the past (see here and here), but a recent visit to the venue demonstrated to our group of four – all of whom were previously familiar with KOL – just how much it had raised its already strong game.
These exact words were uttered gleefully to us by Mohammad, one of the three eponymous brothers, when your reviewer recently had the privilege to dine at their restaurant. From having only opened in 2021, Orfali Bros has already gained recognition, not only from Michelin, but also ranking in the top-50 best restaurants in the world. It’s easy to see why.
Let me make a confession at the outset: I’ve never liked Queen’s Park. The northwest London district a step beyond Maida Vale just doesn’t do it for me. I think it’s a combination of the smugness of the people (there are a lot of yummy mummy types there as well as wannabe hipsters who aren’t quite daring enough to move east) combined with the down-at-heel train station followed by streets of dreary semi-suburban terraced housing. And there aren’t any good restaurants. Or at least that’s what your reviewer thought before visiting Carmel.
On paper, it all sounded so good: a Turkish chef who trained under Yotam Ottolenghi but built his own brand working at Soho House opens his first outlet in trendy Soho. No expense has been spent on the décor, with some beautiful tiling and a lavish bar with countertop dining. Nonetheless, you can’t buy atmosphere and neither the food nor the service quite hit the highs we were hoping for.
There is something delightful about stepping one block away from any busy thoroughfare and finding yourself almost in a different place. Notting Hill’s Uxbridge Street has an almost olde worlde feel to it. It’s certainly an antidote to the tourist-heavy Portobello Road nearby. Being off the beaten track seems an appropriate setting for Akub, a new Middle Eastern restaurant, where Fadi Kattan and his team are cooking up a quiet revolution.
Don’t break a winning formula is a useful principle. It’s one adhered to by the chefs at Honey & Co. Now in its second location (on Lambs Conduit Street, opposite Noble Rot), everything that made the original a success has been replicated here, in a larger and more grown-up setting. With the two owners hailing from Israel and having both worked under Yotam Ottolenghi during their careers, diners can rest assured that they will clearly be in good hands.
One of your reviewer’s favourite dining experiences of 2022 was a visit to the original Bubala, located on the Commercial Road in Shoreditch. I noted then that stepping inside was “almost as if one were in Tel Aviv.” Sadly Bubala’s second outlet, in Soho, did not quite replicate the same vibe. Like an upstart cheeky younger brother, Bubala Soho felt almost as if it was trying too hard. Sure, the food was once again lovely, the attitude less so.
Green Lanes evokes some wonderfully romantic and bucolic images. In times of yore, drovers would bring their animals to slaughter in town along this route which connected a series of greens reaching into central London. Today, it is a road that combines the gritty and the suburban. It’s somehow appropriate that much of Green Lanes now comprises restaurants – slaughtered animals find their way onto diners’ plates. Your reviewer visited recently and loved it.
In the one mile stretch from Marble Arch to Little Venice, there are almost 30 different Middle Eastern restaurants. How to choose? One crude, but often successful, metric might simply to consider how busy are the venues. As a local, your reviewer was constantly struck by how full the Sarchnar Grill always appeared to be. Not only did it seem impossible to get a table, but often a queue would extend some way outside the restaurant. Good luck did eventually allow me and my dining comrade finally to secure a table on a recent weekday lunchtime. We were impressed but not wowed.
For those unaware, ‘bubala’ is a Yiddish term of endearment, roughly translated as darling. No surprise then that the restaurant is a homage to Levantine food, located appropriately in east London’s former Jewish quarter, yards from Petticoat Lane. Such has been the success of Bubala that its backers have recently opened a second outlet in Soho. Securing a table here is almost impossible currently, but the original venue provides a wonderful insight into what can be expected.
The eponymous Imad greeted us smiling on our arrival at his restaurant. He has every right to be happy. Not only is his restaurant a true success, but it also marks the culmination of a journey from Syria. Previously a restaurateur in Damascus, its capital, he was forced to leave during the recent war and eventually relocated to London where he was granted asylum. The opening of his restaurant was delayed owing to the pandemic, but with just over six months its belt now, the Syrian Kitchen is ticking along nicely
With half a dozen restaurants and a similar number of books to his name, as well as a regular newspaper column, superstars in the culinary world don’t come much bigger than Yotam Ottolenghi. He has arguably done more to change eating habits in London over the last decade than any other figure, making the fusion of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food mainstream. Nopi, his relatively upscale Soho venture, hits all the spots in terms of both vibe and food.
There is a shrewdness behind the whole Berenjak concept, from the siting of the venue through to the vibe and the food. Diners are told to expect a combination of ‘home-style’ cooking combined with a ‘hole-in-the-wall’ kebab experience; something for everyone, especially in Soho. While the mains at Berenjak are indeed centred around the grilling of meat, what you get here is about as far removed from a drunken post-pub snack as possible.
Beyond a handful of restaurants, several books, a regular Guardian column and the now-guaranteed presence of zaatar in every self-respecting middle-class larder, Yotam Ottlolenghi has spawned a generation of professional chefs. Ramael Scully is one of these, now plying his trade under a restaurant in his own surname. If his mentor became famed for successfully combining genuinely eclectic ingredients from across the Middle East, then Scully goes one step further. Scully is a celebration of joyful and inventive cooking…
For a mid-market restaurant looking to tick all the right boxes, look no further than Delamina. Like many of the eateries of Tel Aviv from where the team behind this venture hail, the atmosphere is distinctly informal, but buzzing with life. Food-wise, the emphasis is on healthy and nutritious, combining the freshness of produce from the Mediterranean with the spiciness and cooking techniques (especially grilling and roasting) of the Middle East. If the Palomar and the Barbary led the way in this respect, then Delamina represents a natural evolution...
Crocker’s Folly was my local boozer when I first moved to London.. When the venue reopened as a restaurant in 2014. I visited and was highly disappointed by the service, uninspiring food and poor value for money. With some time having elapsed, a return trip was merited. In summary, Crocker's remains as stunning as ever, while the menu now has a dedicated Middle Eastern focus. The combination of opulent Victorian architecture and Lebanese-style food may seem like an incongruous one, but it kind-of works.
Nestled in the centre of Old Town Hastings, Isabella is a restaurant that ticks all the boxes – lovely atmosphere, great food, friendly service and wonderful value for money. Much like the vibe of the town, the charm of the restaurant is in how despite the seemingly eclectic and disorganised nature of the place, the end-result hangs together perfectly.
The title says it all. The restaurant has few redeeming features and serves very average Middle Eastern food at a Mayfair mark-up. Service was among the most gauche I had witnessed recently. And, the lamp fittings are so badly designed that almost every customer in the place seemed to bang their head on them.
Let’s be brutal and to the point: if you are in the Paddington area and want to eat Middle Eastern food, just hop on any bus or walk 15 minutes until you hit the Edgware Road, where a broad spectrum of excellent, authentic and well-priced options exists. In other words, don’t go to Massis – an over-priced and disappointing alternative located in the Paddington Basin development, offering a poor imitation of cuisine from the region.
For those not familiar with the lower end of the Edgware Road, which heads north from Marble Arch, it is home to the largest Arab population in London. Unsurprisingly, therefore, it is crammed full of restaurants purveying food from across the Middle East. Having been a resident in the area for close on twenty years, I have sampled food from many of the establishments here and have also, separately, been lucky enough to have travelled across quite a lot of the Middle Eastern region for work. In my humble – and obviously subjective – opinion, the Beirut Express beats almost all the competition. It is certainly the best on the Edgware Road.
